Month: January 2015

The gaming world is increasingly getting drawn into the internet …

And not in a good way.

But before I dive into that – “Je Suis Charlie”. People who have heard about the tragedy in Paris today will understand that. You may not agree with the message but the foundation of our society is that people have the freedom to give that message. They should not be ambushed by gun men for that. That’s for barbarians like the taliban.

Most games are played solo or locally, where a single player does Stuff. Things like building cities, shooting bad guys, masterminding an army or playing a role in a magical world. Most of those can be done on the computer or phone/tablet you’re playing the game on, although you might want to connect online to match against human opponents because AI’s are … a bit limited.

The problem is coming in because of the pirate influence.

Game publishers have been losing too much revenue to the criminals and have been desperate for ways around that problem. We’re seeing things like EA’s store and Ubisoft’s Uplay bringing in Digital Rights Management. Steam have it too but only up to a point. Without being on Uplay, you can’t play the game. The consoles have that too, with us seeing Christmas Day spoiled for a lot of console owners due to the actions of a bunch of hacker scumbags who knocked down the Xbox and PSN networks, for a laugh.

A lot of the online connectivity is totally unnecessary too. You should be able to play through a Far Cry or an Assassins Creed totally offline, although I’d support an initial online check to make sure the game isn’t pirated. But the gamer shouldn’t be held hostage to :

Game servers being unavailable
Game servers being taken offline when the publisher thinks the game is dead
(especially single player games)
Microtransactions
The vaguaries of the internet connections
Instability of the servers when they can’t cope with the load.

That’s like – yeah, I was enjoying that city building sim but the train just went into a tunnel and I lost my mobile signal. Now my city is going to rats until the mobile signal comes back. The latest Sim City (and I think The Sims too) are online only, for no apparent reason.

Sometimes the online requirement is true, sometimes it isn’t. I don’t think you’d see a game of the complexity of World of Warcraft possible without it being online only. But a game like Star Wars The Old Republic should have been a shorter single player game, instead of the cash in of a massive multiplayer that it ended up as.

The Elite Dangerous game I’ve been playing is another online only game. It’s producing a lot of controversy because the offline mode was taken away. I have mixed feelings here, as I expected the game to have that offline mode. However … It’s modelling a galaxy of stars with a complex trading mode within. All of the player interactions drive the prices, as they do in a game like Eve, although the player manipulates the economy by buying and selling but not creating like they do in Eve.

Thinking about it, I support that online only mode in Elite Dangerous now, because to do that complex modelling and tracking on the host PC would take immense resources. So :

Positive to online – the calcs are done somewhere else and don’t hit the frame rate / gameplay
Negative – you wouldn’t want to do a trading run on a laptop on a train

And you have to ask yourself the question – what games would I want to be running on a laptop on or off a train ? Personally, I see playing shooter games or action games on a laptop as a kind of abuse of the hardware. But that’s probably because part of my brain believes that hitting the key harder makes you run faster. While you can easily replace worn out keyboards on desktops, you can’t really do that on a laptop.

That’s the big question really.

My desktop gaming (if healthy!) – actiony type games. Online games where I can rely on a good connection.
My travel gaming – simple games. Things like Banner Saga if I get round to playing that. Plague Inc.

There’s another aspect – if you’re so addicted to something like Counterstrike and demand the right to play it on a train, you honestly need to look inwards at that addiction. But … it’s very sad that you wouldn’t be able to do your city building while on the move.

I’m rambling on a bit now …

Digital Rights Management is what’s really driving all this and I see it as a Truly Awful Thing. It breaks a ridiculous amount of software. It’s the reason why launches sometimes go horribly wrong. And it’s only there because the pirates caused it to happen. But there will always be piracy.

The big problem is that the digital rights management is becoming too intrusive. You shouldn’t need to be constantly online or be a hostage to the company servers in order to stay playing a single player game.

Felt strange diving back into work today.

One thing that made it a little different was remembering that we were picking up the pieces from our IT having disasters last year. There’s three big ones at the moment :

The mail servers keep going down catastrophically. Like the server disappears and takes several days to become accessible again.

The phones don’t work properly. A noticeable proportion (possibly even 1 in 4) calls just go to silence.

The videoteleconferencing service (which runs over network type comms) has been broken for a couple of months and it’s not likely to be back up again for at least a month.

I’m not saying who runs the mail servers (gives the game away too much) but the phones and teleconference are supplied by BT. You’d think it’s their core business and would have availabilities in the 99% area wouldn’t you ? Well – I’m glad my home comms have nothing at all to do with BT … (Virginmedia for cable TV and internet, 3 for my mobile).

So a lot of today was spent figuring out what was going on and picking up again. Ok, so not actually too much time spent doing that, it came back very quickly. I must be doing better mentally than after previous holidays.

And that’s true – I’m in better shape (on the outsides at least) than I was after previous holidays since having the skin problem. My legs have been improving and I think my arms would too if I gave them chance. My big problem is that my daily cycle seems to be :

12midnight – bed time. (ish). But …
12 to 4 am – try and get to sleep. Fail.
Fidget while trying to get to sleep. Damage arms more.
4am to 8am (ish) – fitful sleep.

Assess the damage when I wake up.

Work today was ok actually (with one big highlight) but I’m beat now. That’s partly down to feeling a desperate need for a KFC which took me over to the Mall after work. I had a couple of sales targets : New TV, Portable speakers. I’ll wait for the telly but bought a Cambridge Audio GO 2 for midnight cruises when we’re looking at the stars, not driving.

(Wishful thinking possibly – but I hope I see Skye again soon !)

What was that big highlight from work today ? Actually – there were two :

Our Finance Angel is back ! So I manic-waved a hello as I was wandering past her desk. The Finance Angel is a lovely lady with a sublime personality.
Snow Queen ! She works directly one floor down from me now but sad to say, I don’t have too many chances to visit. I did today, which saw me drawing smiles from Snow Queen smiles and natter.

Yep. It’s a good day if I get to talk to Pretty Ladies.

Made a few of them chuckle too by showing them the Happy New Year Dragon :

Hope this is a happy and successful new year. I definitely won’t be playing cricket (the inside of my legs and hips hate me now) but I’m hopeful I’ll see the back of this skin problem and maybe even move on professionally and more importantly, personally.

I’ve been steadily getting addicted to a new game …

It’s still early days at the moment but I’ve climbed ever so slightly in the ranking system so far and I’ve started pimping out my first new ship after the starter that you’re given.

What’s the game ?

It’s Elite Dangerous and it’s the true spiritual successor to a game I was happily addicted to as a kiddie, the original Elite. It brings back gameplay over the pure Newtonian physics models that wrecked the last two games from this series (and which scared me off this one). There is some physics in here, although where it would get in the way of Fun, it’s ignored in favour of scifi cheats that make for a better game.

Did I mention it’s pretty ?

Click for full 1080p goodness.

That’s me in my Adder ship lining up for a docking. In this station, you land on a pad in that bulged cylinder you see in the nearer part of the station, with the pads being on the inside. You get to the inside through the little blue slit you can see me lining up with.

Yep. Pretty game and I’m steadily getting addicted to it.

It’s pulling me into its clutches in a way that WoW couldn’t really do and Eve got close to. The problem with WoW is that it’s keyed to end game content and they’ve steadily dumbed down the game over the years. I dunno, WoW just isn’t my game any more. When I last logged in, I basically did nothing except cycle through characters for 10 minutes and while I considered doing some mob hunting, the interest paled in seconds. Eve satisfies the risk-reward thing of earning money to get bigger and better ships but … you can barely control the ships in that game. It’s tied to the online servers controlling your guns, you don’t do that.

This one seems to be satisfying the single player game hunting aspect of me.

I’ve not had many fights yet, although I did take the shields off a Cobra (a ship a few classes above the Sidewinder I had) before he got my shields down. I ran from that one because that advantage was short lived. But if anyone tries that with my Adder, I’m a lot more confident I can take them down 🙂

That’s not my Adder, it’s a screenie from the forums. I’ll fly the Adder until I have enough capital to get a good Cobra. It’ll be a while …

I’m playing the game with a 3 axis flightstick from Saitek Cyborg. It’s a Fly 5 stick. It’s ok for its cost but I do miss my old MS Force Feedback stick. The problem with this one is that you’re working against springs, rather than the motors in the old MS stick. You have to work harder than you’d like to counter the forces holding it in the middle, which makes for less precision.

But – it’s an ok stick for the £50 it cost me a while ago and it’s sturdy enough to last a while.

Right – dinner bell is going off, so it’s time to hit Post.

See you in the spacelanes (callsign is Cmdr Iceangel) ! Fly safe and may you sweep all pirates before you.

PS There’s one hidden benefit in this game and using the flight stick – it means there’s not enough room on my keyboard table for snacks ! Gaming as a diet technique ? Haha – maybe.

Happy New Year everyone !

Another A to Z post has been rather overdue … Although saying that, I’m not through listening to the T albums quite yet. Where to start with S ?

Mark Knopfler has done a few solo albums since Dire Straits finished, Sailing to Philadelphia is one of them. Not a bad album, highlight is Speedway to Nazareth.

One of my early favourite albums was Say Something Good by River City People. This had an outstanding cover of California Dreamin’ but you’ve heard that one. This album has a bunch of cracking songs on it, including the one that kicks off the album, What’s Wrong With Dreaming. What is wrong with dreaming ?

I started collecting Texas again and they’re in here with Say What You Want and I’ll go right back to I Don’t Want A Lover from Southside for my highlight here. One thing Sharleen Spiteri shares with Siobhan Maher of River City People is one incredible voice with massive range.

And talking of a singer with an incredible voice, there’s Scarlet and Other Stories by All About Eve. There’s a lot of story telling on this album and many highlights. Including … Scarlet, Blind Lemon Sam and the poignant The Pearl Fishermen. (struggling for links cos the swines are putting full adverts on and monetizing other people’s works – I’m not linking those)

The incredible voices keep coming, this time it’s Tori Amos with Scarlet’s Walk. I’ve linked my favourite (I Can’t See New York) a bunch of times but there’s many more excellent songs here, including the title track, Scarlet’s Walk.

Scissor Sisters are a bit of a departure for me, a taste of the unusual. And I seem to like songs called Laura for some reason … (Perhaps I’m remembering someone I haven’t seen for too long ?)

Lisa Hannigan is another who owns an incredible voice, although the strength of this one is partly in its fragility shown off in Sea Sew with I Don’t Know.

I don’t just listen to female singers, blokes like Seal catch my ear too. He has a habit of calling his albums after himself and there are two of those here (plus Soul). Highlights from each are his breakthrough hit Killer, Fast Changes and …

Few quick ones :

Katie Melua’s Secret Symphony is another pleasant album from her.
Peter Gabriel’s Security was another strange album from him
While his So was rather commercial. Good but … not his distinctiveness
Levellers See Nothing, Hear Nothing, Do Something is typically them
Kate Bush’s Sensual World is possibly her last good album (highlight Deeper Understanding)
Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was a wonderful experiment.
While their Somewhere In Time is more familiar 

There’s soundtracks here too :
Settlers 2 and IV, Star Wars (from episodes 1, 4, 5 and 6)
Shadowrun Returns – good stuff here, it sets off the game well.
Sid Meier’s Colonization (must play that)
Star Trek’s here too !

Back to the incredible voices we go with the first Goldfrapp album I bought, Seventh Tree. This is a fantastic album to close your eyes and relax too. Goldfrapp in wonderfully chilled out mode with tracks like Road To Somewhere.

The Beatles are here ! With Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I’d own more Beatles albums but they are ridiculously overpriced for such old albums. Highlight here is With A Little Help From My Friends.

After picking up on The Cranberries (check out Linger), I remembered Shakespears Sister as a similar band from that time. They’re not quite as good as I remember, although Stay is still worthy of a listen now.

Few more quickies (lots of S albums here !) :
Lily Allen came back with a Swear-Bomb Bang with Sheezus, more likeable nonsense !
Enya’s second was Shepherd Moons with the ethereal Caribbean Blue
Michelle Shocked’s Short Sharp Shocked has a few protests
The Pretender’s collection of Singles pleasantly surprised me
Clannad’s Sirius is the best of their pop-commercial style albums
Sadly the best track on Sixpence None The Richer’s self titled album is a cover of There She Goes
Bon Jovi shows up with Slippery When Wet, bit too impressed with himself for me to be honest
Alanis Morissette is here with So Called Chaos, not as inspired as Jagged Little Pill
Coves disappointed me a bit with Soft Friday

Another excellent voice that’s come into my awareness is Caro Emerald. It’s an older night club type style supported by an outstanding voice. The album is the Shocking Miss Emerald and my highlight is Liquid Lunch showing off her sense of humour too.

Sleeper are here with Smart, with possibly my signature track, Pyrotechnician. Kiss Your Fingers Goodbye. (I’m not that bad with fire – honest)

I heard the track that titles this collection in Tesco the other day, still makes me stop and listen. It’s Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly With His Song.

I’ve followed Suzanne Vega for a long time too. That pure voice continues to enchant, although here we go back to the very old Solitude Standing with Calypso. Her Songs In Red And Grey is here too.

More quickies (so many S albums !)
Robbie’s Songbook is here … another collection album. Yawn.
Maroon 5 started up with Songs About Jane, with the lovely She Will Be Loved.
Snow Patrol’s Songs For Polar Bears was a bit … meh.
Mike Oldfield’s Songs For Distant Earth has its moments
U2’s Songs of Innocence cause way too much controversy for a rather so-so freebie
Ennio Morricone has penned the soundtracks to some very distinctive films

And I think I’ll break it there and make a Part 2 soon … So many S albums !

Last one is by the Ting Tings (and there’s a second in Part 2) – Sounds From Nowheresville was their second and continues the quirky theme of the first. I like this album, with tracks like Soul Killing.

Cya soon 🙂

PS I’m steadily getting more addicted to Elite Dangerous. I upgraded my ship to an Adder and am steadily pimping it out …