Over the last week, I played and beat both Beyond Good And Evil and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Both of these games were relatively short; 8 or so hours of game play, stretching to 12 or so with the retries and what not. Now, both games suffer a bit from the 'die to find out how to proceed' problem, and PoP needs a better control scheme, and better way to determine where you're supposed to jump to, but that's beside the point.

Both games were solid, enjoyable, and not a single moment was spent where you wern't directly advancing the plot.

Contrast this to, say, the Final Fantasy series, especially the 7 to 9 era, which touts "sixty plus hours of gameplay!" Most of this, of course, is random battles, levelling up, and so on.

Also, the FF games tend to cover long periods of time; days, weeks, months. Beyond Good and Evil consisted of three or four missions in a logical progression. Prince of Persia happens overnight, I think.

Now, don't get me wrong; I like the Final Fantasy system. But I find this style of game design to be a much more enjoyable experience; it's closer to the 'interactive movie' concept, and you don't burn out. At the end of Beyond Good and Evil, you still remember why you went on the 'damn fool crusade' that you're on. At the end of Final Fantasy 7, on the other hand, I was hard pressed to remember exactly why I was still chasing this guy.

What I'd like to see more of, though, is the fusion; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, for example, seems a good blend between 'epic journey' style RPG and tight story telling. I'm told Final Fantasy X-2 is much shorter and tighter than it's predecessors, so I'll be trying that with interest.

So, here's my wishlist for new games.

1. Rigid storyline. If I want freeform, I'll go MUD, or play pen and paper. This isn't to say that I don't want freedom to accomplish goals in my own way, however.
2. Character progression. Not stat progression, although that's always good, too. No, I want to see my character him/herself learn and grow. This can be as simple as the fact that, in Prince of Persia, the Prince's clothes get ripped up as he progresses, or as interactive as your character aspect in Knights of the Old Republic altering based on your Force affiliation.
3. You shouldn't need to die to figure out what to do next. Ever. Kill.switch, I'm looking at you.
4. There are no evil people. There are only people with different motivations.
5. Voice acting should be a respectible profession, Japanese style. Not a gag, and generally not random people from the office.
6. Speaking of voice acting, these games are on DVD, generally. Every line should be spoken. Period. But give me the option to have on screen subtitles. Even in the cutscenes.
7. Speaking of which, no more pre-rendered cutscenes. The hardware can do it fine. Tenchu 3 on the Xbox uses, as the in-game character models, the high-poly ones used to make the cinematics on the PS2 version. Good enough.

Having composed and sent off a reply to the Spam Assassin mailing list, I got a rather interesting reply from sourceforge.net's mail servers; they called my mail server back, tried a blank MAIL FROM: and claim my mail server rejected them.

Interesting, I thought, I don't recall setting my mail server to do that. I open up a telnet session, and go through an SMTP transaction. Hmmm, sent myself blank FROM email just fine.

Some searching online reveals, of course, that this shouldn't be done. Breaks RFCs and all that. In fact, I'm not sure that Sendmail even offers a toggle to turn it on and off.

Some further searching digs up Sourceforge's own take on the subject.

If your ISP is using a mail server broken in this way, and refuses to fix it or doesn't know how to, you should take your business elsewhere and tell them that you're taking your money to an ISP that actually knows what they're doing.

So I resend my message, and lo and behold, it goes through.

So, Sourceforge, who doesn't know what they're doing?

Shi no, saki wo yuku mono-tachi yo!

Sono mi ni kizare...Shingi! Niberun Baresuti!"

We loves our precious Yumi Toma, yes we do.

Kaijin!

Maybe this has been discussed or implemented before; wouldn't surprise me, actually. But I've never, to my knowledge, heard it or seen it implemented.

I was thinking, yesterday, of Jedi Knight 2 and the new mission pack, I mean, game, Jedi Academy, and I got to thinking. A lightsabre, contrary to what the game tells you, tends to dismember people at the slightest touch.

That got me to thinking of how in JK2, you can only dismember at specific points; basically, joints. And that got me to thinking, why is that? Simple: those are places where it's easy to close off the 3d mesh, and they're obvious points to be dismembered at.

A little quick background: much as a cardboard box is a 3d object made by taking a flat sheet of cardboard and folding it in certain ways, but having a hollow interior, most objects in 3d games are flat meshes of triangles, folded in certain ways.

Why not build things out of pyramids, instead of triangles?

That way, if I wanted to, say, cleve my opponent in twain, from shoulder to opposite hip, rather than figuring out how to close the mesh, or even just applying a 'slash mark' decal to the model, you could simply separate the appropriate triangles. Then you'd have two fully 3d models, formerly bound, which are now separate. One would be affected by gravity, the other would be affected by the body kinesics code, in this case.

Then, as with 3d meshes, you improve the quality and fidelity of a model by shrinking down the size of the pyramids, and throwing more in.

Shouldn't tax video cards that much, as most of them don't bother rendering things that are obscured by things in front of them, anyway.

Make things more than one layer of pyramids thick, and suddenly you have 'deformable meshes' without needing to play tricks. A bomb lands on the ground, and blows away the top few layers of pyramids, as you'd expect. Shoot somebody with a railgun, and it just blows out the pyramids in the slug's line of fire, leaving a see-through hole without needing to screw around.

Kind of like extending a pixel into 3d gives you a voxel.

Anybody know of a good place in Toronto or area, or a Canadian online retailer, or just have that they want to get rid of, a functional P3-1ghz processor? SECC-2 or FC-PGA, doesn't matter; I've got an adaptor. :-)

Otherwise, I'll keep an eye on Ebay, and something will pop up eventually.

UPDATE Sept 29 2003 - Never mind. Found exactly what I'm looking for (much easier than I thought it would be) for around 140 CAD.

Sadly lacking Tivo service here in Canada, I finally decided the time has come to build a HTPC/media center.

Part of this is an ATI All-In-Wonder card, for the TV in/out.

Well, according to ATI's software, my P3-600 doesn't have MMX capability.

So, just for fun, I download Intel's CPU checker, and sure enough MMX. And SIMD. But not SIMD2.

Before you read on, let me say: none of this is intended to be offensive, sarcastic, or even answered. I'm an athiest, and for those familiar with the system, an INTP. I'm more or less *incapable* of taking things on faith.

Religion. More specifically, in this little exercise, praying. What is the concept behind praying?

First, a bit of background. Just read on a forum I frequent that a member's two year old granddaughter has been diagnosed with a major case of cancer, more tumors than you can count using one hand, and so on. Very sad. So he asks for prayers.

The usual flurry of responses flood in, and I'm confused. What is the point of prayer? Sure, from a psychological standpoint, we could blather all day about how it focuses energy, provides motiviation, blah blah blah, but how does a religious person justify it?

When a tragedy happens, I invariably hear somebody say 'It was God's will.' Well, if it's God's will, who are you to try to get him to change His plans? If in praying, you are asking Him to do something He wasn't planning to, isn't that somehow wrong?

Or if it isn't a part of some divine Plan, that leaves two options; He did it rather arbitrarily, or He had nothing to do with it. Well, three options; arbitrarily, He didn't do it, but can change it if He so desires, and He didn't do it, and can't change it.

But aren't any of those scenarios at odds with the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient God?

Now, I personally believe that a lot of the people who attend organized churches aren't religious, they're traditionalist; they don't believe in the deity, they believe in the church.

I also believe that a lot of people use their religion as a cop out. Far too often, I've heard people lamenting that God didn't give them the strength to do this, or didn't grant them the grace to avoid that, or worked in mysterious ways to cause them to do the other. That offends me, personally.

So I suppose what I'm asking is, where does personal responsibility stop, and divine authority start? Why do some people believe that they themselves are incapable of doing the things they do, but require "divine intervention" to empower them to do the things they're capable of? Is 'positive thinking' really just a synonym for 'praying?'

Off to Ottawa for the long weekend! Wheee!

Well, tomorrow, at least.

I like Ottawa. But that might just be because I don't actually live there.

And it's funny when people note my French last name, and try speaking French to me. Never a dull moment in Ottawa!

Ok, so now I'm in the market for the .hack//sign limited edition DVDs. Easy enough to find, except for the first one. Anybody know anywhere in Toronto or environs, or Ottawa or environs, that has them? General reccomendations for good Anime stores in those areas?

You know what I'd like as a standard feature on server-class hardware? Signed binaries.

The ability to generate a key, 128 or 256 bits, place this key into an EEPROM that can be read by, but not written to by, the motherboard.

Next, a utility to sign binaries with said key. Finally, the ability to tell the BIOS not to execute any code not so signed.

Boom. Suddenly, trojans are useless, unless my key is compromised.

Sure, it makes upgrading/patching a bit of a hassle, but I think it would be worth it.

The average North American, I think, has far too large a sense of entitlement.

Everything is viewed in terms of 'me,' not 'myself and society,' or 'myself and the group.'

Yesterday, I went to gas up my poor car. My gas station of choice is a brand new self-serve gas station; eight lanes, you drive in, use your credit or debit card at the machine, pump your gas, and drive away. No fuss, no muss, no human interaction required.

Each lane has an entrance, and an exit. The expected direction of traffic flow is clearly marked with large yellow arrows painted on the ground; 'STOP! Wrong Way' signs remind people who might possibly be coming in from the other direction that they really should go around.

Yet every time I go there, there are cars cheerfully going through the wrong way, because the one minute or so they might have to wait for a lane to open up with a pump on the correct side of the car for them is just too much.

I started to go through, yesterday, when an old woman in a car, who didn't want to wait, just went ahead, looped around, came through straight at me, and proceeded to engage me in a game of chicken.

More frightnening to me, both for the physical safety aspect and for the, dare I sound pretentious, memetic propegation possibilities (aka, what the hell are you teaching this child?) was the fact that she had her grand daughter, or some other young girl, in the car with her.

Rather than waste my own time trying to get through her thick skull, I waited for a differnet lane, and went about my business.

I'm reminded of another time when, witnessing a car t-bone a van at an intersection, my wife hopped out of the car to locate and rescue the small child screaming in the van, whilst I called 911. I then got bitched out by an older woman who wanted me, as the first in the lane to go through the intersection, to 'let her out before the police got there.' She was afrid of being stuck there 'for hours!'

Now, at this point, my wife is bleeding from cutting her hand on a broken window whilst she extracts said small child from a car seat, and this woman's afraid she'll be *inconvenienced?*

Is it honestly too much to expect that people might, occasionally, think about other people's needs/wants/whatevers? Are rules that are personally inconvenient really so easy to ignore?

This story in The Guardian details a place in Jamaica, called Tranquility Bay, where parents can send their children, literally having them kidnapped, for reprogramming to 'model' little citizens.

The desciriptions of the place read like a laundry list of psychological techniques perfected over the centuries for forcing conforming behaviour, promoting self denial and self loathing, and instilling a foreign value system.

It's one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. I feel for the poor reporter who had to write this. I feel for the poor children who are subjected to this. I feel for the poor parents who are taken in by this, thinking it to be a good and healthy service, and who are, quote possibly irrevocably, destroying their children.

My bookshelf is just chock full of RPGs; I collect them. Quite a few, I haven't even played; lack of time, lack of buddies willing to take a dive into a brand new system, yadda yadda yadda.

Lots of them, in my most humble opinion, either got the shaft, or are getting the shaft. So, I construct here, my tiny little memorial to them.

1: UnderGround
Ah, UnderGround. Aliens crash on earth, humanity discovers secrets of genetic modification. Technology is sold to 'conflict firms' who deal with wars on behalf of gov't, who create boosted soldiers, who promptly go insane at waking up and being super-human. So, conflict firms put boosts into VR training, while they're being boosted, where they live out their lives as four colour comic book heroes. This helps them adjust, somewhat; they still tend to go insane, just not so promptly.

A wonderful view of future imperfect, based on current trends; overpopulation, rising violence, a jaded population. One favourite part is where 'McRaneys' restaurants, discovering cloning technology, determines a cost of about 100,000 to clone an organisim. So, cloning cattle is out. The average customer, though, buys 110,000 dollars worth of their food in a lifetime, so they start cloning customers.

2: GURPS
Never tried the system, but the world books are TOP NOTCH. Not that GURPS is doing poorly, by any sretch. But it deserves mention for the fact that the world books make great references for ANY game system. Favorites include Black Ops, Ogre, Bio-Tech, Transhuman Space, IST, Time Travel and Reign of Steel. Oh, and Bunnies and Burrows.

3: Conspiracy X
Basically, X-Files the RPG. Very well done background; I wish they hadn't canned the 'Extinction' sequal. Between the psychic 'Greys,' the nanotech enhanced 'Atlanteans,' the equally classic 'Saurians,' the way they work the Supernatural into the whole mix, well, it's well done.

4: Battlelords of the 23rd Century
Not much to say about this, other than 'How do you keep a Ram Python busy? Put him in a round room and tell him there's food in the corner.'

5: HoL
Ah, HoL. If you can find a copy, grab it. Note that it's entirely hand written and illustrated. I believe there's a reprint of some sort recently come out. Classic classic stuff. Has a 'claimer' in the front of the book, which starts out 'This game WILL fuck you up. We swear.

6: Continuum
One of the best ways of doing time travel ever seen. Kudos for dealing with the 'I want to meet myself' phenomenon; a Gemini event. If the version is older than you, by the way, do what they say; they're probably right.

7: Delta Green
A vision of the Call of Cthulu mythos set in the modern day. EXCELLENT stuff. CoC is pretty groovy itself; highly reccomended is the Taint of Madness supplement.

8: ShadowRun
Went down the tubes with 3rd edition. The fans, however, are trying to bring it back, but I simply cannot bring myself to get back into it. But I do have pretty much every supplement for 2nd edition, from Sprawl Sites through to Awakenings. Oh, and grab the Universal Brotherhood supplement from 1st Ed for a chuckle at a good poke at Scientology, if that's your bag, baby.

I've lots of other ones on my shelf, but they're doing just fine, thank you, or they deserved an ignomious death.

Do I perform the software update remotely, from home, and save myself the trip to work, assuming it all goes well, which it should, yet need to hightail it in, should something fail?

Or do I go in anyway, and thus be in place to minimize any unexpected problems, but take that much longer to be snuggled back into bed?

Ah well. Scheduled (read: 1 AM) maintenance is so much happier with the addition of DVD capable laptops.

I am humanity's worst nightmare: a cat with opposable thumbs. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I found one of those once. Had two extra digits around what I'd consider to be a cat's 'thumb.' It could actually grasp my finger; the digits were all a bit longer than your average cat. Somebody told me it was a mouser breed.

Cute little thing. Too bad my main cat at the time, General Anesthetic, didn't like it. The General didn't take kindly to new kitty faces.