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So I have always liked submarines, I think they are pretty neat.  I have wanted to create a 3D sub for a while and finally decided to get started on one..  Instead of going with a more modern design I went with one of the most popular submarine designs of old; the German type VII.   I also have to admit that another reason for this design is that I like the game “Silent Hunter” and the fifth installment of the game is coming out this year.

As I work on it, I’ll post images here to show where I am at and as with all my other posts the top most image will show the latest image or render.

I’m creating this entirely in Modo 401 using my Wacom tablet with the intent to make it as photo-realistic as possible.  That’s gonna be tough because it will force me to model everything in sub-d and it will really make me have to pay very special attention to my models materials, the shader tree and lighting..

The first 3 or 4 hours was scouring the net trying to find a set of plans for this boat.  Believe it or not it was harder than one might think..

The initial shape

+3 hours – Getting the initial shape - After getting my work area setup and getting the backdrops in place I was able to do this.  Not perfect, but not a bad start for getting the basic body shape down.  Next I’m going to try to form the outer hull actually into the bulb shape you see there.. for now that’s an additional mesh just sitting there.

Shape Refinement

+3 hours – Shape refinement – So I know it doesn’t look much different but it is.. I have refined the hull shape a lot so that now the top deck area is actually the shape it should be for holding the conning tower and what not.  But more importantly I have actually added those side bulges to the model such that they are part of the main layer and can be subdivided nicely.  No more having one model poke through another model.  Ding! “You have gained a level!”

It may sound like a simple thing but it’s actually complex if you’re coming from hard body modeling to subdivision modeling.

Front Wire Cutters

+3 hours – Front wire cutters – So I spent the better part of these three hours getting the front wire cutters (I guess that’s what they are) looking right under subd and making sure they smoothly transitioned into the rest of the mesh.  Good times.  It took longer than I wanted because I had some serious symmetry issues that I wasn’t sure how to sort out.  Thankfully, Modo has a Symmetry tool that does it all for you!  It’s just magic.. No clue how the hell that works.

I have also been researching what I want the top part of the boat to look like.. I wanted to keep the boat as accurate as possible and my research has lead me to believe that every fricken one of these boats was different..  For some reason I had it in my mind that manufacturing back then would be similar to how it is today.. But I guess I have to keep in mind that these things were built one at a time and each one was hand crafted.. So they tend to be a tad different from one another..

The more I work on this the more I think I would really like to visit a real one of these if for no other reason than to just gawk at it..

Conning Tower

+ 5 hours – The beginnings of a conning tower - I started and restarted this conning tower probably 10 times and even now I’m not 100% happy with it.   I kept going back and forth with the design as well as the number of tiers it would have.  This one has 2 which means this is a type VII-C or later as it will have two flak guns as opposed to only one.

It’s been hard to find plans with anything close to this so a lot of what I am doing comes from this kit built by Guillermo Martinez Baz..  Nice looking model Guillermo..

The shape of the tower has a lot of gentle curves and odd shapes so I have had to play with and learn the falloff tools a lot better in modo.. It was a great learning experience but I didn’t get a lot of work done for the 5 hours I spent on it..

Also the more I study Guillermo’s real world plastic model, the more I think my model is way off in some places..  My decking at the top of the model for example isn’t correct by a long shot.  Probably want I’m going to do is actually build an inner cigar shaped tube where the people would be to get some idea of why the exterior is shaped the way it is..

First Actual Render

+2 hours – The first actual render – So here you have the very first render of my entirely incomplete Type VII-C German U-Boat.  My goal is to have it render out with that underwater look but for now I’m going to make it really bright so I can see all the defects..

I still have a very long way to go.. I’m still working on the conning tower area as that will have a lot of detail.  I need to merge the two layers too so that the conning tower actually connects to the sub body, as right now they don’t.  Still having fun!  That’s what counts..

Details and Lighting

+4 hours – Adding detail and lighting – So there isn’t much of a change to the model here other than for details that are hard to see, and the obvious lighting differences.  I’m going to be making the necessary detail changes to the model to make it look better and better slowly over time, but I’m also going to be working on texturing and lighting while I can.

I have also learned that its not necessary to make everything part of the main mesh.. It’s okay to have sub-d elements in different layers so long as it looks okay.  The idea being if in the real world something is made of a single piece of metal then sure one layer is appropriate, otherwise more than one is fine..

Tail Features

+7 hours – Tail Features – I have spent a good portion of the day working on the tail features of my sub as well as generally mucking around with the over all look of the boat.   But primarily, the rear dive plains, propeller shafts, rudders, supports, struts..etc..  I have a long way to go but this put a nice dent into the rear features that up to this point were completely missing.

During this process it occurred to me that I don’t know which way the props should be twisted.. And I kind of assumed that they counter rotate.. So if that is way off some one please tell me..  The rudders are actually to scale according to the plans I have but damn they look big.. And my plans arent accurate at all with how far apart the propellers are, and so I did my best to “Guesstimate” and I think I blew it..  They seem a little too close together..

The more I work on this thing the more I hate how some of it has come out.. I spent such a long time getting those side bulges working and now I think they are too prominent..  The top decking is all wrong too in a few places..   Still I know I should give myself a break.. I mean this wont be a perfect thing no matter how hard I try.. I just don’t have the skills yet..  But I am going to work at it..  But my dreams of making this thing photo realistic likely wont happen at all..

And I haven’t even started to ruin the textures..

Star Trek Online Review

Firstly I want to say that I personally think it’s extremely hard to judge a game entirely by the first 15 levels.. Any MMO to date that one cares to name changes drastically as you play across the level range and to judge that game by the first couple levels is simply foolish. You haven’t experienced the whole of the game.. So I’m going to post my review about it, but I want you to keep in mind that there are going to be a lot of things I simply haven’t done yet..

Also, there are a lot of people on the forums bashing the game for one reason or another, some reasons are valid, some aren’t. I would argue that most of those people really haven’t truly experienced the game in its fullest, but at the same time I will concede the point that if it doesn’t appeal to them early on, it may not later either and that they should just move on without the flames.

What you’re not seeing on the forums is the influx of praise or posts by people who are largely happy, not because they don’t exist but rather because the complainers are typically a lot more vocal minority.. People that complain loudly are typically those people who think they are righteous and have entitlement issues..  They are “right and by god you’re gonna know my opinion..”

So with that — here’s my righteous opinion on the the first 15 levels of fed play and the first 12 or so of Klingon.. I only really have 2 major complaints.

But first some general over arching comments — please keep in mind there is no order to my thoughts;

The server’s are completely flooded and Cryptic wasn’t ready for the load.. Completely understandable if you consider that they just opened up the beta for quite possibly the single most popular science fiction IP on the planet. (Is star trek more popular than star wars? I don’t actually know..) They are aware of the issue and have stated repeatedly that they are taking action to fix it. Kudos guys.

I have seen people bitch that “this has been the worst beta ever” and that simply isn’t true.  Not even close.  I’m pretty sure Anarchy Online still holds that title firmly, and likely will forever..  In fact I don’t really think this beta has been all that bad considering the volume of traffic they are getting.. Sure there are queues, server lag, and disconnects but all of those are brought about by the volume of players..  In fact the majority of the issues the game has can likely be traced back to simple server lag due to volume.

Is it bug free?  no.   But then neither is WoW or EQ and those games have been out for years. I don’t really understand why people expect a brand new game to be bug free.. *shrug*  I do take it as a very positive sign that they have patched the game every night during the open beta..  That implies to me that they are actively working on the issues which is great.

I think the game graphics look good.. I have seen quite a few threads on the forums about how they graphics look poor, and I just don’t agree. It doesn’t look photo realistic like some of the very early preview teaser images did years ago, but that’s okay.. It looks good and succeeds in suspending my disbelief into thinking I’m playing a game in a Star Trek universe.

The UI is good though the map system needs to be better explained. It took me a while to understand the area map and the galaxy map and why some systems were in my system list some of the time, and not in my list other parts of the time..etc.. It’s easy once you understand it but completely confusing while you don’t..  Lack of documentation or explanation is almost a theme in this game..

The skills are confusing but mostly because they don’t explain what they do well enough. It also doesn’t explain well enough things like your characters class to ship class combination’s.. Is it a bad idea to be an engineer, in a science ship? Why? If it is bad that means if you go science you’re stuck in the same 2 ships for 20 levels.. ouch.. (maybe longer, I don’t know what ships are available at T3)

What does +18 in Science Vessel Captain actually do for me? Games like WoW, Eve, and even Champions to some degree have a LOT of math behind it.. This game clearly does too but you don’t really expose that math to the players in a clear way. A lot of players, myself included, actually enjoy pondering the right character build and the best way we can achieve what it is we want to such a degree as to actually build spreadsheets.. Eve is a game totally about spreadsheets ( a little too spreadsheety at times ) and players love that.. Expose those numbers to us.. Let us know what skilling up something actually does, or all of those skills you invested all that time in to create for us mean nothing.

I’m sure all of these things will be documented eventually but right now it smacks of information that the developers all know and think of as obvious where as the players coming to it for the first time just stand there confused.   Documentation is your friend.

The ground combat is a little weak right now and I personally think it’s boring, repetitive and painfully scripted but I think it will develop over time.  It very much smacks of CoH door missions and that system needs more versatility.  Give players options that change the outcome.. etc..   I can’t say as I enjoy the ground combat much though because every game to date has been about ground combat.  I’m much more interested in the space combat, that being said they still have a lot of work to do on the ground if they plan to serve both..

As to space combat, Right now I can say I really enjoy it though it gets very “samey” pretty quickly.    I think that’s largely due to the fact that I have experienced basically 4 ships total..  And flying around seeing nothing (mostly) but Miranda ships get’s old..

Personally I hope there are a lot more ships in the game come release. I love how the ships are customizable but there still aren’t enough chassis and what not to choose from. Maybe that gets better later on, but in the beginning its weak as you have 1 ship. Then when you level up to get your tier two ships, you have a choice of three technically but since you already decided your officer type (tactical, engineer or science) you only really have 1 logical choice.

I think players identify with their avatars a lot more than most game creators take into account and as such they need to give us even more options.  Plus the ability to add fleet markings would be handy.  It’s minor I know, but it helps establish community and a sense of pride which is important in an MMO.

I could make a long list of other complaints like, why did they go with left and right versus port and starboard.. Or why isn’t there any Klingon PVE play etc.. but really at this point I’d rather talk about whats there than what’s NOT there.. So with that — I have two complaints:

Major Complaint One — One of the worst mistakes they could make in this game is the same thing that in my mind killed the City franchise and Champions.. I’m gonna call it “Mission leveling” for the lack of a better term. The concept is this; You get a mission and the more people that do the mission with you, the harder the mission gets. So if you solo a mission you fight one or two weak mobs, but if you bring a whole group suddenly its 3 or 4 hard hitting bosses and several weaker mobs..etc..

Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but CoH and CO proved it to be a horrible idea because it actually encourages players to NOT group.. this kills the need for “community”.. More over it gives players no sense of accomplishment because they know a mission is simply a cake walk if they solo it. There should be things in the game that require groups and missions should be statically leveled.  Do away with this balancing thing..It’s a failed experiment..

You should be able to get missions that are so hard you can’t do it without help.. Missions that scale like they do is just a bad design and this is the third time they have done it..

A mission that is the same level as you, should present you with mobs that are roughly the same as you.. If it’s a higher level mission they should be harder hitting.. if it’s lower level they should be weaker..etc..

I realize that this is very much the WoW and EQ model for doing quests but it has stood the test of time and it’s a known..  Right now I can’t help but think they have broken this very simple concept.

Major Complaint Two –  I want crafting.. I want to be able to harvest asteroids like in Eve and create stuff.. I can’t fathom an MMO game that has virtually no crafting system what so ever..  And sorry but the current system they have that they say is like crafting simply isn’t.

Mindlessly warping around a mission looking for the various anomolies that you get crap from that let you turn in for an upgraded item.. yeah that’s not crafting.. I hope they fix that..

In the end there is a little bit of the “city of star trek” that I was worried about in my earlier post.  There is a little bit of champions in it.. there is a little of city in it.. etc..  Cryptic is going with what they know.. But they might have enough of a winner here because its sort of two games in one (space and ground) and with the addition of PVP in both places you sorta have 4 games in one..  Now consider the ability to play both sides, federation or klingon and now its x2 again..

There might be enough different options to keep this game going for a while.. I’m enjoying it for now at least..

Star Trek Online

Why I think they might actually have gotten it right.

Firstly, I was really worried when I found out the end game for STO would be PVP-centric.  That just doesn’t really work normally for any number of reasons which I wont go into just yet.. Traditionally if you look at all the major (even minor) MMO’s out there that have tried, you’ll see that they have generally failed or aren’t entirely PVP based.. Eve Online being one that hasn’t failed and does really well, but I believe that’s largely due to being the only game in it’s market. By and large however, PVP only games just don’t do that well with the masses..

I believe that there are 4 primary reasons for PVP being problematic in most games:

1. PVP allows Player X to have an immediate and often negative impact on Player Y’s game play experience. This means that Player Y could possibly have his game play impacted by another player in such a way as to prevent him from enjoying or even advancing in the game. Removing the “fun” from the game for Player Y entirely.

2. Good PVP and Smart PVP are two mutually exclusive concepts. “Good” PVP is playing against another person where things are evenly matched in terms of player skills, character skills, gear, etc.. The fight is even odds and could go either way and as such, is a “fair” fight.. “Smart” PVP is employing any tactic that would give the player any form of advantage over the intended target — fairness doesn’t enter into it. In fact the more unfair the fight is, the better.  Since most players always try to play smartly, the target of that doesn’t have fun.

3. Everyone loses eventually, and most players lose most of the time. This is simply math and has been proven time and again. In any PVP engagement, you will eventually lose. And most players, yes you too, lose most of the time. It’s a mathematical inevitability.  People don’t like to lose as it’s not fun.

4. Character skills and gear out weigh, player skills and gear every time. In most PVP games it just about always pans out that the higher level and better equipped character will simply dominate the lower level character, regardless of the players skill or equipment. So no matter how awesome you are on your level 45 warlock, that level 50 paladin will simply slaughter you while watching TV and eating some pizza.. not fun.

Why are these things bad?  Well first of all you might have noticed I used “fun” in each point.  Games are first and foremost about fun.  If you aren’t having fun then most likely you’re not going to play very long.

I think someone at cryptic looked at these facts and made the right decision to make PVP opt-in only.  Let’s look at each issue in turn;

The first one can actually punish a player, just for playing the game. They might be having fun mining asteroids for example, wanting nothing to do with other people only to have their experience tainted by someone else..  I think most hard core PVP players completely miss the fact that what is fun for them, isn’t the same thing as what’s fun for everyone else and games are first and foremost about fun for everyone.  STO has made PVP an opt-in system so that you must knowingly go to the various PVP zones in order to do any form of PVP.  If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.

This opt-in methodology also largely solves the second issue. You can’t be gate camped or ganked or griefed by a roaming pack of players in the regular world.. You must go into the PVP area where you acknowledge the possibility and most likely will bring your own posse..

If you know PVP is opt-in, then you wont mind losing on occasion.  STO makes the PVP very “Zerg” like in that if you do lose, you just respawn and off you go again.. So really dying a lot doesn’t matter all that much. So who cares if you lose more than you win.. It’s still fun!

And so far the ship buffs/abilities and stats don’t really seem to matter.   In my lowbie T1 Miranda class ship I was able to take out T2 ships in PVP.  I don’t know if this was due to my better understanding of shield and power management or if my equipment was better or if I was a better player..  Or if I was just lucky!  But right now it seems like player skill actually matters a great deal more than everything else..

I think it could work here..

A lot of folks are bitching about not having open realm PVP though and those people irritate me..

Their primary complaint is that they should be able to attack any other player at any time.. And they always gloss it over with reasons why it would be canonically correct in a Star Trek universe..blah blah blah..

Let’s be clear;  the only people that would disagree with the opt-in PVP system are the PVP players who are the ones most offended by the notion that they some how do something “unfair” by attacking people that aren’t as skilled, have no desire to participate, or who aren’t in anyway ready for the PVP conflict they are suddenly thrust into without any option.   Simply put,  they are griefers who enjoy ruining other peoples game by taking out the easy target.

I’m an old school PVP player from EVE online.  I have also PVP’d in EQ and WoW so I know where I’m coming from here.

In EVE when I went into a fight, I made damn sure it was going to be a fight I was going to win or at least had a good chance of winning.  If I didn’t think it would go my way, I would unass the AO ASAP.

If I was going to steal jet can’s (Yes I did that..) I made sure my target was someone I knew I could steal from without being instakilled.   When camping a gate in EVE I wouldn’t do it alone, but rather would bring a whole crew — why?  ’cause I wanted to win!

It’s just smart PVP — don’t engage in a fight you can’t win.  The same notion is employed by modern day generals when waging war..  Don’t play fair!!  Smart PVP will never be fair if the PVP’er knows what he is doing. A fair fight will get you killed every time.

There are a lot of players though who will never want to be apart of that world.. they want to play the game to have fun, and not PVP and they should be allowed to do so.   For them the fun is playing against the system and NPC’s.. It’s the same reason why raiding end game bosses in WoW and EQ is fun.. It’s the challenge of beating the system..   Whether you, the hard core PVP’er, agree is completely immaterial.

Thus when you attack them unprovoked in systems that allow for that, they rightly call you a griefer because you’re interrupting their fun.    I have griefed in my time, and been griefed.. so I understand..

The game designers in STO have rightly realized that it’s an absolute imperitive to make the game fun for as many people as possible, and to do that PVP must be opt-in.  It’s the only way to keep the largest portion of the population happy.

The simple fact of the matter is, if you attack someone who doesn’t want to be attacked then you’re negatively affecting their game play.  And the larger picture is;  Doing so will in many cases drive those players away from the game, which means now you’re negatively affecting the developing studio’s bottom line.  “Carebears”, a term I hate, are by far the largest segment of the market and keeping them happy keeps the game afloat.

Kudos Cryptic.

I weighed all the numbers and researched all the sites and came to the conclusion that the only thing the X10 had over the Nexus One was the price tag.   From what one site was guessing the SE offering was going to be pretty pricey.  Plus, SE has done a lot to customize their interface but I think they are over doing it a tad.  It looks cool, sure but every video I watched showed the interface to be laggy and/or buggy.  And while I’m sure it was still very early in their development cycle it still put me off.

The Nexus One had all the features I wanted in a modern package, using a new modern OS with all the amenities at what I figure is a reasonable price.  Plus, it’s built by Google who employ developers and engineers who are just as geeky as I am, so I was pretty sure it would be good.  I wasn’t disappointed.

I can honestly say this is the best device I have ever had.   I love it.   I ordered the phone the day it was released, and had it in my hands 2 days later thanks to Google’s free over night FedEx shipping, complete with my custom engraving on the back..   Engraving meant that I wouldn’t be able to return it if I didn’t like it, so that was a bit of a concern while I was ordering it but if I knew then what I know now it would have been an easy choice.   At the time I was thinking that getting one without a way to return it was risky..

The price was good.  I decided to get the $179 version instead of buying the unlocked one.  I may regret that later as typically I always get unlocked.. but the more I looked at it there was no point to getting it unlocked as it only really supported the 3G frequencies of one network.  So.. $179 it was..   Not a bad price at all when you consider isuppli estimates the phone cost google roughly $174.15 to make it in the first place.

Honestly, in all this I think Google’s biggest mistake is not having some place where people can put their hands on a device.   I’m told customer support is pretty lacking too unfortunately..  I’m pretty sure that google simple wasn’t prepared for the demand..  But really they need to go ahead and get this device into the hands of stores.. Let people pick it up!   Most likely you’ve gotten all the early adopters you’re going to get, now is the time to shuffle it out to the stores so the masses can get a hold of it.

I think if the hold outs just got the device in their hands they’d see that the device itself is rock solid.  I love how everything just works.  Little things that were an issue with the iphone (granted it’s a gen one iphone) this phone doesn’t have.   Everything just works.

Streaming Music from a site of my choosing ( http://di.fm highly recommended ) ?  Yeah that works..  Streaming music that requires an authentication?  Yeah that works..  Straight to your A2DP stereo bluetooth headset?  yeah that works..  Put the phone down and leave it for 2 hours while you’re doing something else.. come back and just poke play on your headset to resume?  Yeah.. that works too..   Been listening to some vocal trance the whole time I wrote this, and I’ve been wandering around the house a bit too..

None of that worked on my iphone.   And the bluetooth antenna rocks btw.. my iphone to headset pairing was weak and kinda crappy.. Not here — the pairing is good and I have yet to have static or noise creep in unlike on the iphone.

Just more examples of how good the hardware is.  I think google really was trying to build the cadillac of phones.    When ordering, I was concerned about the make of the product — I was worried it would be flimsy or weak in some ways but its not at all.  The hardware feels solid though it does suffer the same “greasy screen” issues that all modern phones suffer.  I will say this for the iphone, it felt solid.  This phone feels the same way.  It’s a teeny-tiny bit larger than the iphone so it doesn’t fit in the belt case I like.. damn it.. heh but the weight is about the same.

The new OLED screen is amazing.  Sitting next to my iPhone at with the N1 at half brightness, its much brighter than the iphone.  In fact it makes the iphones screen look dull by comparison.

I think android 2.1 works great, I have yet to run into any problems..  I have read that some people have found bugs but I haven’t seen any..  Maybe I don’t know what to look for.. I dunno.

The call quality is good and more importantly the audio levels are high enough I can hear in a noisy room.  One of my main complaints with my iphone was that if there was ANY ambient noise I simply couldn’t hear someone on the phone, and the speaker phone was a joke.  The speaker phone on the Nexus still isn’t as loud as I would like, but its far better than the iphone.    My Nokia Communicator had a GREAT speakerphone.. clearly phone makers need to contact the nokia folks and find out how its done..

Like I keep saying.. it just works.. yay!

Issues as I see them so far;

Googles grand plan is to change the face of the cell phone industry by offering a device that can doesn’t limit you to a carrier.  Amen Brother.   But then they tether it to T-Mobile?  I can’t help but think that this was a mistake.   In my opinion the number 1 killer of the iPhone was AT&T.  Here in the Austin area the network is so saturated that it doesn’t work.  AT&T simply wasn’t ready to handle the influx of customers that the iPhone generated.  T-Mobile (formerly VoiceStream) will suffer the same problem if the Nexus is even remotely as popular as the iphone was when it hit the market.

I know they are releasing other versions of the phone to other carriers, but how does that change what we have today?  You’re still locked to a network.   More over, even if you purchased the unlocked version of the phone you’re still tied to one network due to 3G frequencies ..etc..  For example;  Right now this phone won’t work with AT&T’s 3G network. Period.

We shall see..

It’s still a new offering and I was a day one adopter so I don’t know if this is a fair criticism on my part, but there are ZERO accessories for this sucker.  I know give it a month.. but still.  I want a stand.. some carrying case options.. some screen protection options..etc..

What the hell is the point of the track ball?   I’m worried about the track ball popping out or in some way breaking.. It’s the only part of the phone that concerns me because it kinda sticks out.    And it really seems to serve no purpose..   Again it’s something that folks can use so we will likely see games that use it soon.

I just had another complaint pop into and out of my head before I could write it down and now I can’t remember what it was.. damn it..

It’s not perfect.. but it’s a wonderful device.

I hate the question “Is it the iphone killer”.. that’s just a retarded question.. It’s a damn good device, hows that?  I think for googles first try, its awesome and worth every penny.

As of this writing the price of gold is at $1120 an ounce which is an all time high.  That alone should be your first indication that;  Now is not the time to buy gold!

The price of Gold is where it’s at right now because of the economy and because gold sellers are driving the cost up through fear.  They want you to go buy their gold so that they make money.  Period.  They don’t give a crap about the economy, your we being or future or any of the other BS they try to sling on the commercials.  Stated simply, they are in the business of making money and they are trying to do so at your expense.

The only “winner” when you buy gold at these prices are the companies selling the gold as they will make out like bandits having sold gold to you at over a thousand dollars an ounce. You wont be saving money, instead you’ll be giving your money to these unscrupulous companies who are doing their best through fear to drive the price as high as it can go before it crashes.  And it will crash.  Let me explain why;

See.. Gold is a commodity and a standard.  As such, it’s value never really changes.  What changes is the dollars value in relation to the gold.. So when you see golds value go up, what you’re actually seeing is the dollar go down.  When you have say 10 ounces of gold worth $3000, and suddenly that prices shoots to $10000 what you’re actually seeing is the value of the dollar shoot down.  10 ounces of gold is still just 10 ounces of gold.

When the dollar strengthens again (as it always does) you’ll see the price of gold go back down to something more reasonable.  This is why I say gold WILL crash..  that means that the folks who purchased gold at $1120 an ounce will take it on the chin..

I’m not saying that you should never buy gold.. Actually I think gold can be a good thing to buy, but only when the dollar is very strong (and thus the price of gold is lower).

Some might wonder why the single most popular science fiction franchise in the history of media has taken so long to be turned into an MMO, myself included — But I think it’s a better use of our efforts to instead not speculate too much on the why of it but rather to channel that raw emotion and energy into the heart felt desire for STO to not suck.

Let’s be honest here, Cryptic Studios is very good at bringing out games that look kinda keen, but have zero long term playability.   City of Heroes and City of Villains suffered from this, and the successor Champions Online (City of Champions?) was even worse.   They looked great, but for whatever reason they just didn’t have the sticking power to keep players interested.

Will STO be the same thing?  Look good initially and maybe be fun for a week or two, but rapidly drag down into a grind-tastic mess?  God I hope not..

I can’t actually put my finger on what it is about CoH/CoV and CO that make them lose their fun.  I will say that of the three, I think City of Villains was the best with regards to game play but that was primarily due to the controller character architecture.  What can I say; I enjoyed having a pack of zombies at my disposal..

Game play wise though, all of them got very boring and repeatative very very quickly.

One of the main cool points about the game was the ability to make all your characters 100% unique, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder if that was part of it’s downfall too..  When you look at games that have a more ridgid class structure you end up having a sort of community around that class, and with that community you have competition.  “Oh yeah? Well I’m a better Warlock than you are.. and I’ll prove it!!”  etc..

Players end up putting a lot of time and effort in to trying to make their cookie cutter class stand out from all the other cookie cutter classes.  That in and of itself forces a person to form a bond or an identity with their character making them want to keep playing..

When you can start your characters virtual life as being 100% unique, you have one less thing to strive for..  So while it’s really cool I can go out of my way to make my character look completely different.. it doesn’t lend itself to longevity..

This also completely ruins the whole sense of community around a given class which is a problem.. What’s more community is completely thrashed by the total lack of classes where group play happens..  The open architecture of characters, while initially cool, makes group forming painful because suddenly you can’t say “We need a healer” and know that there are only 3 or 4 basic classes that heal..

STO appears to have classes with regards to ships; tanks, dps, and support ships.  So that’s a damn good sign.  I’m hoping the realize the issues I described above and are working to correct the issue.. But I still have fears about the game as a whole..

For example; I absolutely cringe at the notion of wandering around a space station and having random NPC’s run up and yell about how awesome I am like they did in CoH/CoV and CO..  Please rip that page out of the CoH/CoV/CO hand book and burn it..

I also worry that the game’s look (read: graphics) are dated even before the game has been released.  Cryptic has always intentionally made their games sort of “middle of the road” with regards to hardware requirements so it’s very likely that the game will not be super high quality, but even so they screen shots look very lack-luster.   These could all be beta shots with poor textures or something, but I doubt it.

I’m the first to admit that gameplay comes over graphics every time though, so if the game play is good then I can forgive just about any graphics decisions.. But then they aren’t known for their game play so its easy to jump to conclusions..

I guess my greatest fear is that Star Trek Online will end up being “City of Star Trek” and will be to Star Trek, what the original Star Wars MMO was to Star Wars. (Read: Horrible)

Electric Violin

So I had said previously that my musical talent ended pretty much at the ability to play the radio, and that I hated that..  I wrote that entry back in July of ‘08 and I still hate it..

I have been looking around for ideas of what to play and am still undecided.. I have a nice piano so my investment there at this point would be only time, but I am not interested in it — it still doesn’t inspire me..  I still like the idea of the Chapman stick but the cost is just unreasonable and frankly the alternative is not as pretty (yes that matters) not to mention they have horrible business tactics which I don’t appreciate..

I thought about getting a guitar and may still do that as there’s a ton of info out there for free as well as an awesome assortment of equipment.. So baring anything else.. I’ll do that.. I can get a guitar on the cheap and I have 4 or 5 friends that have offered to loan me an instrument..

Having said that, of late a coworker of mine has gotten me interested in learning the violin or viola..   Plus I have done a lot of looking online and I have to admit they look fun..  The concept of an electric violin appeals to me.. hehe

I think I like the sound of the viola more than that of the violin but it seems to me that everything out there is aimed more at teaching you the violin, and then you convert that knowledge to the viola or the cello..  As I understand it the knowledge transfers quit easily and I wouldn’t be surprised if way back in history “Violin” translates to “small Viola”.. heh

What’s really funny is I like the idea of an electric violin the most.. Primarily because I know its something that I could build..  I know.. whacky.. but I’m a damn good carpenter and frankly they don’t look hard to build..  I have watched quite a few videos of them being made and to be honest, the only thing I need is the measurements..

Not sure how the sound is picked up though — it appears to be a crystal in the bridge which makes sense, since unlike an electric guitar there are no metal strings.. Beyond that making sure strings are correctly isolated and that the measurements are sound it seems easy..

I’m not going to rush out of build one of course.. I mean if you can’t play it what’s the point..

I have purchased several books and am reading up on the violin though as I think it’s something I’d like to start doing.. I have wasted enough of my life sans music, it’s time to start picking something up..  I found a place here in town that rents very nice violins for as low as $20-$30 a month and they have a looong list of instructors..

I have told the wife of the plans and she seemed opened to it..  Good thing too as I’m sure for a while its going to sound like I’m torturing a cat to death..  I also have looked into various forms of “muffles” for violins so that I don’t drive her completely insane..

More reading and video watching though to try to make sure it’s what I want to do..

On a side note;  I have watched a lot of YouTube video’s recently of people playing all manner of instruments and I’m just stunned and amazed at the varitey of talent there is out in the world..

Some of you are fantastic!  Some.. not so much.. heh..  Gotta take the good with the bad I suppose..

But it just amazes me the number of people who record themselves performing their art for others to watch and even critique.. (though to be honest you’re better off just closing the “text comments” and never ever reading them again.. It’s also stunning how completely rude people are considering folks are opening themselves up to constructive comments, not unhelpful bad-mouthing by someone who couldn’t even perform to the level they are bashing.)

Kelly Iverson (“The Lady”) and Mark Allen (“Doc Parsons”) are a fantastic example of people who love what they do and do it for our enjoyment.. they also show nicely that a well played guitar sounds wonderful with a well played violin.. Thanks guys, well done..

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Some of the instruments are .. uh.. odd.. to say the least.. For example, the following is a nyckelharpa and a hurdy gurdy duo — Stick around for the whole thing:

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Wasn’t that great?!  I mean two instruments that absolutely fill the space with sound.. I’m not sure another instrument would fit in there.. heh

I had never heard of a Nyckelharpa before but apparently it’s a traditional Swedish instrument from the 14th century.. Very cool.. There are a lot of youtube videos of people playing them and they are neat..  The hurdy gurdy is I have heard before in person and you really can’t appreciate it until you feel the buzz.. It’s a wildly expressive instrument.. It’s very cool that people not only still play these but are darn good at it..

There are a lot more examples too of folks willing to put themselves out there.. Kudos to you all.. Aint the internet cool.. =)

dead to me

I have used 1and1.com as my web service provider for a good long time now..  They have treated me well  enough and I am pretty happy with them with regards to their hardware.. Their servers are rock solid, you get exactly what you pay for and they don’t price gouge you..  I have had one of their linux root boxes now for going on 3 years and have always been fairly happy with it..

Recently I have wanted to do some stuff that required a windows server, and now what with the closure of the Fan Films Forum I no longer have to worry about 100% up time.. So I’m decided to go ahead and take this opportunity to convert my server over from the fedoracore 6 linux box to a windows 2008 server box..  Yay..  Good times..

The other nice thing is that by making this change I’ll be reducing my monthly cost by about $40.. Yay for money saving..

I’ll let you know how this goes.. There may be some down time but likely not very much..

Update #1:

Okay I have the windows server up and running..  I’m using IIS instead of Apache (cause its windows) and it’s a little slower, BUT I think its likely due to the machines network infrastructure and not the difference between IIS and Apache.  This website loads in 1.5 seconds under my new server as opposed to 0.8 seconds under the old one.    Pings to this server hit at 50ms were as pings to the old one hit at 30ms.   Frankly, it’s a minor difference and I’m not worried about it..  If it becomes an issue I’ll complain to my host..

I’m still in the process of moving things over.. so for the time being everything lives in two places..

With this change I think I’m going to be focusing on “randomstringofwords.com” again.. Meaning, that will be the primary URL not “rsow.com”.. Both will work of course, but no one but me knows what RSOW stands for so it sorta loses something..

I’m also going to ditch the INFO part.. Previously I had planned to have all manner of different URLS.

Update #2:

So I have to admit I’m extremely disappointed with 1and1..  I have had some questions about the windows server package they sold me that they basically told me they wouldn’t answer.. “It’s not our job” was the response I got more often than not..

This sort of thing exemplified the issues I have always had with 1and1.. if you had a support issue you were boned..  Their hardware was good but I can get iron anywhere.. its the support of that iron that should be what they are selling..

It took me a long time to sort out my issues and get everything working, only to find out the machine they gave me only had 1 gig of memory..  (not enough for what ANYONE would need)..   I asked for another stick of memory to be put in the box and the answer was “No.” ..  Not “We’re sorry but.. “,  Not “So sorry for the inconvenience but.. “.. but NO..

I asked them to help me open SSH to the box and they were boggled.  They couldn’t understand why I would want SSH open to a windows box, but once I explained it and got htem to realize i twas worth doing they explained that it wasn’t their place to help me administer my box.   Wow..  really?   He also told me that SSH was insecure and that’s the reason it wasn’t open by default after I pointed out that FTP and Telnet by default was open..

Wait.. what?!  SSH isn’t secure?  It stands for “Secure Shell”..  Hell passwords are sent in the clear in FTP and Telnet..  Unreal..

I also pointed out that the windows box was twice as slow as my linux box and that the subnet really seemed flooded as my ping to the box was twice as high as it was to my linux box..  No comment from them on that.. in fact he kind of ignored that comment..

Ultimately I had to just cancel the new windows box.  It just couldn’t perform anywhere near where I would have needed it or where i tshould have considering the price..

Here’s the best part;

I was trying to cancel my account while heading to lunch with some coworkers..  I called them up and had a conversation with the billing department that amazed everyone in the car, and caused them to burst out laughing at a couple points.

I gave them my user ID, and then my contract ID after which he asked for my admin password.  Uh.. you want the password I type in?  That’s an automatically generated password that yall gave me.. I can’t change it.. You should know it..  But fine.. I gave it to him 3 or 4 times and it just wasnt going through..   He said well I can send it to you again..  wait. .what?  You are going to email me the password and then I’m to read it back to you?  What the fuck is the point of that?

I told him that hey why don’t we just go by the credit card you have on file.. since that’s in my pocket and all..  He said, no no that’s not secure..  That could be phished for.. What the fuck dude.. I have given you my customer ID a unique 10 digit number, my contract ID a unique 12 digit number, my name and what not.. etc.. and you’re going to email me the password I have to give you to continue..

It stands to reason that if I have the two ID’s I got them from the email account in the first damn place.. how is that more secure?!   unreal..

So yeah.. I eventually go that one closed and started looking for a new host..

My co-worker chad suggested hostgator.com as a replacement host..  So far I’m extremely impressed.. I got the reseller account so I could have control over giving friends and family accounts and websites too..  So far everything is great..  The best part is the speed.. it’s easily more than double the speed of my linux box..

At the very bottom of this page you should see something that says ## of queries in ### seconds.   Well on my old linux box it was usually 0.8 seconds, on my windows box it was 1.6 seconds..   That’s just the time it took to generate the data.. The actual load time from my linux box could be as much as 7 seconds..

Look at it now.. what is it?   That’s how much faster it is..  For me it says 0.38 seconds which translates to roughly 2.3 seconds of load time..  For the exact same page..

That’s nice.. speed is good.. I dunno what their hardware or pipe is but hostgator has good stuff..  Far better than 1and1..   Also hostgator uses Cpanel which in my mind beats the hell out of Plesk..

Either way.. Gonna keep working with it and will let you know how much better it is as I figure it out..  Right now I’m happier and will be moving all my old stuff off 1and1 completely in short order..

LightScribe Label Example

Back in 2004 Hewlett-Packard engineer Daryl Anderson had the notion that if you can burn data on to a disc, why couldn’t use use that same technology to burn the label?  And thus the LightScribe burner was born..

I had always wanted to pick one of these suckers up and never got around to it because I already had a CD/DVD +/- burner and didn’t need a new one..  I couldn’t reason the cost of getting a second burner when I didn’t really use the one I had all that often..

Well about 4 months ago my old burner went off into the weeds and never came back, enabling me to buy a Lightscribe external burner and bid all my labeling woe’s goodbye! Sorta..

I don’t want to claim the label burning idea as my own, but I have to admit I had the same idea several times after many an hour of trying to get some form of “pretty” label into my CD’s without completely throwing them out of balance..   And I am opt’ing to review the technology as a whole, not an individual burner..  They will all work about the same..

So, with that I have to say the burner itself is excellent.. I have had zero dead discs (discs that just fail for no reason during the burn process) and it is pretty darn fast at burning the disk data..  My old burner would have dead discs all the time and was slow as hell by comparison..  This is likely just due to the new 16x burner being a generation (or two?) newer than my old one..

So.. the long and short of it is, when it comes to burning your data — it works just fine.  But that’s not the real reason I purchased it.. I want a device that can burn labels so that I don’t have to use stickers, a special printer or even (god forbid) a sharpie..

Stickers tend to throw the disc out of balance which at modern high drive speeds can be a bad thing.. Special printers can be pricey (though the new ones that print right on the disc do a nice job) and the require inks, and in some cases label stickers..  And if I have to resort to a sharpie no one will know what is on the darn disc cause my hand writing is horrible..

So this is where the technology is supposed to really shine and it does to a point but I have some complaints..

Firstly, let me say it’s awesome being able to photoshop up some labels and just burn them to the disc..  The Lightscribe folks have even put together a software package that allows you to cobble together labels from preexisting templates, with lots and lots of other templates downloadable off their website..

That’s nice..

But (complaint #1) it’s ungodly slow..  It takes something like 6 minutes to burn an ISO with this 16x burner? I don’t know the exact time but it’s pretty darn fast.. It then takes about 35 minutes to burn the label..  Why does it take so long?

That wouldn’t be too bad if it weren’t for the fact that (complaint #2) the label is extremely light or faded and hard to read.  Folks on one forum I browsed were joking that we have to wait for the “DarkScribe” burner to come out before the labels will be easy to read..  Frankly the contrast ratio is extremely poor..  For the amount of time it took, it should produce a much sharper image than it does.. Apparently this is something new to the 16x discs and the old 8x discs didn’t do this..

Also, I haven’t tested this yet but I’m told all you have to do is burn the label multiple times in order for it to be easier to read.. that means though that you have to suffer that 35 minute label burn several times.. Bleh..  Apparently around the center of each disc there is a barcode that allows the drive to know the precise rotational position of the disc, enabling multiple burns..

And finally, (complaint #3) apparently you have to take special storage precautions with the discs or else the labels will fade..  Seriously?!

I don’t know how bad the fading can get as the labels seem somewhat faded right out of the burner..  I think any amount of fading would render the label unreadable in fairly short order..

So.. there you have it.. I love the technology but the fact that it’s Slow as hell, Faded unless burned multiple times, and Can fade further seems like some pretty stiff drawbacks..

Suddenly the printer that can print directly on the disc, in color no less, seems like a better option..   (Yeah lightscribe can’t do color)..  One thing I was surprised by was the cost of the media..  Lightscribe discs used to be a lot more expensive than regular CD/DVD’s.. that isn’t the case any longer.. So yay for that..

All in all I’m happy with the purchase and would recommend the burner, but you have to understand that you will need to burn the label a couple times to get a good looking label with any contrast to it..

Skaven

I have been a Skaven player since the early 1990’s.  They were the second fantasy army I got into after Orcs & Goblins.  Once I found the blessing of the horned rat however, my love of all things green didn’t last very long..   The Skaven were here to stay!  I love these little guys.. Primarily because back then they were as damaging and deadly to themselves as they were to anyone else..

Later revisions of the Skaven codex very much removed a good portion of the wild and whacky from the army entirely and they sort of became boring.. I stuck with them through all these years but eventually ventured into Tomb Kings just to try something new..  Well with the new Skaven, I’m back baby..

And my opponents are doomed!

Or, well I might be doomed.. It all depends on the dice I suppose..   Either way it promises to be fun!

I really like where they are going with the army.. I mean I know the army is bound to be more powerful than the current armies are simply because it’s the latest army..   That’s just the way of things.. Games Workshop is a company in the business to make money and the way to do that is to make the lastest revision just a smidge better than previous ones so folks will flock to it.. But having said that, I like that they army is back to being quite self destructive..

New Doomwheel

Firstly, they have added the doomwheel back to the roster.. Something they completely omitted from the last book entirely.. Not only did they bring it back in the new book but they released a new model for it and its great!

I still have my old doomwheel model on the shelf where its sat for the last 10 years or so not getting played.. and when I read that the new book would have a doomwheel I blew off the dust getting it ready for play..  Then I saw the new model.. Holy crap.. Yeah okay.. back on the shelf you go.. I’m getting the new on and painting it.. (See image)

Plus it’s all plastic!  Yay!

I remember the day when the metal models were all way more detailed than anything they could come up with in plastic, but those days are long gone.. Give me plastic all the way..  Well it appears GW has heard our pleas and is intending to release all new models for the Skaven..   They have already put out a number of them, with a few more in the wings to come out.

Plus the codex has a bunch of new units that they will have to produce models for sooner or later so I expect even more..

Stormvermin Before and After

The new stormvermin plastic kit is fantastic.. Gone are the days of having to purchase a buttload of individually packed blisters at$15 each just to have a 20 model unit.. The new stormvermin box comes with everything you need to have a fully functional unit of 20 models..

They paint up nicely and the dip method works perfectly on Skaven.  Click the before and after picture to see what I’m talking about.  That model was painted in about 15 minutes.. I did what I can only call a slap/dash job of painting him with basic colors and then performed the magical “dip” at which point he came out looking great.

Add to the mix the WAY over the top new characters and warmachines and you have one powerful army..  I look forward to building a force to play with..  The only down side is it looks like I will have to repurpose all my old models as they aren’t what I would build now..  The up side is, I now have more slaves than I know what to do with..