Dubious Quality: September 2006

Friday, September 29, 2006

Paraworld Impressions Monday

I just received Paraworld, so I'm going to play it this weekend (hopefully 5+ hours) and write up impressions on Monday.

Contest Winners

Congratulations to Todd Robinson and David Byron for winning the two copies of Paraworld. Here are the correct answers:
1. Saurischians were comprised of what two main groups?
Theropods and Sauropodomorphs

2. What is the first known bird?
Archaeopteryx

3. What rare theropod is considered to be the most intelligent dinosaur?
Troodontids

Contest! [Now Closed]

Okay, here are the contest questions. I'm using one of Eli 5.1's dinosaur books for reference. The first two people who answer all three questions correctly win a copy of Parworld.

1. Saurischians were comprised of what two main groups?

2. What is the first known bird?

3. What rare theropod is considered to be the most intelligent dinosaur?

Good luck.

New 3D Tech

Looks like we're on our way (thanks Extreme Tech):
NTT DoCoMo announced Friday that it has co-developed a portable, seven-inch 3D display system that can project 3D images without special glasses, and from an offset viewing angle.

The research, performed in conjunction with Associate Professor Yasuhiro Takagi of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, will be applied to applications like high-resolution games and shopping, DoCoMo said.

The system, which enables 3D images to be viewed within a 60-degree horizontal angle and 30-degree vertical angle, generates the images based on the viewer's position relative to the screen, NTT DoCoMo said. Using a camera embedded in the display's LCD screen, the system determines where the viewer is and immediately projects 3D images through a lenticular (single-convex) lens attached to the front of the screen. This results in the viewer seeing an object that appears to leap out from the screen.

The big difference here is the relatively wide viewing range compared to previous 3D technologies. It's a considerable advancement.

Like I've written about in the past, 3D is the next big step in viewing technology. And its killer application will be games. What's always held it back are the glasses that needed to be worn, but those aren't needed anymore.

International Gaming: the UK

Thanks to DQ reader Andy Sellick for this report on gaming in the UK.

I live in the UK. I'm in my late twenties (too late). I spend far too much time playing computer games. My PC isn't what you might call 'grunt-tastic' (or even some other term referring to significant processing power that makes more sense) but it's good enough to run some fairly recent games at a decent level of detail.

I've also got a Playstation 2, although I'm primarily a PC gamer. My first computer was an Oric (I feel the need to establish my gaming roots/heritage at this point). So there.

Most of my wider experience of gaming (if I can use such a grand term with a straight face) comes from interacting with the members of our various church youth groups, who mainly fall into the category of early to late teens. I drag my PS2 down to the church one evening every week for them to play with. How much it is used tends to vary--sometimes they're all happier just playing football (the real kind) than mashing buttons.

I'm often surprised by what they enjoy. On the one hand, there's generally quite a lot of enthusiasm (particularly from the boys) for games featuring guns, and cars, and... well, guns. Black was deemed particularly awesome, for example, and Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge are firm crowd pleasers. They also talk a lot about games like Halo 2, and some Star Wars games. Themes like this seem very popular.

On the other hand, 'fun' games are also popular. Eyetoy Play and Eyetoy Play 2 are consistent favourites (particularly among the girls). I've also had a couple of demo discs of variable quality games, but even the really awful ones can provide much entertainment. Jet Li's 'Rise to Honour'? Hilarious. I've played some brilliant games over the years, but nothing beats playing a really bad game that takes itself far too seriously with a couple of friends to laugh at it with (laughing at a good game is fun too - Aragorn's 'physical attack' in Return of the King performed repeatedly results in him apparently goosestepping wildly around the place - which, given the right environment, can really bring the house down. Well, maybe you had to be there).

The common theme that I think makes a game work in all these situations is how easy it is to get into. If I can just pass a kid a controller and explain which buttons to press in a couple of seconds, you're onto a winner. James Bond (Everything or Nothing) was initially wildly popular (guns and multiplayer! Whoo!) but has laid unplayed ever since it turned out that all of the commands for successfully playing the game (hugging up against walls and targeting enemies round the corner, and more) were far too complicated. They just want to shoot things, not think about it too much.

As for me, I'll pretty much play anything once, but I like a good 3D RTS, or a 3D shooter with enough novel features to make it worth the time (Jedi Knight's force powers, for example). Actually, that little aside pretty much sums up what will cause a game to appeal to me - novelty. Most of the games that have really captured my attention - Gish, Armagetron, Half life 2, Gtetrinet, Tower Defence, Starcraft, Carmageddon (to name but a few) - have either been unique or stood as a fresh perspective on an existing genre.

Let 'Em In

I was with Eli 5.1 at Wendy's on Monday and the restaurant music loop played "Let 'Em In" by Paul McCartney.

If you don't recognize the title, I'm sure you'll recognize the lyrics:
Someone's knocking at the door, somebody's ringing the bell,
someone's knocking at the door, somebody's ringing the bell,
do me a favor, open the door and let 'em in.

That song has saved hundreds of lives over the years.

Beginning in 1976, whenever a failed songwriter despondently contemplated his plunging career arc, finally questioning whether life itself was worth living in the face of such utter ruin, he was saved by one thought: at least I didn't write Let 'Em In.

And with that, a new day dawned, full of hope for the future.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Gaming Notes

First off, here's the good news (thanks Blue's): Frogster Interactive has secured the PC rights to Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe.

That's right: Speedball 2. For my money, it's the best futuristic sports game ever made. And all I've wanted for the last fifteen years is version with updated graphics. Which is apparently what FI is going to do--it's a "re-release" with updated graphics, apparently, the Bitmap Brothers are going to be "involved" in the "development process," and it's coming out next year.

Frogster Interactive is also going to re-release The Chaos Engine, which is also a Bitmap Brothers title.

Like I said, that was the good news.

The bad news is that while the North American version of The Guild 2 went gold today, the official game forums are full of pissed-off Europeans who are making full-throated claims that the game was released in an unforgiveably buggy condition.

That would not surprise me, particularly, because the original was certainly released in that condition, but if they've done it with the sequel, it's nothing short of a disgrace. The original U.S. version of The Guild had serious bugs for over a year. Do you know that the patch was called? The expansion pack. That's when the patch finally came out.

And it should tell you something about how damn good the game was that I put up with all that. I don't think I'm willing to put up with it again, though, so I'm going to be closely monitoring the situation until the game is released over here next month.

The one glimmer of hope: there have been two or three patches (already) since the release, and it looks like they're headed in the right direction.

Jesse Leimkuehler let me know that Hollywood Mogul 3 will be coming out shortly. Here are the details:
The indie developer of the Hollywood Mogul series is putting out a new version (Hollywood Mogul 3) sometime in December. However, he is offering a pre-release version of the game on some of the text-sim message boards. He's offering the pre-release version for $20.00. It's a fully-functional version of the game. Basically, he's offering everyone the chance to be a beta tester on the game. The game is $30 when it's officially released, so you're getting a bit of a break on the price as well. It's a fun game if you're interested in business sims.
Hollywood Mogul website
You can download the trial version here:
Hollywood Mogul 3 trial version.
[Please note: what I'm apparently linking to is the demo version, not the pre-release version, and the demo link isn't even working. I'm trying to get all that sorted out and I'll post an updated link as soon as I have one.]

Lastly, DQ reader Fredrik Skarstedt sent me a link to an interview with the creators of the Wii. It's on the Nintendo site, so it's hardly unbiased, but it's still a very interesting read and you can find it here.

Contest Information (for Tomorrow)

At some point tomorrow we'll have a contest for two copies of Paraworld. I'm guessing that the contest questions will be about dinosaurs, which seems only natural.

NHL 07 (360): Some Additional Notes

In response to a forum discussion at Digital Sportspage about NHL 07, I tried a different set of sliders today to see if it would make a significant playability difference in what I saw (and wrote about) earlier this week.

Basically, the theory was to increase every defensive slider to the max setting, so Hook Effectiveness, Poke Check, and Shot Block were all set to max (the sliders are on a 0-6 scale, so they should be set to 6). Aggressiveness, which you think would improve defense, actually doesn't appear to, so that was reset from max to zero.

On the offensive end, Puck Control was set to zero.

Those aren't the only sliders I've adjusted, but they were the only ones adjusted for the retest.

So what happened? Well, I couldn't skate laps in the offensive end nearly as easily, because if another player even bumped me, I almost always lost the puck. That's more of a kluge for bad defensive A.I. than a solution, but it definitely was an improvement.

It was still far, far too easy to generate point-blank shots. In general, the defensive awareness is just very poor--there's no other way to put it.

The CPU offense was not affected by the slider changes--they still almost always use the "grip it and rip it" offense.

Now I will say this about the game: shooting is so much fun (because of the right analog stick controls), and the goalie animations are so excellent, that the game has moments where it feels great--primarily, when you're shooting. And if the A.I. doesn't bother you, then I think you'd really enjoy this game--it's very pretty and the commentary is fantastic. It certainly has its moments.

As for me, the A.I. is a gamekiller. I didn't lose a dollar, though, thanks to Gamefly.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Your Dwarf Fortress Stories (3)

Just two Dwarf Fortress stories this time, due to the length of the second.

Here's a story from Thom Moyles:
During one of the first years of my fortress, it was plagued by attacks from frogmen climbing out of the wells. One of these attacks left one of my first Swordsdwaves, who arrived only shortly before in the first wave of migrants, with a wound to his head that showed up as yellow on the status screen, a wound that typically spells the end for a dwarf.

He was immediately dragged to bed and would periodically cry out for food and water, which was brought to him whenever a dwarf had time to spare. I knew that this was really a waste of resources, since he probably wasn’t going to recover and the chances of insanity or a tantrum were high. Nonetheless, I couldn’t bear to lock his door and let him starve to death, so I allowed him to be tended to and largely forgot about it in the chaos of daily management.

Almost two years later, while scrolling through the dormitories, I noticed that he was no longer in his bed. The buckets that the other dwarves had used to bring him water were still there, just not him. Going to my job list, I noted that he was drinking and when I went to my dining hall, there he was, gulping down water, back on active duty, with only a minor wound to show for the blow that had rendered him invalid for seasons on end.

It was such a small thing and still so incredibly gratifying to see him recover, that the attention of his fellow dwarves and my mercy as Fortress Keeper had allowed him to survive when there seemed to be no hope.

Here's a long but amazing story from Kel Woodbury:
I'm going along on year 5 of my bustling settlement. 150 dwarves are here now and I've been spending a lot of time settling the nobles into grand bedrooms, dining rooms, offices, and tombs.

Then I see a message about someone being unable to deliver food to a sick person due to lack of... food?

I look around and find out I don't have any prepared meals and my kitchens have been idle. Ok, so I'll just turn them on and have them start cooking my ridiculous stockpile of seeds and other foods. I'll build a few more kitchens, crank them all up to repeat easy meals, butcher a few cows and horses, and then be fine. The problem is, the dwarves are getting hungry and don't want to really do anything other than eat so they end up going on a drinking spree and drink almost everything. Then they set up the kitchens and butcher animals and gather plants and generally create barely enough meals to meet the demand.

This struggle goes on for a bit, and then I see something horrible. "A dragon has made residence in your area." Um... crap. So I bring up my unit list and look for this dragon. The dragon's name is flashing which when used on a dwarf indicates legendary status. So either dragons in general are legendary or just this one, I'm not sure. I check out the dragon and find out it's a female. So she is just sitting there on the very edge of the map. Everything should be ok as long as no one disturbs her. I'll just not designate anything to do near her and stop hunting and it will all be ok. Then an elven caravan came a little south of where she was. She breathed fire and it was the coolest looking thing ever. A HUGE cone of destruction and the caravan was turned into ashes. The land was charred across the entire cone.

Well that's not good. So then I see some dwarves run out to pick up the bones of the caravan, also not good!

They see the dragon and run in terror, but she chases them all the way to my fortress. I turn my ballistas on but she fries them all the way from across the river. Her breath has a 20 square range and is 10 squares wide at the end of the cone! My guards at the entrance take note of this and run towards her to attack and they are fried before they even get to her.

So much for their bronze plate armor and shields.

Crossbow men pelt her with bolts and do absolutely nothing to her at all. Not even a scratch on her wounds page. She proceeds to burn them down with flames. Then one of my fairly proficient fighters runs out and manages to run through one of her breaths unharmed and started to hit her. She instantly ripped him in half. At this point I felt pretty doomed. She waltzed into my base and breathed fire into the main hallway and destroyed a lot of doors. Then she walked into the food storeroom and burned all the food. So much for the food issue. Then she walked into the dining room and fried everyone and everything inside.

She would breathe fire at ANYTHING that moved. A kitten at the end of a hallway? Toast.
At this point I was down to about 50 dwarves. My main squad engaged her and they all got toasted in about 5 seconds. Down to about 15 dwarves now. One soldier had managed to not get fried. He was my spearuser who had become a legendary shield user some point in the past somehow (I have no clue). He has legendary agility and is quite tough also. I sent him for the dragon while she was terrorizing the bedrooms and I saw him acting strange. He wouldn't approach her directly because apparently he didn't want to be fried. He would bolt up and down the hallway almost taunting her with his legendary speed. After running back and forth for a bit he suddenly ran straight for her and started to attack her with his spear. Then he was on top of her. In fear of being burned to death he apparently jumped on top of her and starting wrestling her. Somehow, he managed to cause some decent wounds to her liver, spine, and neck wrestling her. I drafted the remaining dwarves and made them all pick up weapons and rush to help try to slay the dragon. A hunter who was a decent shot with the crossbow got an iron bolt to stick in her rear left leg. Still only a dark brown wound similar to the ones caused by the legendary shield user.

Then it happened: the dragon fell unconscious! I felt the taste of victory but then I noticed my shield user walk a few squares and then collapse. What happened to him? I looked at him and he lost the left side of his body. Apparently the dragon had fallen on top of him when she fell unconscious! I felt confident that my militia could kill the dragon before she regained consciousness, but apparently it was only a sleeper hold on her that knocked her out, for she stood back up and scorched the remaining dwarves in the hallway.

I had to abandon the fortress because my last remaining dwarf was a horrified noble hiding in his bedroom, far from trouble.

Microsoft Press Announcement: HD-DVD

Microsoft announced the details today of the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 (thanks Gamespot):
Microsoft has announced that the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 will arrive in North America, UK, France, and Germany in mid-November, right around Sony's planned US launch of the Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3.

When it hits stores in North America, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player should retail for $199.99. Gamers in the UK can expect the player to run them £129.99 ($245), while those in France and Germany can expect to pay 199.99 euros ($254) for the hardware. All these prices have been called "estimated retail prices" by Microsoft, which noted that the actual retail price may vary.

The pack-in movie will be Peter Jackson's King Kong.

There are two interesting angles here. The first is that there will be 8-10 million people who already have the 360. How many will pay an additional $200 to get HD-DVD?

And while that's a pretty persuasive add-on price, if you're starting from scratch, the HD-DVD drive and the premium 360 will cost $599, which isn't persuasive at all. It's particularly not competitive if Sony drops the price on the 20GB PS3 like they did in Japan (they're crazy if they don't).

Just two months ago, it looked like essentially zero competition between Microsoft and Sony this fall in terms of price, but that Japanese price drop, and what it might portend, is the wild card. Expect Microsoft to create a bundle with the 360 and the add-on HD-DVD drive for $549, at most, and don't be too surprised if they do it for $499--at the same time they drop the price of the 360 by $50.

Next year should be a very good time to be a gaming consumer when it comes to consoles. The fact that this is both a console war and a format war should create an environment where both Microsoft and Sony have to fiercely compete with each other.

WMP 11

John Selzer made an excellent point via e-mail about my post concerning Windows Media Player 11 last week and its DRM stranglehold--it's a beta. I don't expect them to change any of the DRM features, but it is still in beta and I should have noted that.

Paraworld: $29.99

I didn't even realize this, but Paraworld is only $29.99 at EB Games and Gamestop. That's a great price and thanks to Jason Hobbs for letting me know.

Dwarf Fortress--New Version and Notes

There's a new version of Dwarf Fortress out and you can grab it here. Please remember that you need to copy your save directory (to your desktop, for example), then copy it back over after you install the new version. Plus, since you only have one save in this game, anyway, keeping a backup of your save directory is a good idea in general.

One of the new changes, which I particularly appreciate since I have a high focus on farming, is that there is now a "ash to potash" option at the ashery. Previously, there was a gotcha if you wanted to make potash (which is used as fertilizer)--you had to make lye first, which was fine, but the lye then had to sit around for a while, and if it didn't, you couldn't make potash. It was hard to know how long the lye should sit around because there was no ready designation when it could be used. So this is much easier now.

What this game has done, for me, is restore a kind of awe I've felt in games that I haven't felt in a long, long time. The first game I played was Ultima IV, and I still remember the exact moments when I first boarded a pirate ship and found the balloon. They were moments that were just impossibly cool.

I've had great moments in games since then, lots of them, but very few that were awe-inspiring like that. I've had several of those moments in Dwarf Fortress, and I keep having them.

This afternoon I'll have more of your DF stories, and I'm also going to start writing about how the mid-game might be more manageable with some additional interface options (and a few interface consolidations as well). I'd also like to hear your ideas for the interface, which is relatively powerful but somewhat awkward in places.

It's a Beautiful World

There was a show at the Paramount Theater on Saturday that I thought Eli 5.1 might enjoy. It was a combination magic/song thing where the theater goes dark and all the performers wear dark clothing and have neon painted on their costumes or something. Eli's grandmother (Gloria's mom) was coming for the weekend, and Gloria always looks for something fun they can do together.

"So would you go to this with us?" Gloria asked when I told her.

"Hmm, let's see," I said. "I can go to a show in the dark performed by a ballet troupe and a children's singer with my mother-in-law or I can watch college football on the couch for three hours. Don't torture me with impossible choices like this!"

"Very funny," she said, meaning not funny at all.

"There are video clips on the web so Eli can see what the show's like," I said. We went to Gloria's study and pulled up the video clips, but they were almost impossible to see, given that they were filmed in the dark and the room was as bright as the surface of the sun.

"In the regular world, where the windows in a study are sensibly covered with black sound-proofing foam," I said, "this wouldn't be a problem."

"Do you mean your world of one?" she asked.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Pro Football Note

I saw this over at SI.com this afternoon:
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said Tuesday.

Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.

Over at ESPN.com, where they "broke" the story, they said that Green "changed his mind." Heh.

Here's the thing, though--I've watched quite a bit of Arizona so far this year because I thought they looked like an interesting team. In all the years I've watched pro football (39 as of this year), I've never seen a quarterback fumble more often or more easily than Kurt Warner. It's incredible. If he gets brushed with a fingernail the ball comes out. So he might go 18-24 with no interceptions, but you're going to get three fumbles along with that.

Here's comment (from ESPN) from the center for the Cardinals in reference to the snap problems they've been having (another source of fumbles for Warner):
"I did my assignment," Stepanovich said, "and the next thing I know the ball is on the ground."

Ouch. I think that's an indication that Warner has lost the team. Centers don't throw their quarterbacks under the bus.

I think if the Cardinals thought that Matt Leinart was anywhere near being ready to start, they'd start him. Kurt Warner had a few sensational years with the Rams, but at this point he's a huge liability.

Science, Gaming, Whatever Links

Jesse Liemkuehler sent in several links to some excellent space picture.
Saturn's moons cause ripples in the rings:
ripples
Dunes on Titan around the equator region:
dunes
A crater on Titan:
crater

Not exactly a science link, but Brian Pilnick sent in a 2005 story from the New York Times about the most expensive rock, paper, scissors game ever, involving a twenty million dollar art collection. It's a fascinating article, and you can read it here.

From Sirius, a link to a computer just slightly larger than your thumb. It's called the Gumstix and you can read about it here.

The absolutely excellent game Darwinia is now on sale at Circuit City for $10. Thanks to Chris McNair for the heads-up and here's the link.

From Brian Witte comes an interesting link to a new type of engine that could have all kinds of applications in space:
Roger Shawyer has developed an engine with no moving parts that he believes can replace rockets and make trains, planes and automobiles obsolete. "The end of wings and wheels" is how he puts it. It's a bold claim. Read Shawyer’s theory paper here (pdf format).

Of course, any crackpot can rough out plans for a warp drive. What they never show you is evidence that it works. Shawyer is different. He has built a working prototype to test his ideas, and as a respected spacecraft engineer he has persuaded the British government to fund his work. Now organisations from other parts of the world, including the US air force and the Chinese government, are beating a path to his tiny company.

The device that has sparked their interest is an engine that generates thrust purely from electromagnetic radiation - microwaves to be precise - by exploiting the strange properties of relativity. It has no moving parts, and releases no exhaust or noxious emissions.

The full story is here.

Also from Sirius, a link to a story about archaeopteryx and it's four wings. Here's an excerpt:
The earliest known bird had flight feathers on its legs that allowed it to use its hindlimbs as an extra pair of wings, a new study finds.

The finding, detailed in the current issue of the journal Paleobiology, supports the theory that early birds learned to glide and parachute from trees before achieving full-fledged flight.

The full story is here.

Paraworld Review

Frank Regan sent me a link to a Paraworld review over at Hexus.net.

In a word: glowing. Here's the summary:
Superb implentation of humans and dinosaurs with great missions and a superb control system.

That's what it felt like when I played it at E3.

Here's the full review (with some excellent screenshots).

Note on NHL 07

David Palomares e-mailed me with an important distinction concerning NHL 07. The shooting stick and outstanding Thorne/Clement commentary are only in the 360 version of the game--not the PC version.

The shooting stick and the commentary, by far, were the strongest features in the game. So any version without them is even weaker than the 360 version.

NHL2K7 (360) and NHL 07 (360): The Polar Opposites Club

The short version is that I wouldn't recommend buying either of these games--I'd suggest renting them first.

What's strange is that I've never played two simulations of the same sport in the same year that are such mirror images of each other.

I need to do this in table form, which I have no idea how to do in blogger, so here come the ...

...................................NHL2K7....................NHL 07
A.I. ............................Excellent....................It doesn't have any
Skating animations ....Fantastic....................Weak
Goalie animations.......Weak.........................Excellent
Physics.......................Solid..........................Let's just say "not solid"
Framerates.................Silky-smooth..............Nightmarish
Presentation...............Horrific......................Superb
Control Scheme..........Circa 1950..................Outstanding

A few notes. First, when I said NHL 07 didn't have A.I., that's not a joke. On Superstar difficulty (the highest level), you can skate into the offensive zone with the puck and frequently make two or three complete circles of the offensive zone with with almost no opposition whatsoever. And on offense, if the CPU makes more than two passes before shooting, consider yourself as the witness to an improbable and miraculous event.

Am I kidding? No. As a test, I wrote down how many passes a team made when it skated into the offensive end before taking a shot (if passes were intercepted, etc., and a shot was never taken, there was no tally). Look at NHL 07:
0,0,0,1,0,0,0,3,3,3,2,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,2,1,0,0,0

Ah--the 3,3,3,2 days. How I long for them to return.

25 shots. 19 passes. This is the kind of A.I. I like to call "The Shitties." Just over .75 passes per shot after skating into the offensive end.

How much does this resemble real hockey? It doesn't, and to a laughingly bad degree.

That's on Superstar difficulty level, by the way--the toughest in the game. And if you're wondering, it's a combination of bad offensive A.I. and bad defensive A.I., because you wouldn't believe how stupid your defenders are. In a word--"very."

Here's NHL2K7 in comparison:
7,2,0,1,2,3,6,3,2,9,5,0,0,0,2,1,1,11,2,3,1,0,5,2,1,2,0,0,3

29 shots. 74 passes. That's just over 2.5 passes per shot. And when guys stopped and ripped a shot without passing, it was almost almost always due to a defensive lapse of my own, because defenders know how to play in NHL2K7. If you try that "skating around in a circle" crap in the offensive end, you'll either lose the puck before you even go behind the net or your teeth will wind up in the stands.

Oh, and that wasn't even on the highest level of difficulty--it was just All-Star (which is second highest).

Here's how EA's hockey producers would answer a question about their A.I. in an interview.
Q: We've noticed that offensive and defensive players have no A.I.
A: Well, we're redesigning the NHL series from the ground up for the 360. Stage one, which I'm proud to say we completed this year in spite of severe time constraints, was to get all players to acknowledge two things: one, that they were on ice, and two, the location of the goal. Next year, we plan to use this "goal-centric" approach to A.I. to further refine our marketing campaign.

Seriously, how do the people who review these games fail to point out mind-blowing flaws like this? It took all of five minutes to realize this was happening. They're playing the same game. Do they not have a checklist they work through? It's a sports game--it's supposed to simulate the sport.

All right, back to the comparison list. Let's move on to skating. The new skating animations for NHL2K7 look fantastic, and they look even more fantastic because the game runs at an unbelievably high framerate with no hiccups or slowdowns. NHL 07, in contrast, runs like molasses. Is EA ever going to put out a next-gen sports game that doesn't have framerate issues?

NHL 07 has very cool, very impressive goalie animations. 2K7's animations seem far more canned and far less responsive.

The puck physics in NHL 07 seem to have come from long and extensive observations of a superball. That's all I can figure. Absolute rocket slapshots traveling at mach two--and that's after you turn the shot speed slider down to zero. Plus the puck, in general, doesn't seem to move at the right speed.

It's not all good news for NHL2K7, though. NHL2K7's announcing is an embarrassment to the genre. I'd rather listen to Joe Montana Sports Talk Football on the Genesis any day. NHL 07's announcing, on the other hand, is fantastic--Gary Thorne and Bill Clement sound just about perfect. Announcers may not seem that important, but believe me, Thorne and Clement are so good that they really, really add to the immersion.

Here's the last thing. I guarantee you that there was a faction of people at Visual Concepts (and Kush) who have been asking for right analog stick shooting control. It's too obvious and they're too smart. But someone else, someone higher up, said "I don't think we need analog shooting--let's add an ORCHESTRAL SOUNDTRACK instead and call it Cinemtion!" That man should be fired and walked out to the parking lot by Security immediately.

Cinemotion: flat as a pancake. A disaster.

2K7 does do some nice things with additional controls (particularly on-ice team controls), but you know what? Nobody gives a damn if you can't shoot with the analog stick. And NHL 07 really nails the use of the analog stick, which makes the control scheme of 2K7 seem totally clunky and outdated in comparison.

Here's a general principle: every single action in a sports game that resembles a swing, should be mapped to the right analog stick. Kicking in football. Shooting in basketball. Passing and shooting in hockey. Batting in baseball. The golf swing. The tennis swing. What in hell's bells are you guys doing using buttons for any of these things anymore?

Like I said, both games do some things really, really well. What they do poorly, though, they do so poorly that neither game made me want to keep playing it beyond a few hours. And what really kills me about NHL 07 is that like almost all EA Sports games, the core of a really, really excellent game is there. There's a ton of potential.

Unfortunately, like almost all EA Sports games, it's potential that goes unrealized.

Monday, September 25, 2006

NBA2K7 (360)

I would normally never mention an upcoming sports game (because I need actual playtime to look for the all-too-frequent backbreaking bug), but the buzz for the 360 version of NBA2K7 is higher than for any sports game in a long, long time. And based on some of the videos I've seen, it looks to be completely off the hook.

Even though pro basketball isn't at the top of my favorite sports simulations, I'm looking forward to the game now and I'll let you know how it plays.

PS3, From Gamasutra and the WSJ

Here's the question Gamasutra put to developers for their Question of the Week feature:
Q: Given Sony's recent issues with PlayStation 3 supply/launch dates and overall negative publicity for the company, what does Sony need to do to convince developers and the public that the PS3 will be the dominant next-gen console? (Responses could include comments on developer support, pricing, network/online capabilities, PR, and any other pertinent factors.)

Great question, and you can read their answers here.

There was also an article today in the Wall Street Journal online (thanks Devon) that was an overview of the PS3 and what's happened in the last few months. Mostly old news, but there was one fascinating comment:
Square Enix Co. used to make showcase games like Kingdom Hearts and the latest installment in the Final Fantasy series only for the PlayStation 2. This time it is planning to be more evenhanded, and it has announced two games for each of the three new-generation consoles. It still plans to develop the most advanced Final Fantasy game for the PlayStation 3. But it hasn't yet decided which console will get Kingdom Hearts, a popular game involving Disney characters.

"We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them," says Michihiro Sasaki, senior vice president of Square Enix. " But we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much."

The full article is here.

Warning About Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales

I had hopes for this game, but apparently they've been dashed. For one, the game shipped with Starforce copy protection, which was a terrible mistake. Second, from the reviews I've read, the three years they've spent working on this game since Pirates of the Caribbean shipped was apparently not enough time to improve armed conflicts on land.

Average review score (7 reviews): 58%. So be warned.

Paraworld!

Paraworld ships in the U.S. on September 27, and I'll have two extra copies for a contest, so keep your eyes peeled for that sometime this week.

I have high hopes for this game, based on the two missions I was able to play at E3. It's vibrant, it's wonderfully creative, and the control interface is fantastic.

Some games have all the boxes checked but they're just not fun to play. Paraworld has that fun quality that makes you want to keep playing.

DQRB Rated "M" for Mature

Gloria was reading the newspaper.

"Here's a phrase I never thought I'd hear," she said. "Laser vaginal rejuvenation."

"I think my brain just exploded," I said. "I need a trash bag and a bucket."

"Here, look at this ad," she said.

Considering Cosmetic Gynecology?
Our one-hour procedure can tighten the vagina after childbirth and enhance sexual gratification. We can also correct stress, urinary intoninence, reduce large/uneven labia minora and reconstruct the hymen.

"That's amazing," I said. "So it's like Ponce De Leon and his search for the Fountain of Youth, but with vaginas."

"Maybe I should have something done," Gloria said. "Maybe I'm uneven."

"I wouldn't worry about it," I said. "I don't use a level."

Frankenticker

I give ESPN and ABC all the credit in the world for showing so many college football games in high-definition this year.

Too bad they aren't any fun to watch.

ESPN should rename itself the Entirely Self-Promoting Network, because it's completely out of control at this point. Their "score" ticker, which takes up a giant portion of the bottom of the screen, runs continuously during college football games. And the one thing you almost never see--are scores.

Here's an example. I was watching Michigan-Wisconsin Saturday morning, and the only other game going on at that time was Minnesota-Purdue. Frankenticker was still going full speed, though.

(Vertical scroll) Iowa St.-Texas at 2:30 on ABC
(Vertical scroll) Notre Dame-Michigan St. at 7:30 on ABC
Most of the country will see Notre-Dame Michigan on ABC. For the west coast and adjoining states, the game will be on ESPN2. Check your local listings. We'll scroll this message every 90 seconds for the next eight hours to be sure you understand, bitches.
(Horizontal scroll) Last year, Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn threw for 547 yards against Michigan St. If Michigan St. wins, see the post-game riot LIVE! on ESPN College Fan 24.
(Vertical scroll) West Virgina-East Carolina 2:30 on ESPN 360
(Horizontal scroll) West Virginia Linebacker Studs McCrappen only has one testicle. See its fallen comrade bronzed on ESPN U at 8:30.
(Vertical scroll-"NFL" tab selected) Monday Night Football on ABC at 8:30. We know Ron Jaworski's IQ is 100 points higher than Joe Theisman, but Theisman looks better in a suit.

You get golf scores. And tennis scores. And baseball scores. Oh, and you'll see the start time for every upcoming game on every ESPN sub-channel for the day.

It goes on and on and freaking on. It never stops. Miraculously, 80% of the information on Frankenticker seems to have some connection with current or future ESPN programming.

If you try to watch the ABC regional game at 2:30, you get to see Frankenticker, but it's even worse, because you get to see TEXT PROMOS for upcoming ABC shows:
Desperate Housewives premiers on ABC at 8:00 Sunday, September 24. We promise it will be funny again, like it was in the first year.

*$#damn promos for shows on the score ticker!

ESPN's problem, for us, is that they don't actually want us to watch the football game. They want us to watch the ticker so that they can spam us continually with self-promotional information.

Watch the CBS SEC game at 2:30 and it's totally different. The scoreboard ticker is less than half the size of ESPN's. There's no self-promotion, no show promos. The scoreboard ticker just shows football scores. Imagine that.

So even though my "home" conference is the Big-12, and even though I'd much rather watch the Big 12 game, I watch the SEC, because the coverage is so much less annoying that I enjoy the game ten times as much.

Nicely done, Frankenticker.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Your Dwarf Fortress Stories (2)

Here are some more terrific stories about Dwarf Fortress from you guys. Thanks.

I think one measure of a game's impact (and greatness) should be the stories that people tell about the game. Great games generate great stories, and Dwarf Fortress is certainly in the forefront of that category as well.

First off, a fantastic story from Nick Youngblood (who is a terrific writer as well):
This story takes place in my second fortress. My first fortress starved to death in the very first winter, because I misunderstood the summary screen. I thought that the food I had in the "Other" category was actually edible, and so while it seemed like I had enough, in reality I began to starve days after winter began. I still remember the sinking feeling I got when it rained at the beginning of spring, destroying the road I had built for the human traders. That caravan was our only hope, and when the road became impassable, I knew that all was lost. But I digress.

On the fate of the second fortress: I had perhaps 24 dwarves in my fortress going into autumn, and I was confident that we had more than enough food. It would be a lean winter, but I was confident that we would make it through without going hungry. However, days before winter began, I was visited by a group of migrants. Now, apparently my fortress had become known as some sort of greatly sought-after dwarven vacation spot, because in one group of migrants I went from around 25 dwarves to just over twice that amount. Twice as many mouths to feed and not enough food to fill them. Horses and dogs were slaughtered wholesale to make up the lack, but partway through winter we began to starve.

Things were very desperate at this point, but I had learned from my previous mistakes and made sure my road was in good repair. Then, I began to plant crops as fast as I could. Every dwarf I had was assigned to this task. I was sure that if we could just reap a single harvest, we could survive until the humans came to help us. For a time it seemed as though my plan might work. The two plots were almost sown, and soon we would have food enough to survive. I knew that some would die, but we would make it.

I then see this on my screen: "Olav Eitherok has gone stark raving mad! Olav Eitherok has destroyed Plot! Olav Eitherok has destroyed Plot!" I gaped at the screen. One of my farmers had gone mad with hunger, and in his senseless rage destroyed the city's only chance at life.

I knew now that we were doomed, but I had one last task that I would finish before the end. On the spot of those farms I constructed a stone sepulcher decorated with the finest stonework I could create, four statues at the cardinal points. When Olav finally succumbed to starvation, I had him interred within those walls. I imagined that in their final moments my dwarves carved the story of the fall of Glas Galak upon those stones, so that for all time those who visited this place would know of the infamy of Olav Eitherok, and how his reckless madness had doomed an entire people.

Only the dead inhabit Glas Galak now, but I find some small comfort in knowing that the name of the traitor Olav Eitherok will be cursed for all time, and that though he is dead, he will never be at peace.

Good grief, Nick is a freaking amazing writer. And what a story.

Next, from Russ Harvey, both a story and a recommendation:
Not sure how far along your fortress is now, so I won’t spoil anything here, but eventually you’re going to come under siege, and it’s going to be painful.

Painful, that is, unless you have patiently hollowed out an auxiliary tunnel from the edge of the mountain all the way to the lava river, bridged the river and chasm with aqueducts, constructed a channel to link it all together, situated a floodgate at the end of the channel, and linked said floodgate to a doomsday lever hidden within your main fortress. Then when the trouble arrives, you merely lock the front doors, cackle madly, and order the lever pulled. Describing the flood of lava which sweeps out to engulf the world as “gratifying” doesn’t really do it justice. You’ll be giggling for hours at the sight of the besiegers (and those slower-of-foot dwarves that didn’t make it inside) vainly attempting to flee from the spreading pool of death.

I lost around 30 dwarves in its construction. The results were worth every smoking corpse.

Russ Harvey: evil overlord for hire. Reasonable rates.

Next, from Kel Woodbury:
So I'm going along and things are going well. People are busily preparing food and drinks for the first winter when all of a sudden lizardmen attack! Since at this point I didn't really know what I'm doing, I just observe to see what happens. My 2 war dogs attack them and take down a couple and then die. So much for this settlement having dogs. The lizardmen also get into a fight with some dwarves and the miner and carpenter handily cut them down.

I check things out after the battle and see bits of lizardmen and dwarf on the ground and someone's... lower left leg?

Then I see the poor guy and he's in a lot of pain, so he hobbles off to a bed where he remains mostly unconscious for a year.

Then it happens: he's taken by a fell mood.

Not sure what this is about, I curiously watch him hobble down the hallway to the workshop area and take over the butchery. He then proceeds to hobble around the base looking for what I don't know. Then, suddenly, he kills someone. I am laughing so hard because here's this guy possessed by who knows what hobbling down my corridor and then he kills someone as they run by. He proceeds to take their corpse to the butchery and begins working on something. What the heck is he making out of another dwarf? Unfortunately, the crippled guy is in so much pain he falls unconscious a lot and works during his short conscious periods. It takes him about 2 YEARS to finish the, erm, dwarf bone chain armor. And now he is a legendary bonecrafter. He walks back to the bed and collapses, where he remains there for another year till he dies.

At the Highest Level

Gloria called home yesterday afternoon. I was in my study at the time. Imagine that.

"We're on the Central Market playground," she said. "Do you want anything from the store?"

Central Market is a "store" like Jackson Pollack is a house painter. I can ask for butter made from yak's milk and have at least a 50/50 change of her bringing a tub home.

"Have you already shopped?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but we can just go back in."

"Nothing for me, then," I said.

"Why? It will just take us a minute to go back in."

"I'm too lazy for that,"I said.

"But you're not having to do anything," she said.

"That doesn't matter. I'm a practitioner of lazy at the highest level. I don't hoard lazy. I'm a philanthropist."

"Good grief," she said.

"I'm Lazy HD," I said. "Don't even look for me on the regular lazy channels. I'm not there."

Competition

Microsoft clearly demonstrated the benefits of competition to the consumer last week.

Yesterday, they announced this (thanks Gamespot):
Microsoft has now apparently admitted that the initial shipments of Xbox 360s were failing at a greater than normal rate. "As part of our standard and ongoing process of analyzing repair data, we recently noticed a higher than usual number of [360] units coming in for repair," Microsoft said in a statement sent to GameSpot. "Upon further investigation, it was further discovered that the bulk of the units were isolated to a group that was part of the initial manufacturing run of the console. Returns for repair are coming in for a variety reasons and it's a higher rate than we are satisfied with."

As a result of their findings, Microsoft has "made the decision to comp repairs for consoles manufactured before January 1, [2006] and provide refunds to the small group of customers who have already paid for repairs." As was the case last year, those wishing to get their consoles repaired or replaced should contact Xbox customer support.

Given that Microsoft could have dissembled forever that the actual failure rate was "in line" with other electronic devices, this is a relatively stunning admission.

Consumer-friendly, as it were.

Now let's look at what the same company did earlier this week with the release of Windows Media Player 11. Look at this Orwellian bit of linguistics in the read me:
Windows Media Player 11 does not permit you to back up your media usage rights (previously known as licenses). However, depending upon where your protected files came from, you might be able to restore your rights over the Internet.

Isn't that clever? All we own now is the right to use the media. And if we want to move the music we bought from our PC to our laptop--sorry. Not unless we go back through the original point of purchase and get their authorization. And if they don't exist anymore, or they're assholes, well, tough luck.

That's how Microsoft handles features in their operating system, because they can. For all intents and purposes, it's a monopoly.

You may not realize this if you're an international reader, but consumer rights in the United States are absolute shit. I can't imagine any country having weaker consumer protection laws than we do. And our elected representatives seem to be too busy jamming their pockets with lucre or wrapping themselves in the flag to care.

And Right Back to Paper Cuts Again

Surely they wouldn't be this stupid. From Kotaku:
Kutaragi also pretty much confirmed that we won't be seeing a comparative price drop in other territories. According to Ken, the Japanese pricing changes were merely an adjustment to keep the price inline with the market. He argued that the misconception that 1 dollar equals 1 euro equals 100 yen is not a fair comparison.

Uh-oh, the stupid wagon just pulled out of the depot--and Sony was driving.

Okay, it's the last time I'm going to say this, although I'm not promising. At $499 and $599, the PS3 is a doorstop. It's not in competition with the 360--at $200 more, it's a separate product category. It's a boutique product. This is totally in conflict with Sony's primary goal, which is to win the high-definition DVD war with Blu-Ray. And analysts can talk until their heads explode about what a "relative" value it is because it has a Blu-Ray drive, and Sony can claim it will replace supercomputers, and it will still get kicked in the teeth by the 360. The 360 is $200 cheaper and it has an outstanding lineup of games this fall. The PS3 has supply problems (although they're trying to "fix" that by killing demand with their pricing), and their launch line-up is average at best.

I'm not sure why people don't understand this, but a product that costs 50% more than its primary competitor and has a far poorer selection of software for its primary use is not going to be successful. It's math. And the software gap is not going to close, because developers can do math, too.

Two months before launch. Two months. Buzz? ZERO. That pricing announcement was the first spasm of interest in weeks. When you spend 90% of your interaction with the press defending your pricing strategy, it is highly likely that your pricing strategy is wrong.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Sound the Alarm, or Sony Proves They Have Ears

Thanks to DQ reader Douglas for e-mailing me this announcement from the Tokyo Game Show:
Both the Associated Press and Reuters are now reporting that the Playstation 3 20 GB will be getting a 20 percent price drop in Japan. That means the lower end PS3 will sell for 49.980 yen or $429 there. No mention of the price for the higher-end PS3 was made likely because in Japan that price is being left to retailers to set.

Here's the full story over at Kotaku.

That is a GIANT price dop, particularly when the console hasn't even been launched yet. That's unprecedented. And they're also apparently including an HDMI 1.3 output. So they dropped the price 20% and improved the specs at the same time.

Now remember, this was the company who claimed that they could sell anything and people would buy it because of the strength of the Playstation brand name and customer loyalty.

Well, apparently not.

Remember that I've mentioned several times in the last few months that Sony must be panicking behind closed doors? In spite of what they were saying publicly, they must have finally understood that the future of Blu-Ray was endangered at the initial launch prices they announced. And their internal tracking must have shown far less demand at the initial prices than they expected.

Panic isn't such a bad thing in this case, at least for us. And that is the first thing Sony's done right in months. At $499 and $599, the PS3 was going to be a boat anchor. Sony's clearly admitted that with this dramatic price cut. At least they've finally acknowledged reality.

However, there's a big IF here. For one, they haven't dropped the price anywhere but Japan at this point (although I expect them to shortly). Even if they do, they said just a few weeks ago that there would be very few 20GB units available at launch--the vast majority would be the $599 units with the 60GB hard drive. So unless they change allocations, this might be a discount that's perfectly available in theory and impossible to find in practice.

Someone asked me if this was in response to Microsoft's announcement that the 360 would support 1080p output via a software update, but I don't think so. Upscaled 1080p output from the 360 was the least of Sony's problems--they were dying the death of a thousand paper cuts, and all of them were self-inflicted.

Hopefully, this stops the bleeding. Or at least starts the clotting.

Paintocalypse

Glora painted our guest room purple.

I don't mean the shade of purple historically associated with royalty. It's girl purple. I'm not sure which shade of girl purple--I'm not qualified to make those distinctions.

We began with one purple wall.

"What do you think?" Gloria asked as I walked into the room, newly painted for the first time.

"Agggghhh! My eyes!"

"You don't like it," she said.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" I asked.

Eli 5.1 walked into the room. "Aggghhh!" he said. "It's PURPLE!"

"You paid him to do that," Gloria said.

"I did not," I said. "All men are wired that way. Our only use for purple is to color the velevety robes that are placed over our shoulders when we're crowned king."

Gloria decided that because one purple wall didn't quite look right, her best option was to paint the other three walls purple. "It's the Paintocalypse," I said.

"That didn't work out like I expected it too," she said. "This color is about two shades darker than the swatch."

The ceiling--or, as I refer to it now, "the escape hatch"--is still white, though.

Gloria's bummed out because she painted a room purple and it looks, well, so damned purple. So she was sitting around yesterday, bummed out, and Eli 5.1 walked up and put his arms around her. "Mommy, I LIKE the guest room," he said.

"You do?" she asked, brightening.

"Well, I really don't," he said, "but I'm trying to make you feel better."

Dominance

Far afield, but I saw this in the Sports section of the Dallas Morning News today and thought it was interesting.

Tiger Woods won 46 PGA Tour events before he turned 30 last December. Do you know how many other players under thirty have at least THREE wins on the PGA Tour?

Four.

Incredible, but true. The four are Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, and Ben Curtis.

Selam

Wow.

From Scientific American:
The arid badlands of Ethiopia's Afar region have long been a favorite hunting ground for paleoanthropologists. The area is perhaps best known for having yielded "Lucy," the 3.2 million-year-old skeleton of a human ancestor known as Australopithecus afarensis. Now researchers have unveiled another incredible find, from a site called Dikika, just four kilometers from where Lucy turned up. It is the skeleton of an A. afarensis child who lived 3.3 million years ago. No other hominin of such antiquity--including Lucy--is as complete as this one. Moreover, as the earliest juvenile hominin ever found, the Dikika fossil provides a rare opportunity to study growth processes in our long ago relatives.

As a frame of reference, the earliest complete skeleton of a human-related child that had previously been found was less than 300,000 years old.

Here's another interesting excerpt:
The skull, too, is an amalgam of old and new traits, as two aspects of the Dikika baby underscore. The first is the hyoid--a delicate, rarely preserved bone that helps anchor throat muscles. It's anatomy suggests that A. afarensis had a voice box similar to a chimp's. The second is the fossil's natural endocast, an impression of the braincase. The child had attained only 63 to 88 percent of the adult brain size by the age of three. A chimp of comparable age, in contrast, has reached more than 90 percent of its adult brain size. This raises the possibility that A. afarensis experienced a more humanlike pattern of brain growth.

It's all amazing, and you can read the Scientific American story here as well as an MSNBC story (with an excellent picture of the skull) here.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Once More On Intel, Now With No Registration Required

Gwon Chang sent me a no-registration required version of the New York Times story I posted yesterday about Intel's new inter-chip communication process. You can read the full story here.

Proximity Communications

Yesterday I mentioned Intel's new technology for communication between chips using laser beams. Sun also has a technology for this purpose--it's called "proximity ommunications."Here's an excerpt from a CNet article:
Proximity communication, which is working in Sun labs, uses a technology called capacitive coupling. In it the electrical state of a tiny patch of one chip is registered by a corresponding patch on another chip that's separated by a thin air gap.

The technology not only is much faster than regular wires, but its performance doesn't lag as the chips speed up, Tremblay said. Essentially, that means chip communications can participate in the same steady Moore's Law pace of processor improvements.

This tech was announced last year, but if you missed it, here's a link to the full article.

Everybody Have Fun Tonight

"Everybody WUNG CHANG tonight," Eli 5.1 sang.

"Wang Chung," I said. "Everybody Wang Chung tonight."

"Got it," he said. "Everybody WANG CHONG tonight," he sang. Every single note was off-key by a wide margin.

"Wang Chung," I said. "Plus the first line is sung in a higher key. So the first line is high and the second line is low."

"Got it," he said.

We were walking down the light bulb aisle at Home Depot.

That your son would be singing "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" in the middle of Home Depot might strike you as odd--unless you have a five-yeard old. If you do, though, it's just business as usual.

In this case, there was a good reason. After dinner we went to the Hallmark store to look at Halloween decorations because he saw a display of about fifty ghosts inside the store. While he was there, he started looking at greeting cards, and there was one line of Halloween cards with sound chips inside. Quite good sound chips, actually, compared to the usual fare.

One of these cards, for no apparent reason, contained a long excerpt from Wang Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight." [please note: one member of our family frequently danced to this song while in college. Hint: it was not me.] Eli thought that "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" was the funniest song he's ever heard.

Obviously, he's never heard the lyric "I like big butts and I cannot lie."

Dwarf Fortress: More of Your Stories

Here are a few more Dwarf Fortress stories sent in by you guys.

Oh, and before we get started, let me just mention that this is clearly all Devon Prescott's fault. I'd gotten an e-mail or two about DF in the last week, but Devon kept sending them, and that (and the PA forum thread) are what finally compelled me to download the game.

First off is J.R. Cabe, and his story is another example of how DF developer Tarn Adams is just playing in a different league altogether. Oh, and it's good to know as you read this story that dwarves can create "legendary" items which, while extremely valuable, have incredible emotional importance to the dwarf who crafted them.

Did I just type the phrase "incredible emotional importance to the dwarf who crafted them"?

My DF story is somewhat similar to Chris Lorenzen's about wounded dwarves and their at times conscientious brothers who bring them water and food when they are bed ridden. My story differs in how my miner and grower actually found themselves getting injured.

I was trying out a different build then my usual that involved cutting a straight shaft to the river, dropping down a bridge and then setting up farms on the far side of the river. With no time to dig out areas for my workshop until later, I had built starter workshops outside of the fortress.

The build worked pretty well and the only workshop I had left outside was my Craftdwarve’s Workshop in which I had my crafting-dwarf working on stone mugs to sell to the first caravan. Everything was running smoothly until two raccoons ran in and stole a pair of legendary mugs that my crafting-dwarf had created. This set my crafting-dwarf off on a ballistic path of murder and mayhem.

First up was my miner who was just trying to get a drink at the well--several injuries, but none life-threatening, thankfully. The crafting-dwarf shifted his sights to a war-dog, then a horse--who were both killed--and then mortally wounding a mule. That calmed his rage for a bit and he decided that a nap was in order, I figured the worst was over, but had I known what was to come next I would've locked him in his room permanently. After waking he destroyed several pieces of furniture that he was trying to take to their designated spots, he then chased my grower across the bridge to the farming area where he wounded him.

On his way back to the rest of the fortress he took his frustration out on the bridge crossing the river, plunging himself and my newly acquired blacksmith into the river. I literally screamed at my scream, "Drown you bastard" but alas the crafting-dwarf pulled himself out of harms way while my blacksmith was washed away downstream.

This game does all kinds of things in terms of interaction and behavior that I didn't think I would ever see in a game. And it's not even the focus of the game. Incredible.

Now, a story from Rob Kaye. A Broker, by the way, is the fellow who helps you get fair value when you trade with a caravan and also negotiates trade agreements.
Today, I got a Broker. A human caravan arrived. About ten minutes later, I saw the U's (humans) wandering the fortress. I started watching them, and they slowly zoned in on the Broker's OFFICE. Not his bedroom or dining room. His OFFICE.

The Broker SAT IN HIS CHAIR as they entered and I could just imagine them all talking. How cool is that?!?

And here's a second story from Rob Kaye.
So I finally got the magma forge going. Almost immediately, a metalsmith went into a mood and claimed the forge. Then he proceeded to gather materials from stockpiles in the main complex.

Now, understand that the lava river was over 200 spaces just to the main complex, with another 50 or so to the outside (remember that I made all my storage areas outside). All in all, he made EIGHT trips back and forth.

What did he pull as materials? 3 platinum ore, a schist block, silk thread, obsidian and jet stone and groundhog leather. Huh?

He made a toy boat!

Here is the description:
This is a toy boat. All craftdwaftship is of the highest quality. It is decorated with cave spider silk and encircled with the bands of Jet. This object menaces with spikes of platinum and Obsidian. On the item are images of Mangrove trees in platinum. On the item are images of dwarves in platinum. On the item are images of muck roots in groundhog leather.

And here's one more, from DQ reader Eric Poulton:
After an especially hard season (my only axe was being held by a guy who was bedridden after being attacked by gorillas and losing his right eye, my fisherman wasn't catching any fish, a lack of alcohol was leading to a bunch of very unhappy dwarves with a bad habit of going on tantrums and tearing down the trade depot, and when the first trade caravan showed up there was nothing for the colony to trade but some empty barrels), my miners finally hit the underground river. After a thrilling chase down a twisting tunnel with a wall of water close behind, things started looking up for my dwarf colony. They started a nice little farm that provided them with food, they scrounged up the resources for a new axe, the fisherman started catching fish (in the underground river, no less!), and they began setting up a floodgate system to keep the farm sustainable.

One day the fisherman was sitting next to the river fishing, his cat keeping him company, when all of a sudden an F jumps out at him. A message informed me that F stands for Frogman. The fisherman hightailed it as two more frogmen jumped out of the river. The dwarves raced to close the floodgates to protect the rest of the colony, even if it meant trapping the poor fisherman and his cat in the tunnel with the beasts. The fisherman was taking hits as he ran down the hall toward the floodgates. Blood was splattered all over the floor and walls. The cat may or may not have been killed by now. A dwarf reached the floodgate lever right as the fisherman reached the end of the tunnel, frogmen on his tail. The lever was pulled. Then something happened that has never happened in any game I've played before. It crashed and I lost the last six hours of progress. That's not the surprising part, it is an alpha after all. The surprising part is I immediately booted the game back up and started right where I left off, just looking forward to how I would do things better this time.

That's a great story with an unfortunate ending, but it also is a good reminder to save the game occasionally and back up your save folder.

I've been told that certain enemy creatures are smart enough to pull levers. Freaking incredible.

A Note

Someone e-mailed me and let me know that Zach Adams is also listed on the design credits for Dwarf Fortress. So if I understand this correctly, both Tarn and his brother Zach are designers, while Tarn is the programmer.

I think.

Icing, Perfected

I've eaten thousands of Pop-Tarts in my life.

Yesterday, though, as I began to eat a cinammon roll flavor Pop-Tart, I saw something I'd never seen before: on the back was a thumb-sized oval of white icing. It was perfectly smooth and perfectly oval and looked like an icing Cameo.

In short, it was a Pop-Tart miracle.

"Take a look at this," I said to Gloria, holding up the Pop-Tart as I entered her study. "Examine it closely," I said. "Do you see anything that in any way resembles the Virgin Mary?"

Gloria studied the Pop-Tart for several seconds. "Not a thing," she said.

This was a serious problem. A Pop-Tart with an unusual or remarkable feature is worth nothing. A blessed Pop-Tart, on the other hand, could be worth thousands of dollars on Ebay.

"You have artistic talent," I said. "Could you possibly create a faded yet plausible image of the Virgin Mary? While you do that, I'll work on setting up a viewing area. Then we'd put it up for auction on Ebay. I could buy my new computer and there would be plenty left over to get something nice for yourself."

"I can't draw the Virgin Mary on a Pop-Tart," she said. "Sorry."

"Not a team player," I said.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The End of Disenfranchisement Through Aggregation: the Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress

I wrote that title just to freak you guys out. I wanted you to think for a moment that I’d gone over to the Dark Side.

Tre Chipman sent me an interesting e-mail last week. Here’s an excerpt:
Still, Dwarf Fortresss getting Game of the Year worries me. Not because Dwarf Fortress isn't a great game (it is) but the fact that if it IS the GOTY, then it says pretty terrible things about the current state of the gaming industry, doesn't it? I mean, an ASCII based game made in someone's garage (or garage equivalent) comes out of nowhere and kicks the stuffing out of everything else, despite the fact that well into the 90% percentile of everything you see on the shelves these days has millions of dollars of design behind it?

Well, it does kick the stuffing out of everything else. I know that sounds incredible to say, but it’s true. To call Dwarf Fortress an indictment of the gaming industry, though, puts the focus on the gaming industry when it should be on Tarn Adams. We should celebrate his game for what it is—a stunning achievement—than use it as an implement to indict other games for what they’re not.

That’s not to say that Dwarf Fortress doesn’t embarrass the gaming industry—it does. Tremendously. Dwarf Fortress is scoreboard, pure scoreboard, and the gaming industry, the business of gaming, really has no response.

Instead of talking about what other games lack, though, let’s talk about why Dwarf Fortress is so shockingly good. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s the gaming equivalent of a disruptive technology—it transforms our notion of what is possible. This is exactly the kind of complexity, the kind of detail, that we’ve wanted in a game world for years.

Better yet, it’s coherent detail. Even at its most intricate, it’s cohesive.

Best of all, it actually works. There’s no blah-blah-bullshit about why it doesn’t quite work the way it should or why it can’t be finished. It’s far more finished (as an alpha!) than 90% of commercial software projects.

It’s not just the level of detail, though—it’s the level of logic surrounding those details. When you face a problem in the game, in almost all cases the best solution is the most intelligent one, and when you make a mistake, it’s not some fluky aspect of the game world. You aren’t punished by tricks.

The logic is everywhere. Want to build something? You need the right materials, and those materials must be hauled to the appropriate workshop. And once it’s built, you can’t just magically put it somewhere—a dwarf must take it to the location.

If that kind of logic just existed in a few activities, like it does in so many games, it would be nothing more than a cheap parlor trick, but that degree of thought is present everywhere in Dwarf Fortress—it’s a defining characteristic, not a cheap illusion.

That deep, consistent level of thought is why the game world is so coherent, and so entrancing. I think it’s the most intellectually engaged I’ve ever been in twenty years of playing games, because it requires not only thought but interesting thought. It rewards creativity, not memorization.

There’s one other aspect of Dwarf Fortress that I deeply appreciate, and I didn’t realize how or why until today. But Adams made a critical design decision, an entirely unique decision, and it has affected the power of the game in a paramount way. And to understand why it’s so important, we need to look at how other games approach the same dilemma.

The dilemma, simply put, is units. Strategy games can require the direction of hundreds of units, and the detail generated by those units is overwhelming. So a key design decisions in all these games is how to best aggregate information to present it efficiently to the player. In most cases, it will be via graphs or 1-100 scales.

Something happens in the course of that aggregation, though: individual units are disenfranchised. A single unit is just a number in a spreadsheet, part of an equation. It has no meaning beyond its number.

A few games try to work around this disenfranchisement with the “hero” concept, where a few units are much more powerful and become leaders. Still, though, they’re just numbers—bigger numbers, but numbers just the same.

In this game, this unlikely, wonderful game, a dwarf isn’t a unit: a dwarf is a dwarf. He (or she) has feelings. He feels love. He feels fear. He has needs and desires and dreams. Every dwarf has his own little dwarven version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

If these dwarves are upset, you don’t see their unrest in a bar graph. They stop working. They break furniture. They throw tantrums. They rage.

And sometimes, they mourn.

Pompous, self-aggrandizing gaming industry, do you hear me? I’m playing a game with ASCII graphics written by one person about dwarves and they mourn.

It’s not really about dwarves, though. It’s about humanity and survival. It’s about us, about all the elegant and awkward things we feel and want, about what we’ll do when we’re afraid. It’s an adventure, but that adventure is as much inside us as outside. It makes us think about who we are.

I mentioned early that I thought Dwarf Fortress was the gaming equivalent of a disruptive technology. That’s true in the sense of its surpassing brilliance, but another element of disruptive technology is that it drives change, often radical change, and I don’t see that happening.

I don’t see it happening because Dwarf Fortress, in terms of project size, is a throwback. In the old days, one or two people just designed and programmed the coolest damn game they could. That was their objective: to make a cool game.

Today, there are long, long odds against that philosophy. That doesn’t mean cool games don’t get made by big companies—they do—but their primary objective isn’t to make cool games anymore. Those days are long gone. Their primary objective is to sell games, and that is a different matter entirely.

Big project teams also work against depth of gameplay. They’re great for breadth but not for depth. They’re also almost guaranteed to work against coherence. If six designers share 90% of the vision of the game, that last 10% is going to wreak absolute havoc—all six will get some of their 10% into the game, which they desperately want (it’s their unique contribution, after all), and at the edges, the vision of the game crumbles. Some games successfully avoid that trap—I think Oblivion, in particular, takes place in a remarkably cohesive world—but there are ten games that fail in that way, at least, for every one that succeeds.

The other reason I don’t think that Dwarf Fortress will be truly disruptive technology is Tarn Adams, and that’s another reason I think we should celebrate this game. Who else could possibly do something like this? Who else could single-handedly make a game with this kind of astonishing depth, with this kind of emotional impact, with this kind of unerring instinct?

Who has ever made a game like this?

Dwarf Fortress isn’t a call to arms—it’s a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky. And so I say: let’s celebrate the lightning.

Madden: Quality is Our New Focus

I mentioned the spectacular bug in the PS2 and Xbox versions of Madden 2007 in Europe where a quarterback in Superstar mode will turn and pass the ball in the wrong direction. DQ reader Shawn Mallen let me know today that Bill Simmons, ESPN columnist and generally very funny guy, actually wrote about the bug in a recent column:
I'll leave you with this: Apparently the European version of "Madden" has a glitch where, if you're playing in superstar mode and not controlling the QB, he'll throw the football backward on every play. I mention this not because it's a funny YouTube clip, but because the person who posted that YouTube clip called it, "the Aaron Brooks glitch." In other words, they decided to name the glitch after the real-life QB who's most likely to throw the ball 35 yards backward during a game.

And believe it or not, here's the video clip where the real Aaron Brooks does just that (he really only throws it backwards 20 yards, but that's good enough for me--thanks to Shawn for that link as well).

Seriously, EA talked about their new commitment to quality and making better games about six months ago. That really seems to be paying off.

Very Likely

I was watching football on Sunday afternoon when I heard Eli 5.1 at the top of the stairs.

"So since this is VERY LIKELY for me to DROP this on my FOOT, can I get SOMEONE to HELP me?" He was carrying this little wicker basket of toys down the stairs. It was the size of a loaf of bread, somewhat less dangerous than the apocalyptic scenario he was presenting.

Gloria started laughing when she heard him, because he wasn't stopping to wait for help. No, he was headed down the stairs to certain doom, according to him, unless someone intervened right away.

Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Gloria said "You know, you could have waited for someone to get to the top of the stairs to help you."

"Well," he said, "I'm afraid this causing for disaster."

I think that was an explanation. There's no telling.

Later he had all his toy heroes set up and they were battling the bad guys, and he was right in the middle of a climactic battle when he jumped up off the carpet and said "The fighter needs to go potty. Excuse me."

Science Links

First off, more proof that Albert Einstein was an absolute bad-ass:
An international research team led by Prof. Michael Kramer of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK, has used three years of observations of the "double pulsar", a unique pair of natural stellar clocks which they discovered in 2003, to prove that Einstein's theory of general relativity - the theory of gravity that displaced Newton's - is correct to within a staggering 0.05%. Their results are published on the14th September in the journal Science and are based on measurements of an effect called the Shapiro Delay.

Here's a link to the full article.

From Matt Bradford, a link to an absolutely stunning video about an autistic genius who has photographic memory. He's known as "The Living Camera," and after he's taken on a helicopter ride over Rome, he reproduces the city in exacting and almost perfect detail in a drawing that was over five yards wide. The video is five minutes long, it's amazing, and you can see it here.

Finally, a link to an article in the NY Times (reg required) about using lasers instead of wires to transmit data between silicon chips. Here's an excerpt:
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 — Researchers plan to announce on Monday that they have created a silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams. The advance will make it possible to use laser light rather than wires to send data between chips, removing the most significant bottleneck in computer design.

As a result, chip makers may be able to put the high-speed data communications industry on the same curve of increased processing speed and diminishing costs — the phenomenon known as Moore’s law — that has driven the computer industry for the last four decades.

The development is a result of research at Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. Commercializing the new technology may not happen before the end of the decade, but the prospect of being able to place hundreds or thousands of data-carrying light beams on standard industry chips is certain to shake up both the communications and computer industries.

Amazing, and you can read the full article here.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Dwarf Fortress (6): Intermediate Farming Strategy (by Thom Moyles)

Thom said this was a "basic guide" when he sent it to me, but it's well beyond the basics (which I covered in the previous post). So I'm calling it the "intermediate" guide, and thanks to Thom for making it available to us.

Farming, the Basics
It should be noted that almost all of this information is available in the Dwarven Fortress wiki, which is a tremendous resource. I’d suggest just having it open while you play and it’s entirely worth it just to sit and cycle through pages using the Random Page link and even if you don’t entirely understand, reading each page as it comes. Eventually it will all fall together.

The intention here is to provide a good basic strategy for developing farms in your first year. Ideally, you should already know how the interface of the game works, since I’m not too helpful in that regard. If you’re thinking “How do I make a Still?”, you need something even more basic than this, which is still really basic, which is what it’s like dealing with DF because the game is scary amounts of complex. Conversely, if you already know how to make a farm and make it through the first winter without scraping by, this isn’t going to be very helpful either. I’m hoping that there’s enough people who are in-between that this will wind up being useful to somebody.

Crops
Lots of people like to take sweet pod seeds over the other crop types, mainly because once you start processing them, they produce a 1 sweet pod to 5 food items payout, which is great. However, doing this requires you to build a Farmer’s Workshop in order to produce Dwarven Syrup and I believe a Kitchen to then cook the syrup into food. While this is an excellent plan, I prefer to leave it for the second year, since for most people, the object of the first year is to provide enough food to make it through the winter without losing any dwarves.

With this in mind, I think Plump Helmets are the easy choice. Their main advantage is that they don’t have to be cooked to eat, so you don’t have to build anything to process them and they can also be brewed into dwarven wine, a process that I’ll talk more about later. The initial allotment of Plump Helmet Spawn is probably going to be enough for the size of farm that you’ll be able to build in the first year. You may consider bumping it up to 20 or 25 if you feel confident about your ability to get a good-sized farm up and running quickly.

It’s also a good idea to bring along 5 or so seeds of the other crop types, including sweet pods. You likely won’t plant them in your first year (or in very small amounts if you do); however, they will become more important later, so it’s a good idea to have a small stockpile of these seeds that you can start growing once you’ve got the safety of your settlement assured.

The First Year
Surviving the first year is made much easier if you have your farm up and running. In fact, I would say that it’s the most important part of your beginning settlement. It may seem daunting at first; however, it’s more than possible to set up a floodgate-controlled farm and collect a decent harvest in the first year. The key to doing so is keeping all of your dwarves busy and highly specialized. When mining, don’t bother with digging anything other than an one-by-many corridor driving for the underground river and a room large enough to have a mason’s workshop and a mechanic’s workshop, if you’re going to be doing floodgate mining.

Don’t have your key dwarves do anything other than their job-specific tasks. Hit [v]->[p]->[l] and have your miner only mine, your mason only mason, etc. This means that they won’t get distracted by things like hauling duties early on, where speed is of the essence.

Once you hit the river, dig out your farm, which is where you’re going to have to make a decision of Nile-style natural flooding or using floodgates. I prefer floodgates, even though they take longer, because of the level of control that you have. With Nile-style farms, you’re at the whim of the river in terms of when it floods and you don’t have any control over whether it floods again, wiping out crops and possibly dwarves. Monsters can also come into your fortress through these farms, whereas the floodgates will lock them out.

There’s an excellent write-up of both the floodgate technique and Nile-flooding here: http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Irrigation

I would suggest having a large-to-medium sized room (6-10x8-10, with supports of course) and then just plotting most of it for plump helmets. Although you’re only going to be able to get as many seeds as you brought into the ground, if you’ve worked quickly and gotten your Still set up, it’s possible that you may be able to plant more before winter comes (more on the Still and why it’s important later). Place it so that you can easily expand it later and also so that it doesn’t block off future development (digging deeper into the mountain, etc.).

When the farming plot is set up, make sure that your farmer(s) only have Farming (Field) highlighted on their labor lists. Also add Farming (field) to all your other dwarves as well as their regular tasks and if you only have one farmer, I would suggest making him only work on Farming as well, at least while you’re getting that first crop in the ground. Remember that by pressing [a][b] and [c] while selecting the farm from [q] allows you to select which crops you will grow for each season. Use [+] and [-] to select Plump Helmets and press Enter to make sure that you have them selected for all the available seasons.

It’s also a good idea to place a food storage area very close to your farm. This is because food storage areas hold not only the completed crops; they also hold the seeds, so you’ll have a constant stream of dwarves going from your food storage to your farming plots. Having them run back and forth all the way across the cavern means a lot of lost time.

Infrastructure
The major workshop that you should build if you’ve followed the basic principles of what I’ve written so far is the Still. The Still is really helpful in that dwarves love alcohol and when they have enough to drink, you’re going to get a lot more production out of your workforce. All of the basic crops can be made into alcohol and should be at some point, since each dwarf usually has a personal preference for a certain kind of alcohol over another and will be happier if what they like is available.

Place the Still close to the food storage area and the farm itself, since the Still requires finished crops and will produce barrels of alcohol and seeds (which is important and I swear I’ll get to it). Because of this, it is also advisable to have a large number of spare barrels, which can usually be had by buying as many different kinds of foodstuffs during the initial goods allocation. Buying one each of all of the 2-point meats is a good way to do this and should provide with enough barrels for the first year at least.

The First Winter
When winter hits, your farm will dry up and you won’t really have to do anything to do until next year in terms of actual farming. You will have plenty of time to build and you should be able to build 1 or 2 additional medium-to-large-size floodgate farms given an experienced miner. In fact, the greatest obstacle to this is actually getting dwarves to haul the floodgates from the masonry to the farms. I swear that the weight of the things actually causes them to avoid the job, even if they’re set to do it.

One tip for dealing with the first winter in terms of not starving is strangely enough, to have not much to trade. This doesn’t mean not having anything to trade at all, though. If you’ve hit obsidian, you can make 2 short swords and this should be enough to buy all the meat the dwarven caravan can carry. Not only will this get you more food, the number of migrants that you receive is based on the caravan’s report on your fort. If you have most of your workshops set up outside (note: not verified at all to have any impact, I suspect that it does though) and don’t have many crafts to trade, it is possible to not get any migrants at all in the first winter, beyond the metalsmith, who always seems to show up. This may actually make things a little more difficult during the next year when you are short of dwarfpower; it will make survival easier if you’re worried about starvation.

If you do have enough food, which should mean good (double-digit) stores of meat, fish and plant, you should use your still to turn your plump helmets into dwarven wine (hey, we finally got here). Put the task on repeat and carefully monitor your levels of plump helmets. If the number gets too low, stop production, since you don’t want to run out of food. If you are producing wine, it will be really helpful because not only do dwarves work faster/harder when they have available alcohol, the process of creating dwarven wine also produces plump helmet spawn, in greater numbers than it took to plant the initial plot. Which means, the more wine you make, the more seeds you have, so the more plump helmets you’ll grow next year, which you can turn into wine, etc. Once this feedback loop gets rolling and you have a couple of Proficient Farmers, your fortress shouldn’t have to worry about food or alcohol shortages so long as you keep building new farms.

Finally
Good luck and as it says in the documentation, remember that it’s fun to lose.

Dwarf Fortress (5): Farming Basics

Farming. It can be critical to self-sufficiency in Dwarf Fortress, and managing all the different components can be fairly tricky (for me, at least). This is going to discuss the basics of farming, and there will be a follow-up post with an intermediate guide by Thom Moyles.

As part of your skill loadout when you make your party, I’d give someone points in both farming (fields) and farming (workshop). It helps them plant more quickly, and that’s a big help. Oh, and don't exchange your seeds for additional allocation points when you do your starting loadout--no seeds means no farming.

First off, and here’s one of the few “must knows” in the game that isn’t self-evident: there’s an underground river in the mountain. You must dig a mining shaft to the east (I make it one square high, usually, to progress as quickly as possible) until you find the river.

When you find the river, by the way, the reaction of your miners is quite funny—and entirely logical.

The reason you need to find the river is that periodically, it overflows, and when it does, it turns the area around the river into farmable land (in the game, it’s mud). Regular land in the world is not arable, because it lacks the moisture content necessary to support crops (I believe that’s the correct explanation).

Now it’s possible to just farm the muddy land provided by the river when it overflows (this is known as “Nile” farming), but that puts you at the mercy of the river. It also means you might lose a crop (or a farmer) if the river overflows unexpectedly while you’re planting or harvesting. So it’s far more effective, and far safer, to use floodgates.

Let’s go through this procedure step-by-step. There’s quite a bit involved here, and I’m sure there are others ways to do it, but here’s what worked for me.

You’re actually on parallel paths to support farming as quickly and efficiently as possible. One path is to find the river. The second path is to build infrastructure.

First off, start the mining shaft to the east from the entrance to the mountain. I just designate a long, narrow area and the miners dig until they hit the river. I also make it parallel to the settlement shaft. Because of certain flooding hazards if you make a mistake, I try to keep the settlement shaft and the river shaft separate for safety reasons.

While the miners are digging, you need to start building the farming infrastructure. As an example of the thoughtful complexity in this game, you can actually use fertilizer in your fields to increase their yield. But it works in a logical progression—you need to make ash, which can be soaked in water to make lye, which can then be used to make potash, and then the fields can be fertilized.

Which is great.

It’s a logical sequence. Build a furnace to burn wood to make ash. Build an ashery (which is a type of workshop, so use ‘w” to access the workshops list from the building menu or you won’t see it) to soak the ashes in water to make lye, then use the lye to make potash (it’s another ashery task) for fertilizer.

The devil, of course, is in the details. You need wood to burn in the furnace, so you’ll need to cut wood. You need blocks and a barrel to build an ashery, so you need to obtain those from a mason’s workshop and carpenter’s workshop, respectively. You’re also going to need barrels and buckets for the ashery (to store lie, etc.), so those need to be built at the carpenter’s workshop as well. And you need lye to make potash, so you must perform the “make lye” task first at the ashery. I just alternate the tasks (lye, potash, lye, potash, etc.) and load up the task screen. Just keep making it—you’ll need all the fertilizer you can make.

You’ll also need dwarves with the skills to operate the furnace and the ashery. I turned on both skills for the same dwarf.

Why do you want to fertilize the fields? Well, your production can be 4X (maybe more) what it is without fertilization. That’s a huge difference in productivity and well worth the time, but it can certainly be daunting to be coordinating all these activities at the same time, particularly in the first year of a fortress.

Let’s go back to mining now. As I said before, you’re mining a tunnel that’s only one square high. Once you reach the river, the water is going to blow back all the way to the mountain entrance. When it recedes, you can get to work.

First, move back six squares or from where the shaft breached the river. That gives you a section of corridor to work with. Now you’ll be doing two things to get the area ready for farming: creating a farming area by mining, and creating a system of floodgates and levers to control the water from the river.

Why do you care? Because once you get the floodgate system set up and working, you can flood the farming area whenever you want. That means you’re not at the mercy of the cave river overflowing for Nile farming. That means much greater productivity from the same amount of land.

Before you designate the mining area to create the farming rooms, start queuing up your materials tasks. You’ll need two floodgates (made at the mason’s workshop), and you’ll need a mechanic’s workshop to make “rock mechanisms” which will then be used to make levers to control the floodgates. I believe you’ll need four to connect two floodgates, so add those as building tasks at the Mechanic’s Workshop menu.

I dug out two large rooms off the main corridor, one of each side, that are each 10 squares wide by 5 squares deep (see the screenshot). I also excluded two squares in each room to act as pillars so that the room wouldn’t cave in. And in addition to those two rooms, I added a small 3x3 room, not connected to the farming room, to serve as a control room.

While the mining is ongoing, you can place the floodgates. Select the square in the corridor that is adjacent to the river to place the first floodgate (use the building menu—from that menu, “X” is the floodgate command). Note that your mason must have built the floodgate for it to be available now. Move the yellow “X” into place and press Enter.

That’s not a floodgate yet—it’s an instruction for a dwarf to haul a floodgate into that position.

Once the control room has been mined out, go back into the building menu and select “Traps/Levers,” then choose “Lever” from that sub-menu. If your mechanic’s workshop hasn’t built the mechanisms yet, you’ll get a “needs mechanisms” message. If the lever is available, place it in a corner of the 3x3 control room.

The mechanic will need to come install that lever. When it’s installed, press “q” for the building tasks menu, move the cursor over the control room, choose “a” to add a new task, then choose the “Link Up to a Floodgate” task. If a dwarf has placed the first floodgate, it will be highlighted as a yellow X. Select that—you’re asking the mechanic to connect the lever to that floodgate.

That way, when you pull the lever, it will open the floodgate.

Now is a good time to install a door in the corridor beyond the farming area but before the control room (it doesn’t show up in the screenshot because a dwarf with seeds to plant is passing through it, but the tiny red dot in the corridor at the edge of the farming room is where it’s located). In essence, you can seal off the farming area and floodgates from the rest of the shaft. The mason can build the door, and you can place it using the building menu (again, it will have to be hauled into place).

When you see the mechanic create the lever, use “q” again, select the lever, use “a” to add a new task, and you should see a new option—“P” (capital P, which is one of the very few times you need to actually use a shift-letter command) for “Pull the Lever.”

Now this is critical: add the “Pull the Lever” task and test the floodgate. Once you install a channel and a second floodgate, the mechanic will no longer have access to that first floodgate. If it’s not working properly, you are well and purely screwed. So be sure that the floodgate opens, and just as importantly, add another task and have the lever pulled AGAIN to close the floodgate.

With the first floodgate working properly, it’s time to add a channel. From the building menu, select “channel.” You can adjust the height and width, but I used a very simple 3 (wide) by 1 (high) floodgate. It must be touching the floodgate—in other words, the end of the channel must be in the square adjacent to the floodgate—it can’t be separated by a blank square. Which makes sense, obviously, because if there’s a gap, the channel can’t be expected to work.

A worker must install the channel, and when it’s completed, you can add the second floodgate. Again, there can’t be any gaps between the end of the channel and the second floodgate. You can see what it looks like in the screenshot.

Once the second floodgate has been hauled in, add a task to your lever in the control room to “Link Up to Floodgate.” You’re going to connect that lever to the second floodgate as well. That’s why you have to be sure the first floodgate is closed—otherwise, one will be open when the other is closed.

The mechanic will come and hook up the second floodgate to the lever. At this point, you should have both floodgates connected to one lever.

At this point, it’s a good idea to clear that farming chamber, and when it’s clear, use “q” and select the door, then choose the “forbid passage” option. You’ve just sealed off the farming chamber if anything goes wrong.

Now just add a “Pull the Lever” task to the lever in the control room. The mechanic comes, flips the lever, and you should see both floodgates raise, then see water coming from the river, through the channel, and flood your farming room. Add another “pull lever” task to raise the floodgates back into place and the water will drain away, leaving you with muddy, prime farmland.

And remember to change that door back to passable, or no one is going to plant anything (because they can’t get in).

Now let’s make some farm plots. In the building menu, select “p” for Farm Plot. You can adjust the height and width in the usual manner—the maximum size is 10x10, but you might be better off with smaller individual plots if you want to plant different crops, because one plot gets assigned a single crop (although you can change the designated crop next planting season). I used (roughly) 5x5 plots and separated them by one column so that I could visually tell them apart.

Dwarves will come and prepare the farm plot, and when it stops flashing, it’s ready to plant (it’s “wavy” in the screenshot—the planted sections look like equal signs). Press “q” for building tasks from the command menu, move the cursor to one of the farm plots, and you’ll see the Farm Plot menu. Here are the options:
Z: Fallow... F: Fertilize or Cancel Fertilize
Ft 0/14...S: Seas Fert (Y)
A: Spring...B: Summer...C: Autumn
Plant Before Mud Dries in Winter

Here’s how the menu works. First, there’s no reason to leave a field fallow, because you get “fresh” mud every time you flood the farming room, so ignore the Z option. To fertilize the field (if you have fertilizer), press “f”. The degree to which the field is fertilized is in the “Ft 0/14” designation—in this case, the field hadn’t been fertilized at all (hence the 0 value), because I wanted to compare crop yields with a fertilized field. If you’d like to make the fertilize task seasonal, select it with “s”.

Your current season will automatically be highlighted from the A/B/C options.

Once you’ve set your instructions, just choose a crop from the list at the top by pressing Enter (it should highlight in white). Now you have a full set of farming instructions, and a farmer will come by and get to work.

Yes, you need someone with the farming skill.

So what can go wrong here? Lots of things. If your farming room has even one tile not completely closed off from the river, the water will never drain after the room is flooded, even when the floodgates are raised. That’s why I had you back off quite a few squares from the river, to hopefully prevent that from happening.

It can take time to go through the furnace/ashery sequence, because there are many steps and it’s quite a bit of work for the dwarves.

If you forget to install a door to seal off the farming room (or forget to make it impassable before you flood the farming room), you’re going to have a flood all the way back to the cave entrance. Oops. And if you didn’t separate your farming shaft from your settlement shaft, well, now you have a water park.

Once the crops are planted, all you need to do is wait. They’ll mature into harvestable crops and your farmers will harvest them.

Like I said, there’s a simpler method to farm known as “Nile farming.” Essentially, you wait until the cave river overflows and farm the resulting muddy squares. But you won’t have as much usable farmland, and your growing season will be entirely dependent on the cave river and when it happens to overflow.

There’s a second Nile scenario involving the outdoor river and a channel, but I’ve never done that before. You can consult the wiki http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Main_Page for help with Nile farming, in addition to details that I’ve probably missed concerning cave farming using the floodgate system.

I'm sure I missed something there. I'll post a correction if necessary, and Thom's farming strategy guide will be up shortly. Oh, and before you use this as a guide, please back up your save directory someplace safely, just in case I made a mistake (and it leads to you making a mistake).

Gaming News and Links

First off, thanks to Jason Price of Talk Strategy for letting me know that you can pre-order DEFCON via Steam for TEN DOLLARS. That is just insane. Here's the link:
DEFCON order.

I haven't even seen Steam since the day I downloaded Half-Life 2, but I was impressed with how much the service seems to have improved.

There are two more excellent articles over at Gamers With Jobs. That’s nothing unusual, but I wanted to note them anyway.

The first is by Julian Murdoch and titled “Death Call,” and it’s both thoughtful and unsettling. You can find it here.

The second is a new episode in a continuing series on Electronic Arts by Elysium. In this episode he looks at how employment practices at EA have changed as a result of multiple class action lawsuits that the company settled in the last year. You can find that here.

Speaking of Electronic Arts, I'd been meaning to fold this into a larger discussion of the quality control problems they have with their team sports titles, but since that post may not be written for a few weeks, I'm going to go ahead and use this link now. DQ reader Taylor Materna sent me a link to an astounding glitch in Madden 2007. Apparently, in the European PS2 versions, if you're in Superstar mode and aren't playing as the quarterback, there is this horrific bug where the quarterback sometimes winds up and throws the ball backwards. Backwards as in 40-50 yards backwards.

Well done, EA.

This is not to be confused with the horrific bug in the American Xbox version two years ago where the quarterback was facing backwards when he threw the ball forwards. EA has successfully lowered expectations to such an incredible degree, though, that the game still got the review scores it always gets.

EA Sports, at this point, is a 100% marketing-driven product. It's not quality-driven in any way.

Here's a link to the Gamespot story about the European version bug, and in that story there's a link to the video as well.

DQ Readers: Where You Come From

I did this about six months ago and you guys seemed to enjoy it, so here's a more recent snapshot. This is DQ readership broken down by country (based on a little graph that Sitemeter makes). This is for last Thursday, I believe.

United States 75.7%
Canada 10.03%
United Kingdom 3.42%
Australia 2.38%
Unknown Country 1.8%
Germany 0.6%
Netherlands 0.53%
Finland 0.45%
France 0.35%
Denmark 0.3%
Norway 0.28%
Iceland 0.25%
Sweden 0.25%
Poland 0.23%
New Zealand 0.2%
Spain 0.2%
India 0.17%
Brazil 0.17%
Portugal 0.17%
Japan 0.15%
Singapore 0.15%
Malaysia 0.15%
Israel 0.13%
Miscellaneous 1.95%

Yes, "Unknown Country" is still doing well.

I checked another full day's results as a comparison and these countries can be added to the readership as well: Croatia, Serbia, Estonia, China, Italy, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Ireland.

I started a feature a couple of years ago that never got traction, but I'd like to try it again. Basically, the premise is this: if you're a non-U.S. DQ reader, send me a story about gaming in your country--how important (or unimportant) gaming is, what kinds of games are most popular, what factors are affecting the popularity of gaming, etc.

If you're interested in contributing, just write up a story and send it to me. I'll post them once or twice a week, and over time we can fill in the map.

Content Blowout This Week

I've got content stacked up like you wouldn't believe, so after I get back from lunch with Eli 5.1 this afternoon, expect a flood that will last for two or three days. Just wade through the rising waters at your leisure.

SportsDigs Contest

Franklin Brown over at SportsDigs.com is having a contest to win a free copy of Gary Gorski's upcoming pro basketball simuation Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball. It's a contest to pick NFL winners and is going to run for the rest of the season, so if you want to display your prognostication prowess, head over here to enter.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Good News: The Guild 2

I was taking a quick look in the forums for The Guild 2 and saw a developer post that said the international versions went gold last night. That includes these versions:
- North America: US, Canada
- French
- Italian
- Spanish

The release date is October 13.

This is one of my most-anticipated games for the fall, so it was great to hear that it's not going to be pushed into 2007.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Total Pro Golf Impressions

I've been playing quite a bit of Total Pro Golf, Gary Gorski's new simulation, but I hadn't put up impressions because I was waiting for the final patch to be released. Now that it has, let me just say this: this is a breath of fresh air from the grinding text-sims that we've seen so much of the last few years. It's colorful, it's interesting, and I think the game has a very promising future.

The concept is simple (as most sports games are): you create a new player, put him on the Nationwide Tour, and try to qualify for the PGA Tour. You can even play on the Champions Tour one day.

The game ships without "real" player names, tour names, tournament schedules, etc., due to licensing restrictions, but all of those things are easily moddable, and full PGA player rosters and accurate tournament schedules are already available at the primary community site: http://www.tpgcommunity.net. There are also 30+ user created courses already available for download, so you can play a full PGA tour schedule with very few repeats of courses.

That's one of the design features I've always emphasized when writing about games: the community wants to help improve your game. Let them. That's what Gary has done, and that's why there are so many high-quality courses already available for download--because the course architect (a critical feature of any golf game) allows an excellent course to be created with a minimum of hassle. TPG isn't moddable to the same degree as Shaun Sullivan's Pure Sim Baseball (which is the apex of user flexibilit), but golf as a subject for a game is naturally conducive to mods because of the infinite number of courses.

This is also not a text-sim. It's a sports role-playing, turn-based strategy game, and the game's graphic layout emphasizes that distinction--it's bright and colorful. The graphic layout is one of the most appealing I've seen in a sports game in a long time, and I play them all, generally, so that's a strong endorsement.

The screenshot you see is from Harbour Town Golf Links, a real course recreated in the Course Architect by "Tiger Fan" (who is unquestionably the premier architect right now, with incredible renditions of Augusta and St. Andrews also available). That's clearly a cherry-picked screenshot--not all the courses are going to look that good--but there are 30+ courses available for download now (in addition to the courses that originally come with the game), and easily 2/3 of them are very, very good.

There are two primary play modes: an off-course mode, where you manage your weekly schedule, plan practice sessions, hire (and fire) coaches and caddies, and buy equipment at the pro shop. You do this from your home office, which will get progressively more luxurious as your career fortunes improve. The interface is simple and cleanly designed, and also very appealing graphically.

The second mode is course mode, where you'll actually be playing rounds (although you're not forced to play every round--you can sim through if you like). TPG offers a thoughtful and interesting contrast to the Tiger Woods series in that the focus isn't on shotmaking, it's on course management. You manage target area, club selection, and aggressiveness, and your strategy must include both sound course management as well as be appropriate for your golfer's skill level. And skill ratings will change as your golfer trains and ages, and as his skills vary, your strategies must adapt as well.

If you've played golf games in the past, I think you will find that TPG is an interesting and entertaining departure from what you're used to. And anyone who enjoys strategy games in general will find an interesting time here.

Most importantly (to me, at least), this is a new franchise with enormous potential. Exclusive licenses have killed the development of new sports games, and this franchise has real promise--it's a fundamental departure from any other golf game available for the PC, and it's well-designed and thoughtfully executed.

Here's a link to the demo as well as a link to the home page for Wolverine Studios.

Dwarf Fortress: Coming on Monday

I'm still working on farming, particularly using the irrigation system. I managed to successfully flood a farming area today using floodgates but can't seem to unflood it yet (even when I close the floodgates). So I'm going to work on farming this weekend and also spend a little time in adventure mode, as I was told by a trusted source that it's quite a bit of fun. On Sunday I'll write up the basic farming post and put it up Monday morning.

Also on Monday, in addition to the basic farming tutorial, Thom Moyles has written a farming guide that deals with crop-planting strategy and other farming topics beyond the basics. It's terrific.

I've told some of you guys that I'm using some of the DF stories/notes/comments you sent in, and I still am--it's just things are sliding a couple of days. I've still got them all and I'm still using them.

Here's a quick update on my fortress: there are 27 dwarves now, and what I'm finding is that maintaining a settlement with 27 dwarves is a totally different game than managing 10. It's just not possible to focus on micromanagement like you can the first year, and it requires entirely different strategic and tactical thinking.

Which is pretty damn fascinating, just like the rest of this game.

Sometimes strategy games can be envisioned as a three-dimensional mathematical object, if that makes any sense. If you envision all the details, all the behaviors, all the options that exist in Dwarf Fortress, the mathematical object representing the game is staggering. It's a monumental achievement, and it's even more monumental that the game still manages to be deeply personal.

Dwarf Fortress: The Initial Party

Here is some thoughtful and detailed information on creating your initial party in Dwarf Fortress, sent in by Kent Peterson.

What I've decided, after playing a few games, is that food is overrated in terms of your initial skill/supply loadout. Dwarves with high skill levels will make up for the smaller amount of food you take in the wagons. I think taking plenty of dwarven wine, a little food, and some highly, highly skilled dwarves is the best way to start. Like I've said previously, there are almost infinite strategic and tactical choices in the game, but the one common thread to all of the successful ones is that thinking is always rewarded.
[Of course, I wrote the preceeding paragraph before four dwarves STARVED TO DEATH yesterday in the first winter, but the initial supply loadout didn't cause that--my inattention did.]

Kent, in a much more eloquent and thorough way than I did, explains the "high skill" rationale below.

Anyway, here are Kent's thoughts:
One other comment I would make, after reading your earlier post on forming the party in more detail - I have found that specialization is really, really important. Higher skills mean the dwarves do jobs much faster, and those that produce things produce higher-quality materials, which (if sold) is worth more, and (if used by dwarves) makes them happier the higher quality it is.

I start at skill 10 ("proficient") for every single dwarf. My standard party (which is not necessarily the "best", but I have good reasons for it, which I'll explain) is:
miner 10
woodcutter 10
carpenter 10
mason 10
mechanic 10
stonecrafter 10
engraver 10

No other skills. I get the money for it all by selling the spare pick and axe. The engraver is optional; you could replace him with a second miner or a fisher or something (if a miner, you'd have to skip maxing skills on a few of them to pay for his pick).

The main thing I look for is ways to get dwarves to work their way up to legendary ASAP. Dwarves who are at legendary don't get taken by the various moods, which means, as long as you don't do anything stupid with them, they're around whenever you need them. (Dwarves who get to legendary via moods then carry their artifact around all the time, which may make them good at crafting but prevents them from using a hand while fighting, so I tend to leave them as crafters.) Dwarves who are at legendary also have SUPERB stats. Dwarves with good stats are what you want in your military, they're far more effective than raw recruits - and if you need their craft skills, you can always demobilize them temporarily. Usually though I have plenty of others who can fill in. Anyway, miners, woodchoppers, and engravers can get up to legendary by midwinter of the first year, if you turn off all their hauling jobs and focus them just on the work. (A miner starting at 10 can excavate all the space you need in that first year, particularly once he hits legendary, and you're very likely to get more the following spring).

Carpenters and masons are a bit harder to get up there - they depend on having raw materials, which may or may not be readily available that first year - but still doable. I do make a point of always splitting woodcutting off from carpentry; a dwarf can do one or the other but not both; I don't want either one trekking back and forth from the work area all the time. Crafters have an extra reason for wanting high stats; a stonecrafter with high stats will just churn through your stone stockpiles (I have them mainly make light/dark stone items, as that's worth more than plain rock) and the higher-quality items will let you buy a LOT more from the traders. Once you start getting big human caravans coming in via the road, with large (and expensive) cargos of whatever you asked for last time, this is a major factor.

Mechanics are probably the most important of all to start at high stats. A novice mechanic takes FOR FREAKING EVER to build or arm a trap, or connect mechanisms. You want at least one guy who can do it in decent time. And having them on "craft mechanism" set to repeat is also a good way to use up spare rock while training them up (both high-skill and novices).

If there's a job I need a dwarf to do outside of these, during the first year, I'll turn on the job for whoever's free, get it done, then turn it off again. Some (like building design) get left on, because they're only intermittently used. Once I get more immigrants, I start specializing further, trying to have at least one dwarf specialized in doing each particular major type of job (except for farming, where all the extras end up) and the guys who are good at things don't ever get assigned to anything else.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Dwarf Fortress (4): The Witness

I said last week that Dwarf Fortress was a candidate for PC Game of the Year, along with Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations II.

Well, it’s a candidate no more. This afternoon, it unquestionably became the PC Game of the Year for me. And it’s not because I built this fantastic fortress with hundreds of dwarves and dominated the world.

It’s because of what happened when things started to go wrong.

It was mid-winter. I was obsessively working on building floodgates by the river for farming, because I wanted to understand the process well enough to give you guys a step-by-step guide. I built floodgates, levers, and a containment room successfully, I thought—and flooded two squares (instead of about twenty).

Oops.

So I’m working on this, head down, not really paying attention to anything else. Then I get a message: Datan Tanmosus, Carpenter cancels Store Item in Stockpile: Hunting vermin for food.

Well, good for you, Mr. Tanmosus. Thank you for showing initiative so that I can keep working on this farming and floodgate problem. And while I’m sure the vermin aren’t that tasty, it’s better than starving, right?

In truth, this was entirely my fault. I’d passed up opportunities to increase the food supply, confident that I had plenty for winter. Even with the new immigrants arriving after the trade caravan, and a total population of 19, I was confident that we had more than enough food.

I keep working on the floodgates. Within a few minutes, everyone is hunting vermin for food. Still, though, I can manage this. I butcher two horses to add some meat. It’s late winter now, and spring should be here any second. We can all survive this.

Of course, I’ve momentarily forgotten that animals have to actually be butchered, and meat has to be transported, and dwarves have to physically retrieve that meat to use it as food.

As I wish for spring, almost on cue, I see this message: Spring has arrived! That’s followed immediately by: It has started raining.

Then I see this: Datan Tanmosus, Carpenter has starved to death.

Oh, hell.

I’m still thinking about the dwarf as a unit, though. Nothing personal, sir. You’re just a number in a spreadsheet.

Sibrek Sigunnin, Craftsdwarf is throwing a tantrum!
Ingish Athamilral, Miner is throwing a tantrum!
Kogan Dumatimik, Metalsmith is throwing a tantrum!

I use the jobs list to find Kogan Dumatimik and look at this thoughts and preferences. First, I see this: He was forced to eat vermin to survive.

Then I see something that stops me cold.
He has witnessed death.

And at that moment, I both feel terrible guilt over the fate of carpenter Datan Tanmosus and realize why the dwarves are throwing tantrums: because they have witnessed death.

And in that one moment, Dwarf Fortress became Game of the Year.

Cerol itdungeshud, Jeweler, has starved to death.
Sibrek Sigunnin, Craftsdwarf, has starved to death.
Ablel Sibrekoddon, Jeweler, has starved to death.

Shale table destroyed by Morul Alniskeskal, Peasant.
Trade Depot destroyed by Kogan Dumatimik, Metalsmith

Starvation. Anger. Fear. Rage.

Panic.

I desperately wanted to abandon the fortress at this point. Desperately. I didn’t want to deal with the remaining dwarves. There are forty-nine other sites, and I could start from scratch. I’ve learned so much and I know I’d do a better job of planning this time.

That would be totally missing the point though. The point is and always has been: can we survive?

Well, I’m going to find out.

If You E-mailed Me on Monday About Austin

I just remembered that one of the Monday e-mails I lost was from someone who was thinking about moving to Austin and wanted an opinion on the city. So if that was you, please re-send the e-mail and I'll respond. Thanks.

Gaming Links

Links are piling up all over the place (due to time spent on DF posts), so let’s clear out a few right now.

There are some interesting articles in The Escapist this week. The first, by Russ Pitts, features an interview with an OGM (Online Guerilla Marketer, or “dickhead”). These are the people who post in forums, ostensibly as one of us, who are actually marketing employees of the companies putting out games so shitty that they have to hire people to promote them in forums.

As an example, Bethesda would have no need to hire an OGM for Oblivion.

Here’s the link: OGM.

The second, by Allen Varney, is an article about “feelies,” or all those great things we used to get in game boxes besides the game discs and manual. I still have my ankh from Ultima IV. That article is here.

Sirius sent me a link to a very funny article in Wired about Microsoft.

Well, funny in a way.

While it might take Microsoft a month or more to patch a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, do you know how long it took them to issue a patch when their Windows Media DRM was cracked?

Three days.

Hell, I’m surprised it took them that long. The article is here.

Oh, and that patch was compromised in about a day.

Blake Senn sent in a link to Rob Pardo’s keynote address at the Austin Gaming Conference. Actually, it’s a link to Raph Koster’s notes on Rob Pardo’s address, but they’re extremely thorough and very interesting, and you can read them here.

Skylander let me know that Bovine Conspiracy has started a wiki called “The Moo Guide” to keep track of release dates for upcoming PC and console games. It’s a great idea, very nicely designed, and you can find it here: The Moo Guide.

Bionic Arms

Here's a link to an article in the Washington Post about a woman receiving a bionic arm. It's mind-blowing, and here's an excerpt:
Mitchell, who lives in Ellicott City, is the fourth person -- and first woman -- to receive a "bionic" arm, which allows her to control parts of the device by her thoughts alone. The device, designed by physicians and engineers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, works by detecting the movements of a chest muscle that has been rewired to the stumps of nerves that once went to her now-missing limb.

...All she has to do [to peel a banana] is place her prosthetic left arm next to the banana and think about grabbing it. The mechanical hand closes around the fruit and she's ready to peel.

Here's an excerpt about how it's done:
In preparation for the bionic arm, Kuiken and his surgical colleagues first re-create a biological control panel for a hand on the amputee's chest. They use muscle and skin that can be sacrificed -- or, more precisely, hijacked -- for that purpose.

They cut the nerves to two chest muscles, the pectoralis and serratus, at a point where those nerves have branched to go to different parts of the muscles, but far "upstream" from the point where the nerves divide into tiny fibers that attach to individual bundles of muscle fiber.

They then sew the stumps of the large nerves that once went to the arm and hand to the cut ends of the chest-muscle nerves. In the same operation, the nerves carrying sensation from the skin over the pectoral muscle are also sewn into the arm nerves.

Over several months, the arm nerves grow down the sheaths of the motor fibers and attach to the muscles. (Interestingly, the amputee assists this process by mentally "exercising" the missing hand, which helps promote a firm nerve-muscle connection.) Simultaneously, the sensory nerves grow down the sensory sheaths and into the skin.

If all goes well, a person is left with chest muscles that twitch in different places in response to such thoughts as "bend the wrist back," "move the thumb" and "clench the fingers." The person also ends up with a patch of skin about the width of a baseball that, when stroked, warmed or pricked, feels like a hand rather than part of the chest.

The bionic arm makes use of this feat of anatomical alchemy.

The prosthesis is strapped onto the shoulder stump and torso in a way that positions electrodes over the regions of the chest muscles that are responding to different "hand instructions." Those electrodes, in turn, are wired to a computer and then on to motors in the forearm and hand of the device.

When the amputee tells the fingers to close, the designated part of the pectoral or serratus muscle twitches and the electrode over it detects the signal, activating the appropriate motor.

I read things like this and I get this momentary feeling of disconnection, because in many ways, we're already living in what I think of as the distant future.

Which is totally cool, by the way.

Saint's Row

I'm still trying to get enough time in with Saint's Row to write up impressions, but it's one of those games where you need 5-10 hours of play (at least) to form any kind of credible opinion, and I just don't have that much time into the game yet.

However, I did see this review today by Tom Chick. That's "writes 35% of the interesting content in all gaming magazines combined" Tom Chick. And he gives the game a score that I almost never see him use.

A+.

That is a very impressive endorsement.

Wii Launch Details

From the New York Times, via the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, details of the Nintendo Wii launch here:
In a move that may allow Nintendo of Japan to take advantage of stumbles by its main rival, the company plans to announce today that it will release its new Wii video-game console in North and South America on Nov. 19, just as the holiday shopping season begins, and that the machine will cost $250 in the United States.

Nintendo will start selling its new console on Dec. 2 in Japan, President Satoru Iwata announced today at a news conference in Chiba prefecture, next to Tokyo.

...Nintendo intends to announce today that every Wii will come with a game compilation called Wii Sports -- including tennis, golf, baseball and bowling -- meant to show off the machine's intuitive controls.

So there you go--$249 with a pack-in game. Games are going to retail for $49.99.

Well, that's a slam-dunk ass kicking, pretty much. If the games were $39.99, I'd replace "pretty much" with "total," but otherwise, it's flawless.

The Wii is the console that people will be talking about ten years from now, not the 360 (although I'll remember it fondly) or the PS3. The Wii isn't even competing with the 360 or the PS3. If anything, it's competing with the PSP.

Same price (for now). Which one would you rather have?

I'm sure Sony didn't expect Nintendo's new console to undercut their portable, but that's what's going to to happen. Watch the PSP "suddenly" become $199.

I've taken Nintendo to task many, many times for being either strange or downright stupid, but they've handled everything here pretty masterfully. For one, they've carved out an entirely new market tier in which they don't need to compete with Sony or Microsoft. Yes, they tried that with the Gamecube, but there was nothing to distinguish the Gamecube as a console, and no reason for developers to support it.

The Wii is clearly very, very different. Developers are stampeding to support it and running away from the PS3 as fast as they can. Look at this way--if you can create a game for 1/4 the development costs that sells to 4X the installed base, why would you NOT support that console?

Would any of us have thought six months ago that Nintendo would launch the Wii in the U.S. two days AFTER the PS3 launch? That would have been suicide, a massive tactical gaffe.

Now, though, it's a non-issue. The PS3 launch is a non-issue. Just wait--all the PS3 launch coverage will be about how expensive they are. So half the story will be trying to explain why it's so expensive (talking about Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD, and the format wars, and Sony's strategy), and the other half will be about how almost no one can get one, anyway.

Here's the important thing, though: do you know what will barely even get mentioned in those stories?

Fun.

What will the Wii launch coverage be like? It will be non-stop videos of children using the controller and laughing their asses off. Instantly, that becomes the must-have toy for Christmas.

It's a public-relations coup for Nintendo and an absolute nightmare for Sony.

So what could go wrong for Nintendo? Two things, primarily. First, the tilt sensor could work poorly in the controllers. I don't expect that, based on the games I tried at E3, but it could happen. Second, the games could just not be that much fun. I doubt that, too, but it's certainly possible.

Otherwise, though, it's clear sailing.

And I bet it really, really sucks to be working at Sony right now.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A Big Thanks

I just wanted to thank all of you guys for participating in the Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township CD contest.

You added roughly 1,400 plays to the Myspace Music page--about 800 last month (when we had the first contest) and another 600 or so this week. For a new band trying to get heard, that is a huge contribution. And I've gotten so many e-mails this week from readers who listened to the songs and said "Hey! These guys are great!" They damn sure are, and that's why I'm trying so hard to get people to listen to their music.

Official as of now, Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township has been named the House Band for Dubious Quality.

I know, a blog can't have a house band. Well, we do.

Paraworld Release Dates

Here are the official release dates for Paraworld, which I think is going to be the "surprise" game of the fall.
Sept. 15: Germany and France
Sept. 25: UK and North America

And it Counts (Part 2)

From DQ reader Ralph Teixeira (in Brazil):
Technically, though all media is using the "ball boy scores" headline, the ref actually signaled a goal from that first shot that went clearly wide (from the TV viewpoint). She gets confused because the linesmen (off the movie) signaled a goal (the radio narration, in Portuguese, is very clear about that; they do not even talk about the ball boy, I think they also missed him), and she "did not trust her initial instincts that the shot was wide" (her statement after she saw this movie herself). Of course the ball boy must have added to the confusion (my guess is that the ref and linesmen took their eyes off the ball, then looked again, and, behold, the ball was in!), and her mistake was a very bad one... Now, soccer has this rule that "during a game, the ref is king", so this infamous goal will probably stand!

Now, if you go to Youtube and look for "Gandula Penetra" (Gandula is slang for Ball Boy, and you can guess that "penetra" is slang for "intruder"), you will find a 2:37m video in Portuguese with Ball Boys stopping goals -- it seems to be more common than I imagined in the lower divisions of Brazilian soccer! What I find very curious is this: true to the *spirit* of soccer, NONE USE THEIR HANDS...

If you go look at the Youtube video, here's a translation of the ball boy's interview (after stopping a goal), again courtesy of Ralph:
Reporter: So, Macauba, didn't you know that the team can have only 11 players on the field?
Macauba: Yes, ma'am, I knew it allright.
R: You wanted to save Aracatuba (the soccer team)?
M: To save it... there was no way anymore, because we were already losing 3-1, but.... but the goalie left the goal, and I took his position, and avoided our losing by even more.
R: What did you fell the moment you saved that shot?
M: I felt "quite sure". [people laugh]

Another site reports that Macauba saved it with his head because, in his words, "You nuts? If I save with my hands, the ref could signal a penalty kick!"

And It Counts

I saw this over at Deadspin: a link to a video of a Brazilian soccer FPF Cup game where the ball boy kicks the ball into the goal--and it counts. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen, and you can see the story (with embedded video) here.

Oblivion Expansion

Here's an interesting item excerpted from Gamer's Reports:
It is being widely reported around the web that there is an expansion in the works for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion called " Knights of the White Stallion." This stems from a cryptic Gamestop website listing. Well, not being satisfied with rumor, we went directly to the source, Pete Hines V.P. of Marketing and Public Relations Bethesda Softworks, to ask about this expansion. Here is what he had to say:
There’s no expansion in development called Knights of the White Stallion. That’s the name of a quest in Oblivion.

Right now we have no announced plans for any new content, add-ons, or expansions. If that changes, we’ll let folks know.

Everyone is now reporting that this means there is no expansion for this fall. Well, not so fast.
Look at what Pete Hines actually said:
1. There's no expansion pack called "Knights of the White Stallion."
2. There are no announced plans for expansions.

Hmm. So did he deny an expansion pack was in development, or did he deny that they'd announced one? That looks like a very big non-denial denial to me. He would still be technically telling the truth if an expansion pack was in development named anything but "Knights of the White Stallions."

Look, there's no way an expansion pack isn't in development for Oblivion. The only question is whether it ships before Christmas. I would guess that spring would be more likely (and March would be the most likely month, as it would be the anniversary of the game's release).

That Screenshot for the DF Post...

...looks a little dark, but if you click on it you should be able to see it okay.

One note about roads, in case I wasn't completely clear: you do not need to detail the entire road, only squares with loose stones, which you'll be able to see.

I'll probably do three more daily posts (up to the end of this week), then have one update a week. I had no idea how much work it would take to do one of these a day. Plus I'll post your own DF stories.

Dwarf Fortress (3): Preparing for Winter

A few clean-up notes before we get started.

New versions of the game are coming out pretty frequently as fixes are made and features are added. Before you install a new version, copy your save game directory to a new location. Then, after you’ve installed the new version, take the copy of the directory you made and paste it over the existing save game directory (underneath the main game directory).

I’m not sure why, but the developer notes that there is occasional save-game corruption (although rare) if you don’t do that. And it goes without saying that with only one save, it’s a good idea to back up that directory regularly anyway.

Also, here are a few notes about menu navigation, because you guy sent in a few questions. The navigation keys are not entirely consistent in all menus, but generally, here’s how they work:
--the space bar exits to the previous menu level (at the main level, space bar pauses or resumes the game).
--the “+” and “-“ keys move up and down selection lists. Cursor keys, in some menus, are used to move up and down selection lists as well.
--the Enter key is used to select items.

Also, when you first start mining, your designated mining area must connect to the outside, or the miners can’t reach the area. They have to be able to dig into the mountain—it’s solid rock.

One more tip: to see what’s in inventory inside a workshop, select “View Items in Buildings” (“t”) from the main command menu, then move the cursor to the workshop.

Okay, moving on to today’s changes.

You can see from the screenshot (which you can click on to enlarge) that the fortress continues to grow. I played until the onset of winter, which I thought was a good time to save the game and take a look at what had changed.

This is going to be a two-part post. Part one (today) is going to look at what’s changed in the fortress in terms of physical layout and the events that have guided my design decisions. Part two (tomorrow) is going to be a “state of the nation” post where I look at how well I prepared for winter, including an examination of supplies as well as a look at the moods of the dwarves as the long winter begins.

Towards the end of your first summer, a trade caravan will arrive. If you’ve made some finished goods (craftsdwarf’s workshop), or have some goods left over from your original supplies, you can move those goods to the trade depot. Press “q” and move the cursor over the trade depot. You should have options to trade (“t”) or move good (“g”). Choose to move goods and you’ll be presented with a list of all goods that can be moved to the trade depot. Select them with the Enter key.

Now these items won’t magically appear in the trade depot. Dwarves will have to move them. Again, the level of detail and thought in this game is light years ahead of just about anything else I’ve ever seen.

When you’re ready to trade (and when the caravan is ready as well—it takes them time to unload their goods), use the “t” option at the trade depot menu. Items from the caravan are on the left, and your items are on the right. You can highlight both what you want to trade for and what you want to trade with.

That notation by the item in the trading screen isn’t value, it’s weight. You’re only going to see value if you have a broker (I believe you can get a broker when you have 30 dwarves, but I’m not sure). So it’s going to be a bit of a guessing game about fair value until you have a broker.

You’ll notice #19 leading from the Trade Depot. That’s a dirt road, and if you follow the road you’ll also see a bridge over the river. Dwarven caravans will arrive regardless, but for everyone else, they need a road at least three squares in width and they need a bridge to cross the river. They’re so particular that the individual stones remaining after you make the road need to be detailed so that they don’t hurt the horses’ feet (which I’ve done—you’ll see them as little “+” marks in the screenshot).

Having a proper road means that more caravans will come to trade with you. Here’s how you build a road: press “b” at the main command menu to get the Building Menu, then choose the road option (“o”). You’ll see a list of available materials (I chose dirt)—select one and press Enter. You’ll see it check-marked. At the bottom of the screen you’ll see a “place” option (“p”). This will give you a green cursor that you can then move to the road’s location.

You can adjust the size of the road section using the “u” and “m” keys (height) as well as the “u” and “k” keys (width). The maximum size for a section of road is 10x10, so you’ll probably need to do this several times. My road is only three squares in height, because I wanted to do the minimum work necessary to attract trade caravans.

When the road is the right size and in the right location, just press Enter to place the section. Note that it’s not a road yet—dwarves still have to come do the work to create it.

There will probably be a few rocks in the road as well, and those need to be detailed. This is a little obtuse, but to do that, choose the Designations menu (“d” from the main command menu), then choose “s” for the Detail Stone option. Move the cursor to the offending rock (or rocks), and select the area in the same way you selected a mining or tree cutting area (which we discussed yesterday).

You’ll also need a bridge for caravans that can’t make it across the river. The method for building a bridge is essentially identical to building a road. Select the bridge option in the Build Menu, choose a material, then place the bridge in the same manner as you’d place a road, even using the same keys to adjust the height and width of the bridge. Dwarves will have to build that, to.

Once the bridge and road are built, and road stones are detailed, you’ll have multiple caravans visiting your fortress each year. Those caravans will take back their impressions to other communities, and dwarves will begin to immigrate to your settlement if impressions are favorable.

Immigration is a double-edged sword. It can bring skilled (and sometimes, highly skilled) labor into your settlement, but it can also overwhelm you. That’s a discussion for another day, though.

Not let’s look at the changes in workshops. Since yesterday, I’ve added a butcher’s workshop (#16), a smelter (#17), and a mechanic’s workshop (#18). Also, I’ve made some changes to the craftsman’s workshop (#9) and adjoining storage area. I created a new storage area for finished goods below the craftsman’s workshops, and divided the adjoining storage area (which had previously been dedicated to finished goods) into an area for gems as well (you can see some gems in the top two rows).

I’m also assuming that you know how to build workshops now. To get to the workshop menu, press “b” at the main command menu, then “w” for a list of workshops.

Here were the rationales behind the workshop additions:
Butcher’s workshop (#16)—I wanted a source of meat besides what the trading caravans had to offer, and as far as I could see, mules serve no real purpose once the wagons have reached the foot of the mountains safely. Also, if I want to add a hunter at some point, I’ll need a way to process those animals as well.

Here’s how you designate an animal you don’t have to trap or hunt (like a mule) for butchering. Press “z” at the main menu to get to the status listing. In the upper left, you’ll see that “animals” is highlighted (if it’s not, highlight it now by using the cursor keys). Press Enter. That gives you a list of all animals in the settlement. Move the highlight down to one of the mules. Then press “b” and you’ll see the animal’s status change.

Return to the main menu and press “q” for to enter the job assignment mode. Move the cursor to the butcher’s workshop and then press “a” to add an activity. Press “b” to add the ‘butcher an animal” task.

If you’ve farmed well (more on that shortly), or your fisherdwarves have done their jobs well, you may have plenty of food already, and if so, this isn’t necessary. But I had very little meat near the end of summer, and the mules can’t reproduce, so their meat seemed to be their primary value.

Also, please note that if someone has adopted an animal as a pet, and you butcher that animal, they’re going to be very upset.

#17 is a smelter. Two dwarves showed up at some point (I didn’t notice for a few days, apparently), and one was a metalsmith who brought an anvil with him. Eventually, I’d like to have a smelter to make all kinds of items using ore, and to do that, I first need a smelter.

I didn’t actually get very far, because the smelter still needs fuel. I haven’t discovered any coke via mining, and while I could burn wood for charcoal, I have a low supply of wood already and want to save it to make beds, buckets, etc. So right now, that smelter isn’t doing anything.

#18 is a Mechanic’s Workshop. With a Mechanic’s Workshop, you can build “rock mechanisms” that can be used to produce levers to control floodgates (and traps).

Why floodgates (#20) and levers? Most importantly, for farming, which we’re going to discuss next. Also, if you’re more clever than I am, you can do things like create moats.

Farming is going to be important to your success in the game. It’s relatively efficient compared to other methods of food gathering, because it’s not as resource intensive. And it’s reliable—to the best of my knowledge, crops don’t fail.

You can also fertilize farmland, another mind-blowing detail in this game, but let’s concentrate on basic farming first (mostly because I haven’t made fertilizer yet!).

And actually, now that I start to write this up, I realize that I really, really suck at farming, and I should wait a couple of days to successfully complete a few seasons of crop-growing before I give you specific procedures, because right now, I probably wouldn’t be much help. All I've done so far is use the very simple "Nile farming" procedure, and while I have floodgates hooked up, I haven't verified that I have a working system yet. So let’s table that for now and I’ll keep working on documentation—hopefully I can discuss it tomorrow or the day after.

Lastly, you can see some changes in the dining hall (#12), where I’ve added tables, chairs, and a second well, and #21 shows the living quarters.

Making tables and chairs is simple. Press “q” at the main menu and move the yellow X to your Mason’s Workshop, then press “a” to add a task. Select “t” (for table) and choose a type of stone to make it from (you’re given a list of all types available). To build a chair, select “throne” (“c“) from the build menu (you could use wood and build a regular chair at the carpenter’s workshop, but you’ve got 20X the stone supply that you have wood).

To place items after they’re built, go to the build menu (“b” from the main command menu), find the item type, and select it. You’ll be given a list of available inventory, and when you select a specific item, the cursor will start flashing. Move it to the desired spot and press Enter. In most cases, a dwarf will need to haul the item from storage.

Man, I love that.

I also added a second well to the dining area.

For the bedrooms (#21), you can create that 3X3 space with the one-square entryway (which will soon be a door) by designating them as mining areas. Each bedroom will need a bed (built at the carpenter’s workshop), and I believe the dwarves will also be happier if you add a bucket (for drinking, and again, built at the carpenter’s workshop). Right now, I only have the beds in place—no buckets yet.

If you have some experience with the game, you’ve noticed that I’ve definitely made some mistakes and could have done things more efficiently. Like I’ve said previously, though, that’s what this game is all about—adaptation and problem solving. So I’m trying to learn from my mistakes as I go.

Tomorrow: a look at the settlement’s level of preparedness for what could be a long, harsh winter. And farming, hopefully.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Ugh!

In what was, even for me, a stunning display of ineptitude, I managed to drag all the e-mail I hadn't answered yet today (or was saving in my in-box) over to--well, somewhere. I've looked through all my Outlook folders and I can't find them, and they're not on my desktop anywhere. I have absolutely NO IDEA where they are.

That means if you sent me mail today and I didn't answer, it's because it's gone into the black hole of stupid, and you'll need to resend it to me. Sorry about that.

Contest Winners

Congratulations to the five winners of the Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township CD's:
Milos Miljkovic
Lee Flannery
Mark A.
Scott Fisher
Ian Dorsch

And the winner of the free game drawing is:
Karsten Ulrik

Thanks to all of you guys who entered and listened to the band's music.

Contest Questions

Okay, here's how this is going to work. The first five respondents with the correct answers will win copies of the Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township CD. All readers are eligible to enter, no matter their location (Vahur Teller from Estonia was one of the winners last time).

Also, anyone who responds correctly by 6 p.m. Central Standard Time today (which is a little less than six hours from now) will be entered in a drawing for a free game of their choice from EBGames. So even if you're not one of the first five, you still have a chance to win.

Here are the contest questions, and you can answer both of them by listening to the songs at the band's Myspace Music page here. And if you like those songs as much as I did, and want to hear more, you can order the CD at the band's webpage here.

#1
In the song "Oh Yeah," complete this lyric:
Oh yeah
I'm not the only one that
Gets drunk
Says some shit I'm not supposed to
You'll see
One day you'll be ____________.

I'm sure I butchered the line breaks on that.

#2
In the song "1108," complete this lyric:

Broken handles on suitcases cling to what's inside
The six-string __________ suits me fine.

Here's a hint: there are obvious answers to both of those questions--and they're both wrong.

Remember, everyone with a correct entry before 6 p.m. CST is in the drawing for the free game.

Your Dwarf Fortress Stories

From DQ reader Chris Lorenzen:
Just a note about an experience I had in Dwarf Fortress over the weekend.

My mason got hurt in a scuffle with a lizardman and was stuck in bed recovering. I was trying to make my miner pick up the slack and use the mason's workshop to crank out a few stone items that were needed. In the middle of this "training" my miner took off to the carpentry workshop and grabbed an ASCII symbol I'd not seen before and made a beeline to the underground river.

I started looking around and figured out that what the miner had picked up was an extra bucket my carpenter had made when I was giving him random jobs to work on. He took the bucket back to the room of the sick mason and put it by his bed. He then ran to the storage area and picked up another odd symbol and brought it back to the mason's room. I was still confused so I checked the mason's recent thoughts. They were, "I was recently rescued. I was recently thirsty. I was recently brought water. I was recently hungry. I was recently brought food."

I've been playing games since the early 80s, and this is, without a doubt, my coolest game moment. It's amazing how quickly the ASCII graphics aren't even an issue when the gameplay is this good.

Around Town With Eli 5.1

Eli 5.1 and I were in the car on our way to breakfast Saturday. Pancakes at McDonald's are a Saturday morning tradition now, entirely due to the toy that comes with the meal.

"Dad, do you remember a long time ago when Nana shut the car door on my hand?" A minor incident from last year that could have been much worse.

"I do," I said.

"Nana was really upset, but I told her 'That's okay, Nana, it wasn't your fault,' and she felt better."

"That was very nice of you."

"Yeah." He thought for a few seconds. "But really, it kind of was her fault."

"Yes, it was."

"So what I probably should have said is "HEY! YOU BROKE MY HAND!"

Two kids came out to the playscape while were out there goofing around, and their mom came out a few minutes. She was holding a tray of food, and she said "Zachary! Zephyr! Come eat breakfast!"

WTF? Zephyr?

We discussed this on the way back to the car. "Dude, did you hear that lady call her son Zephyr?" I asked. "A zephyr is a wind.'

"What? Why would you name your KID after a WIND?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just hope they don't have a sister."

"Why?" Eli asked.

"Because she might be named heifer," I said.

Monday, September 11, 2006

The 360: Laptop Version

Here's a link to one of the most impressive console mods I've ever seen: an Xbox 360 laptop. The build quality has to be seen to be believed--including a custom-machined aluminum case. It's a beautiful piece of work, and you can see it here (thanks Engadget).

The Mysterious #14

DQ reader Thomas Moyles (a fine writer, by the way) e-mailed me and pointed out that I never identified #14 in the screenshot. It's the trade depot, which I discuss but never actually identify.

Graham Wilkinson and the Underground Township (at NxNW, Sept 9)

Well, they tore it up again.

Last month, it was a hundred degrees on the deck at North by Northwest. Last night, the entire town was convulsed by the Ohio. St.-Texas game. There were only about a dozen people in the audience (including Gloria and Eli 5.1).

Didn't matter.

These guys don't give a shit if they're playing in front of three people or three thousand. They absolutely tear it up every single time.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check last month's post here. Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township are an Austin band, and they're phenomenal. They're already famous--people just don't know it yet.

When we had the contest last month, all five CD's were gone in less than ten minutes (including one that went to Estonia). So I thought I would have another contest for all of you who didn't win last time. We have five more CD's to give away.

If you'd like to win a CD of the band, here's how it's going to work. Sometime either today or Tuesday, between the hours of 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (CST), I'll post the contest questions. And this time, I'm going to give people who listen to their music the best chance of winning. I'm going to post three questions about the songs currently playing on their Myspace Music page.

Sure, you can find lyrics to some of their songs on the Web. But there are some new songs in the Myspace rotation, and I may also ask questions about the music in the songs--not just the lyrics. So if you actually listen to the songs, you'll have a much better chance of winning.

And here's a twist: those four songs on the Myspace Music page get rotated. Over the course of the two days that the contest can happen, one or two songs will probably rotate out. So if you listen to the songs right now, you'll still need to check the page periodically to see if anything new gets rotated into the mix.

The second twist: in addition to the five CD's, which will be awarded to the five fastest correct responses, there will be drawing for all the people (including the first five) who responded correctly within three hours of the contest question being posted. The winner of that drawing wins the game of their choice from EBGames.

Yes, that includes Guitar Hero, if that's what you want.

Here's a small clue: one of the contest questions will probably be about "Oh Yeah," which is just a freaking great song.

Okay, here's the link to the Myspace Music page: Graham Wilkinson & the Underground Township.

Dwarf Fortress (2): The Early Settlement

My fortress now has some early features in place, and it’s now mid-summer of 1051. As you can see from the screenshot, I’ve added some numbers to the image so that it will be easier for you to follow along as I discuss what’s been done (and how I do it). Just click on the image to enlarge it and let's get going.

The area represented in the screenshot is a very, very small part of the map. It’s small enough that you can’t even see the second mining shaft to the south or the rivers to the west, and the mountains extends well to the east. That mining area in the northeast extends beyond what you can see.

Before we look at anything else, let’s take a look at mining. If you can’t dig out a home in the mountains, you’re not going to survive for very long.

Take a look at #13, which is a yellow/green corridor on the right side of the screenshot. That’s what a designated mining area looks like, and that color is used for all types of designations: mining, chopping down trees, gathering plants, detailing stone, etc. In this case, I’ve designated a small corridor because that’s going to be the entrance corridor to the living quarters.

Here are a few tips about mining. Most importantly, and this one of the few things you just “have to know,” rooms larger than 6x6 are subject to cave-ins if they are not properly supported. If you look at the dining hall (#12), you can see rectangular supports. Those are there to prevent cave-ins, and there are two ways to get them there. The simplest way is to exclude those areas from digging. Designate the entire room area, but then go back and exclude single squares where you want supports.

Let’s take a look at designating a mining area and you’ll see what I mean. Press “d” on the main command menu. On the designation area submenu, press “d” again. Any area you designate now will be a mining area. Move the yellow “X” until you reach a top or bottom border of where you want to dig, then press Enter, which changes the “X” into a green “+” sign. Now move the cursor to the opposite corner of the digging area you want to designate and press Enter again. The entire area should have that yellow/green color now.

If it’s a big room, and you want to exclude some squares to retain as supports, press “X”. This will turn on the remove designation command. You create the area you want to exclude in the same way I just described—move cursor, press enter, move cursor, press enter again. If you just want to designate one square at a time, move the cursor to the square and press enter twice.

Once you’ve excluded an area, it should change color back to the original so that you can verify it’s been removed from the designated area.

You need to start mining immediately. This is where your skill loadout becomes important—if you created a miner with the highest allowed skill in mining, he’s going to be digging out that mountain at a high rate of speed. So much depends on having usable areas inside the mountain that it’s difficult to overvalue mining.

You can also designate areas where trees should be cut down in the same manner, only you’ll be pressing a different key (“t”) to specify a logging area.

Now let’s take a look at stockpiles. Raw materials as well as finished good are stored in stockpiles, and it’s important to set them up early on. Red numbers 1-6 are stockpiles:
1—refuse
2—mining
3—ore
4—wood
5—finished goods
6—food

Monkeys will steal from the stockpiles, but I don’t think they’ll steal rocks (#2) because they’re too heavy. I’m not sure about ore (#3), but I’ll take that chance. Plus, if they want to steal from the refuse pile (#1), that’s fine by me.

What I consider the more important stockpiles, though, are inside. Wood (#4), finished goods (#5), and food (#6), are all protected—all entrance doors can be set to impassable as soon as the monkeys show up.

Oh, and while I’m talking about monkeys, take a look at #15. Those ‘m” surrounded by red are monkey carcasses—my war dogs were very effective.

So how do you make a stockpile? It’s very simple. To begin, hit “p” at the main command menu to access the stockpile menu, then press the letter corresponding to the stockpile you want to create—for instance, “m” for mining. Now move the yellow “X” into position at the top left corner of the area you want to create and press “Enter.” That will turn the cursor into a flashing “+” sign, indicating that you’re creating an area. Move the cursor to the bottom left of the area you want to create and press “+” again. There you go—you’ve created a stockpile.

Mining stockpiles need to be large, because you will be removing massive amounts of rock from the mountain. My mining stockpile will be full soon and will have to be expanded.

To create a stockpile indoors, you follow the same process, but the area has to be clear of rocks—you can’t create a stockpile in an area that hasn’t been mined yet.

There are many more stockpiles that can be created—animal, furniture storage, gems, bars, cloth, coins, etc.—but that’s enough to get me started.

Now that we have storage areas for raw materials, let’s create some workshops. A dwarf with the proper skill can use a workshop to create items (and a few other things). Numbers 7-11 are all workshops:
7—brewery (there’s also a well in that room)
8—carpenter’s workshop
9—craftsman’s workshop
10--mason’s workshop
11—kennels

How do you create a workshop? Select “b” at the main command menu to get to the building menu, then press “w” to access the workshop menu—this will give you a list of all workshops that can be built.

Here’s something about the build menu that can be somewhat confusing at first—not only is the build menu used to create workshops and other buildings, but it’s also where you place objects, like beds and tables. So the build menu encompasses both buildings that need to be built and objects that have already been built and need to be placed.

If you try to build something and can’t, you’ll get a message explaining what materials or skills are missing. So if you see a message that says “needs architect,” you need to assign that skill to one of your dwarves. You can access them either from the main menu command “j” (for jobs) or “v” (for view).

I usually use the job list screen, so let’s use that as an example. Press ‘j” and you’ll get a list of all current jobs in the queue. You’ll also see what all of your dwarves are doing. Move the highlight to any of them and press “c”, which will center on that particular dwarf. Then press “p” for preferences, then “l” for labor. This will give you the skill list, and you can assign (or take away) skills here.

That’s one of the more convoluted command sequences in the game, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly.

You also might need materials. A well, for instance, requires rock blocks and a bucket, and if you don’t have them, you’ll see that message. Wells are important, both because it allows dwarves to stop drinking dirty river water and because they like to gather around the well.

Why did I build these workshops first? There are logical reasons for each (again, something I love about this game). I built the brewery because dwarves are much happier when they have access to booze. The carpenter’s workshop, for the first year, is primarily to build a bucket (a necessary material for a well), beds (dwarves don’t like sleeping on the floor), and barrels (for storage). The craftsman’s workshop is to enable the creation of different kinds of crafts that can be traded for other supplies when the trade caravan comes. The mason’s workshop is to build all kinds of things: doors, tables, chairs, rock blocks, etc.

You’ll have a much higher supply in your mining stockpile than in your wood stockpile, so make as many things out of rock/stone as possible.

The kennels allow you to train war dogs, which can be very useful when monkeys tear through your camp, harassing dwarves and stealing things. Plus they are still used as pets, so it’s a double benefit. Dogs are also somewhat disposable, unlike dwarves, so using them for security at first instead of a peasant novice might save a few lives.

Once you’ve designated a workshop to be built, a dwarf will eventually come by and build it, but it might not happen right away. You’re not God in this game—people don’t do things immediately just because you tell them to. Consider yourself a Dwarven city manager, of sorts—you set the agenda and it will generally get accomplished eventually. Again, this is wonderful design, because if the dwarfs were automatons, this game would just be a spreadsheet.

So how do you queue up something to be built at the workshop? At the main command menu, press "q", which will activate the yellow "X" cursor. Move that cursor to the workshop (until it's flashing), which turns on the menu for that workshop. Press "a" to add an item for building, then select it from the list. You can create a queue and also adust the build order of the queue.

One other note about workshops. While you can create a stockpile just for finished goods, workshops seem to have their own storage space. For example, if a carpenter builds a bed, you can't really see it anywhere, but if try to place the bed, it shows up as available inventory.

The last thing we haven’t discussed is the trade depot, which allows you to trade with the caravans that will stop by from time to time. You can’t see it in the screenshot, but I’ve build a bridge across a river to the west, because if you don’t, non-dwarven caravans won’t stop by. You can request a bridge be built via the build menu, and you’ll need an adequate supply of some kind of rock.

It’s the same with the trade depot. You’ll need three quantities of rock, not just the one that is usually needed. You’ll see a list to choose from, and when three are checked (select them by pressing Enter), the trade depot shape will appear and can be placed.

There’s much more to talk about involving trade caravans (bridges, roads, personnel), but that’s a discussion for another time.

There are many, many topics I haven’t touched on yet: mining to find the underground river (which is crucial to farming), the details of trade depots, and about a hundred other topics, because this game is so huge and so complex that it offers almost infinite choices when it comes to strategy. Maybe we’ll get to some of those things tomorrow.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Today's Dwarf Fortress Post

Sorry that the Dwarf Fortress post doesn't cover more actual playing time today. Just the documentation on the opening menus and whatnot took so time to compile (and resulted in such a long post) that I decided to stop there for the day.

I've got many, many more notes and additional screenshots, so I'll be writing those up this weekend.

I originally had intended to do this for about two weeks, but it may get cut down to one week, just because it takes an insane amount of time to document everything so carefully.

On Monday: creating stockpiles, workshops, and some of the essentials for early survival (like wells).

Dwarf Fortress (2): Welcome to the World

That's a screenshot of my world when I arrived. I'll mention it later.

I’m going to have a little “clean-up” section at the beginning of these posts to note additional general information before going to the play session.

First off, my supply choices were poor. Several people e-mailed to point out that I should have gotten ale as well as selecting cheaper meat, etc. Here’s some good advice from Kent Peterson:
Something I typically do is spread out my initial food purchases over all the 2-point meats, plus some seeds, plus some of each kind of alcohol. Usually that's enough that it takes 3 wagons to carry it all, which gives me 3 horses, which means I have good odds of having one of each sex, which gives me an extra start on breeding them, which means extra meat and leather and bones later on.

Also, since you also get one mule per wagon, that's extra meat and leather and bones as soon as you want it (particularly for the first winter, if need be).

The ale barrels can be re-used after they’re emptied, and you can tear those wagons down for wood. I’m sure I’ll mention this a hundred times in the next couple of weeks, but this game rewards thinking. Kent’s advice is based on the most logical approach to supplies—it’s not a puzzle or some game trick you have to learn.

In most games, I’d just restart, but this game is all about adapting—it’s not a perfect path game by any means. So I’m sticking what I’ve got and I’ll find a way to make it work.

Here’s information you need to know about saves. You get one, and the game will ask you when you quit playing if you want to save or abandon your fortress. In other words, when you leave the game, it's saved for you. Like I said yesterday, that's a good thing, because the fascination and intrigue of this game is that there's no perfect path. And if somehow your dwarves fail to survive, well, their history becomes part of the lore of the world.

And if you fail in one location, there are 49 others. You can play them all, if you want to, and all their history will get woven into the history of the world. Freaking fantastic.

This designer is playing in another league entirely.

All right, let’s get started for today. Start the game and choose the “continue playing” option, which will load your save game. You only get one save per region, and the game saves automatically when you exit (unless you select an option to abandon the region).

Like I said, the game’s about surviving and adapting. If you screw up, you don’t reload an earlier save—you think about what you can do to solve the problem.

So I entered my region and the screenshot is at the top of the post.

Holy crap, that looks awful. It’s gibberish. When you first see the game screen, you’re going to be in shock, but don’t freak out. Let’s talk about what you can do to get oriented. First off, hit the space bar to pause the game. That will give you all the time you want to look around.

The default view consists of three panels: the game world, the command menu, and the world view (the command menu doesn't show up in the game images, though, so you can't see it in the screenshot).

TAB through the views until you see your region map on the left and the command menu on the right. Now press “K” and move the yellow X around the map to get a better idea of what you’re seeing. You’ll notice that the command menu has been replaced by information identifying your current location. So you can look at everything and it will all be identified for you. Do that for a few minutes, and the map will look far less intimidating.

You’ll notice a few things very quickly. Grass is green, because it’s spring. Animals are identified by letters. Dwarves have little faces. If you want to see what it looks like without actually having to start up the game, just click on the screenshot up top.

On the left, you’ll see the outdoors. On the right, you’ll see the mountain. Your dwarves start right next to mountain, and you can see their wagons, supplies, and animals beside them. And there’s a huge command window on the right side of the screen.

Let’s look at the items in the command menu:
A-view announcements (a reviewable history of all event messages)
B-build (place a building)
C-civilizations (view info about each civilization you’ve discovered)
D-designate (designate areas for gathering resources)
U-units (similar to the job menu, but focusing on personnel)
J-job list (shows you all active jobs and who, if anyone, is doing them)
K-look around
G-gate (centers the game view on the main gate of your fortress)
M-military (activate units, assign to squads, assign weapons)
X-command squad (set patrol orders
O-orders (set general orders for all dwarves)
P-stockpiles (designate storage areas for different types of materials)
Q-create building tasks (add activities for craftsmen to perform). Sometimes you can also set the properties of objects here.
R-rooms (view lists of rooms and building)
T-view items (view objects inside a building)
V-view (view unit skills and personal information. Can also assign skills and preferences here)
Z-overall status (population and food supply, most importantly)
L-legends (this shows up after you discover one of the many legends, I believe)
N-nobles (when nobles show up this menu item will be added)
Space Bar-pause

Like everything else, it looks a bit overwhelming, particularly since many of those commands have extensive sub-menus. At its core, though, all these menus really only involve a few higher-level concepts, like obtaining information or assigning jobs or designating storage areas. At the basic level, it’s not really more complicated than that.

So you’ve got this vast expanse of confusing (at first) ASCII in front of you, and a large menu with a large learning curve.

What do you do now?

Friday Links and Notes

A big grab-bag here before the I start playing and writing up today's Dwarf Fortress session.

It's crazy in Austin right now. Half the world is down here for the Ohio St. game tomorrow. And if you can't get enough pre-game analysis, go here:
Ohio St.-Texas preview.

That is an incredibly detailed analysis, complete with formations and video clips illustrating every single freaking things both teams do.

Matthew Sakey's always-interesting Culture Clash column has a new installment and you can read it here.

Sirius sent me a fantastic link this week to an article in Discover on "extreme origami." Computer modeling has exponentially expanded the ability of origami artists to make complex creations, and the details are fascinating. Here's an excerpt:
At its core, origami consists of just two folds, mountain and valley. A mountain fold is what you get if you crease a piece of paper so that it stands up like a pup tent. A valley fold is the same thing turned upside down. Valley folding each corner of a square so that they meet in the center creates something that looks a bit like a cheese blintz and is therefore known as a blintz fold. Beyond these two basic folds, the grammar of origami proliferates rapidly. It's possible to blintz a petal fold, or double blintz it. Likewise, combining a series of squash and petal folds yields a frog base—one of the four traditional bases (called kite, fish, bird, and frog) from which many traditional origami animals are fashioned.

"All the parts of a base are linked together and can't be altered without affecting the rest of the paper, so that's the part you have to calculate just right," Lang says. A base with four flaps is relatively easy to make. Each flap is formed from one of the corners of the square. Making a base with 17 flaps of the right size and in the right places—what you'd need to create Lang's flying rhinoceros beetle—is exponentially more difficult. "Figuring out how to make good legs was all people did for years," Tom Hull says. "Doing a six-legged beetle was a big, big deal."

Totally fascinating, and here's the link.

Several people have e-mailed me to mention that Dominions 3 is gold (and has been for a few days). The Dominions series has a tremendously loyal following as a detailed, intense game, and I expect this new version will be excellent as well. Here's a link to game information and as well as the ordering page over at the Shrapnel Games website.

The NHL2K7 demo for the 360 version is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The new skating animations are fantastic, but it's hard to tell much else without having all the game options available for camera angles and sliders.

The NHL demo from EA is also available, but all you get is a shootout, and I'm highly suspicious of EA (for good reason). The shootout looks great, but why aren't they showing us actual gameplay in a five-on-five situation? Two guesses: one, they're having framerate issues, and two, the gameplay doesn't stand up any level of scrutiny. And I hope I'm wrong, but we've all been victimized by the classic bait-and-switch many here.

By the way, shooting using the right analog stick in NHL is a very nice piece of design.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Dwarf Fortress: Your E-mail

Additional information (and a correction) from Blake Senn:
I've been playing this for a few days now and it's quite possibly the most impressive game I've ever played. The detail in the world is staggering - just today I found out that spider webs (which exist to provide silk thread to be woven into cloth) actually catch butterflies and dragonflies and the spiders come to eat them. In my opinion, the decision to start with ASCII graphics was brilliant. It lets him concentrate on pure gameplay and not worry about any kind of art or graphics unless he wants to - and it can still do some pretty amazing things. Check out the waterfall, especially when the river's flooding.

Anyway, I noticed a couple things in your "preparing for the journey" walkthrough that I wanted to point out. One, you mentioned that there are 5 skill levels for the dwarves; that's only partially true. There's 5 that you can buy at the start, but as dwarves work in that category they can go past Proficient, to Professional, Adept, Expert, Master, High Master, Grand Master, and Legendary. Lemme tell you, a Legendary Miner basically walks through solid stone.

Another thing I noticed is that you said "Now we need to add some food. If you don't gather enough food before winter comes, these supplies might be the difference in surviving and starving to death. We have four food options: plump helmet spawn, pig tail seeds, fox meat, and plump helmets. We add a bit of everything until skill points reach zero." You actually have a LOT more options than that. When you're on the screen that lists your current supplies, hit N. This brings up a looooooong searchable list of additional supplies - including about 30 more types of meat and 3 more plants with accompanying seeds. Generally speaking, turtle is the best food to buy at the start - it's cheap at 2 points per, and supplies both bone and shells for crafting later. You also probably want to add at least a few sweet pod seeds, because once you get a kitchen or two and a farmer's workshop running, they're very efficient at making food. 1 Sweet Pod yields 5 Dwarven Syrup when Processed into a Barrel at a farmer's workshop, and that syrup can be used in any cooking at a 1 syrup to 1 resulting food ratio; that makes a field of sweet pods worth 5 times as much as a field of plump helmets once you have the infrastructure set up for them.

I thought that food list looked strangely short--it wasn't, I just wasn't navigating through the list properly. He's also correct about the skill levels--I actually had a Miner advance into those higher levels in a previous game but had forgotten.

It's going to be a challenge to write in detail about this game, but the details are so incredibly dense that I'm going to miss things and make errors as I go. I'll do the best I can, though, and you guys will fill in the gaps.

A Note (Dwarf Fortress)

That two hours a day of play-time plus documentation was hopeless naive. Even the write-up below only constituted thirty minutes of time inside the game. Being thorough is more important in this case, because it's such a complex game, so I'll just play as much as I can document properly, even if it's less than two hours a day.

Dwarf Fortress (1): Prepare for the Journey

Okay, let’s get started.

When the game begins, you’ll see an opening cinematic (in ASCII, believe it or not, and it’s quite clever), then you’ll go to the opening menu.

For a new game (what we’ll be playing), choose “Create New World.”

What happens next is just a small indication of how amazing this game will be. The program starts dynamically generating worlds—in some cases, hundreds of them—until it finds a world with enough suitable terrain and features to support the game requirements.

As these worlds are considered, you’ll see a region from each one, and it’s interesting to see areas appear and note their differences.

For our game, over two hundred worlds were rejected. When a potentially suitable candidate is found, though, you’ll see the following stages listed on the screen:
--preparing elevation
--setting temperatures
--Running rivers
--Forming lakes
--growing vegetation
--verifying terrain
--importing wildlife
--recounting legends

It’s typical of the tremendous attention to detail found in this game that all these characteristics exist in the world.

You might find a world that appears to be suitable and moves through a few of the steps, then gets rejected. In my case, world generation and processing took fifteen minutes.

Believe me, it’s worth the wait.

The “recounting of legends” generates one thousand years of history in the game (again, dynamically) and involves hundreds of backstories. That’s what you can explore and find. And you’ll see the name and regions of seem of these legends as they’re generated—for example, I saw “The Dark Fortress of Matostuz: The Point of Glaze” or something like that.

The final name for my world was “Opuorid, The Eternal Universes.”

How big is the world? Based on the size of the world map, I believe it would be equivalent to thousands of real-world square miles. It’s huge.

Once the world is complete, you’ll be taken back to the main game screen, where there is now an additional option: “start playing.

First, though, here’s the introduction to the world in the manual (which can be accessed at any time by pressing the “?” key—you’ll be using it frequently):
Welcome to Dwarf Fortress. Prepare to guide your stout charges to fortune in a world fraught with many perils. You’ll begin by creating your world and watching an animation of the region’s history. Once this process is completed, you can prepare a group of dwarves and send them out to seek wealth deep in the mountains. As you dig deeper and more dwarves take up residence in your outpost, your doings will attract attention, both wanted and unwanted. Deal with challenges as they arise, and you one day might find that your fortress has grown to become the capital of the kingdom.

Excellent writing. Attention to detail. You’ll see that everywhere.

Once you choose the “start playing” option, the game world will be imported. You’ll have two options:
--press Enter to play now!
--press Space to prepare for the journey carefully

Press Space. Trust me.

What you then see is a screen titled “Prepare for the Journey.” It’s a screen that can cycle among three different views (using the TAB key):
--a list of your dwarves and possible skills (with skill points available to give them expertise, although any dwarf can eventually learn any skill in the regular course of the game if you add it to their attributes)
--a list of your supplies. Removing some of these supplies increases your available skill points.
--a list of regions in the world that you can select from as your starting location.

For now, hit the TAB key and go from the dwarf/skills screen to the supply screen. You’ll that you’re taking two iron battle axes. Highlight that item (hey, forgot the mouse, man—cursor arrows are your lifeblood here), press the “-“ key to decrement, and while you’re only taking one battle axe now, you’ve got an extra 100 skill points to assign.

Okay, TAB two more times to go through the location selection screen and get back to the skill assignment screen.

On the left, you’ll see a list of your dwarves (seven in all). Here’s our party:
Erith Cerolrubal, peasant
Datan Tanmosus, peasant
Urist Bidokerith, peasant
Zuglar Stigilcog, peasant
Rigoth Mistemabir, peasant
Urib onulusan, peasant
Kil Datantntak, peasant

There are also plenty of diacritical marks in those names, by the way.

Everyone is a peasant, but when other dwarves emigrate to your fortress, they may already have useful skillsets (or not).

On the right of the screen is a list of all possible skills. 55 of them. What are they? So glad you asked: miner, woodcutter, carpenter, mason, engraver, building designer, weaponsmith, boywer, armorsmith, metalsmith, furnace operator, wood crafter, stone crafter, metal crafter, bone carver, gem cutter, jeweler, mechanic, fisherdwarf, miller, thresher, grower, herbalist, brewer, cook, weaver, clothes maker, trapper, ambusher, butcher, tanner leatherworker, fish dissector, animal dissector, fish cleaner, cheese maker, milker, animal trainer, animal caretaker, soaper, lye maker, potash maker, glass maker, wrestler, axedwarf, swordsdwarf, macedwarf, hammerdwarf, speardwarf, marksdwarf, shield user, armor user, engineer, and operator.

Here’s another reason why this game is great: those skills all mean something. They matter.

Now, instead of trying to game the skill system or figure out how you’d do it in another game—think. You’re leading seven dwarves at the foot of a mountain, and to survive you need, at a minimum, food and shelter. So food gatherers and miners are critically important.

By the way, there’s a ton of discussion concerning the ideal skill loadout for your initial group of dwarves. Check the wiki I linked to earlier today to see some sample parties.

I know what I want, though. I want to have raw supplies gathered quickly, and I want food, and I want builders.

Logically, I would mention security, but if you build your fortress cleverly enough, you can control any intruders with a minimum of armed personnel. More on that later.

Skills have five levels: none, novice, tradesman (for instance, if the skill is carpentry you’re just called “carpenter”), competent, skilled, and proficient.

The miner skill is incredibly important, and I want an excellent miner right off the bat, so I pile mining skill points on Erith and take him from “not a miner” to skilled miner. It costs me 26 skill points, so I have 274 left to go. I make Datan a woodcutter and competent carpenter. That costs me 31 points.

I’ve got raw materials taken care of at this point. And I’ve got a carpenter. What I still need, though, is a mason, so I take care of that now with Urist. He becomes a competent mason and I now have 227 points left.

I’m going to need food. A fisherdwarf is versatile in that area, so Zuglar becomes a competent fisherdwarf. He also becomes a fish cleaner, because those fish have to be turned into food.

Rigoth becomes a competent animal trainer and novice animal caretaker. That’s why I didn’t mention security—a good animal trainer can train war dogs which can still be kept as pets by your dwarves. And they’re effective in protecting you against most enemies, at least early in the game. You can also create elaborate and dangerous traps inside your fortress.
Heh.

Unib becomes a novice building designer and engineer (somebody has to able to design buildings, obviously). Oh, and while we’re here, hit the “V” key and let’s take a look at him personally. Here’s what it says:
Urib onulusan has been quite content lately. Urib onulusan likes chalk, bronze, Sapphire, amber, statues, dogs for their loyalty and lizards for their terrifying features. When possible, she prefers to consume grizzly bear.

She needs alcohol to get through the working day. She likes working outdoors and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather.

Dwarves like to drink. Remember that.

If you assign a skill to a dwarf, they won’t use that skill if it they have some kind of abhorrence to that activity. These dwarves aren’t puppets.

As the game progresses, you’ll see this personal page updated for every single dwarf in your civilization. You’ll be able to tell when they’re happy and when they’re not (and why). Happy dwarves work harder. Unhappy dwarves cause discontent. And angry dwarves—well, let’s just say you don’t want to make them angry. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.

Our last peasant, Kol, becomes a skilled miner as well, because that’s a damned big mountain and there’s going to lots and lots of digging. I add a few crafting skills for him as well—stone, wood, and bone.

There are 118 skill points left. Press TAB and let’s go to the supplies screen. Add two dogs and two cats, which will cost you 54 points, leaving you with 64. Those dogs and cats will breed, though, and the cats will control vermin while the dogs can be used for security.

Now we need to add some food. If you don’t gather enough food before winter comes, these supplies might be the difference in surviving and starving to death. We have four food options: plump helmet spawn, pig tail seeds, fox meat, and plump helmets. We add a bit of everything until skill points reach zero.

Now press TAB one more time and look for a starting region. Regions have four characteristics: temperature, trees, other vegetation, and surroundings.

You have so many regions to choose from that you can get whatever you want—if you want a freezing-ass cold region with no vegetation in “haunted” or “terrifying” surroundings, you can find them.

Personally, though, I don’t know enough yet to try that. So let’s go for temperate in a woodland area with calm surroundings. Ahhh. It’s called “The Point of Wheels.”

If you want to cycle through the regions to see what’s available, use the “+” and “-“. You’ll use them frequently in the game menus.

Once you’ve selected your region, press “e” to embark on your journey.

All right, we’re only thirty minutes in and I’m worn out from documenting everything, so that’s it for today. Remember, the “?” key accesses the in-game manual.

Tomorrow, we begin our settlement.

EA Updates Their Privacy Policy

Elysium (Sean) over at Gamers With Jobs (who has written part one of a multi-part series on EA here, and it's excellent) gave me a heads-up that EA has, in fact, changed their Privacy Policy.

Here's the important change:
Xbox Live
If you sign up to play EA games through Microsoft’s Xbox Live Service, Microsoft will provide your Xbox Live user account information to EA so that we can establish an EA Online account for you. You need an EA Online account to play EA’s Xbox Live titles. By signing up to play EA’s Xbox Live titles, you agree that Microsoft can transfer limited user account information to EA. Information transferred from Microsoft to EA for example includes your name, address, e-mail address and date of birth but does not include credit card number or other financial account information.

That bold in the last sentence is my own, not EA's. Full policy available here.

I bust EA's chops all the time for doing stupid things (because they do), but they clarified what was potentially a serious concern with their Privacy Policy and also closed the door on the possibility of collecting credit card information from Xbox Live accounts in the future. And they did so promptly.

In short, they did the right thing. Two words I normally don't use in conjunction with EA: well-done.

Dwarf Fortress

There have been what I would consider to be two great PC games this year: Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations II.

Now there is a third, one of the most complex and demanding games I've ever played. It has infinite variation, the learning curve is tremendously difficult, and the level of world detail is absolutely unparalleled.

The game is Dwarf Fortress, and it is the most unlikely great game I've ever played.

Think Space Rangers 2 came out nowhere? The graphics in this game are ASCII. In 2006, that qualifies as out of nowhere. It's in alpha (although it's already far more stable and complete than most commercial releases I've played this year). And it's free.

It's also one of the most imaginative, multi-layered, detailed gaming worlds I've ever seen.

Here's the description from from the game's website:
Dwarf Fortress is a single-player fantasy game. You can control a dwarven outpost or an adventurer in a randomly generated, persistent world.

Although Dwarf Fortress is still in a work in progress, many features have already been implemented.

The world is randomly generated with distinct civilizations, dozens of towns, hundreds of caves and regions with various wildlife.

The world persists as long as you like, over many games, recording history and tracking changes.

Command your dwarves as they search for wealth in the mountain:
-Craft treasures and furniture from many materials and improve these objects with precious metals, jewels and more.
-Defend yourself against attacks from hostile civilizations, the wilderness and the depths.
-Support the nobility as they make demands of your populace.
-Keep your dwarves happy and read their thoughts as they work and relax.
-Build floodgates to divert water for farming or to drown your adversaries.
Much much more...

Play an adventurer and explore, quest for glory or seek vengeance:
-Meet adversaries from previous games.
-Recruit people in towns to come with you on your journey.
-Explore the world without cumbersome plot restrictions.
-Accept quests from the town and civilization leaders.
-Retire and meet your old characters, then reactivate them again.
-Z coordinate allows you to move seamlessly between dungeon levels and scale pyramids fighting adversaries above and below.

The combat model uses skills, body parts, wrestling, charging and dodging between squares, bleeding, pain, nausea, and much more.

A dynamic weather model tracks wind, humidity and air masses to create fronts, clouds, rain storms and blizzards.

Extended ASCII character set rendered in 16 colors (including black) as well as 8 background colors (including black).

I haven't even touched adventure mode yet, because fortress mode is so incredible that I can't stop playing. As far as fortress mode goes, take every detail that was mentioned in the description and multiply it by ten. It's off the charts.

Let me just warn you now: this game will take you 5-10 hours to learn. The ASCII graphics are disorienting at first, there are a huge number of options available (and associated menus to learn to access the commands), and it seems totally overwhelming.

Trust me, it's not. It just takes time. After a few hours, you'll start translating the ASCII you see into a "real" world very easily, and along with that, the menus will become more familiar. You'll also stop trying to play it like a "game" and start thinking, because this game rewards thinking as much as almost any game I've ever played.

The game is just too big to describe easily, so what I've going to do over the next five days is start a new game and play two hours a day, describing my strategy and what happens in the world as I go. By the end of that five-day period, I'll be ten hours into a game and you'll have a decent idea of how the world works and how incredibly detailed and fascinating it is to play.

In simple terms, when the game begins, you have a group of seven dwarves at the base of a mountain, and your goal is to survive. And to survive successfully, you'll have establish stable sources of food and create shelter. Each of your dwarves has abilities, and they can learn new ones, and you must use their skillsets to create a sustaining environment.

If you don't do that successfully, then when winter comes and the dwarves run out of food, bad things happen. Very bad things.

What I'll do each day is play one hour, do a write-up, then play a second hour and do the write-up later in the day. I may only get the first hour in today, since I've written this introduction, but I'll work away and have something up later.

In the meantime, here are some excellent sources of information:
--first, a Wiki that's available here.
--second, an epic thread over at the Penny Arcade forums that is filled with both interesting game stories and useful information
--third, the main website for the game.

If you get a few minutes, take a look at the Wiki and the Penny Arcade threads. They'll both give you an idea of how detailed and rewarding the game world can be.

It's phenomenal. Oh, and if you want get a sense of just how thoughtful and thorough this developer (Tarn Adams) is, take a look at the Development link on the game's website.

More later.

What You Can Fight

Ogres, cave crocodiles, cougars, gorillas, mandrills, snakemen, elephants, rhesus macacques, deer, giant toads, groundhogs, raccoons, unicorns, wolves, dragons. And I'm sure there are dozens more I haven't seen or heard of yet.

What You Can Build

Doors, beds, tables, chairs, wells, cabinets, barrels, floodgates, kennels, aqueducts, roads, trade depot, animal traps, cages, archery ranges, coffins, mills, looms, workshops (carpenter, mason, metalsmith, bowyer, butcher, tanner, mechanics, fishery, laboratory, ashery), statues, and furnaces.

What You Can Do

Mining, farming, fishing, trapping, logging, butchering, milling, cooking, sewing, shooting, crafting, training animals, foraging, trading, building, exploring, drinking. And fighting.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Your E-mail

Some notes and information from you guys--interesting as always. Thanks.

First, from Cody Sharp, in reference to that Circuit Deal "deal" I mentioned yesterday:
Xbox 360 backward compatibility isnt the only fantastic service Circuit City provides. They also do PSP updates. I saw a sign in their store the other day saying, "Buying a PSP today? Make sure you get the update for the console to make it run better, look better, work, etc...only 24.99" or something like that. They get you to buy the system and give you the amazing option of getting a system that works for an 20 extra bucks or one that doesn't for free. A great deal.

Next, from Don Slevin:
Here’s Best Buys ‘Geek Squad’ pricing…
http://geeksquad.com/servicesandpricing/precinctsinbestbuy.php

For $29 they’ll do the same thing with Quicken (insert disk and hit enter 6 times) or for $19 they’ll blow the dust out of your computer (for $129 they’ll come to your house and do it) or for $59 they’ll install Norton Internet Security which will then slow your computer to a crawl…and then they’ll charge you $29 to speed it back up…LMAO

I think Circuit City announced some "rival" to Geek Squad this week called Bite Squad or Fire Team Delta or something stupid like that.

From Nick Johns, in reference to the "Dead Rising Secrets" video:
Just so you know, the ...secrets line is a Conan O'Brien reference. He has a bit where some celebrities will sit in a set that looks like a cop interrogation (cement walls, single table and chair with the bright overhead hanging light, a lit cigarette) and tell "secrets" about themselves, people they've worked with, that sort of thing. It's titled [persons name] Secrets, each time they finish a joke the "secrets" voice over plays.

It's a very funny bit, a lot of celebrities have done it, one of the best being Harrison Ford. I'm sure there is a few up on You Tube, I recommend you track them down if you can.

This was the moment when I realized that I was hopelessly old.

I think Conan O'Brien is one of the funniest people on Earth. Literally. But I haven't seen his show for at least five years, which curiously corresponds almost exactly to the birth date of Eli 5.1. So I am officially completely out of touch with popular culture now.

It's a blessing. And a curse.

Tomorrow

Okay, I've put in about twenty hours with the game I mentioned last week as the potential PC Game of the Year, and I'm doing a write-up for tomorrow.

After twenty hours, I don't think it's a slam dunk for PC GOTY, but it has to be seriously included in the discussion.

Flight Simulator X

Daniel Quock sent me a link to a very funny parody video called "Sim Heil" about Microsoft's upcoming Flight Simulator X. Not safe for work, as the subtitles are frequently obscence, but it uses footage from a WWII-era war drama involving Hitler and the German high command--only they're discussing Flight Simulator X.

Several burst-out-laughing moments, and you can watch it here.

The Yamato 3: to Oblivion, and Beyond

I wasn't going to comment on Sony's decision not to include HDMI or component cables with the the Yamato 3, because Sony is hell-bent on destroying itself, so only including S-video cables with a $600 console whose primary selling point is high-definition fits right into their strategy.

I also never expected two million consoles to be available at launch. Again, that number was something that Sony pulled out of thin air, a best-best-best case scenario that was never going to happen, given what we were hearing about yields for the Cell and the technical issues that Blu-Ray has been having.

I did, however, expect a million consoles at launch.

As it turns out, even I was too optimistic. From the (Herald Tribune), via Joystiq:
In the U.S., about 400,000 PlayStation 3 machines will be available when they go on sale Nov. 17. About 100,000 will be available on the Nov. 11 Japan launch date.

People absolutely went ballistic over the number of units available at the 360 launch, and there were 1.5 million units. And there will be barely over a quarter of that number available for the PS3 launch.

Think that's bad for the U.S. and Japan, though? Europe gets, um, zero.

Sony's upgrade video-game console PlayStation 3 will be delayed until March in Europe...

The sales delay is caused by a problem in mass producing a key component in the Blu-ray disc laser part of the machine...

The production problem is causing about a one-month delay that will reduce the company's supply capacity by about a million machines from the original plan...

Kutaragi said other preparation work on the machine was going smoothly, including the "cell" next-generation computer chip.

Mass production of the machine is set to start end of September, he said.

Okay, let's do a little math here. Kutaragi says that a one-month delay is going to reduce their launch units by a million from their original plan, resulting in 500,000 units for sale.

That's interesting, because their original plan has always been two million launch units. How do you subtract one million from two million--and get 500,000?

Here's one more little nugget:
The company is still sticking to its initial global target of shipping 6 million PlayStation 3 machines by March 2007.

Sure. That should be no problem, to build 500,000 machines the first month of production--and 5.5 million in the next four.

Piece of cake. In other words, Sony will be doing really, really well to have 4 million units shipped by the end of March.

Here's what I think we can conclude from reading between the lines, which is the only way you ever know anything about Sony. One, they're much more concerned about the 360 than I thought. Japan's going to get twenty percent of the launch units? That's incredible. But the 360 has zero traction in Japan.

That's not the case here. The 360 will have an 8-9 million unit installed base by Christmas (I might be low on that number), and Sony's countering with 400,000 units that cost $200 more?

Here's something else between the lines: developers are pissed. Don't be surprised at all if the number of launch titles steadily drops between now and November. Nothing like spending huge amounts of jack to cash in on the prestige of being a launch title and then find out your ceiling is probably 300,000 units. And it's far, far worse in Japan.

Also don't be surprised when more PS3 project cancellations get announced in the next two months--or, at a minimum, pushed back another six months to a year. And PS3 exclusives? Only if Sony develops them or they scratch a giant check to someone. It would be a studio closer to put out a PS3 exclusive right now.

Sony's done a brilliant job here. They've taken a consumer product that they DESPERATELY need to become the market standard for both high-definition DVD and gaming and turned it into a boutique item. Remember that the number of consoles sold in November and December roughly equals what's sold in the other ten months--that's how important the holiday season is to console hardware.

One thing this does do is guarantee sellouts at launch. And it allows Sony to talk about "overwhelming demand," when actually the demand is going to be tepid. Seriously, this launch is in TWO MONTHS, and 90% of the PS3 publicity right now involves Sony executives defending their strategy. There's zero buzz.

It should be very funny to watch the industry analysts who blew the trumpet about their brilliant call (Sony will dominate!) on the next-gen hardware war start hiding in closets. They'll push out their date when Sony will overtake Microsoft by another six months or a year, which will be the third time they've pushed that date out. At this point, the PS3 is set to overtake the 360 about a year after Microsoft launches their next console.

Look, I'm not anti-Sony--I'm anti-idiot. And Sony's strategy for the PS3 has been idiotic. Like I said before, the Yamato 3 is the perfect name for this console, and unless Sony radically revises its strategy, the PS3 will go down as one of the bigggest product failures in gaming history, the machine that took Sony from an unassailable leadership position--to a distant third.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball

WOLVERINE STUDIOS ANNOUNCES DRAFT DAY SPORTS: PRO BASKETBALL
Troy, MI September 5, 2006 - Wolverine Studios, a leading developer of computer game sports simulations is proud to announce the first in our upcoming line of professional and collegiate sports management simulations, Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball! DDS: PB is the follow up to the acclaimed pro basketball simulation, Total Pro Basketball 2005 and will mark developer Gary Gorski's third version of a pro basketball sim.

Do you think you have what it takes to guide a franchise to the top of the professional basketball world? DDS: PB lets you totally customize your game world from team names, logos, uniforms and home courts down to the players, coaches and player agents. Even better, you can customize your gaming experience as well. Do you want control over every decision in the organization and the ability to see all player ratings? It is there if you want it or take on the challenge of choosing just the role of coach or general manager and be forced to interact with an AI counterpart who may or may not do things the way you want them done. You can even play with a limited ratings mode so that you have an even more realistic uncertainty about players. For an even greater challenge start yourself off in the developmental league and see if your coaching or managerial skills get you a shot to run a team in the big show.

Some of the brand new features of DDS: Pro Basketball include:
- all new gameplay presentation with improved state of the art 2D engine and same unmatched level of statistical accuracy
- addition of a working developmental league that you can use as a minor league team for your players or choose to be the team you play as
- increased capacity for storing historical player stats
- brand new "Agent Mode" allows you to play as a sports agent rather than a coach or GM
- increased media presence in the game with more news stories
- increased interaction dynamic with owners, general managers, coaches and players
- improved AI management: the most realistic trading AI in a sports game gets even better

DDS: Pro Basketball is scheduled for a 4th quarter release in 2006. For the latest news and information on DDS: PB please visit our website at www.wolverinestudios.com or visit our forums to discuss the game with our community members and developer Gary Gorski.

Gary did an excellent job with Total Pro Golf and I'm looking forward to seeing his basketball game.

Austin Cheeseburgers

I've lived in Austin for almost twenty years and have eaten hundreds of cheeseburgers in that time (and thousands in my lifetime). On Saturday, we went to this little place on 2nd Street called Jo's Hot Coffee and Good Food , and I had one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever eaten. Top five, easy.

The original location is on South Congress. The 2nd street location is relatively new. If you're an Austin reader and you're in the neighborhood, and you love cheeseburgers, go check them out. Here's the website: Jo's Coffee.

Dead Rising Links

Here are several handy Dead Rising links.

First, via Kotaku, a link to an interactive map of the mall--just hover your cursor over the store and you'll get a full list of all items available there. Very thorough and well done, and you can see it here: interactive mall map.

This is a video with some Dead Rising "secrets" included. Except for them whispering "SECRETS" every thirty seconds, it's pretty useful, particularly if you're just starting out in the game--several very good PP bonus tips. Here's the link.

Finally, here's a link to loads of information over at Game FAQS: walkthroughs and more.

1K Project II

Thanks to Paul Costello from Groovalicious Games for a link to a Trackmania videa with ONE THOUSAND cars. And an excellent Moby song accompanies it as well. Via Joystiq, here's the link.

Backward Compatibility: Done by the Experts

Thanks to DQ reader and Extreme Sports Fitness Consultant Doug Walsh for letting me know about this.

In the Game Critics forums,there's a post with a picture of a display ad at your local Circuit City. They're offering a vital new service: installing backward compatibility on your Xbox 360 for the low, low price of $28.99!

Here's the ad text (that link above actually shows the picture):
Want to play your original Xbox games on your Xbox 360?
Backward compatibility on the Xbox 360 is done through software*

Let Circuit City install it for you for just $28.99

There's more, but it's just a description of the benefits of playing original Xbox games on the 360.

Now if you don't know how backward compatibility works on the 360, it's just a software update that you download from Live, or alternatively, you can get it on a CD.

Stephanie Dubious-Assham, Director of Research, has been working on this story, and she's obtained a copy of an internal Circuit City memo discussing backward compatibility.

DISTRIBUTION: ALL STORES
EFFECTIVE DATE: IMMEDIATELY

If customers want to unbundle the backward compatibility package, here are the prices and item code:
CSI BC360ON Push button to turn on Xbox 360--$2.00.
CSI BC360OPENTRAY Push button to open disc tray--$2.00
CSI BC360CDIN Insert CD into tray--$2.00
CSI BC360CLOSETRAY Push button to close CD tray--$2.0
CSI BC360INSTALL Push "A" button on controller to install software--$12.99
CSI BC360TRAY Push button to open CD tray--$2.00
CSI BC360CDOUT Remove CD from CD tray--$2.00
CSI BC360CLOSETRAY Push button to close CD tray--$2.00
CSI BC360OFF Push button to turn off Xbox 360--$2.00

As part of the new "I Love 99!" initiative, the focus item ends in 99. There's also a $1.00 spiff for every CSI BC360INSTALL invoiced.

Here's the extended warranty information:
CSI BC360INSTALL GUARANTEE ONE-YEAR--$2.99
CSI BC360INSTALL GUARANTEE THREE-YEAR--$4.99
CSI BC360INSTALL GUARANTEE FIVE-YEAR--$5.99

The five-year guarantee would cost almost fifteen dollars at the one-year rate, so it's the best deal for the customer. The five-year guarantee also comes with a $0.75 spiff.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Every Two Hours and Six Minutes for the Rest of His Life

Here's a story from DQ reader Bruce Hardie in reference to the "sledgehammer math" post from last week.

We had a salesman in the house trying to sell us an alarm system. I'm not sure how I allowed that to happen but we won't let that get in the way of the story. This story is set in 1996 and so is based on heroin math. I haven't updated to crystal meth numbers.

The salesman was using alarming (get it) numbers to try and sucker us into a sale.

"Do you know how much it costs to support a heroin habit?"

I shrug.

"$4000 a week!"

The street price for heroin at this time was ~$20/cap. Apparently your average home-breaking junkie needs 200!! hits per week. Someone with that much gear in their veins is not going anywhere. But he continues.

"How much do you think they'd get for your telly?" (TV) Another shrug.

"50 bucks".

Let's compare those two numbers and at this point I just couldn't contain myself and had to let him know.

"You're telling me that your average junkie has to steal 80 TELEVISIONS A WEEK in order to support his heroin habit. He hasn't got time to hit up - he has to steal more than 10 a day."

We didn't choose that company for our security.

Steve Irwin (1962-2006)

From MSNBC:
CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

Irwin was at Batt Reef, off the remote coast of northeastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called “Ocean’s Deadliest” when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous bard on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

“He came on top of the stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart,” said Stainton, who was on board Irwin’s boat at the time.

I always thought Steve Irwin was invulnerable.

I didn't like him because of his animal adventures, although they were always interesting. What I really liked about him was his enthusiasm--if he'd mowed lawns for a living, he would have been the most enthusiastic lawn mower in the world. In a cynical world, that kind of enthusiasm was incredibly charming and totally winning. And he was one of the very few people in the world who transcended culture and ideology--or, at least he did in the United States. He was just easy to like.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Partial Guitar Hero 2 Set List

From 1UP.com:
The October cover story in Electronic Gaming Monthly is a backstage pass to check out Guitar Hero 2. Counted among the details they turned up was a pretty big list of songs from the final game.

Nirvana; "Heart-Shaped Box"
Primus (original recording); "John the Fisherman"
Stone Temple Pilots; "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart
Anthrax; "Madhouse
Motley Crue; "Shout at the Devil"
The Police; "Message in a Bottle"
The Pretenders; Tattooed Love Boys
Spinal Tap; "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight
Heart; "Crazy on You"
Allman Brothers Band; "Jessica"
Lynyrd Skynrd; "Freebird"
Avenged Sevenfold; "Beast and the Harlot"
Dick Dale; "Misirlou"
Lamb of God; "Laid to Rest"
Alice in Chains; "Them Bones"
Reverend Horton Heat; "Psychobilly Freakout"
Black Sabbath; "War Pigs"
KISS; "Strutter"
Butthole Surfers; "Who Was in My Room Last Night?"
Van Halen; "You Really Got Me"
Guns N' Roses; "Sweet Child O'Mine
The Rolling Stones; "Can You Hear Me Knocking?"
Rush; "YYZ"

Spinal Tap. Nicely done. I was hoping for "Big Bottom" or "Sex Farm," but I'll take what I can get.

Friday, September 01, 2006

The Little Girl Giant

Jason Price of Talk Strategy sent me an absolutely amazing video link called "The Little Girl Giant."

It's about a marionette--that's thirty feet tall.

I've linked to the Wiki, which will explain what's going on, but it's much more fun to just watch the video first. It's just fantastic, and the two words that immediately popped into my head were "Terry Gilliam." He's not involved, but it's so reminiscent of his style.

The Wiki is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sultan%27s_Elephant.

The Course

Sometimes material just walks into your study.

Gloria just walked in and said, "Theresa just called and said that she signed up for this fantastic one-day couples cooking course at Central Market for beef tenderloin. They serve wine and it's with Lady Di's personal chef. So she signed up for this and it sounds great and Barry won't go."

"Hmm," I said.

"What would you do if I signed us up for a cooking class like that?" she asked.

"Well, I'd probably offer an alternative activity as a replacement," I said.

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Like stabbing."

"What?"

"Yeah, you could just stab me. That would cause an equal amount of pain, but it wouldn't take all day," I said.

She knew that already. Thank goodness.

Eli 5.1 Writes a Book

Eli 5.1 has been writing several books a day.

Last week, we watched an animated film so bad that I started to take notes (which I'll write up next week). Eli decided that he wanted to take notes, too, and when the movie was over, he stapled the pages into a book. We help with spelling (we sound out the letters and he can usually identify them), but he does the writing himself.

Here's his book for "The Roadrunner" (now one of his favorite cartoons):
Coyote
Roadrunner
Dynamite planted in the road

Friday Links

Here are a few links for your reading pleasure, since U.S. readers won't get anything done on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend anyway.

First, from William Barnes, Manifesto Games (Greg Costikyan's publishing venture) is up and running, and you can see it here.

The blog of Geoffrey Chaucer has an entry about gaming titled "Ich Pwne Noobs." It's here.

Frank Regan sent me a link to an interesting article in Wired about Sony and the PS3. Here's an excerpt:
It's not every day that a $64 billion-a-year corporation puts its future on the line. "It's very un-Japanese," observes Rishad Tobaccowala, who tracks the entertainment business as a future-of-media specialist at the global ad giant Publicis. "It's betting the company. If this thing bombs, there is no second coming. Everything else about Sony is a sideshow. This is the show."

It's an interesting read, and you can find it here.

Finally, here's a quote you won't see every day:
"It's fun and difficult to swim in stormy river with an exotic apparatus, as inflatable ladies slip out of hands."

That's in reference to the annual Sex Dolls Rafting Tournament near St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida). This year, there was a "controversy" at the event:
A participant in the annual Sex Dolls Rafting Tournament near St Petersburg was disqualified in shame for "sexual abuse of apparatus", Mosnews reports... as the organisers explained: "Air sex dolls can be used only for swimming."

Indeed. That's why they sell them. The full story is here.