This blog has evolved into a bilingual log,
This causes me a lot of grief as my ENG articles cannot be graded on digg.hr and my CRO articles cant be graded on digg.com. Nevertheless I see no other option but to proceed in this manner.
In spite of that, I welcome this situation as an opportunity for me to brush up on my foreign language skills. Until I do, please bear in mind that ENG is my second language.
20.11.2008., četvrtak
Sanadercraft III
I have been thinking over these last few days about the concept of going to college in a country that propagates itself as a "land of knowledge" - i.e. Croatia.
It seems to me that the choice of whether to go to college or not to go is basically the same as choosing whether to tech it or footie rush it in Warcraft III.
In the past I have talked about the myriad universal truths one can find in today's games, and have explained why this is so (the games are a rather deliberate mimicries of real life) - and today I feel like doing a bit of "foaming at the mouth" in relation to studying in Croatia.
The reason why tech rushing (learning/studying) is a viable strategy in RTS games is because it can give you an edge in the race to victory (as in success in life). Teching works if and only if your opponent doesn't know what you're doing (and so will not try to stop you in time). Stopping you is something that is easily done - in order to tech up you spend all your resources on teching instead on army and defense. This makes you EXTREMELY vulnerable in early game.
Players who have a habit of scouting will easily counter your tech rush strategy, if you are a good player yourself, you will have done some scouting of your own and will hopefully be able to stop teching in time and build defense once you notice an incoming army of darkness coming to strip your village of everything. This is called changing your strategy when it begins to fail.
Teching is always walking a thin thin line, its a "make it or break it" type of strategy. The main premise of tech rush strategy is that you will 1) be able to finish it in time and thus 2) gain an advantage over your opponent.
This means that your clever little plan is to intentionally sacrifice a portion of your defensive and offensive power in order to win an ADVANTAGE in terms of bonuses teching gives you.
Gaining a distinct advantage is the only reason why someone will choose this type of strategy.
The whole purpose of (any and all) educational system(s) is to give people (who can afford education) a distinct advantage (won in blood, tears and sweat) over those who didn't wanna make such an sacrifice.
What would happen in a game where teching can not yield a distinct advantage? No one would ever this strategy.
In Croatia, the ROI (return on investment) of studying is almost non existent. Let us compare two imaginary persons, one of these persons finished a college course which took him 6 years, in the same time period the other started working in a local shop selling stationary equipment.
After 6 years have passed, the student starts working at his first job and his starting salary is 800 $, at the same time, the sales person is already getting paid 1100$ and in the following 5 years will receive yet another raise. At the same time when the sales person gets a 1300$ salary, the student will be getting 900-1000$.
Now, let us compare the quality of life between the two, first of all, the student type had no money to spend on pleasure and entertainment. Unlike the working guys, the students quality of life was abysmal during those initial 6 years.
Ironically, at the end of this golgotha the student hasn't won a distinct advantage, au contraire, the advantage is in the hands of the working guy. 5 years in the future, the working guy has had 11 years of quality life and now has a larger salary than the student.
Bear in mind that this situation is specific to Croatia, our government has chosen to tighten the belt when it comes to education, we invest less percent of moneys into education than Romania, which is like, horrific.
Ironically, one of the main slogans for elections of our ruling party is "Croatia - the land of education" - yeah right.
Everyone and their mother and her dog has a bigger salary, even those working in public transportation and sanitation. In some cases they even get double the salary of a high school professor.
So, why bother going to a college? What is the purpose of our education system? It obviously doesn't give you and advantage over anyone, so why would anyone want to endure the hardships it entails?
In my ever so humble opinion the educational system should produce a very specific type of goods - which means produce the exact type of highly educated workers that are needed to make the economic system of that particular time work. This means that the government should in fact motivate people to pursue those specific studies that are relevant to the current situation in the country. This would be done by giving scholarships and various vouchers to students willing to study something they would not normally choose to study.
As it is now, many students study to become specialists in fields that do not guarantee future employment - Croatia does not need thinkers, Croatia needs highly skilled physical workers and various craftsmen.
Instead of producing specific units needed to make the economy grow - producing peasants in Warcraft terminology - we are producing unneeded units which end up migrating to those countries that need highly educated thinkers. Therefore we spend tax payers money in order to send the finished product to work and contribute to (more developed) other countries.
Of course, it would be a bad marketing stunt for the ruling party to ever admit that there in fact is a problem (which they themselves caused) - this would make them risk losing precious votes. They are better off burying the problem altogether and looking the other way. In the meantime they are destroying what little faith in the educational system we still have. Education is the only way out of the current economic crisis. Another way would of course be to stop building roads and other costly projects and instead letting people earn a living by providing them with specialist training and ensure plenty of work places.
The economic crisis in our country happened because people don't have enough money to buy anything. In order to prevent the economic engine from stalling you have to let the middle class have money to spend on goods and services, this is another lesson our politicians chose to ignore - simply because they have only 4 golden years in which to rob the country blind and make themselves and their families financially secure for life (or several life times). After those 4 years of mayhem, all the problems that you produce (by pillaging the economy) your opponent will inherit and thus lose the elections after 4 years - the same old treadmill.
At this point we really shout admit to the simple fact that Croatia has already been plundered and pillaged far too much and that someone has to rebuild it from scratch - not by reading books and writing research papers, but by picking up the shovel and pike. In the end, all of us who don't count among the "200 families" will end up doing that kind of work simply because there are no options of employment in any of the other sectors. The problem is; people would probably rebel at the notion of having to pick up the pick and the shovel whilst those privileged (who in fact caused the entire problem) once again exploit their work.
I wonder if our prime minister would be able to win a single warcraft game session by utilizing his current strategy. Lets see how this would work.
Sanadercraft III build order:
You start off by assigning 5 peasants to the gold mine which you are already planning to sell to the opponent by messaging him that he is free to send his peons into your mine and giving him a guarantee that you will not attack them. As they start bringing money you don't use this money to build farms, instead you keep the money in the castle (for yourself so to speak). In order to fool the poor peasants into obedience you start building unnecessary units which you keep trading to the opponent hoping he will never attack but instead act civilized and proper (Slovenia stalling EU negotiations). Just before elections you stop exploiting the only gold mine left and in order to fund the elections campaign, you borrow money from the opponent in order to build another base (which is completely unneeded at this point) in order to impress the peasants forcing them to later repay the foreign debt which was used for something they themselves will not use. As soon as the shit hits the fan, you disband 4 out of 5 workers working in the mine which you sold to the opponent in order to minimize expenses, after all the game session will be over soon so who the fuck cares. Its like ---- WTF!? are you kidding me?! How can anyone be that incompetent?
NEWSFLASH: if a parasite kills its host, it too will die
Being a thief is one thing, but being a dumb thief is an altogether different thing.
You know, what I will post that strategy to Warcraft III forums (hoping those are still active) and ask the players for ways in which I could improve the winning strategy, if I get any comments (instead of getting banned for being a prick) I will relay them on this blog. Lets see what 12 year old nerds have to say about the efficiency of our current development strategy.
It is my hypothesis that any warcraft III player would be able to construct a working build order that would serve to fix those problems considering educational system misfiring and economic system collapsing. Choosing to neglect the possibility that all of our politicians are simply retarded the only conclusion left to us at that point is that our politicians willingly chose not to fix the problem. This then means that they are somehow gaining from maintaining such a situation. This realization is only a beginning of the process of discovering what in fact is going on in Croatia.
The reason why education is so neglected in Croatia is simply because, in the end, its easier to rule over un-educated cattle than over educated people.
Ne znam da li ste ikada igrali neku online (MMO) igru, znam da davim s time (blog mi je posvecen tome) no ovo je divna prilika da povučem jednu zanimljivu paralelu, pokušat ću biti kratak (no vjerovatno neću uspjeti u tom naumu).
- ovo ja pokušavam biti kratak -
Veliki cehovi (guilde) igrača u MMOovima skoro uvijek prosperiraju na par osnovnih principa kojima dobivaju zamah.
Prvo i prvo je tu sustav kontrole, unaprijed se zna tko odlučuje - a to su pojedinci koji se između sebe znaju i koji su pokrenuli ceh (200 obitelji anyone?).
Pomoću tog sustav kontrole postavljaju određene ajmo reći propagandne temelje, takve intelektualne razrađenosti da bi ih se posramio i CK.
Kao prvo, kao što je već netko napomenuo, kako bi sustav funkcionirao (a u startu je postavljen tako da samo određeni broj ima uopće otvorena vrata ka nekom bogaćenju, dapače to je izgleda jedini način da se netko obogati - da iskoristi drugoga) potrebno je izmisliti načine tj. metodu kako dobiti ljude da rade za tebe, a ne traže ništa zauzvrat.
Tu upadaju u sliku 2 kategorije ljudi; oni koji su osnova (temelji) za cijeli sustav (policija, medicinari, nastavnici i općenito državne službe) - bez njih se ne može i njih treba imati pod kontrolom. Kontrola se implementira kroz zaplašivanje (izgubit ćeš mjesto u raidu) i kroz plansko osiromašenje (svi raid dropovi idu članovima "200 obitelji").
Na taj način moćni postaju moćniji i time strašniji, a osiromašeni novaci neće imati muda buniti se jer im se može zaprijetiti otkazom - a onda zasigurno neće moći "uživati" u igri!
Druga kategorija ljudi su oni kojima je sama priroda posla bljakava, tj. takva da svi pametni taj posao ne žele raditi (u MMO igrama, ironično, kao i u stvarnosti, to su HEALERI tj. liječnici, samo u stvarnosti se liječnicima priključuju i nastavnici) - njima se nameće moralni element njihovog posla, naime heal-a se kako bi guilda prosperirala (tj. kako bi pojedinci prosperirali), a onaj tko to ne želi je protudržavni element i stoka (na stranu što svi "pametni" ne bi te "struke" dirali ni štapom pod naponom). Dakle nastavnici se ne smiju buniti na crkavicu jerbo su tu u pitanju djeca, što bi djeca naša sirota da nastavnici odluče štrajkati jedno 2-3 mjeseca?
I tako svaka guilda ima svoje healere i potion makere koji imaju maltene radnu obavezu (igrati igru radi dobrobiti drugih, jer ako njih nema igra nejde dalje) a sami nemaju šanse u startu uživati u plodovima svoga rada jer je iznad njih postavljen (vlastoručno) neki pametnjaković kojem je bilo dovoljno doći prvi i pokrenuti ceh kako bi gorenavedenim metodama kanalizirao sve resurse u sebe i svoju svojtu. Svi resurse idu ne tamo gdje su najpotrebniji za objektivni napredak, nego tamo gdje "povlašteni" mogu nešto sebi strpati u pađe (džep). Time se sustav osiromašuje, propada, no potkradanje ne prestaje nego se problem riješeva tako da se sustav represije i kontrole POJAČAVA nad onima koji nisu u povlaštenom krugu.
Jel vam to pomalo nalikuje na situaciju u svijetu, ili pak samo meni?
Ljudi moji dajte probajte shvatiti da je resursa svih vrsta vrlo konačan broj. Na metaforičkom pojilištu u savani nema mjesta za sve životinje, one koje dođu prve branit će pristup drugima. Život je kratak, od 60 godina koje možemo očekivati s obzirom na stres, prvih 15 ne znaš tko si, 10 se školuješ (za ništa, usput budi rečeno), 10 zadnjih više nisi za ništa samo sanjaš o penziji i de facto imaš nekih 20-25 godina fore, od kojih u našoj zemlji barem 10 provedeš crkavajući negdje kao početnik na određeno tražeći prvi posao ne neodređeno a ostalih 15 otplaćuješ stan.
Nekoć su robovlasnici bili dužni plaćati svojim robovima stan i hranu, danas je taj sistem evoluirao, sad si mi robovi sami plaćamo stan i hranu.
Kad tako gledate, život dođe i prođe, svi snovi u startu srezani, ostaje samo spajanje mjeseca s mjesecom, život na dug - kako (gledano s te strane) možemo očekivati od političara da se ne ponašaju tako kako se ponašaju?
Život je jedan (i kratak), ako treba pregaziti stotine kako bi taj jedan život bio lijep, zašto ne?
Cijeli svijet je zapravo ustrojen (današnja polarizacija snaga) na temelju situacijske prednosti starog kontinenta spram ostalih kontinenata, tko su kolonijalne supersile (koje su POROBLJAVALE druge rase i nacije?
Ono na što smo većina nas ljubomorni jest činjenica da nismo pozvani (krvnim vezama) da participiramo među onim životinjama koje su na pojilište došle prve. Ljutimo se i ne poduzimamo ništa, jer se bojimo za ovo malo što imamo. Gdje je ona stara "bolje grob nego rob"?
Hrvatska je zemlja znanja i morala onih mjesec dana prije izvora, kada se na brzinu proda neki strateški bitan resurs (i drži se državne službenike na crkavici) kako bi bilo novaca za kupovanje glasova iz BiH. Svi znamo što se događa, znamo godinama. Gdje je građanska odgovornost?
Svaki od nas koji takvu situaciju prihvaća - osigurava da će se ista nesreće dogoditi i drugima. Nemojmo biti tipični rvati klase "dabogda susedu krava crkla".
Malo o kolonijalizmu:
GUNS GERMS AND STEEL (by Jarred Diamond)
Gosn. Diamond u svojoj knjizi (a postoji i dokumentarac) postulira (i uzmite u obzir da masakriram njegovo djelo kako vas ne bih udavio u ovom, već u ovom trenu, predugačkom mailu) da je cijela naša današnja geopolitička situacija nužni i očekivani produkt rane prednosti koju su imali europljani.
Dakle (masakriranje teme počinje) Gosn Diamond kaže da je procvat antičke CIVILIZACIJE u smisli filozofije i ostalih ajmo reći viših disciplina bio moguć radi toga što su klimatski bili u poziciji da proizvode višak hrane - dok stanovništvo ne oboljeva od boleština. S druge strane u Africi je paralelno postojala jaka Zulu civilizacija, koja je u segmentima koji su bili "otvoreni" njihovim geo-klimatskim uvjetima bila NAPREDNIJA - ljudi imali manje hrane (čedomorstvo kao izraz kontrole populacije) i klonili se rijeka - radi malarije. S jedne strane irigacija je bila rješenje za neplodno tlo no uz vodu se množe i komarci malaričari.
Dakle radi tog VANJSKOG uvjeta (geo-klimatskog) europljani su se mogli posvetiti razvoju kulture. Radi toga uskoro su došli u poziciju da grade mornarice i otpočnu kolonijalno doba. Ukratko (opet jedan masakr teme) europljani su došli u Afriku (i drugdje) s barutom, mačevima i bakterijama, i time pokorili urođeničke civilizacije. Dapače istrijebili su većinu tih civilizacija.
Europske žitarice (žito) imaju mnogo veću kalorijsku vrijednost od riže i raznih srčika. Uza sve to 99% velikih biljojeda koji se mogu pripitomiti i koristiti u poljoprivredi su europski.
Zašto je bitno da su veliki? da bi vukli plug, zašto da su biljojedi? da ne morate uzgajati druge životinje kako bi ove hranili.
Od europskih se životinja dobiva meso, mlijeko, koža i gnojivo što idealno paše za prehranu velikog broja ljudi.
Današnja GMO hrana zapravo je samo nova revolucija, nakon ove goreopisane. Naime, civilizacija se ne može razviti bez mnoštva ljudi na istom mjestu, a mnoštvo ljudi na istom mjestu ne može biti ako ne uzgajaju i ne SKLADIŠTE hranu za zimske mjesece. Tek otkriće žitarica omogućava skladištenje hrane za zimu. Pritom naselje može pripremiti mnogo kilokalorija u vidu žita kako bi podržavali populaciju zimi, kako se ne bi morali seliti ili u toplije krajeve ili pak pratiti životinje za lov (nomadski život). Što je više ljudi kao pritisak na ekosustav to je potrebnija efikasnije proizvodnja hrane.
Radi toga su ljudi starog kontinenta jedini bili u mogućnosti razviti civilizaciju. S svojim tehnološkim čudima potom su došli opljačkati ostale kontinente.
U Africi ih je na njihovu žalost dočekalo iznenađenje, kontinent ih je ODBACIO, tj. ne znajući zašto su afrikaneri nomadi, europljani su se naselili uza rijeke - i pokrepali od malarije. Tako se njihova taktika pokoravanja stanovništva bakterijama koje su donosili iz europe, okrenula protiv njih.
Dakle, time autor želi reći da su radi situacijske prednosti europljani zabili u crnu zemlju sve ostale civilizacije i radi kolonijalnog doba određene su se nacije (engleska španija itd.) lansirale 500god. u budućnost.
UKRATKO (opet jedno kraćenje) - današnje siromašne zemlje su siromašne jer su ih upravo europljani osiromašili kolonizacijom i eksploatacijom, a to su bili u mogućnosti učiniti radi početne geoklimatske prednosti koju je pružalo njihov dio zemaljske kugle. Tipičan primjer je sustav željeznice u Africi - bijelci su gradili pruge kako bi lako rudu i ostale resurse koje su pljačkali od tamo mogli dovoziti do brodova da to furaju u matičnu zemlju. Nisu gradili pruge kako bi pomogli lokalnom stanovništvu da lakše prate vodu po pustinji.
Polarizacija kapitala u određene banke i osobe (obitelji) koje na svjetskoj razini kontroliraju banke - produkt su dominacije engleske u doba kolonijalizma (engleska masonerija npr.), dan danas svijet je polariziran u bogate i siromašne, na plave okovratnike i bijele okovratnike radi tog sljeda događaja.
U Africi dan danas postoji jedna sjeverna pokrajina imena kojeg sam zaboravio, u kojoj je nemoguće imati ikakav budžet (državni) jer je 60% ljudi konstantno bolesno od malarije. Takova stopa bolovanja upropaštava ekonomiju i to je dan danas najsiromašnija pokrajina. Iako lokalne vlasti mole razvijeniji svijet da im pošalju pare da isuše vlažišta, oni nemaju PROIZVOD koji bi trampili da ikakvu pomoć i zato su najsiromašniji u Africi dan danas i za vijeke vijekova.
Dakle, ukratko, u ljudskoj je prirodi da će ljudi rado i olako iskoristiti svoju (ne-fair) početnu prednost kako bi nekog drugog "uposlili" i na njegovom radu zaradili. Cijeli bankovni sustav današnjice funkcionira na temelju nepostojećeg kapitala - naime novac koji ja posudim od banke u trenu kada dignem kredit ne postoji - postoji samo na papiru - dakle ja zapravo potrošim zrak i zatim sam dužan PARE banci i to uz nezdravu maržu.
Stoičar Hrizip veli:"Vrlina je harmonično stanje koje zaslužuje da se odabere zbog nje same, a ne zbog nadanja ili iz straha ili nekog drugog spoljašnjeg motiva. Štaviše, sreća se sastoji u samoj vrlini, jer ona je ono stanje duha, koje teži da cijeli život učini harmoničnim".
U tom kontekstu zašto ljude čudi da se razvio (i propao) sustav koji je kontra ovom kapitalističkom? (mislim na sliku s kojom je započeo ovaj članak).
Tko kaže da u kapitalizmu ne može biti socijalizma (socijalne osjetljivosti)?
Socijalna osjetljivost nije istoznačnica komunizmu.
Lets start off with this new EVE Online trailer showcasing the newest addon to the game called “Quantum Leap”
The most important changes in this patch are:
Speed rebalance has been introduced, affecting a great many different ships and modules. Maximum top speed has been reduced across the board along with changes to how micro warp drives operate. Stasis webifiers, rigs, overdrives, implants, web drones and gang bonuses have all been changed. Full details of what has been changed will be listed in the appropriate section and a full listing of the Speed Rebalanced Dev Blog by CCP Nozh is available.
# Changes have been made to all Frigates, Interceptors, Stealth Bombers, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Battleships regarding base speed and micro warp drive speed. Rookie, Industrial, Capital and shuttle class ships remain unaffected.
# All interceptors now have a new role bonus. Interceptor Skill Bonus: 15% reduction in micro warp drive signature radius penalty per level.
# The Kronos and Paladin have had their webifiers bonus increased from 2% to 10% per skill level.
# The Crane, Prorator, Prowler and Viator can now equip a covert ops cloak and can therefore warp whilst cloaked now. In addition these four ships can gain a 5% bonus per transports skill level to the CPU need of fitting a covert ops cloak.
# The Crane, Prorator, Prowler and Viator can now use a black ops jump portal.
# The Crane, Prorator, Prowler and Viator have had their +2warp strength bonus removed.
# Jaguar bonuses have been clarified, and resistance bonuses have been removed.
# All Harpies and Hawks have been recalled for urgent paint jobs. They will now show their respective mega-corporations’ colors.
Blockade Runners
The Blockade Runners (Crane, Prorator, Prowler, Viator) are meant to be rather good at getting through gate camps and navigating through low and null sec space with more impunity than the other industrial ships. Several changes such as the introduction of interdictors, heavy interdictors, and force and fleet recons have had an impact on their ability to run blockades with much success at all. As a result, we wanted to try and balance things to better focus them towards their role in light of many changes EVE has seen since they first were introduced.
To improve them we refocused on stealth rather than agility. They will gain the ability to equip covert ops cloaking devices and therefore can warp whilst cloaked. In lieu we removed the +2 warp strength and one or part of their active tanking bonuses which were not really being used anyway as much. They will also gain the ability to utilize the black ops jump portals.
By switching to stealth and cloaking as their primary defense in navigating through space and getting through gate camps they gain a significant edge in being able to cloak and move away fast if within a bubble. The ability to use the black ops jump portals is a fringe benefit allowing specialised operations where you would need cargo capacity moved around for a variety of reasons.
Deep Space Transports
The Deep Space Transports (Bustard, Impel, Mastodon, Occator) have good tanks and good cargo capacity but really no focused role beyond the good tank. The most important part of moving your cargo around is arriving safely at the destination. The DSTs have significant drawbacks as they are less prone to getting through the all critical gate camps like their Blockade Runner cousins. If warp scrambled, it was a matter of how long their tank might last in order to have a remote chance to survive the encounter.
To revamp their role we gave them the +2 warp strength of the Blockade Runners and also a bonus to shield hitpoints (Bustard and Mastodon) or armor hitpoints (Impel and Occator) to increase the ability to fit for a HP tank which is much more useful than their active tanks in many situations where you are receiving a large amount of damage over a short duration. In balancing this out, one of their active tanking bonuses was removed.
With these changes we hope that the extra warp strength and HP tank will greatly aid their use in all areas of space especially in empire where they have less to worry about with no bubbled camps to have to run through and only the heavy interdictors as their nemesis.
Mackinaw, Procurer, Skiff and Rorqual
The mackinaw gets some love with an additional +10 cpu and +1000 cargo capacity to allow it to be more effective at ice mining. It always under performs a little compared to the hulk and these changes should allow it to specialise at ice mining better.
The Procurer and Skiff both received minor boosts to their agility as we wanted the smallest barges to be at least agile if completely outclassed by their larger cousins in most scenarios and nudge them towards more of a ninja mining role a little. It might also be good for you all to know the Skiff has always had a +2 warp strength bonus but this was never detailed in the description so we have updated the description to highlight this rather powerful bonus as a good selling point.
The Rorqual will be receiving a minor boost to its corporate hangar capacity. This is done to allow the hangar to be used as a shared and secure container for mining ops and also increase its utility for carrying cargo around.
As for other EVE news, the game is soon to become available via retail thanks to ATARI, and a huge-ish expansion pack has been announced, featuring TECH 3 equipment!
In a drive to find new players, the expansion will also ship in a boxed copy of EVE, with all previous expansion content. The box will be published by Atari, whose chief David Gardner appeared in a video message hailing the deal.
Senior producer Torfi Frans Olafsson said the update would be “the biggest expansion in EVE as of today”, with a larger team working on it than the game has seen in its lifespan.
The focus of the expansion will be “true exploration”, with players using new skills and modules to travel through wormholes into all-new, unconnected space. There they will find unique stellar phenomena and the resources and artefacts that will lead to the third level of technology in the game universe, Tech 3 - the first such update since Tech 2 was introduced back in 2004.
CCP devs have also announced an EVE based FPS game;
EVE Online developer CCP has hinted that an FPS based on the EVE universe is in development.
Footage was shown of a Halo-like shooter on a daylit, Earth-like planet surface. The architecture and gun designs were clearly redolent of the space MMO’s art style.
In the meantime Cesspit is foaming at the uselessness and lousy implementation of the “walking in stations” addon for EVE, he quotes DEV blog from 2 years ago;
Now, today we’ve set our sights on character rendering and lifelike animation. It’s important to realize that in order to create realistic looking characters, you have to pay great attention to how they will be animated. We have examples of 3d rendered characters in films and digital media that look amazing when you see a screenshot or a still frame, but once they start moving, they look like zombies or animatronic RealDolls™. There’s actually a term that describes how cg or cartoon humanoid characters tend to look creepy and un-lifelike the closer you get to photorealism. A Japanese roboticist named Masahiro Mori gave it the name “Uncanny valley”. If we plan to create close to photorealistic characters, we must ensure that they’re behavior matches the quality of the shading and rendering in order to keep them out of this valley of darkness.
So exactly how do we create lifelike animation? Well, for one, we will use state of the art motion capture. There are nuances in the biomechanics of the human body that only the most experienced and skilled animators are able to express. It takes them, however, days to create what you capture in minutes in mocap. The amount of animation needed for a project like walking in stations prohibits us from hiring an army of the worlds most talented animators and having them animate for years until their fingers bleed.
--
This brings us to an area of computer graphics called dynamic avatar human-to-human interaction. It tries to apply knowledge derived from years of research of human body language into the actions of computer generated avatars, so that their behavior mimics human behavior without the user or NPC controller micro-managing every little twitch of the body or glance of the eyes.
This is one of the areas that we intend to research and apply to our animation system.
And is pretty unhappy with the state of this project after 2 yrs of hard work; LINK
As reported by the Shanghai Daily, 22-year-old Hu Ange, on Death Row for poisoning his parents, is claiming that his online gaming addiction made him criminally insane:
The [appeals] court heard [that] Hu was addicted to the online game Legend. His parents gave him 50,000 yuan (US$7,353) to support his seafood business in March 2007, but he spent it all on the online game. Legend is an online game where players can buy virtual weapons and equipment with real money.
The report said Hu bought 20 packs of tetramine on July 14, 2007, and poisoned his father Hu Ming the next morning. His father was saved after emergency treatment. Hu Ange then bought 45 more packs of tetramine on July 20 and mixed them with beef on July 24. Both his parents were poisoned after eating the beef at lunch. Hu Ange's mother asked him to call for help but he stayed in his room to play Legend, the report said.
See, the easterners are so competitive and hardcore that their MMO features buying items via real cash, which (as is pretty much self evident) may lead to huge problems.
Now, for the west:
Blizzard dropped the ball once again by allowing a huge-ish bug to ruin the game for their sheep. Due to server side changes, several epic items which would normally require people to spend hours upon hours doing the whack-a-mole routine were suddenly available for free.
This quickly led to low level chars having out of this world equipment.
So, you see, that pretty much sums up the difference between the two cultures.
A lot of people here in Croatia have been crying their eyes out over the whole "no smoking" legislation.
I was wondering if those cancer people ever thought about how ridiculous the whole thing is. Its not them who are the victims, its us - the non smokers.
For an example, if I were to do the exact same thing as they casually do at a local diner I would for an example stew my feet inside a plastic bag for a week prior to the experiment and then - take my shoes off and stick my feet so to be sure they can take a good whiff. That would most likely get me thrown out of the place.
See, the difference is in this, the stench of ones feet does not cause cancer, furthermore - your clothes most likely will not pick up the smell of feet.
Why would 90% of people react more aggressively to me taking off my shoes than to someone poisoning me with tar and god knows what else and making my clothes smell of smoke?
Its because its not them who are the victims, the true victims are us.
A long time ago (with some help from E. Bernays and tobacco lobbyists) the smokers achieved a complete cultural victory over us (the non smokers).
I say to hell with propaganda and off with the shoes!
I have recently stumbled upon the 1st really effective pay-per-click program. I have seen a confirmation from a friend - who received 21$ after only 2 weeks of using this setup.
Having not received previous payments from other similar programs I was still skeptical but I decided to have a go at it.
So there you go people, with only 3 refs and 10 days of "work" I got my first payment. Who would have guessed these things actually work!
So, if you are willing to sacrifice some of your browsing time in order to get some $$$ - follow this link!
If one site is not enough for you, heres another one that yields moneys
Date: 10/25/2008 1:38:30 PM
Reference No:
Transaction Type: Transfer received from
Method: investbux.info
payments@investbux.info
Current Status: Completed
Amount: $5.00 USD
Purchase Type: Service
Note: Please post your payment on investbux and other forum. Thank you.
In order to get in on this offer:
Happy clicking people!
P.P.S.
The third site (not tested by me personally) recommended to me is:
I am still waiting for my 20$ from bux.to, I keep hearing the delay is 4-6 months for free users..we shall see, in the meantime, I cant recommend that one to anyone...
After writing this text I realized that this almost became a (non-paid) shameless about Steam & Valve ad, but I think they are doing such an awesome job on so different level that you can’t but admire them - and write about them. There’s plenty of things that developers & publishers could learn.
Valve does good stuff
Not necessarily easy thing to model, but worth remembering: Valve keeps creating & publishing good games. It’s something we all should strive to do - create good content for our players.
Steam is awesome for players
Besides making good games, Valve has created an awesome system that is really a one place that offers everything that players need. Their Steam system offers a variety of different ways how players can benefit from their service:
* Store - the Steam store offers new (and old) games from variety of publishers. There’s casual, indie, AAA and other titles available. There’s demos, videos, screenshots, review ratings and so on. You can buy things with just a few mouse clicks. Steam is nowadays pretty much the only place I buy games.
* Steam community: players can create their own groups (like Dead Wake Steam group here) and interact with other players. The in-game chat system works even for non-steam games (Yeh, I realized that I can use Steam’s chat system even when I’m playing my Dead Wake zombie game)
* Easy DRM: When I got my new computer and had to re-install Steam, I had no problems in getting the games I had bought. I simply went to my control panel’s “games” section and clicked “download”. Steam started downloading me the game I had bought earlier. No stupid DRM stuff that would have made this difficult, just click & go.
I think Steam (and Valve) offer many, many things that are worth learning from: they make products worth using, and make sure users have no trouble buying the products.
So, what could they do better?
Of course there’s always room for improvements.
On marketing side, I must say that I’m bit amazed that Valve isn’t offering affiliate/partner programs for those who want to advertise & sell their games. They are spending huge amount of money to promote their newest games (at the time of writing you can see Left 4 Dead game ads plastered all over the Internet), but they aren’t considering rewarding players for promoting their products?
If Steam could introduce affiliate system (paying royalties like Big Fish Games ) I think they could leverage their current system. It would provide a solid way for marketers (and players) to generate income. Players could then perhaps use these credits to get more games from Steam…
Would you be interested in playing Fallout 2 in highres, with pixel shader effects and with almost 40% more content thanks to awesome "Project Restoration" (community based expansion pack)?
If so - read on!
1st of all download the following torrent - which features an USB (portable) version of Fallout 2!
Now, in case this pre-configured pack fails to run, I will give a couple of in-depth explanations on how to DIY.
1) first order of business would be to make F2 run at a higher resolution, for this you will need the sfall engine tweak which can be downloaded at this link here.
With it you gain the following options for your F2:
* Increase movement and combat speed to up to 10x normal.
* Play fallout in a window
* Use d3d9 in place of the usual ddraw
* Use the mouse scroll wheel in the inventory, barter, conversation and save/load menus.
* Assign a use to the middle mouse button, and adjust mouse sensitivity beyond fallouts normal range
* Adjust or remove the 13 year time limit
* Fixes the broken pathfinder and sharpshooter perks
* Adds some additional script functions for modders to use
2) second order of business is to make the game use advanced pixel shaders found on never hardware which can upscale the quality of display (making the game look much better).
You need to download this (global.fx file) and place it at datashaders under your fallout installation.
Then you have to edit your ddraw.ini file, copy paste the following into it:
[Main]
;Change to 1 if you want to use command line args to tell sfall to use another ini file.
UseCommandLine=1
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[Sound]
;Set to 1 to enable eax.
;Not supported in the windows 9x version
;Requires supporting scripts to set appropriate eax effects for each map.
EAX=0
;Set to a value between 0 and 25 to choose the default eax environment
;This is the environment used in a new game until a script changes it
DefaultEnvironment=1
;XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
[Speed]
;Set to 0 to disable everything in this section
Enable=0
;The speeds corrisponding to each slot in percent. (i.e. 100 is normal speed)
SpeedMulti0=50
SpeedMulti1=100
SpeedMulti2=150
SpeedMulti3=200
SpeedMulti4=300
SpeedMulti5=500
SpeedMulti6=1000
SpeedMulti7=100
SpeedMulti8=100
SpeedMulti9=100
;
This *.ini file has to be placed in the same dir as the fallout2.exe and f2_res_patcher.exe!
Then you have to run f2_res_patcher.exe which will make the game run at a higher resolution.
3) last but not least is the fallout 2 restoration project which includes the following additions:
New Locations:
-------------------
• EPA
• Primitive Tribe
• Abbey
• Vault Village
• Slaver's Camp
• Hubologist Stash
• Den Residential Area
• Enclave Vertibird Landing Pad
• Ranger Safe Houses
New Karma title:
---------------------
• New title given at the start of the game. Can be lost depending on the choices you make.
Changes To Old Locations:
---------------------------------
Arroyo:
-------
• Stealing from the Elder's chest, Hakunin chest, or Aunt Morlis' vase will result in a karma drop.
• Ability to plant new seeds obtained from the EPA.
The Den:
--------
• New Area: Den Residential
• New Character: Petey - A druggie who lives in the alley
• New Quest: Orphanage - get the children of The Den off the streets
• New Item: Anna's diary
• Learn more about the whereabouts of Sulik's sister
• An extended gang war quest. Now involves going to the party Tyler is at.
Klamath:
--------
• There is now another way of killing Keeng Ra'at. Be observant of the scenery.
• Extended Cattle Rustling Quest.
• Extended dialogue for Maida Buckner - before neither she nor her mother would give you info about the town (would send you in a wild goose chase - ask Mom, ask daughter, ask mom, etc)
• Unlocked voice dialogue for Sulik regarding his sister (won't notice until Primitive Tribe area)
Redding:
--------
• It is now possible to cure Fannie of her jet addiction.
• It is now possible to make Fannie OD on jet.
• Support beams in the mines are now destructible.
• Killing all the miners prevents there from being a good ending for Redding.
Modoc:
------
• It is now possible when falling down in the Ghost Caves or being expelled from the Modoc toilet to break a limb. (Party members are affected too)
New Reno:
---------
• New Character: Three Card Monte and his bodyguard
• The ability to tell jokes as a male or dance as a female at one of the casinos
• A more involved find Lloyd quest
-New Character: Nikki
• New Character: The Barking Man
-Connected to the EPA
• An extended way of getting into the Stables as a woman
-before if you went to the Stables (as a hooker) you would just be dropped off at the main gate and nothing really new happened.
• Unlocked voice dialogue for Myron regarding the location of the EPA
Sierra Army Depot:
------------------
• Trip Wire now works as intended.
Vault City:
-----------
• New Location: Village Outside Vault City
-New characters involved as well as several others modified to fit the quest.
• Learn some info about the Vault Experiments from Vault City's Vault.
Gecko:
------
• Mess with the Enclave on the Gecko computer and feel the wrath of the verti assault encounter.
• Lenny now glows in the dark when you use a radioactive drink on him.
• Ability to become addicted to the game of Tragic.
• Lenny now carries a Zip gun when you first encounter him.
Broken Hills:
-------------
• New Quest: Money Skimming Quest
-New characters involved as well as several others modified to fit the quest.
-Unlocked voice dialogue from Marcus
Raiders:
--------
• Nonviolent end to Raiders. (Shadow Who Walks)
NCR:
----
• Ability to attack Ranger safe houses as a Slaver.
• Ability to attack Slaver Camp as a Ranger.
Vault 13:
---------
• Find out the real truth behind the Vault Experiments.
San Francisco:
--------------
• Return the missing Shi biology corpse
• New location obtained: Hubologist stash
Navarro:
--------
• Ability to fly to Enclave in a vertibird.
Enclave:
--------
• Ability to set off the nuke found on the Presidential level.
Random Encounters:
------------------
• Ability to get location of EPA from Random Traveler
• 5 Kaga encounters (he was the previous Chosen One and is now trying to kill you)
• Shaman and Chieftain now found in Nomad encounters.
• Ability to save Homesteaders and then receive a reward for your service.
• Homesteader encounters now contain children.
• Space shuttle special encounter now has the Phazer.
Increases the level cap to the number represented in the ESP's filename - either 30 or 40.
The game already has correct XP values for each level, and you continue to gain Perks and Skill Points as normal. Basically just plug it in and level the hell up.
Big props to everyone at #Fallout3Modding for their help, especially throttlekitty, Rheikon, Lightzy, Citric_Acid, etc., qzilla from the Bethsoft forums for the idea to modify existing GMSTs, and trithreat for the closeallmenus tip.
THINGS TO NOTE:
- If your skills end up maxed out, levelling up will lock the game on the skill screen. For this reason I recommend sticking with the 30-level cap, but if you're willing to take the risk you go right ahead and use the 40.
- I haven't tested enemy scaling past level 20. Let me know how it works out for you.
- To prove it works, type:
getGS iMaxCharacterLevel
and see what value it gives you.
- If you happen to get all your skills maxed out and are stuck in the "Add Skill Points" menu, open the console ( ~ ) and enter this command:
closeallmenus
this will close the Level Up menu and allow you to keep playing.
INSTALLATION
1. Download the file and place it anywhere on your computer.
2. Open the file using 7-zip to extract the two ESPs from it.
3. Place these two ESPs in this folder: Bethesda SoftworksFallout 3Data
4. Load Fallout 3 - on the splash screen (Play / Data Files / Options / Etc.), choose Data Files.
5. Put a checkmark next to the ESP you want to use (either MaxLevel30 or MaxLevel40).
6. Play.
Download the mod at this link http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/download.php?id=32500
Be warned though, the game will crash if you max out all your skills (100 points) - you will receive additional skill points (especially with a high INT) but will be unable to distribute them. Dont over-do it!
Level cap problem in F3 has already been solved, the solution is only temporary and requires the use of the console "¨" and typing in "advlevel" when you have enough EXP to advance a level.
This is how much EXP you need in order to advance a level, thanks to Hereticus and Pik (also know as Colegramme)
Copy this into "FalloutPrefs.ini" which can be found under "My Documents and Setting" > "My Games" > "Fallout3", it should enable your game to use multiprocessors, increase loading time but decrease stuttering, increase water detail, introduce npatching for Radeon cards and many other tweaks. It will run the game at 1600x1200 so be warned, edit it before you use it!
[GeneralWarnings]
SGeneralMasterMismatchWarning=One or more plugins could not find the correct versions of the master files they depend on. Errors may occur during load or game play. Check the "Warnings.txt" file for more information.
SMasterMismatchWarning=One of the files that "%s" is dependent on has changed since the last save.
This may result in errors. Saving again will clear this message
but not necessarily fix any errors.
[CopyProtectionStrings]
SCopyProtectionMessage2=Insert the Fallout Disc.
SCopyProtectionTitle2=Fallout Disc Not Found
SCopyProtectionMessage=Unable to find a CD-ROM/DVD drive on this computer.
SCopyProtectionTitle=CD-ROM Drive Not Found
>Pros: the level cap makes your character "balanced" (as in not overpowered) for the purposes of keeping the game challenging - unlike oblivion which had a disastrous implementation of "the whole world levels at the same rate as you do" - it also encourages player to replay the game as a different character build and explore the vast wasteland!
>Cons:
:)
Well first things first, level capping unfortunately affects your choice of perks and choice of starting attributes. This makes me think that level cap has been introduced as a newly made design decision, it probably wasn't supposed to be there according to Bethesdas initial design plans but was implemented later on.
As far as the perks are concerned, there is no practical value in meta-exp skills (skills that enable you to gain EXP faster) -- already there are mods that make you earn EXP at a slower rate -- so why waste 3-4 (out of 20) perks on that?
Furthermore, several perks require harsh prerequisites - many people will finish the game before they meet the requirements needed to obtain several perks - like for instance ninja or solar powered or explorer. Lawbringer perk should be available at lvl 1.
As the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (primary attributes) are concerned, strength becomes almost useless (except for the capacity to carry more stuff) and intelligence becomes #1 attribute - with it you can get more skill points as soon as possible. Furthermore, high repair skill is #1 skill of the game
There is no point in raising STR above 7 because you can get +1 from alcohol and +2 once you get power armor and 10 is the attribute cap.
There is no point in investing points into CHA because there are no more than 20 speech challenges in the game (as opposed to more than 80 lockpicking challenges and over 40 hacking (science) ones). Endurance is pretty moot as it is - unarmed being as crappy as it is (spiked gloves and power fist are the only 2 weapons available for the unarmed, power fist is unavailable until endgame, paralyzing palm is a high level perk and without it unarmed sucks). Agility is quite ok for a 2nd most important att. because it helps with V.A.T.S. combat, complemented by perception att. which is mighty good because of lockpicking challenges AND energy weapons.
Some weapon categories are not as common in the game as other, for an example, unarmed skill practically has no available weapons to go with it, making it suck big time, melee starts showing its effectiveness only if you know where to obtain the crafting recipe for the flaming sword (shishkebab) -- spoiler: its obtainable when doing the family quest in the vicinity of Meresti train station.
Absolute winner being -- "small guns" skill -- 90% of weaponry and available ammo fall under this category - making all other weapon skills pale in comparison. #2 choice being energy weapons. Big guns suck hard, because the game ends before you start finding ammo for this weapon type.
All these clues make me wonder whether the game was supposed to be twice as large as it is now, there are many towns out there in the wasteland which have been meticulously designed but have no quests or NPC interactions. It seems to me that Bethesda team decided to cut the game in half, improvise a (rather bad and anticlimactic) ending, wrap the whole thing up A.S.A.P. and ship it in time. Perhaps they want to follow Blizzards lead and pack the remaining 50% of the game into an expansion thus solving two problems. First of all this way they get to release the game on time (well, half of it anyways) and secondly -- they manage to charge for their work TWICE.
In this case I don't particularly mind paying for it twice or even threedog times -- simply because the game is brilliant in spite of all its apparent lackings.
I hope Bethesda decide to let the community have a user friendly mission designer -- they got burned once before by letting community artists earn $$$ by selling awesome looking armor for Oblivion, however I hope that this will not discourage them from allowing people to use the existing map (which is simply BRILLIANT by the way) to introduce more quests - for an example, all the locations are quite easily re-usable if you use the old "10 years later" method, saving wannabe developers the pain of designing art (maps and locations) and allowing them to concentrate on the story. They really shouldnt be jealous of people who earn (smalltime) bucks by improving on their game, au contraire, they should be looking for a way to employ them.
In my humble opinion, all these issues are symptomatic of the game being cut down in half in order to meet the deadlines. Level capping is a double edged sword - it makes you reroll and enjoy more of the wasteland adventures, on the other hand it makes many perks obsolete. Hi-end weapons begin appearing too late in the game - the game unfortunately ends at mid-game -- which is after some 60 hrs of game time.
Be as it may, it seems to me that we have finally ventured out of the era of content void WoW / The Sims and back into the age of quality content gaming.
Bethesda, please don't concentrate on more elder scrolls, but instead on Fallout expansions!
1. Extract .esp to the Data folder in your installation directory.
2. Open up FALLOUT.ini in My DocumentsMy GamesFallout 3 with Notepad or other text editor and locate the following line "bInvalidateOlderFiles=0" and set it to 1.
3. Make sure the timestamp on the .esp is more recent than your FO3 installation.
4. If you cannot get the checkmarks to stick in Data Files in the FO3 launcher, locate the following file:
Documents and Settings[username]Local SettingsApplication DataFallout3plugins.txt
(The folders might be hidden, so enable "Show hidden files" in your Windows settings.)
If the line "IncreaseMovementSpeed.esp" does not appear, add it *after* "Fallout3.esm", without quotes and on a separate line.
5. Enjoy increased player movement speed.
Misc Item Weight Fix http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/download.php?id=32434
Description:
============
This mod changes many Misc items to more realistic weights. For a complete list of weight changes open Weight Changes.txt that was included with the mod.
Some common items changed:
Cups, Spoons, Plates and Forks no longer weight a 1 pound. Instead Cups and Plates weigh .5 while Forks and spoons weight .1. Also no items that weigh 0 anymore. All 0 weight items were changed to .1. (Unless they were quest items, in which they remain unchanged.)
Schematics, Bobbleheads, and Quest items, Money and a few normal items remain unchanged.
Installation:
=============
1. Unrar MiscWeightFix.rar to your Fallout 3/Data folder.
2. Go to Data Files in your FO 3 launcher menu and check MiscWeightFix.esp.
-- If this doesn't work edit your plugin.txt and add MiscWeightFix.esp to it manually.
3. Launch your game and Enjoy.
Well F3 is the reason for the lack of posts on this blog, and yes, that means the game rocks!
Haven t played a game this good since F2 :)
I will be making several F3 posts over the next couple of days, but for the first installment I would like to address one serious issue with the game.
Many players will finish the game in cca. 40 hours of play time, it is certainly possible to finish it at avatar level 16. Level cap in this game is placed at the "high" 20 -- many players hate this cap because it makes more than half the game playable at a lessened quality.
Be as it may, until community comes up with a level cap mod - we are stuck with level 20 as the maximum achievable level in Fallout 3!
Do not finish the game (find the G.E.C.K.) too soon, because you will miss out on what has to be 60% of the game - albeit this particular portion of the game doesn't fall under the "quest" category - these encounters however do have a story attached to them, but learning the story will not yield EXP points or solve a quest in a traditional sense. In spite of this it is well worth the effort to do them.
In order to prove my point I will share a picture of my world map which shows how many locations there are in the game (after 60 hrs of gaming) - each one with a mini story of its own.
Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!
Do not finish the game until you have visited these places.
