Boo!

Just testing to see if you were awake.

Blast from the past

I found this today, a bit of a blast from the past, but it does show how the industry is being persecuted for showing scenes far more mild than what i have read in books.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8351037.stm

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past five years, the game Call of Duty contained a section where you walk through an airport killing civilians. In response to this, the British Government met in parliament to discuss this. This was in 2009.

Since then, every time there is a major incident, the first thing that will be blamed is a video game. GTA was blamed for the London Riots, never mind that the majority of young people don't have anything else to do since the government decided that youth centres were a waste of money.

The biggest risk to a developing society is ignorance. Plenty of studies done show that video gaming is bad for health, and we are made aware of this every time a child goes into school with a shotgun. Did you know, that a study made not that long ago, showed that fast paced shooters strengthened eyesight in determining greyscales. When a child walks into a school with a shotgun, think about it. They are probably not very happy at school. They are probably bullied. And their parents probably own a legal shotgun that is kept in a not very secure location.

In the case of the riots, mob mentality had a hand to play. People acting like animals when chaos reigns. But why did they begin? If they had all been playing gta at the time of the riots, don't you think that would be a better outlet for their fantasy to be an anti-hero. No, it began because the police were not visible, because young people are unemployed, because they do not feel like members of society.

This blog has descended a bit into areas i didn't want to go. But maybe in this you can see how i think. The riots were interesting in that they gave us a taste of how anarchy would reign in the case of a social breakdown. Imagine you were told that the ice age was going to arrive in a matter of days. How would you react?

I'm bored...of the zombie shooter

Recently there has been a massive influx in humans killing defenseless zombies. And i'm bored of it. There are some genuinely good zombie games, like zomboid, but most of them are simply gunning down horde after horde of the undead.

And yet the rest of the undead are left out. Where are the games where you take a team of special forces to combat the werewolves, vampires and banshees of the evil empire.

Bit of a short post for today, but the message should be clear...leave the zombies alone and try and branch out...for the sake of innovative gaming.

Response to the UK Riots

In the past few days there have been a series of riots. They have stopped being the peaceful vigil they started as and have descended into scenes of chaos and violence. And of course, the video game is constantly blamed.

Humans are violent creatures. Other animals kill for food, they fight each other for dominance, but they don't go out of their way to cause misery on others. Humankind is the only species that is as brutal and mindless as a virus. Most people can learn to harness what we have been given. We find outlets, and have been brought up to find those outlets. I am in favor of video gaming being used in this way. If someone is playing call of duty online with friends, then he is in a social environment, and, more importantly, not burning the entire stocks of a family run business that has survived everything else for 150 years.

These people are from various backgrounds, but all of them feel the need to cause pain and suffering on others. They obviously have not learnt control and are slaves to the beast which is inside us all.

But, on the other side of the coin, shop keepers have been mobilising to protect what they own. And guess what, BNP, some of them are protecting themselves from born and bred British people. The shopkeepers are of all kinds of race, but that doesn't matter, because they work here, they pay taxes here, and they employ people.

And if anyone is reading this and is involved with causing this misery, look at yourself. Look at what made Britain great then ask yourself if you are doing what Britain's are meant to do.

Britain has always been the underdog. We needed that empire in order to look big and strong. The empire was almost like Britain's mid life crisis. Men buy big flashy cars, Countries invade one another. Then, we returned to normal and started plodding away. Two world wars passed, one with largely just the uk standing up and waving it's fist at the invaders, much like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn. And in the cold war, we clung to the idea that everyone is out to get us (and in some cases that was true). As a result of that paranoia, we came up with a nuclear land mine kept warm by live chickens.

It's what i love about Britian. We are still that old man who grumbles and complains, but has a history of bravery and clever inventions that make the world sit up and realise that although we are just that small country we do have a lot of impact still. That's what saddens me about the recent events. London is the most multicultural city in the world. And for the past few nights, areas have been controlled by multicultural idiots.

Down to my Last

Recently i decided that i would stop making source maps. After this map, i will be moving onto UDK as my primary engine. But i think that as a last map, it should be something special.

I may have been known to voice a few opinions about lua in maps, and now is no different. Source is capable of handling functions, so why not use it. The plan is to implement an advanced power system, with alternate power supplies (such as rigging a battery to a door to open it).

The places used, and the themes i use come from a mixture of real sources and my own mind. If nothing else, it should be an interesting run.

Social Games through the ages (part 1?)

We may never know who invented the first ever board games. Examples have been seen back to as far as the bronze age. However, they created a glimpse into what would be the future. Social gaming is not just about computer graphics. It is about the interaction you have with a player within a gaming environment, be it playing with them, or against them. Can we say for example that playing football is better for a kid than playing a combat game. They teach the same things, and although the kid isn't running around exercising the body, they are exercising the mind.

I wasn't a great footballer at school. I personally couldn't see the point of running around to put a small spherical object into a goal, and whilst potentially it taught team building, it never really ended up that way.

Compare this to World of Warcraft. I have recently been running raids with my guild, who currently have 10/12 cataclysm bosses down. Each of these fights is directed by one person, and every person in that group has a role to play. If one person makes even the smallest mistake it impacts on the rest of the group, and forces someone to modify their tactics. In school football, the defenders would always lounge around chatting with the goal keeper and let everyone else run around in the middle. That is something you cannot afford to do in WoW.

Thing is though, that games change depending on outside influences. WoW has changed in accordance to things other devs have come up with for their games. I suspect the game of football has changed a lot from the days when an English premiership football team contained a majority of people born in this country.

I do believe that WoW will change even more, especially if other indie companies continue to come up with new ways to tempt the players away. Wurm Online is one such an example. It is a sandbox game where the world can be changed to your whim. You forge out, join an existing village, or find a spot to plant your own. It has a few very clever systems implemented, like the idea that you can build your own island if you want to. It has a free version (all skills restricted to 20), and a limitless premium.

Eve is a game which has had hardly any competition, which is a problem for it. For as long as it has nothing to threaten it's position, it won't change. Games need that competition, and really, anyone with new ideas should be listened to. New ideas can only make the games stronger.