Hardware had definitely changed since I originally built Ellinore. The best part was the change in price. When building a system one’s self, it is easy to get something more than the average person needs for dirt cheap. Here are the new parts:

• 3.4 GHz Quad-Core 64-Bit AMD Phenom II X4 Black Edition
• 4x2GB (8GB) DDR3 RAM
• HDMI Capable Video Card
• DVD Drive
• Fancy Motherboard
• Powerful Power Supply
• Sexy Case with Night Light

I also pulled my two 1TB Sata Western Digital hard drives from Ellinore since they were fairly new and had all my data.

The end result was a computer which has more processing power than I will ever need in a very long time. I might add that I paid just over $1000 by the time the cost of the hard drives is added. This is the reason I build my towers rather than paying more for less hardware from the normal retailers. It supports virtualization that I do not fully utilize yet. Still, the ability to easily run a few guest virtual machines on a host operating system is extremely convenient when tinkering with new setups. It also looks really good on my television in 1080p when I want to watch movies or HD shows on Hulu.

Ultimately, I needed a name. A machine with such power was only deserving of a name on par with a single individual in all of history:

Caesar.

By dictating the speed at which people can play, a person can completely throw an opponent off of their game. Some individuals need to move quickly while others will camp. Take them out of their element, and they suddenly will become less skilled. Meanwhile, it is advantageous to consider one’s own preference. It is not uncommon for someone to die in a way which frustrates them. As a result, they begin to play at a different pace. They begin to do things they do not normally do. Many times, these new actions make them worse players since they do not have the same level of experience.

It is also important to learn to play at multiple speeds. Certain maps, gametypes, team combinations, et cetera can make playing in a particular manner a noteworthy disadvantage even for the most skilled players. If someone can identify these situations and adapt to them by altering their tactics, they can gain the upper-hand. When a particular strategy is not working, shift to something else. It may be best to take the opposite approach of the opposition or perhaps assuming a similar stance will work. Other times, a combination is the best avenue.

Personally, I prefer to change the flow of the game throughout the game. My default approach is to play slow and allow the enemy to come to me. This gives me time to think and reduces the likelihood of split-second, random, blink-of-an-eye twitches to change the outcome. By using my team to limit the avenues of approach of the enemy, I suddenly gain the advantage. I, now, know where to expect to confront the enemy while they are walking into a blindspot. At the very least, it gives me a direct confrontation in which neither of us has the advantage. I am confident enough to expect to win this encounter until proven otherwise. If the enemy continues to walk into the same trap without a change in results, I will simply continue using the same tricks. Typically, the opposition will begin to try something different after a couple failed attempts. The result is I need to do something different.

If I have been slow to move, I will begin to charge them. They have become careless near their spawn since they expect me to be farther away. Suddenly, I surprise them by being merely around the next corner. Again, the advantage goes to me. Perhaps I had held my ground long enough that their entire team expects me to still be in the same general location. Now, I can begin to push through their flank unexpected. In due time, they will turn to meet me because I have become the greatest threat. Then, the rest of my team can push out to again catch them off-guard. Still, the entire time we are dictating the pace of the game.

There are games where the enemy beats me early on for whatever reason. Maybe they were faster than I expected them to be and they caught me off-guard. Maybe they simply out-shot me. Maybe they sat way back near their spawn, and I eventually crept into their trap if my patience was thin. The result is I now know their initial strategy. Usually, I will probe it again. I tend to be cautious, but leaning towards them maintaining the same basic concepts. After all, it worked for them once. If they were going fast, I will usually slow down even more. I set myself in an area will they will have less chance of surprising me around a corner. If they are sitting tight, I will approach them from an unexpected angle or with the help of a teammate. Once their defensive shell is cracked, I spring forward and attempt to take the offensive.

The key is always being in control of what is happening. Do not let the enemy push you around. If they are, try taking a different course. Learn your strengths and weaknesses and understand how those match up with your opposition. If they want to be fast and cover the entire map, don’t let them. If they want to hide in a corner, make them pay. However, simply butting heads with them is rarely a good idea. The only time when I see it as a viable option is when the game remains close and I am playing in my comfort zone. If my team begins to fall behind or I see a weakness easily remedied, I adjust. The flow of the game is not a static concept. It changes between every game and within every game. It changes with each team and within each team. It must be constantly monitored. You cannot underestimate the importance of the flow of the game.

This concept applies to nearly every single competitive game. It exists in FPS, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, chess, and even military conflicts. It is the basic idea behind strategy and tactics in general. It is not the only factor in deciding a victor, but it is without a doubt one of the most important. Not everyone understands it at a conscious level, but the best all use it to their advantage.

The computer still is not completely setup. This has delayed my writing of a blog post about it. I think I will finally put the blog post together as the configuring is going slower due to tinkering with new ideas. When starting with a fresh slate, I always like to try to do things in different ways that may turn out to be better than the previous methods. This is no exception. Sadly, it has not been an active enough interest to make much progress in the past couple of weeks. I am suspecting that to change this month.

February was the first time I really became accustomed to a full-time job. No longer am I a student employee or intern. In January, I was still the new guy who had few projects on which to work. Now, I am busy enough to the point I cannot even manage to streamline applications to meet the project deadlines which were set without my consultation. The result is I come home from busy days at work and need some relaxation time before I feel like being constructive. This is one of the reasons my new computer has been left in its present state for so long.

The Olympics are one of the greatest things in world of sports. The simple fact that it comes only once every four years, the winter ones anyways, makes it special. Then, there is the element of national pride. There is nothing better than community coming behind its team against the opposition as long as proper sportsmanship and respect is shown. This is one reason college sports tend to be better than professional sports, but that is for another blog post that will likely never be written. I actually did not watch as much of these Olympics as I have in the past. The primary reason being my focus on the hockey prevented me from watching many of the other sports. Also, my favorite sports tend to be related to ski and snowboard trick competitions. Having caught almost all of the Winter X-Games this year, there was less to see at the Olympics. The X-Games covers these sports better than the traditional Olympic media, and the athletes need time to develop something more to show than what was seen at the X-Games only a couple weeks before. Some might think the competitors may hold back for the Olympics, but that is rarely the case. The type of people who participate in such sports simply cannot resist to throw it down for whatever crowd they can gather. The spotlight of the Winter X-Games is as big, if not bigger, for them than at the Olympics.

I am a casual hockey fan. As a result, I purchased NHL 10 about a month ago. I had never gone online with hockey, but one of my KOR friends was motivation to check it out. Some of their ideas are pretty sweet. I am a little disappointed in EA’s ability to pull them off unfortunately. Still, this has resulted in me playing approximately 30-40 hours online already along with an additional 30-40 hours offline. Looking back on it, that is a lot of time for a single month. It was a result of the busy workdays. I liked sitting down to a game or two to relax after work. By the time I was ready to go do something, friends would be asking me to play online with them. The result was a lot of videogames.

My girlfriend is awesome. I just thought I would throw that out there in case you did not know. She recently bought a PS3 of her own which has resulted in me spending more hours on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). So if I was not on NHL 10, I was on MW2. The one concerning aspect is I think she may already be getting better than me. I have been playing actively for three years now. She has been playing actively for maybe a month. We also had a good day of MX vs ATV Reflex one weekend. I also must add that I regained my pride by establishing my dominance in games at Chuck E Cheese. She had schooled me in the basketball games the past two trips there, but I pulled off a minor upset this time. Air hockey and shooter games are still no competition. Skee ball can go either way.

This past weekend we celebrated a couple birthdays in the family. Because videogames are taking over the world, we had the latest Mario game and Wii Fit Plus among others. I must say I have never been that good at the Mario games. I can usually be semi-competent, but that is about the extent of my ability. As for the Wii Fit stuff, I can ski jump and some yoga tree position that is supposed to be difficult.

Now do you see why I did not blog last month? That being said, I am getting more organized and settling into my new job and apartment. I suspect there will still be stints where I do not blog for periods of time as I get distracted by other interests; yet, I will continue to return in due time to write about my experiences.

1. Create the VirtualBox share. I believe the virtual machine is supposed to be turned off for this step, but I do not know if it actually matters. I did this using a GUI, but it is my understanding you can do it with this command (JeOS – name of vm, share – name of share, /home/your/shared/folder – path to shared folder, backslash – entire command should be on a single line):

   VBoxManage sharedfolder add “JeOS” -name “share” \
   -hostpath /home/your/shared/folder
   

2. Install the necessary tools to compile the kernel modules that are a part of the Guest Additions:

   sudo apt-get install gcc make build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
   

3. Mount the Guest Additions iso. First, make sure it is set on the vm’s cd device. Then, simply run this command:

   mount /dev/cdrom

4. Install the Guest Additions. Please note the specific file run may be different depending on whether the guest OS is 32-bit or 64-bit. Here is the command for 64-bit:

   sudo /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run
   

5. Reboot the system:

   sudo reboot
   

6. Make the directory which will be the target of the share mount:

   mkdir /home/your/target/folder

7. Mount the share (share – name of shared folder):

   sudo mount -t vboxsf share /home/your/target/folder

Voila! The share is now mounted in JeOS. I ran this on an Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala 64-bit host, Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala JeOS guest on VirtualBox v3.1.2. For the purposes of my vm, I did not want a compiler left on the system; thus, I removed everything I installed with this command:

sudo apt-get purge gcc make build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Here is the list of guides I referenced in figuring out the process:

• How To Mount CD Rom Linux Shell Command
• Compile you? I don’t even know you!: Ubuntu 8.04 JEOS on VirtualBox
• VirtualBox/SharedFolders

Inspiration: “Brick by Boring Brick” by Paramore

I grew up listening to stories about King Arthur, Davie Crockett, and Paul Bunyan. From there I began reading about Crusades, Roman Legions, Samurai, and World War II platoons. I played Final Fantasy videogames and lived in a world that was all my own. I had an active imagination as most kids do. I became enchanted with the ability to mix history into the stories of our fictional media. It made them seem as if there was a chance they could be real. After all, Medieval stories are full of dragons and demons despite being based on factual events. Is it so hard to believe that such a story as Final Fantasy VI could have truly happened with some slight modifications? I know it did not, but the historical traces laced throughout give it the credence to allow our minds to be encaptured.

Then I got older and people expected me to grow up. We learned that many of the history we are taught as children did not go exactly as we were told. As I studied history in college, I learned that ninety-percent of the history I was taught before I graduated high school was full of holes. If you do not believe me, take some time to look at confidential documents released by the government and how they compare to what was believed by the public prior to their release. The common expression “history is written by the victors” holds a lot of truth. Today’s media spends so much time trying to create controversy that it is harder for us to hide our imperfections. The result is there are no more heroes. One has to completely redefine the word hero to apply it at all. Ultimately, the lesson is taught: if it is not real, it is irrelevant.

The problem with such a notion is that the stories are real. Programmers create things that do not exist everyday. The only physical manifestation of a web browser is a series of electrical and magnetic charges. Even the concept of a soldier is not wholly existent. It is an abstraction based on people who have fought wars. I have friends I have never met in person. Some people laugh at that. I ask them if they wholly disregard what is said to them in an email sent by their friend. They always answer, “No.” They may try to qualify their statement, but it is always the same. The social interaction is real whether I have met them physically or not. How many business partners do companies have for which they have never been seen? Have you ever personally seen your credit card company or merely talked to them over the phone? Are you sure they really exist?

The end result is one must question whether they really care if something is true. If it inspires you, does it matter if it is true? If it guides you better than anything else, does it matter if it is true? If it brings you joy, does it matter if it is true? I am going to go play Dragon Age: Origins on my Playstation3 now. It is a story about saving a medieval fantasy world from a demon infestation while political corruption is passing through the land and dividing the people. In the end, it’s not real, and I don’t care.

If you want to take it further, eventually, each composite data type can be broken down into a scalar value. Then a scalar type really is just a series of bits. Your kitchen spoon is nothing more than ones and zeros in the mind of a programmer.

Lately, I have been associating with this image. I recently graduated college and took a short hiatus to get away from everything. It was a nice break including family, friends, Christmas, snowboarding, and videogames. Yesterday, I returned to the working world. I say return because after three internships and a couple student jobs, I do not feel like it is a wholly new experience. To me, going to work is stepping onto the battlefield. My coworkers are fellow soldiers, and the problems encountered in breaking greater service to the clients is the force opposing us. It is where I employ everything I have learned over the years. It is where all the training comes to the forefront.

Then I go home in the evening. Where medieval kings may have played chest by candle light, I dabble in web development and other programming projects. They are miniature versions of problems I may encounter at work. I begin to expose the forces at play and develop tactics to meet them. I spend time reading books and blogs. I watch enlightening shows on the television. You may think all I do is watch sports, but I argue that football relates to far more of life than the local three-day forecast.

Tonight’s agenda is no different. Tonight, I resume reading The Art of War.

Lag

If it exists in great quantities, the game will fail. There are no if’s, and’s, or but’s about this. No other feature matters if the game lags. If there are not going to be dedicated servers hosting the games, then there needs to be a quality host selection process. There also needs to be a process to transfer hosts when dedicated servers do not exist so hosts can not kill games because they are getting dominated and want to go cry to their mothers. In other words, when Papasmurf786′s “mother resets his router.” I still say that was exceptionally convenient timing.

Weapon Balance

One weapon cannot dominate all other guns or the vast majority of guns. This will ruin any game before most of the other facets have a chance to come into play. However, it is not a mere matter of allowing one gun to be equal to another overall. The character of a map must also be taken into account. While a deadly shotgun may be weakened by its short range, a map composed of multiple buildings with small rooms and short hallways will be dominated by the shotgun. The result is those without said gun will be at a major disadvantage. This comes into play in games where guns are picked up after spawning such as Resistance: Fall of Man as well as when guns are chosen before spawn such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The reason is that not every player may have a shotgun class to begin the match and asking them to do something like set it before the match starts can be a bit much.

To accompany this, when a game requires most guns to use several bullets to kill an enemy, but allows some guns to kill with a single shot, particularly a poorly aimed one, the game will be out of balance. Think grenade launchers and rocket launchers with this one. The key quickly becomes to guard acquisition of the “golden gun” rather than to work towards the primary objectives of the game. If you wanted Capture the Flag to become King of the Hill, maybe you should have just made a King of the Hill game mode.

Firepower

How much damage does a gun do? While sniper rifles, shotguns, and others of a similar variety tend to garner special exceptions, the firepower of guns must be reasonable. The key is to allow a person to kill an enemy quick enough, and with enough ammo left, that he might be able to take on one or two more enemies at the same time if he is skilled enough to do so. If it takes an entire clip for a person to kill another, numbers will win nearly every time. While it can be nice to force teamwork, it takes away the fun for a person with less of a team. However, go too far in the other direction and people always die with one bullet. This results in mass camping. The goal becomes simply to get the first shot off. In my opinion, this may be the most difficult one to judge and often seems to experience the widest diversity between games.

Upgrades

Do not reward players for playing the game by giving them new equipment. The reason is that the players with the most time get an upper hand simply because they do not work for a living or go to class. I should not be punished for the fact I try to live a life outside of your game. I do not live in my parent’s basement. You should not encourage society to do so.

Pwnage Benefits

Pwnage benefits are things which reward a player for dominating in the game by granting them additional tools to increase their domination. This results in the first moments of a game becoming critical while the latter portions of the game result in people hiding in a corner crying to their mothers. In other words, a game becomes much shorter than it is in reality. Some may like going against the flow. If you do, I have several guns. How about you try to run across a field at me with a pencil while I see if I can shoot you before you get to me.

Maps

While seemingly in the background, the maps in a game can play an important role. A good map goes unnoticed. A bad map ruins the game. So what makes a good or bad map? Glitches have to obsolete, but that is the case with all bugs. A map cannot favor a particular team. When playing objective-based games, which side a team is on should not matter. This requires lots of play testing and thought to do right if a map is not made symmetrical. Also, there must not be too many paths through the map than a team can possibly watch. This seems like it lends itself to camping, but it actually prevents it if the rest of the gameplay is done right. It is counterintuitive. In chaotic maps where an enemy come from any direction, people will back themselves into a corner and force the opposition to come from a particular direction. However, if the map lends itself to a quality team being able to watch all paths, they can easily push through those paths with the right amount of skill. This does require the game to have other facets preventing the defender from having the upper hand. See firepower for more details on such a facet.

Player Types

Some games like to have different races or types of forces for one team than another. This is very dangerous. If they are going to have different skill sets, it must be made sure one team is not favored in any game type over the other team. Even if the skill sets are the same, make sure the character design does not give an advantage to one team or the other. Giving one team’s snipers ghillie suits while the other team’s snipers get bright red hats is a bad idea. This is not deer hunting. One team should not be made to stand out against the background to prevent them from being shot by their teammates.

Game Size

Why am I talking about this? Put everybody logged into a particular FPS into one game and see. Huge games reduce the impact any single player can have on the game. If a player does not feel they are influencing the outcome, they will lose interest. However, there is something to be said for teamwork. In general, it seems teams ranging between 5-20 seem to be ideal. There are lots of people who like to have parties larger than six people. If your game does not support this, pretending to but having horrible lag does not count, you will lose big groups of people. Smaller games tend to be really slow-paced and less action-packed. If I wanted to sit there and eat my sandwich, I would do so outside of the game.

Chat Capability

This is a personal one probably more particular to me than most people. I do not like games where people can talk to the opposition. The world is full of stupid, rude people. Why do we feel the need to encourage it? Gamers will not be polite to each other. There are the occasional rarities, but they are far from the norm. By allowing players to talk to the opposition, you are asking for your game to breakdown into trash talking. However, by only allowing talking to teammates, less trash talking ensues. It is kind of nice. The result from less trash talking is that more people spend their time working as a team. I understand that it is nice to meet new people. You will meet more cool people by working with your teammates than by telling random people to shut up as they come into your game.

Random Fragging

If I do this will I get a kill every time? Some games allow players to chuck grenades completely across the map. Then they give them several of them. The result is lots of random grenade chucking to see if a crappy player can get lucky and get a kill. It is stupid. It holds no value to the game other than the crappy player feels like his life holds value for the three seconds before he gets shot in the back. Some games like to make guns do variable amount of damage as if it is realistic because the bullets missed any vital organs. I am willing to shoot any developer of such games, after a properly signed waiver, to see how they react to being shot by an assault rifle. Guns may indeed not always kill their target with one shot. Sometimes they may even barely slow them down. However, upon being shot twice by an assault rifle, I highly doubt anyone is going to remain standing, running, and shooting the person who shot them except for in the rarest of cases. If, in one night of playing a game, I repeatedly see a weak gun kill people in one or two chest shots, I expect a more powerful gun to kill a player in at most the same number of shots. If, however, this more powerful gun repeatedly takes more shots, potentially ranging from 1-3, maybe more, there is a problem. Especially if a shot to the foot kills the person. Do not claim multiple bullets passed harmlessly through a person’s chest if I can kill them with a single shot to the foot.

Stats

Players like to see how they stack up against the world. Leaderboards are cool. However, while total kills and wins are nice, kill:death (k/d) ratios and win:loss (w/l) ratios are better. I do not care if the fat kid who dropped out of school has five million kills in the first week the game has released. I care about the fact that I have a 2.0 k/d and he has a 1.3 k/d. Being able to filter that list down to only my friends is an added bonus. Being able to sort that list on any stat is great. Being able access said list via a web browser is totally awesome. Having it presented as an xml file or other easily-parsed format is even nicer. Why? Because there are some geeks out there who play videogames and would love to do cool things with those statistics. In the end, stats are just the icing on the cake. If the game sucks, stats do not matter because no one has played enough to have any.