So what I want to know is who is going to pony up the $170 to be in my Rockband?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Who is going to be in my Rockband?
So what I want to know is who is going to pony up the $170 to be in my Rockband?
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Its being to look alot like Gaming Season....
So yeah... I wrote this about 9 months ago... it was full of impressions and upcoming hopes... I thought I might publish it (incomplete) for the fact that I actually wrote alot... anyways I may go back to this one and comments on my comments 9 months later...
======================================================================================
Soooo.... its that time of the year... time to finish up all those games you didn't finish from last years gaming season and start gathering the ones from this year.... and man is it a big year.... Although the season is already kind of a disappointment in that some of the major titles that were supposed to be holiday titles were pushed to 08' ... but I guess at least the have learned not to rush it...
Puzzle Quest:
yeah I beat this one just yesterday... It was alot of work for just 200 achievement points... but it was soooooo worth it... This game has alot of content for being such a simple concept. If you like puzzle games, and you like simple RPG games... this is a must have on your Xbox, PSP, DS, or PC.
Halo 3:
I don't really have much to say about this game... it was kind of a walk in the park but it did a good job making you feel like you are fighting some battle on a much grander scale. It was fun for the 4 player co-op but I am not really one for pvp since I don't want to devote my life to being good. So if you like pvp then this is where it is at but if you are a FPS story player you might want to go check out....
Orange Box:
I was never that big of a Half Life fan but I must say portal caught my attention. I met the guys behind Portal when I was up in Redmond Washington at DiGiPen looking at going to grad school there. I thought it was a good idea then. Also Team Fortress 2 look hilarious, the little meet the blank spots they did cracked me up. Anyways Phil called me up one day and was like I am going to go buy Orange Box after work so it was the last little nudge to go buy it. After I got bored with TF2 and beat Portal (only about 4 hours) I was like man now that was a lot of money for just those two games... I booted up Half Life 2 (The first one not the eps) and started playing it... I must say it is actualy alot of fun... now I feel like danm I got 5 high quality games for only 60 bucks... thats a deal.
Skate:
While I was out buying Orange Box I decide to splurge and pick up this little gem. I had tried the demo on Xbox Live and was amazed at how easy it was to pick up and play. the controls actually feel right and the whole movement of the game is so fluid that its actually easy to chain tricks together and make some pretty cool stuff happen. I finished up this game the same day as puzzle quest... and would recommend anyone who things that Tony Hawk is a little on the rediculus side to pick this up and try it.
Hellgate London:
So this one is kind of weird... I got it a day early because of some weird shipping issue from gamestop... I loaded it up and started playing it with some lack luster results... The game was buggy and had memory issues and alot of info seemed missing from like the tool tips... When the servers went live there was a patch waiting for me and when loaded it seem to fix some minor glitches but not take away any of the major issues that were plaging the game... about 2 weeks later and about 5 bizzlion patachs the game is actualy turning out alot better... they have alot better explanation of things... the major memory problems are gone... the lag has been resolved... and the games challenge has been stepped up... I guess when all is said and done the game is shapping up well... If you loved Diablo 2 then I deff recommend picking this up... it plays and feels just like it only with guns and a different setting...
From this point on are games I am looking forward to.
Rock Band & Guitar Heroes 3:
So I preordered my mega pack of Rock Band... I must say I belive all the hype is deserved this game has a great selection of songs with a bit of innovation and a dash of online play could be awesome... I hope they roll out some good DLC as the have planned.... I must say that the one thing I like in rock band over guitar heroes 3 is that the difficulty is truly scalable... Guitar Heroes 3 is just out of controle and really only playable if you have like devoted the last 20 years of your life to playing the game.... and at that point.... dude.... pickup a guitar....
Army of Two:
Mass Effect:
Mario Galaxy:
Smash Brothers Brawl!:
======================================================================================
Soooo.... its that time of the year... time to finish up all those games you didn't finish from last years gaming season and start gathering the ones from this year.... and man is it a big year.... Although the season is already kind of a disappointment in that some of the major titles that were supposed to be holiday titles were pushed to 08' ... but I guess at least the have learned not to rush it...
Puzzle Quest:
yeah I beat this one just yesterday... It was alot of work for just 200 achievement points... but it was soooooo worth it... This game has alot of content for being such a simple concept. If you like puzzle games, and you like simple RPG games... this is a must have on your Xbox, PSP, DS, or PC.
Halo 3:
I don't really have much to say about this game... it was kind of a walk in the park but it did a good job making you feel like you are fighting some battle on a much grander scale. It was fun for the 4 player co-op but I am not really one for pvp since I don't want to devote my life to being good. So if you like pvp then this is where it is at but if you are a FPS story player you might want to go check out....
Orange Box:
I was never that big of a Half Life fan but I must say portal caught my attention. I met the guys behind Portal when I was up in Redmond Washington at DiGiPen looking at going to grad school there. I thought it was a good idea then. Also Team Fortress 2 look hilarious, the little meet the blank spots they did cracked me up. Anyways Phil called me up one day and was like I am going to go buy Orange Box after work so it was the last little nudge to go buy it. After I got bored with TF2 and beat Portal (only about 4 hours) I was like man now that was a lot of money for just those two games... I booted up Half Life 2 (The first one not the eps) and started playing it... I must say it is actualy alot of fun... now I feel like danm I got 5 high quality games for only 60 bucks... thats a deal.
Skate:
While I was out buying Orange Box I decide to splurge and pick up this little gem. I had tried the demo on Xbox Live and was amazed at how easy it was to pick up and play. the controls actually feel right and the whole movement of the game is so fluid that its actually easy to chain tricks together and make some pretty cool stuff happen. I finished up this game the same day as puzzle quest... and would recommend anyone who things that Tony Hawk is a little on the rediculus side to pick this up and try it.
Hellgate London:
So this one is kind of weird... I got it a day early because of some weird shipping issue from gamestop... I loaded it up and started playing it with some lack luster results... The game was buggy and had memory issues and alot of info seemed missing from like the tool tips... When the servers went live there was a patch waiting for me and when loaded it seem to fix some minor glitches but not take away any of the major issues that were plaging the game... about 2 weeks later and about 5 bizzlion patachs the game is actualy turning out alot better... they have alot better explanation of things... the major memory problems are gone... the lag has been resolved... and the games challenge has been stepped up... I guess when all is said and done the game is shapping up well... If you loved Diablo 2 then I deff recommend picking this up... it plays and feels just like it only with guns and a different setting...
From this point on are games I am looking forward to.
Rock Band & Guitar Heroes 3:
So I preordered my mega pack of Rock Band... I must say I belive all the hype is deserved this game has a great selection of songs with a bit of innovation and a dash of online play could be awesome... I hope they roll out some good DLC as the have planned.... I must say that the one thing I like in rock band over guitar heroes 3 is that the difficulty is truly scalable... Guitar Heroes 3 is just out of controle and really only playable if you have like devoted the last 20 years of your life to playing the game.... and at that point.... dude.... pickup a guitar....
Army of Two:
Mass Effect:
Mario Galaxy:
Smash Brothers Brawl!:
Hey there stranger... long time no see
Soooo... its be a while... yeah I know... but it takes alot to recover from something like oktoberfest... For those who know me, know that I went through another major change the week after Oktoberfest marked my first week at my new company... HotChalk ... Its a start up company located in San Fransisco dedicated to providing a free learning management system to teachers and students... I am just happy that I am programming again.... oh and I should officaly move this blog to Chris on Rails now that I not only take the rails (BART) in every day to work but I also get to use Ruby on Rails which I am way stoked about... But other then that its been tv, movies, video games, books, and beer... so the norm... I made it through all 10 seasons of stargate SG-1 which is about 222 hours of my life...**sigh**... anyways now I am going to try and catch up with things like Heroes... Anyways other then that nothing much going on... Ill post about games I have been playing soon... and I am sure some kind of update on wedding stuff... and any other random stuff I come across....
Game Over...
Game Over...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Quest of the puzzles.....
Ok so, Puzzle Quest. Yeah... Probably the most addicting game I have ever played. And I have played Pokemon, and WOW, and Katamari Demancy..... and a whole slue of games. I sat down at like 9pm to get some time in leveling my char... and a few online battles and a few levels latter ist 12:30am... oh man.
For those of you who don't know, Puzzle quest is a hybrid puzzle/RPG game where you run errands in a magical kingdom and solving your problems through a puzzle game (Think Bejeweled). I know I know... but puzzle games are so outdated and there hasnt been a new one in years. I know! I was thinking the same thing. Who would have thought packaging up the same crap and delivering it in a new box would be so exciting.
None the less... fun stuff... if you got it... Hit me up GamerTag: CatsithRoanoke
For those of you who don't know, Puzzle quest is a hybrid puzzle/RPG game where you run errands in a magical kingdom and solving your problems through a puzzle game (Think Bejeweled). I know I know... but puzzle games are so outdated and there hasnt been a new one in years. I know! I was thinking the same thing. Who would have thought packaging up the same crap and delivering it in a new box would be so exciting.
None the less... fun stuff... if you got it... Hit me up GamerTag: CatsithRoanoke
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Robert's Car Vs. Chuck Norris
Ok so this is a bit of an old story at this point but I figured it would be fun to post it anyways... I have this friend Robert who was driving in SF a while back... he was stopped at a stop light chatting with his soon to be wife in the car... when all of a sudden he felt his car bounce around a bit... his initial reaction was that the person behind him had rear ended him... but when he looked back that was not the case... when he turned around to look forward he saw a guy running off... his wife had seen this guy standing at the cross walk just start charging at the car and full on double foot kick the side of their car... the guy then stood up and dusted himself off and ran off down the street...
Now this is unconfirmed information.... but I think it was Chuck Norris
Now this is unconfirmed information.... but I think it was Chuck Norris
Thursday, September 27, 2007
It's alive.... ALIVE
Ok so you all know... I got a new Xbox360... you all can stop worrying now... everything is going to be ok... I actually got a much better Warranty from Best Buy and its alot more trusted then FRYs... Plus it was 20 bucks cheaper when all was said and done... Oh and it hooked Robert into buying one too...
MWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAH....
**EDIT**
Robert's XBOX 360 was dead right out of the box.... EPIC FAIL
MWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAH....
**EDIT**
Robert's XBOX 360 was dead right out of the box.... EPIC FAIL
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
My XBOX died... and why I now HATE FRYs
Ok so it was like killing me all day at work today.... I really really was looking forward to getting home and starting the Halo 3 insanity with my Couz and friends.... So I get home, change out of my work cloths, grab a beer and boot up the ol' 360... which proceeded to flash one really bright red light at me while displaying an error E 38 at me in about 50 different languages...
...Ok so I knew this shit was unstable when I bought my 360 I had seen the news about how all of Microsoft's hardware is shit... and kills babies.... and blah blah blah... but seriously... it like knew I was really excited about playing games and crashed on purpose... I am pretty sure now that Microsoft are fucking genius that have built new revolutionary hardware that is programmed to fail upon your excitement...
...Anyways So I called Microsoft to see what was up... and they had me do a bunch of stuff like take out my hard drive and put it back in... so on so forth... it was actually a pretty nice call with a guy in Switzerland... however it amounted to nothing... damn... I resign my self to digging out the warranty plan I bought from FRYs when i bought my 360 and going and exchanging it...
...So off to FRYs I go...
... I arrive with my 360 packed back up in it box looking for a quick exchange... get a rep to help me with the exchange... give him my warranty... and then he proceeds to tell me they do not carry the Elite any more because they have the Halo3 360s right now (Yeah fuck you too Halo 3 your part of this too)... He said I could take one of those in exchange... I said ok but you need to give me a 120gb hd also... so hes like ok ill check with my manager... like 15 mins later he comes back with a core system and is like we will trade you this... So at this point I'm pissed... this guy obviously didn't know shit about what he was doing nor the diff in the systems... I tell him a few things... I said A) thats about half the price of what I paid for my Elite system B) that has no hard drive C) it is white.... and he looks at me like "What is the problem with that"....
...Anger level is at like 9 right now...
...So more arguing and about 3 managers later... I tell them that from my talks with Microsoft I know that its the Hard Drive that is the issue if they could just replace that I could be on my way... They say ok but that is going to take up the one exchange on my warranty... At this point Im like whoooooohhhhhhoooo... back that buss up a little bit... I bought a 2 year full service warranty from you folks what is this one time trade in bullshit.... and they explain to me that I can only have one service fix in that 2 years....
...Anger level at like 15 of 10 right now....
...So at this point I'm like if I am not out that door in like ten mins Im going balistik... I tell them what ever and they proceed to ring up the hard drive... as they are doing this they run into an error... and come to me and tell me that my warranty is not valid at this time as my 90 day warranty from the day I bought it with the store has yet to expire... so there is nothing they can do until their manager gets in tomorrow or I can wait two days till the store warranty expires...
...Anger level detecter explodes into a millon peices....
...I tell them very calmly "Get the highest ranked person in this store in here right now... I don't care if they have to come from home."... When that guy gets in and talks to me I'm like look... I am under store warranty I am under Microsoft's warranty I am under the warranty I bought on top of those two warranty and you can do nothing for me... I told him this is absolute bullshit and that I want all my money reimbursed right now... He tried to give me a bunch of bullshit about how he cant do that blah blah blah... and I told him that at this point I am tired of talking... the next words out of his mouth I want to here is "can I please have the credit card you would like this reimbursed on"... So finally the guy gives up and decides it would just be best to give me my money back...
...As they are crediting the card they guy ringing it up is like "We are going to have to prorate the warranty for the time that you had it"... I was like are you for real... I'm like I cant even use it... that is how we got into this little mess... and I start going off on the guy... the manager comes over and is like just give all the credit back...
.... So the moral of the story is... don't do biz with FRYs... ever.... ever.... oh and if you throw a big enough fit you can usaly get what you want...
***God Im still angry***
...Ok so I knew this shit was unstable when I bought my 360 I had seen the news about how all of Microsoft's hardware is shit... and kills babies.... and blah blah blah... but seriously... it like knew I was really excited about playing games and crashed on purpose... I am pretty sure now that Microsoft are fucking genius that have built new revolutionary hardware that is programmed to fail upon your excitement...
...Anyways So I called Microsoft to see what was up... and they had me do a bunch of stuff like take out my hard drive and put it back in... so on so forth... it was actually a pretty nice call with a guy in Switzerland... however it amounted to nothing... damn... I resign my self to digging out the warranty plan I bought from FRYs when i bought my 360 and going and exchanging it...
...So off to FRYs I go...
... I arrive with my 360 packed back up in it box looking for a quick exchange... get a rep to help me with the exchange... give him my warranty... and then he proceeds to tell me they do not carry the Elite any more because they have the Halo3 360s right now (Yeah fuck you too Halo 3 your part of this too)... He said I could take one of those in exchange... I said ok but you need to give me a 120gb hd also... so hes like ok ill check with my manager... like 15 mins later he comes back with a core system and is like we will trade you this... So at this point I'm pissed... this guy obviously didn't know shit about what he was doing nor the diff in the systems... I tell him a few things... I said A) thats about half the price of what I paid for my Elite system B) that has no hard drive C) it is white.... and he looks at me like "What is the problem with that"....
...Anger level is at like 9 right now...
...So more arguing and about 3 managers later... I tell them that from my talks with Microsoft I know that its the Hard Drive that is the issue if they could just replace that I could be on my way... They say ok but that is going to take up the one exchange on my warranty... At this point Im like whoooooohhhhhhoooo... back that buss up a little bit... I bought a 2 year full service warranty from you folks what is this one time trade in bullshit.... and they explain to me that I can only have one service fix in that 2 years....
...Anger level at like 15 of 10 right now....
...So at this point I'm like if I am not out that door in like ten mins Im going balistik... I tell them what ever and they proceed to ring up the hard drive... as they are doing this they run into an error... and come to me and tell me that my warranty is not valid at this time as my 90 day warranty from the day I bought it with the store has yet to expire... so there is nothing they can do until their manager gets in tomorrow or I can wait two days till the store warranty expires...
...Anger level detecter explodes into a millon peices....
...I tell them very calmly "Get the highest ranked person in this store in here right now... I don't care if they have to come from home."... When that guy gets in and talks to me I'm like look... I am under store warranty I am under Microsoft's warranty I am under the warranty I bought on top of those two warranty and you can do nothing for me... I told him this is absolute bullshit and that I want all my money reimbursed right now... He tried to give me a bunch of bullshit about how he cant do that blah blah blah... and I told him that at this point I am tired of talking... the next words out of his mouth I want to here is "can I please have the credit card you would like this reimbursed on"... So finally the guy gives up and decides it would just be best to give me my money back...
...As they are crediting the card they guy ringing it up is like "We are going to have to prorate the warranty for the time that you had it"... I was like are you for real... I'm like I cant even use it... that is how we got into this little mess... and I start going off on the guy... the manager comes over and is like just give all the credit back...
.... So the moral of the story is... don't do biz with FRYs... ever.... ever.... oh and if you throw a big enough fit you can usaly get what you want...
***God Im still angry***
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Oktoberfest out of context Pt.2
"From left to right... (Unknown),(Unknown),Chris,(Unknown),(Unknown),(Unknown),Phil"
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Wish I was this white so I could rap too... oh...oh... wait...
Ok so I love this crap... there is nothing funnier then a white guy who dose a decent job rapping like a white guy... I have posted a few of my favorites below..
Flight of the Conchords - Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
The Filght of the conchords is a band out of New Zealand that do a show out here its pretty funny... this is one of their songs and I find it amusing...
Schaffer the Darklord - The Rappist
Schaffer is pretty cool... he has this box with STD in white tape on it that he swears the voice of the devil speaks to him through...
Lazy Sunday
Lazy Sunday was originally a skit from SNL so incase you missed it here is some other kids that did it...
Flight of the Conchords - Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
The Filght of the conchords is a band out of New Zealand that do a show out here its pretty funny... this is one of their songs and I find it amusing...
Schaffer the Darklord - The Rappist
Schaffer is pretty cool... he has this box with STD in white tape on it that he swears the voice of the devil speaks to him through...
Lazy Sunday
Lazy Sunday was originally a skit from SNL so incase you missed it here is some other kids that did it...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Way out of line..... er context....
OK... so its the time of the year again.... and if you are thinking anything but beer when I say that then you are a sad sad person... Its time again for the Oktoberfest and boy it can be a good time... I have quite a few friends up for going this year it should be a good time... If you are interested let me know or go to http://www.oktoberfestbythebay.com/.... I will be there on Oct 13th... Since we have such good memories, and such few pictures (thank god), I figured I would put up the pictures from last years Oktoberfest festivities in a little piece that I like to call....
Oktoberfest taken out of context....
"Hey Chris... I bet you can't finish that beer and cigarette at the same time"
Tune in soon when I will post another picture... all leading up to the big day!
-Happy Drinking!
Oktoberfest taken out of context....
"Hey Chris... I bet you can't finish that beer and cigarette at the same time"
Tune in soon when I will post another picture... all leading up to the big day!
-Happy Drinking!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Vonage... The better solution?
Sooooo... I am watching TV.... and I am sure if you have been too you have seen the Vonage vs. "The Telephone Company" commercials. Here is what I am thinking... Without internet their phone service dosent work.
That means if you are not using cable, then you are still paying for basic phone service and DSL service. Even if you are using cable you are still required to pay for internet just to be able to use your phone service. So I dont really see how anyone is saving money using Vonage if you are just after phone service. Not only are you paying for DSL on top of your 25 bucks a month but you are also dealing with two bills.
Now dont get me wrong I really dont know how much a normal land line phone will cost you a month, I myself have never had a "Home Phone". I find that I can not really survive with out a cell phone and I dont see any need to to have two different phones. Thus I only ever use my cell phone. But none the less I dont see all how Vonage is "cheaper".
I guess the way I see it Vonage can aford to be less expensive since they are not maintaining any of the lines that deliver the internet that is required with that service. But then again it seams that you kind of get the middle man if something goes wrong.
The bottom line to me anyways is I dont see why a land line is needed when a cell phone seems to be the more logical solution these days. And if you need to do something like a small biz it seams that maybe a Grand Central account might provide you with a more dynamic solution anyways.
-Game Over
That means if you are not using cable, then you are still paying for basic phone service and DSL service. Even if you are using cable you are still required to pay for internet just to be able to use your phone service. So I dont really see how anyone is saving money using Vonage if you are just after phone service. Not only are you paying for DSL on top of your 25 bucks a month but you are also dealing with two bills.
Now dont get me wrong I really dont know how much a normal land line phone will cost you a month, I myself have never had a "Home Phone". I find that I can not really survive with out a cell phone and I dont see any need to to have two different phones. Thus I only ever use my cell phone. But none the less I dont see all how Vonage is "cheaper".
I guess the way I see it Vonage can aford to be less expensive since they are not maintaining any of the lines that deliver the internet that is required with that service. But then again it seams that you kind of get the middle man if something goes wrong.
The bottom line to me anyways is I dont see why a land line is needed when a cell phone seems to be the more logical solution these days. And if you need to do something like a small biz it seams that maybe a Grand Central account might provide you with a more dynamic solution anyways.
-Game Over
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Java Hate vs. The Bay Area
Yes... I admit it... I hate Java.
I have hated Java for one reason or another for as long as I can remember. In my opinion it is a bloated development platform with too many hands in its pot. There is just too many ways of doing the same thing. This causes major integration issues and makes the code difficult to retrofit with newer technologies. Now I know that this hatred probably really stems from me dealing with corporate code design and coded in the most part by people either just learning Java or by someone who thinks they can code Java properly, but still with all the other options out there you would think there would have been some shift in the market already.
Well I guess you could... I was unaware until my recent foray into job boards based outside of the Bay Area. To my surprise there was little jabs out there looking for Java programmers... I don't know if this is because they were all taken by programmers who are ingraining themselves in their job and those jobs just never become available or if it is truly a shift in technology... but I deff saw more Ruby on Rails and ASP.net C# jobs out there.
When I looked at some job boards in the Bay Area there was a substantial increase of Java positions available... So my question is... why is it that the Bay Area loves Java so much? Is it that it is unwilling to adapt to new technologies? Could it be that Sun for the most part is located there? Or could it just be that there are more jobs here?
I don't know that the answer is... all I know is that all the job searches I do from now on will always exclude the word Java from it........... there is just too much good stuff out there right now to be playing with that junk.
I have hated Java for one reason or another for as long as I can remember. In my opinion it is a bloated development platform with too many hands in its pot. There is just too many ways of doing the same thing. This causes major integration issues and makes the code difficult to retrofit with newer technologies. Now I know that this hatred probably really stems from me dealing with corporate code design and coded in the most part by people either just learning Java or by someone who thinks they can code Java properly, but still with all the other options out there you would think there would have been some shift in the market already.
Well I guess you could... I was unaware until my recent foray into job boards based outside of the Bay Area. To my surprise there was little jabs out there looking for Java programmers... I don't know if this is because they were all taken by programmers who are ingraining themselves in their job and those jobs just never become available or if it is truly a shift in technology... but I deff saw more Ruby on Rails and ASP.net C# jobs out there.
When I looked at some job boards in the Bay Area there was a substantial increase of Java positions available... So my question is... why is it that the Bay Area loves Java so much? Is it that it is unwilling to adapt to new technologies? Could it be that Sun for the most part is located there? Or could it just be that there are more jobs here?
I don't know that the answer is... all I know is that all the job searches I do from now on will always exclude the word Java from it........... there is just too much good stuff out there right now to be playing with that junk.
Internet People.... wtf?
Ok so this song gets stuck in my head.... like all day... so kudos to you Meth Minute...
Anyways, I love this video. Its like a walk down memory lane to all the great (read stupid) videos on the net I have watched over the years.... how ever there are a few that they left out... it is still great.
Well...
Ok so I give up on my list of stuff to blog about because it keeps getting bigger and I seem to have less and less to blog about it... so I guess I will just start blogging on things the way they come out... so now we got no order up in this house.... none... at... all...
and thats just the way I roll
and thats just the way I roll
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Back from chicago
Quick post to let you guys know that I am back from Chicago... much to talk about... lots of pics to share... Will update as soon as I can get things together.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
I love these cats...
Prob the best LOLCat out there.... Post coming later... then not for about a week... OMG 0.0
Monday, June 18, 2007
Recent Betas vs. WoW
So much to blog about... Its a very exciting time right now... but I am trying to spread it out so that I have back up during down time...
As many of you know World of Warcraft (WoW) has been consuming the PC market (and most of our souls) for some time now. With Blizzards 8 million subscribers spending $15+ a month there are many companies out there right now that want a piece of that 120 million a month pie.
Recent news has shown that WoWs population has been on the decline. This decline in population begs an interesting question: Why is WoWs population in a decline.
Is it lack of content? I would think that the new expansion for the game would solve that issue. Perhaps it is that the content has turned stale? Does that mean that people are leaving the game for greener pastures? Perhaps...
There is quite a lineup coming out in the Realm of MMORPGs, lets look at a few:
Lord Of The Rings Online - Lots of words in the title.... even more in the game.
I had a chance to beta LOTRO back a few months ago before its release. This game is hands down for the fans of the books and true role players. The game mechanics are nothing special and offer little more then the ability to follow a story line. It dose however borrow from the school of Guildwars/FFXI where there is a set of Story driven quest that will help advance you through the chapters of the game. There are also minor things that erk me about this game... Like the lack of any true Magic users. Bards play the healing class in the game and "motivate" the players back to health. Thats another thing that bothers me about this game is that you have Motivation instead of Health and numerous other naming changes to basic building blocks to MMOs. This bothers me because it changes the way I have to communicate in a game changing common slang and having to learn new acronyms. I did however say that this is one for the role players. There are some cool things like a fully functioning music system built into the game, and also the badge system that lets you earn titles for completing certain tasks. All in all its a decent try at an MMO and will prob do well in the long run once it starts getting user feedback.
Warhammer Online - PvP galore from the people who mastered PvP
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. I have played bits and pieces of this game through friends beta accounts and I am really liking what I am seeing. Even though I am not a huge PvPer myself I can definitely see this game making me one. The quests in this game are based around constant PvP taking place in different "Levels" that are defined to keep the PvP to the correct player ages (levels). The PvP taking place in a level will affect how the quests are given to you and what the objectives of those quest are, thus changing the experience each time through the game. Completing these quest will also help the overall end game RvR game play that takes place. All in all it seems like a good mix of PvE and PvP that should keep you on your toes at all time and eliminate some of the down time found in traditional MMOs.
Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising - ...And now for something completely different.
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. Its a MMO set in a time period that is a little different then the normal run of the mill. There are some cool ideas here including the use of gods... however it is still too early to tell
Guildwars 2:
There is not really any info on this game yet... however takeing that Guildwars was basicly a really long trial and error period... This game should rock something hardcore.
Swords of the New World:
Complete and udder crap...
All in all a pretty exciting lineup for MMORPGers... So much to play so little time to play them... But I definitely see why people are leaving WoW as MMOs move away from a general all in one solution, and move to cater to specific play styles.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
As many of you know World of Warcraft (WoW) has been consuming the PC market (and most of our souls) for some time now. With Blizzards 8 million subscribers spending $15+ a month there are many companies out there right now that want a piece of that 120 million a month pie.
Recent news has shown that WoWs population has been on the decline. This decline in population begs an interesting question: Why is WoWs population in a decline.
Is it lack of content? I would think that the new expansion for the game would solve that issue. Perhaps it is that the content has turned stale? Does that mean that people are leaving the game for greener pastures? Perhaps...
There is quite a lineup coming out in the Realm of MMORPGs, lets look at a few:
Lord Of The Rings Online - Lots of words in the title.... even more in the game.
I had a chance to beta LOTRO back a few months ago before its release. This game is hands down for the fans of the books and true role players. The game mechanics are nothing special and offer little more then the ability to follow a story line. It dose however borrow from the school of Guildwars/FFXI where there is a set of Story driven quest that will help advance you through the chapters of the game. There are also minor things that erk me about this game... Like the lack of any true Magic users. Bards play the healing class in the game and "motivate" the players back to health. Thats another thing that bothers me about this game is that you have Motivation instead of Health and numerous other naming changes to basic building blocks to MMOs. This bothers me because it changes the way I have to communicate in a game changing common slang and having to learn new acronyms. I did however say that this is one for the role players. There are some cool things like a fully functioning music system built into the game, and also the badge system that lets you earn titles for completing certain tasks. All in all its a decent try at an MMO and will prob do well in the long run once it starts getting user feedback.
Warhammer Online - PvP galore from the people who mastered PvP
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. I have played bits and pieces of this game through friends beta accounts and I am really liking what I am seeing. Even though I am not a huge PvPer myself I can definitely see this game making me one. The quests in this game are based around constant PvP taking place in different "Levels" that are defined to keep the PvP to the correct player ages (levels). The PvP taking place in a level will affect how the quests are given to you and what the objectives of those quest are, thus changing the experience each time through the game. Completing these quest will also help the overall end game RvR game play that takes place. All in all it seems like a good mix of PvE and PvP that should keep you on your toes at all time and eliminate some of the down time found in traditional MMOs.
Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising - ...And now for something completely different.
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. Its a MMO set in a time period that is a little different then the normal run of the mill. There are some cool ideas here including the use of gods... however it is still too early to tell
Guildwars 2:
There is not really any info on this game yet... however takeing that Guildwars was basicly a really long trial and error period... This game should rock something hardcore.
Swords of the New World:
Complete and udder crap...
All in all a pretty exciting lineup for MMORPGers... So much to play so little time to play them... But I definitely see why people are leaving WoW as MMOs move away from a general all in one solution, and move to cater to specific play styles.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Nintendo Museum Tour.
I woke up this morning to quite a treat in my Google Reader. Its a little tour of the Nintendo Museum that was placed in a department store in honor of its 100th ani. It is so cool to see anything about Nintendo's past. The company always strives to not only bring the customers what they want but also to adapt to what the market needs. Even though most view them as a company stuck in the past, I see them as trailblazers in that even though they fall to market demands they always seem to have a trick up their sleeve. Anyways enjoy the little video and of course the 8-bit music... never goes out of style...
If you are into the history of Nintendo then I suggest you pick up this book. And if you want something more on the history of video games and their impact on the world this is always a good read.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
If you are into the history of Nintendo then I suggest you pick up this book. And if you want something more on the history of video games and their impact on the world this is always a good read.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
Friday, June 15, 2007
Netflix Challenge
Soooo..... I was talking with Robert, a friend I work with, when he tells me about this challenge that Netfilx puts out about a year ago (http://www.netflixprize.com). The basic idea is that they want a better way to recommend movies, and they want it to the tune of $1,000,000. So here is the catch... you have to make it at least 10% better.
So whats 10% better you may ask... well its all about predicting what users will rate a movie. They use the RMSE or the Root Mean Squared Error. This basically calculates how close you were in predicting the correct rating for users over a large data set. When all is said and done you have to score a RMSE of .8572 or lower just to qualify. This is not an easy task as of the time of this writing no one has qualified and the lowest score is .8782 by team Bellkor.
My first reaction to this problem was that the data set was way to narrow to make anything more then some sophisticated sorting algorithm. My experience with Netflix was all they really take away from your experience with a dvd is a simple 5 star rating. I mean sure all of the basic links are there: Actors, Directors, Writers, Date the movie was made, who produced the movie, what is the general theme of the movie, so on so forth. However there is so much more to a movie then simply what it is about and how made/stared in it. To me it is like saying "I like Pepsi" so they suggest Coke, not really knowing my motivation for liking Pepsi.
Motivation, feeling, past experiences, perception, and current mood all are individual to each client and plays an important role in how they reacts to movies. Some times it only takes one scene to trigger a painful memory to make a 5 star movie a 1 star. It could simply be the person is in a bad mood that day and it can turn a good movie into a bad movie. There is alot of "randomness" in the reaction to movies that depends on alot of hard to track variables. And enough bad data points due to this "randomness" and the whole recommendation system is thrown off.
So at this point I signed up for the challenge and deiced that it would be worth taking a look at the data that they amassed for the example set. There is a basic set of information here including a MovieID, Date of release, CustomerID, Date of rating, and Rating. Not much to go on...
The data is split into three main sections. One being information about the movies. This provides information such as an internal Movie ID, the date of the release (This can either be of the dvd or of the theatrical release... not much use in identifying the time period the movie came from) and of course the title, as it is stored by Netflix, of the movie. The next part is the training data which is split into one file per MovieID. In each file there is a MovieID followed by all CustomerID, Date, and Ratings for that movie. The last section is a file that contains a list of MovieIDs and customers who rated them and on what day.
From this it looks like you could at best single out individuals that seem to have the same taste in movies and recommend movies that people in the group had not seen that others in the group rated higher. This clustering of tastes does not seem like a great solution because from my experience in life just because I agree with someone on one movie dose not mean I will on the next. This is kind of like a model of a book club where each month a group reads a book and then instead of discussing the book at the end of the month everyone just shows up and assumes that they all liked the book for the same reasons.
Anyways for now I am going to load this data up in a database and then start messing around with some C# to see what kind of information I can get out of it... I will post more on this subject as I have some results working with the data.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
So whats 10% better you may ask... well its all about predicting what users will rate a movie. They use the RMSE or the Root Mean Squared Error. This basically calculates how close you were in predicting the correct rating for users over a large data set. When all is said and done you have to score a RMSE of .8572 or lower just to qualify. This is not an easy task as of the time of this writing no one has qualified and the lowest score is .8782 by team Bellkor.
My first reaction to this problem was that the data set was way to narrow to make anything more then some sophisticated sorting algorithm. My experience with Netflix was all they really take away from your experience with a dvd is a simple 5 star rating. I mean sure all of the basic links are there: Actors, Directors, Writers, Date the movie was made, who produced the movie, what is the general theme of the movie, so on so forth. However there is so much more to a movie then simply what it is about and how made/stared in it. To me it is like saying "I like Pepsi" so they suggest Coke, not really knowing my motivation for liking Pepsi.
Motivation, feeling, past experiences, perception, and current mood all are individual to each client and plays an important role in how they reacts to movies. Some times it only takes one scene to trigger a painful memory to make a 5 star movie a 1 star. It could simply be the person is in a bad mood that day and it can turn a good movie into a bad movie. There is alot of "randomness" in the reaction to movies that depends on alot of hard to track variables. And enough bad data points due to this "randomness" and the whole recommendation system is thrown off.
So at this point I signed up for the challenge and deiced that it would be worth taking a look at the data that they amassed for the example set. There is a basic set of information here including a MovieID, Date of release, CustomerID, Date of rating, and Rating. Not much to go on...
The data is split into three main sections. One being information about the movies. This provides information such as an internal Movie ID, the date of the release (This can either be of the dvd or of the theatrical release... not much use in identifying the time period the movie came from) and of course the title, as it is stored by Netflix, of the movie. The next part is the training data which is split into one file per MovieID. In each file there is a MovieID followed by all CustomerID, Date, and Ratings for that movie. The last section is a file that contains a list of MovieIDs and customers who rated them and on what day.
From this it looks like you could at best single out individuals that seem to have the same taste in movies and recommend movies that people in the group had not seen that others in the group rated higher. This clustering of tastes does not seem like a great solution because from my experience in life just because I agree with someone on one movie dose not mean I will on the next. This is kind of like a model of a book club where each month a group reads a book and then instead of discussing the book at the end of the month everyone just shows up and assumes that they all liked the book for the same reasons.
Anyways for now I am going to load this data up in a database and then start messing around with some C# to see what kind of information I can get out of it... I will post more on this subject as I have some results working with the data.
Game Over,
Chris Kincanon
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