"Who Needs Spells When I Can Just Throw My Deck At My Opponent's Head?"

So, I play Magic: the Gathering Online on occasion. I've got a single Commander format deck (a mirror of a deck I've got with physical cards), and a number of decks for the special "Planeswalker" format that only exists online. Planeswalker is fun, because you can get the cards for it really cheap, and since it's online you can use the same card in multiple decks, no problem.

I've recently created a Blue/Red deck with a very simple decklist:

• 3x Seismic Assault
• 4x Treasure Hunt
• 53x Land cards

The premise is simple: Draw my entire deck using Treasure Hunt(s), since my deck is primarily lands. Then discard those lands to activate Seismic Assault, dealing damage to my opponents and their creatures. Just now, I played a Two-Headed Giant game with this deck. When I played the Seismic Assault, one of my opponents laughed at me for using it in a multiplayer format with higher life totals. Through most of the game, I used Seismic Assault to take down creatures giving me and my teammate trouble. I had already cast 3 of my 4 Treasure Hunts, each time only drawing 5-8 lands. Not enough to be a huge threat, but the guy that laughed stopped laughing when he reailzed just how MUCH of my deck was land.

I had cast 3 Treasure Hunts, I had a Seismic Assault on the field, and two Seismic Assaults in my hand, and I was out of land. I was depending on my one card per turn to keep up, and our team was hurting.

Then I drew Treasure Hunt. My team was at 24 life, my opponents were at 39.

I cast Treasure Hunt, and revealed the remainder of my deck; 26 cards.

26 * 2 damage. GG?

So really. Who needs to cast spells in a Magic game? I'll just throw my deck at their head, knock them out, and go through their pockets.

Networking Sucks

I'm currently working on a game project with networking. What should have a simple P2P topology has evolved into something so arcane, I can't make out what half out code is doing.

Stupid networking...

The Tao of Game Features

This quote was taken from "Arcanaville" on the City of Heroes forums, with regard to adding new features to the game. The quote is lovely, and I think it applies to just about any update to any game, or software in general.

It's never as hard as the developers say it is, it's never as easy as the players think it is, and the best way to do it is most likely to be a way both groups would initially think is insane.

My Art Professor Sucks

This post is likely to get emotional, empassioned, and have strong language. You have been warned: here be dragons.

So, Rice university requires a certain number of credit hours in three distributions: D1 (literature, languages, art, etc.), D2 (philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc.), and D3 (math, science, engineering, etc.). This semester, I'm finishing my D1 requirements by taking an American Literature class, and a Drawing class.

I am not an artist. This has been painfully clear to me since elementary school.

However, "Drawing I" should be a gimme class; an easy B, if not an easy A. Right?

Well, it would be right, if my professor didn't suck. To be PC, I shouldn't speak ill of her: she's got Parkinson's disease, so I should be nice. Right? But she still sucks.

For our final project, we're supposed to pick a subject that interests us. There are several steps to the project, so far we've needed to submit a clip file (clippings from various sources which interest us or appear similar to our interests), and a few preliminary sketches. My chosen subject in the general case was Exalted. I had lots of sources to pull from. Hell, I've got over 100 artists which have worked directly on the book themselves! No problem making a clip file. Right

When I submitted it for feedback, she says I need wider diversity of sources. Of course, every picture in my clip file comes from a different artist! Some of my pictures weren't even directly part of the Exalted series, they just fit the theme.

The next part was a preliminary sketch. I selected a very dramatic picture of the Ebon Dragon flying over an area of Malfeas, blocking out Ligier the Green Sun as inspiration for my sketch. When I submitted my sketch for review, she told me that the image was too literal. When she asked me to describe the image, I mentioned that I didn't invent the character — an obvious mistake. Because I didn't invent the character, because I drew the character from a game, my sketch wasn't worthwhile. Worse, she then told me to use Greek and Christian dragon myths to make my drawing.

So, using a dragon that I could write a small book about is not sufficient... but using dragons that I could only write an essay about if I filled the essay with BS is a good idea? Who fucking cares if source A was written 9 years ago and source B was written 900 years ago, if source A is richer and more developed?

"Here be dragons," huh? This fucking dragon is larger, more deadly, and has a personality along with a rich and full backstory. He's not some fucking vauge threat looming in the shadows of the world. He's a very real and present threat to Creation.

The Ebon Dragon was trapped for eternity in hell. But he's patient, and he lives longer than eternity.

(Oh, and let's not forget his upcoming wedding, plus the "Return of the Scarlet Empress" book that's coming out this summer)

I Know What I Did Last Summer

All summer, I've been without an internet connection my my computer. Why? Because I've been living with my grandmother, who only has one modem, and no nearby wireless, anywhere.

Now that I'm moved into my new apartment, and talked to Geek Squad, and got on my roommate's computer to figure out what was wrong with my laptop's wireless, detection, I can hijack a neighbor's unsecured network. And get back to all those things I never got around to doing all summer.

But why was I living somewhere without any connectivity for so long? My grandmother's house was the only place I had to stay to get to my internship. It was great fun working at an actual game company for several months, and I learned a lot while working on Quill Lord.

I'm probably still not allowed to talk about everything that went on at Pi, but I can say it's an interesting experience to work at a game studio - it's often hard to tell if people are playing games for fun or for debugging! I'll walk into work and see people playing Rock Band, Call of Duty, or Wolfenstien... it's pretty darn cool.

And to top it off, my boss will be teaching a course at Rice this semester on Game Content Creation (which I'll be taking)

Expect to see some more from me about Quill Lord this fall, and eventually, "Burgerland" from Team UnboXed, as well!

Update: It seems Team UnboXed has sort of fallen apart, and Burgerland won't be made anyway...

Games: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As someone interested in entering the game industry, I have good reason to be happy about good news, sad about bad news, and annoyed at idiots. Today has a little from column A, a little from column B.

The Good

A German survey indicates good news for the game industry - 40% of respondents aged 14 to 64 spend time gaming. The percent generally increases as the age range shrinks towards the younger end, but those younger people have had immersive games for a larger portion of their lives. These are uplifting results. It means the industry I want to be a part of has a healthy demand. In all likelihood, that demand will increase as those 14-19 year old kids grow up to become parents and give games to their kids.

I was a little surprised to find the report on this survey in The China Post, but news is news, I suppose. I'll have to look harder for more details about the survey (update: I found a PDF on the survey; warning: the PDF is in German), but what I found really interesting from the TCP article was this:

The most popular are logic games, followed by strategy, racing, action and shooter games. However, youths had almost opposite tastes, with action and adventure games outpacing intelligence games.

The [Potentially] Bad

Gibson, in a possibly very boneheaded move, is suing Activision and several retail chains over Guitar Hero. We don't yet know the results of the back-and-forth litigation, but if it goes Gibson's way, I think it may set some bad precedent for future licensed games.

On the one hand, Gibson is relatively small, when compared to the companies they're trying to sue (Activision, Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Amazon.com, Toys 'R' Us and GameStop). Many legal battles depend on the quality, quantity, and duration of lawyer you can bring forth, all of which cost extra money. Extra money which Gibson may not have, but the other companies may. Aside from that, Guitar Hero was released in November of 2005, and it's taken until now for Gibson to do anything (not to mention shooting themselves in the foot after the deal they originally made with Activision for the game). Gibson doesn't appear to have a very strong case, but IANAL.

On the other hand, if Gibson does manage to win the case(s), what's that going to mean for future games with licensed content? Entering an agreement with a game company and suing them about it three years later may not seem like an intelligent business move, but doing so would cost the game companies money, which either means they continue making licensed games but lose money, or they stop making licensed games. I'm all for original concept in games, but using known quantities also has it's place. And as far as the publishers are concerned, whatever has a better chance at money is the one that gets developed. The producers know that things like Gibson guitars and Spiderman draw customers (note to self: Start programming GuitarSpiderHeroMan - money will be made!), so licensing is a good thing.

Update: Thinking about it, this might just be a money grab, hoping the companies they sue will just settle out of court. If that's the case, well... Gibson just sucks.

The Ugly

Some people are just stupid. Here's the dig: if a kid does something they saw in a video game, they probably would have done it if the game never existed. Some individuals in Canada are trying to ban Bully: Scholarship Edition, with the reasoning that kids playing the Bully game will become bullies themselves. The same occurred with the violent stuff in games like the Grand Theft Auto series of games.

But any kid playing these games should be able to tell the difference between reality and fiction. Here's a question to parents: Are you letting your kid play games that are rated above their age range? The ESRB exists for a reason. If your child can't distinguish between life and fantasy, you need to take away their games (all of them) and have a good discussion with your kid. Get them out into the real world, too, because they probably don't have many friends aside from anonymous strangers they've met online.

If there is any kid out there who was normal and well-adjusted, then played Bully, and started emulating events in the game in his school, I'll eat my words. But in every instance of a kid blaming things on a game, the kid wasn't normal beforehand - the game is either a scapegoat or the last straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm not really sure why such a game came out

-Robert Frenette

It's quite easy to think why the game came out. Someone came up with the idea, someone else thought it would make money. Time was spent developing it, and money was spent producing it. And now it is available for sale. Quite simple; just economics. There's nothing sinister about video games, or the people that make them.

Blogging, it's the new thing

Who doesn't blog? I mean it seems everybody has one. Makes me feel weird when people say things like "Hey, I blogged to my blog last night. It was blogging awesome. You should blog on over there and blog it out. I blog you'll blog it."

Ok, maybe only blogging Smurfs talk like that. But I figured "why not?!" I'm a computer scientist, it's time I got with the times. Even if I prefer Veranda.

So, here's my attempt at a serious blog. It's actually my second attempt at a blog, the first being with my Shaiya account. Ha, that game's a flop, at least in my eyes. It doesn't really even make much sense to attach blog software to a game account.

Anyways, for anyone reading this blog, expect complaints about my Computer Science courses, my take on things happening in the game industry (probably with comparisons to City of Heroes/Villains, my current gaming crush), and more. A place to release my thoughts onto the web, and unlike some people, not freak out when people actually *gasp* read it.
(And yes; the school in question was my High School, the leader of those cheerleaders was in my Algebra 2 class, and Condoms To Go now has a "No Cameras" policy)

Also, I'm a programmer, not an artist. I don't have the best eye for things that are visually pleasing. I'd appreciate others' take on the formatting and colors of the blog.