I ain’t dead… Monday, Feb 13 2012

…to quote Granny Weatherwax.

Between writing my ‘book’ (currently at 80,000+ words) and planning the Kriegspeil for this coming Saturday, I’ve been a bit busy, computer-wise.

The Kriegspiel is getting to be a bit big:  not only am I lead Umpire (PANIC), but it looks like 10+ attendees.  It’s different in concept to other K-S I’ve played/helped umpire: it’s all about the planning.  I joked that I’m looking forward to the 19th, as I get my inbox back!

Sunday I will (hopefully) publish an AAR, plus the rules I wrote, along with the counters etc.

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Hello Readers, everywhere. Friday, Jan 13 2012

I keep track of hits by using the WordPress stats page.  It also alerts me when I have new followers etc.  I can’t help but think most of you are disappointed most of the time.

This blog is so eclectic that what ever you subscribed to is probably only a fraction of my output, and the rest of it is of very little interest!

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2011 in review Sunday, Jan 1 2012

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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“LIFE- The MMRPG” A letter of Complaint. Friday, Nov 4 2011

Sir,

I have been playing your ‘First Life’ game for some years now and I wish to register dissatisfaction with some of the so-called features.

1) Lack of manual/in-game help/tool tips.
I realise that you boast an ‘extensive training mission’. What you fail to mention is that this will take approximately 1/3 of the promised 75 year content. Additionally there is little guidance even during this so-called “Schooling period”, and the training is mostly trying stuff out then having other characters telling you are doing it wrong. Even experienced players would welcome tool tips during actions – for instance when reaching for your third alcoholic drink a warning bubble saying “May impare your judgement of interaction with opposite sex” would be helpful.

2) Lack of Save/Load function. 
Given the lack of in-game hints the lack of a Save Game function would appear to be a major omission.  When attempting an action, the failure of which would have negative consequence, it would handy if we could return to a point just before so we can avoid the effects of making a poor choice with no guidance too many times.  This would particularly useful during the ‘Teenage Romance’ sub game, for which there is no documentation.  Frankly all the Romance sub-games are difficult and confusing, and prone to leaving you frustrated.  The Rom-Com training package glosses over much of the difficulties.

3) Effects of other players. 
I note the IPCC Yahoo group has found a bug within the global interaction algorithms.  Apparently this could cause the game world to end prematurely based purely on the actions of other players on different servers.  Even if this is fixable, it is apparent that servers in Africa and Asia are suffering DDOS attacks by resource usage elsewhere.

4) Random Character generation.
Not only does this make it near impossible to achieve some tasks against some players who ‘got lucky’ during the generation process, but that In-Game Credits are not accessible to all, leaving some downloads unavailable to most people- for instance “Sports Car” and “Big House” are two that spring to mind.

5) Non Linear Game play.
“Do boring/repetitive task or starve” doesn’t really count as open-ended.

6) Experience Points
Referenced frequently by the ‘Job’ sub-games, but there is no onscreen count to let you know how you are doing.  Though they appear to be influenced by various tasks/games, there is no indication at the rate of accrual, so you can’t tell whether the amount of XP is worth it.  Additionally some of these sub-games appear to over- or under- award XP: For instance “Art History” and “Engineering” in the ‘University Zone’ often cost the same number of credits, but rumour on the Fan forums is they award different XP.  Is this true?

6a)  Rumour on the ‘Buddah’ Yahoo group is that there is a kind of XP called Karma.  Is this true as it is not referenced in any of the training/instructions?  They claim this allows a second character to be started.

7) End Game routines
I am approximately half way through.  According to more experienced players game experience dramatically reduces during the later stages, with your character becoming slower and less responsive.  It has also been found that the graphics and sound settings deteriorate making it hard to follow the action.  Did you know the ‘Hair’ colour setting can change spontaneously to ‘Grey’ and in male characters even ‘Flesh’?  Additionally there are a number of bugs which can cause parts of the programme to just stop working altogether.

8.) Power-ups/Health Packs
While it is clear that some servers receive too many ‘Weapon packs’, there is a distinct lack of power-ups.  I have repeatedly smashed any number of boxes, crates and other containers, and have yet to receive even one extra power.  Additionally there are no health packs being generated.  Did you mean these only to be available from players who have taken the “Doctor” quest?

I understand that in any product this ambitious there will always be a number of problems.  Do you have any plans to produce a patch we could download?

Yours Sincerely

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Wargamer’s Rhapsody Monday, Jul 18 2011

With apologies to Freddie Mercury…

Is this Renaissance?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a leadslide,
My escape from reality
Put out my figures, but your army’s bigger, oh crap,
I’m just a poor bloke, I need more miniatures,
Because I’m easy meat, and paint too slow, don’t roll high, always low,
Any way the dice fall doesn’t really matter to me,
to me

Oh-no, I just killed a man,
Charged him on too far ahead, rolled my dice, now he’s dead
Dammit, the game had just begun,
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Oh-no, oo-ooh, Didn’t mean to make them die,
I’ve got to play this game again tomorrow,
With no men, with no men, coz nothing now can save me

Too late, my reserves are gone,
I’ve got Artillery on my ranks, and his cavalry on my flanks.
Goodbye, ev’rybody, I’ve got to flee,
Gotta leave you all behind and quit the field
Oh hell, oo-ooh, I don’t want to lose,
I sometimes wish I’d never played these rules at all
Coz nothing now can save me…

I see a little silhouette of a man,
Minus 2, minus 2, on your combat roll
Agincourt and Crecy, very, very messy
(buy more lead) buy more lead (buy more lead) buy more lead, buy more lead At a show, ow, ow, ow.

I’m just a poor Colonel, everybody beats me
I’m just a poor gamer with a lone sentry,
Spare me my figures from your huge army
Hard to paint, easy lose, will you take a draw
Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let him draw!) Surrender! We will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw
(Let me draw) Will not let you draw (Let me draw) Ah
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
(Oh Phil Barker, Phil Barker) 5th edition lets me win
Pendraken has an army put aside for me, for me, for me…

So you think you can flank me and use that old ruse
So you think you can charge me and leave me to lose
Oh, damn it, no matter how much I plan it,
Just gotta pack up, just gotta pack up my men now
Nothing ever works, Anything I try,
Nothing ever works,
Nothing ever works, for me
(Any way the smoke blows)

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Can Time Travellers commit adultery with their own spouse? Tuesday, Jun 21 2011

You know those odd random thoughts you get, that sort of buzz annoyingly round your head like a wasp too stupid to fly out of an open window?  Here’s one from today.

If you go back in time, and arrive home, pretending to be the younger you, and have sex with your husband/wife in the past, are you cheating on your Now-Spouse?  What if you travel to before you met, and seduce the young future spouse?

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Running out of superlatives Sunday, May 22 2011

Having listened to my son speaking to a freind this morning, I wonder what the youth of today will do when the do encounter something that is, actually, ‘awesome’.

Or come to that, how will they convey when something is ‘literally’ true (as opposed to “I literally died”. Really – you are a zombie then?)

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Complete History of the Soviet Union… Wednesday, May 11 2011

as seen through the eyes of a humble worker.

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Where was MY wedding invite. Saturday, Apr 30 2011

Both William and Catherine (The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – that Wills and Kate) are descended from notorious parliamentary commander ‘Black’ Tom Fairfax, and I have a line of descent from his grandfather. (Edited for spelling)

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What’s wrong with being a grammer Nazi? Wednesday, Apr 27 2011

There is a very real difference between “your” and “you’re”, or “affect” and “effect”. If you point this out people whine that ‘language evolves’, ignoring the fact they are making no sense.

If someone says 2+2=5, correcting them isn’t being a maths nazi.

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Schrödinger’s Coffin Tuesday, Apr 5 2011

Are we sure he is in it?

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113th Time Travel Society Christmas dinner Sunday, Dec 26 2010

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Adding flavour to ‘Black Powder’ orders. Tuesday, Dec 21 2010

In ‘Black Powder’ you give the order for the unit before rolling the command dice.  The dice may give you 1, 2 or 3 moves.  If you don’t have enough moves to complete your order you must try to complete it, even if you don’t like where it leaves the unit. Giving an order is easy if there is a terrain feature – “The brigade will advance onto the hill and take a defensive position.”  but not so easy to define if moving across open ground, and you don’t want them to go all the way across.

My regular opponent and I have taken to referring to ‘paces’ where 1 unit of movement (UM for ease hereafter) is 10 paces (We use centimeters instead of inches, but the principle is the same).  Thus an order of “The battalion will move 150 paces forward” is a move of 15.

Given I reckon 1 UM is approx 10 yards this works well; strictly a pace is two and a half feet, so  1 UM is 12 paces, but it’s close enough.  A scale of 1 UM to 10 yards makes for easy conversion, but there is no reason why you couldn’t call it 8 yards.

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Coin flipping game Tuesday, Oct 12 2010

A little experiment.  Please don’t analyse the statistics, and if you know the stats go with what you would have put. 

Read the rules of the game, then make an instant decision on which seems best/gut instinct. Don’t try and outguess what I want please.

This is the game. It is played over 32 rounds, who wins the most rounds wins .

 We each toss some coins (assume they are perfectly fair 50/50 coins). Who ever flips the most heads wins the round. Draws draw the round – it still counts as a round.

Your choice is toss 3, and reflip 1 (UPDATE -if you wish to, you only have to reflip a tail),

OR

 toss 4.

What ever you choose must be used for all 32 flips.

What ever you pick, I have to flip the opposite.

Which do you pick?

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Sherlock mixed with David Mitchell – Yeah, I can live with that Thursday, Sep 16 2010

I’ve just taken the “Which BBC personality are you” quiz on the BBC website

https://www.bbcsurvey.co.uk/default.aspx

I got

Based on what you’ve told us, if you were a BBC personality, you’d be 

40% BBC One’s Sherlock [this is the 2010 version]
30% David Mitchell from Mitchell & Webb
30% Dalek from Doctor Who

 You probably seek your own path through life, and this is reflected in the TV and films you watch. You tend to be loyal – once you’ve found something you love, you stick with it, and watch every episode. Quirky and unusual storylines appeal to you, whether it’s comedy or drama, because you’re an individual.

Not sure about the Dalek bit though (but come to think of it, a laser would come in handy).

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