On Thursday...

...WAT... :O

Currently somewhere between food coma and oxygen deprivation.

Went to the hypermarket, bought a french stick, a tin of soup, and some crisps, with some premix chicken, bacon n sweetcorn mayo. Then ate quite a lot of all of it between coughing my lungs up cus for some reason the cold air made my lungs fill with fluid.

Can't fucking wait for the doctors on Wednesday when hopefully they'll be able to give me something so I stop coughing when I move about a very short walk.

Used to run 20 miles as a matter of course. Now I wheeze and cough up fluid when I take a short stroll to the hypermarket. Fucking life man, it sucks.

*takes caffeine pills* Leets do dis...

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Listening to Linkin Park's newest album called The Hunting Party, which I had no idea had come out 2 weeks ago. I don't listen to music that often and remember to check to see if the few bands I like have released anything new lately about once every six months, if that. Takes me a few gos to decide if I like it or not, and am usually not impressed by the first play through, and currently I'm thinking this is drivil, but I always think that. I know me...Guilty All The Same sounds pretty cool though...

Need to restore iTunes is what cus without a music equalizer for Rock music just don't sound right.

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Still watching Californication despite what I said, which isn't surprising. What I said was that it was hollow nonsense for stoners, but it grows on ya, and the creators have found their feet now and actually inserting some drama into it around S03-4 where Hank has a lot of relationships and then it comes out he boned a 16 year old and he hits rock bottom.

Wouldn't say it's inspired poetry or anything but it's better than the only other thing I have on my plate at the moment called 'Perception', which is a generic cop show with a twist of neuroscience. *shrug*

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Shaved my face, head and naughty regions this morning.

Face cus I have uber stiff wire beard and it's like termites are trying to eat me if it grows beyond a few millimeters, so beards are out of the question.

Head because otherwise you can see this halo around my head where the tops thinning out and it looks really stupid, and because no hair is best for exercise, although that's a non-issue until I get my lungs sorted out. And

And naughty bits because I hate public hair. It's uncomfortable, it's heating, and chafes. Plus sexual activity is just easier without it in the way. The only issue with this is shaving every 5-6 days results in a sandpaper effect everywhere you shaved. This is cool on the face and scalp, but not so much on your nads. Worth it though in my view.

Each to their own, but I roll with my lawn mowed.

The irony of course is that I'm an ape everywhere else, and have a mane on my upper back which is kinda neat. Excess testosterone is probably why I'm going bald, but also why I'm strong and usually healthy, and I've never liked having hair on my head, so it's all for the best probably.

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What else...

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From my todo list I'm taking some me time today to update my blogs. This post, art assets, URL cleanup, and some programming, which incidentally I'm now blogging about in the Codex Mundus [Book of the World].

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I'm basically rebuilding my games engine and adding in some of the new concepts I've been thinking about for a while, such as base program structure of primary/secondary UI's aaand spherical voxel based environments which can be customized by the user. I'll add those in as soon as I've disemboweled my quaternion based camera perspectives demo which showcases every possible perspective of 2D projected computer games.

Essentially what I'm making here is something between League of Legends and Landmark/Everquest Next which is an evolution of Minecraft.

Notch was a bloody pillock who knew and probably still knows all about programming but didn't and doesn't know games design, Sony are making all the same mistakes he did plus a bunch of new ones as they know graphics but not games design, and Riot Games can suck my cock for their mismanagement of an admittedly great MOBA.

I know more than they do because I'm smarter than they are. They are just luckier than I am which is why they have the money to build this shit.

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What I fucking want more than anything right now is for someone to pay me money to build games so I could build a working prototype of my games thesis and then call these AAA studios and cultural icons a bunch of useless fuckers.

Among the philosophical issues with this notion is this; building the best game of all time, the most efficient, the most fun, the most well crafted doesn't actually mean shit because if and when I do it I'm going to be so pissed that I had to and did it under these circumstances that I'll insult anyone willing to produce it to the point of rejection.

I day dream of being given an award for building the best game of the year or some shit and then smashing it to bits with a hammer or something on stage and calling these people who've never thought about what they're doing properly idiots who have no right to pat me on the back for proving their lack of insight.

A craftsmen, an artisan, a genius doesn't care for the opinions of no-less-men. He only cares about the work. But the fact is:

• Notch is an idiot and produced shit for kids. But those kids love Minecraft.
• Sony are a bunch of amateurs and are congratulating each other for their fine work. And people join in because they're the only game in town.
• Riot are so far up their own ass they're looking out through their own nostrils. And people worship them as despite being assholes their MOBA is the best MOBA available.

That's just it really; these assholes don't know what they're doing, but they're in the position to do it, whereas I know what I'm doing, but no one wants to be shown that their hard work and effort is effectively an elephant's painting compared to a Picasso.

I just hate humanity, and in that special way that only those who actually know how fucking wrong everything is can hate it.

Whatever.

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Tomorrow I need to get on with college work and then look for new acom at the start of next week before doing 2 exams for my certification in policing course on the weekend, and moving into new acom at the start of the following week.

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Skipped the Tribunal today.

I know I made a big fuss over going anyway but I needed a shave, I needed to clean my shit up, I needed some me time, I didn't need to go to a tribunal and try to explain myself to a bunch of assholes who weren't going to believe me in any case.

The whole reason I wanted to cancel the tribunal was to get on with my own nonsense which once taken care of will get me employed with the police.

Taking time out from that in any respect is simply a waste of time. Chillax today, college work tomorrow, not waste time today, chillax tomorrow, and then college work on the weekend.

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Some idiot contacted me about buying my vinyl weights set. Offered me a good price for them and then realized that they were vinyl and said that his mate's set cracked during 80kg deadlift and he got injured. Personally I find this utter nonsense. Had these things three years, used them for all kinds of exercise and never had an issue. Pillock.

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...Thank fuck for that, the caffeine is finally kicking in.

And that's it really.

Cleaning my room and catching up on my laundry, updating my blogs with art and info, looking forward to doctors on Wednesday, college work tomorrow, no specific drama at the moment so long as I can focus and get the job done. Have a look at Codex Mundus for my programming work, please do.

GG.

Have a good one.

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PS: Been trying to work out why I keep swearing and I think it's because I'm subconsciously quite angry over the tribunal fiasco. I'm right, they're wrong, and there's no way I can resolve it in my favor because no one gives a shit.

The thing with me is that my thoughts are logical and walled off from my emotions, so if I'm cogitating substantially I don't feel very much on the surface. My diction however belies that.

When injured I swear sulphurously, not because I mean the words but because the words are tied into my emotions. The logical part of my brain is processing the injury and trying to work out what to do about it, to mitigate and control the pain, etc. Reason and consciousness is latched to the information of my senses. The emotional part of my brain however is feeling pain, and as my diction is latched to my emotions I swear without feeling. My mouth runs but my consciousness isn't associated with what's being said.

Maybe it's because I'm a genius but I've always found that when I'm in one area of my brain - programming, for example, requires logical processing - I'm disassociated with other areas - I hardly ever laugh or feel pleasure because I spend most of my time employing reason for example.

Compartmentalization. Being in the zone. The warrior and the scholar.

I wouldn't say this role mechanism is unique to me, but it is something I'm better at then most people.

Anyway, I was just wondering what the fuck I was pissed off about. Probably the tribunal. Shit happens. Shit passes. It's cool.

Fin.

On MMORPGs...

Over the last few days I've been downloading World of Warcraft after I got a hankering for some WoW lore by playing Hearthstone.

Whilst so doing I remarked that WoW seemed to be being developed in a proper manner.

Proper development, in this context, being the antithesis of how most interactive software is developed.

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A game is designed and programmed for a given platform.

Each of it's components are effectively modular and substrate, as in the game engine consists of modules whilst it's assets are arrayed collectively. The graphics display processor for instance forms graphics according to the main line of the program, the models defined in files, with image textures wrapped around them, the whole forming a hierarchy [main < processor < model < texture] which is associated with, for example, sound files, to form a working entity within a gameworld.

The modification and upgrade of any given module of the program and it's corresponding assets is relatively straight forward if you've designed the game engine correctly. You simply adjust that component you wish to improve; to improve the graphics display processor, remove the old one, insert a new one and include in the assets higher resolution models and textures. Easy.

A PC format massive multiplayer online role playing game, or MMORPG, could be released, for example, ten years ago, and then over those ten years the components - systemic, graphical, audio, etc. - could be upgraded to take advantage of the rapid upgrade of publicly available and popular home PC gaming technology or innovations in games design.

The following could be done irrespective of advances in technology beyond perhaps storage space, although that's hardly an issue these days with multiple terabyte hard drives being commonplace.

• Adjustments to gameplay.
• Additional content.
• Or expansion content.

Gameplay adjustments include reworking classes so they're more balenced and/or provide a better gameplay experience.

Additional content includes refining or adding more of what is already in the game to maintain or elongate the currently active subscription base.

And expansion content could add in alternative [such as PvP arenas] or additional [adding in a card game where no card game existed before] forms of gameplay.


This sort of progressive development would mean that a game could be released and then continually developed indefinitely by a single studio, adjusted and upgraded on an on-going basis to maintain a profitable playerbase.

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I remarked that WoW seemed to be being developed in a proper manner whilst downloading it's current client.

And then I actually played it.

The graphics and animations are the same as they were a good five years ago. As is the gameplay.

They haven't actually upgraded anything about it in five different major expansions.

Oh, they've adjusted the gameplay. I don't think you buy new abilities anymore for example, and the talent tree is now one ability with three variants where you pick one it looks like, and there's glyphs and other stuff, but you're still locked into picking a race, a class, and grinding your way to max level on quests and enemies.

This character class business was developed for Dungeons and Dragons more than 35 years ago, and although things have been added to it, it's core is designed for table top roleplaying and not computer games. It's absolutely ridiculous to still be using it, especially in the face of the fact that people will flock to a game which gives them customization and freedom to do what they want rather than what they're told.

They've added a lot of additional content, but as I stated above, this is just more of what was already there.

Likewise with expansion content. They've added dungeons, they've added arenas, they've even added a kind of Pokemon pet battle system, which is all very nice, but still got 90 odd levels of grinding to do per character.

Point is that World of Warcraft has seen a lot of changes, a lot of what could be seen in a fair light as 'improvements', but the fact is that it's core gameplay, the World of Warcraft experience is OLD.

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There have been a lot of other MMORPGs which have copied a lot of the World of Warcraft formula, [and justifiably so given it's popularity] WoW itself being based even older MMORPG's such as Everquest which predated it by a good five years.

My issue with the current crop of AAA [top of the games industry] MMORPGs is that they're all pretty much alt-WoW.

WildStar for example. I got into the beta of that and summed it up as WoW 2 in space.

The race list: you've got the good free humans and the bad imperial humans, the dwarf/orcs and the machine/trolls, the gnomes and the beastmen, the undead and the cuter version of goblins.

Different cords, same tune.

The game is an improvement, sure, it looks better than WoW and plays better too, but that's just it, it's still WoW, it's just an update. It's old archaic stuff with a new lick of paint. See past the gloss and you find the rust.

And that's my problem.

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Everquest Next and Landmark, Sony's current central gaming enterprise, has been said to be the revolution of the MMORPG.

The best way to describe Landmark, as no one as yet has access to EQN, is as spherical Minecraft.

Voxel based engines like Minecraft and Landmark are either cubic [Minecraft] or spherical [Landmark] and is the different between a world made out of sharp edges and lines and smooth curves.

One of the issues with Minecraft, which Notch never addressed, was that the best way to manage environmental editing was by using the topdown perspective for a birds-eye view of the landscape.

He also never programmed in proper gameplay or objectivity or instruction or any sort of templatism.

Most people who played Minecraft did so for five minuets before getting bored because they didn't know what to do next, and building anything is a painful process of putting every single block into position, like drawing in MS Paint.

Landmark is precisely the same. You spend ages running around collecting building materials, and then not knowing what the hell to do with them because there is no objectivity. And most people aren't 3D artists, and you can't edit the landscape beyond the confines of your plot anyway so your building often looks drastically out of place.

EQN may include objectivity as it's an MMORPG, but I doubt they'll tie the two systems together efficiently, or ever even address the perspective and information management flaws, even if they have addressed the efficency of the block placement with fill, copy and paste tools.

That's the point though; if Minecraft can be called Voxel MS Paint, then Landmark can be called Voxel 3D Studio Max. Both of which are tools designed for artists [even if Paint is for children in that respect] and most gamers aren't artists.

I'm not saying settlement builders and landscapers can't be games. SimCity for example provides a degree of both, as does The Settlers and Civilizations.

Dark Chronicles for the PS2 [if you can believe it] however is the only micro-editing gameplay system [the others I just mentioned being macro] that allows for small scale customization in an efficient and user friendly fashion.

An expansion of that system could permit accessible map customization to the average player who mostly just wants to hack things to pieces, not spend hours precisely detailing his porch lamp.

The hamfisted way Sony's crew is managing the evolution of Minecraft is stupid in the extreme. I wouldn't be bothered except the obvious solutions to the issues inherent in their system are so blinding obvious that a chimp could see them. How can smart people be so dumb is what I keep asking myself...


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Anyway, an actual new MMORPG, an innovative improved upgraded game, in my view, should be a hybrid of four, to a give an example, other games: League of Legends, Minecraft/Landmark, WoW, and Civilizations [with maybe a lil of Dark Chronicles user friendliness].

League of Legends is masterful in it's presentation and gameplay. The fluidity, the low-poly high-quality graphics, the stylization, and characterization, all marvellous. If it wasn't for Riot Games' corporate attitude, blinding arrogance, lack of ambition, empty words and general asshattery [whoever wrote that statement on ELO Hell being a myth is going to get my foot up their ass] they'd be the best there is.

Minecraft/Landmark and voxel editing is great in functionality, but there's a massive chasm between that and the user that no developer has yet addressed, probably because developers don't mind using developer tools and for some reason they never consider user friendliness. I couldn't begin to tell you why this is, but in my experience (HA, maybe I can then) it's because people think of A, maybe B if they try, but never get to C, and as for D...well...

World of Warcraft [or WildStar as it might be] is again like League of Legends. Well made, well written, well organized, very entertaining, but stale, archaic and old. That kind of gameplay - third person RPG which is accessible and well crafted - but mixed with a hell've a lot more in terms of free-form character development and customization.

And Civilizations is my go to example of how to build an information management 4X strategy title. You start off with a settle or two and by the end of a match that can last a couple of days of real time you own the planet. Obviously in an ongoing MMORPG you would have to own a space of your own and interact with others who you couldn't directly conquer perhaps, but that kind of factional management scope anyway.

The efficiency and environmental perception of LoL, the customization of Landmark expanded to include the micro-editing of the character, with the presentation and writing of WoW/WildStar, hybridized with the civilization and factional customization of Civilizations.

With progressive updates to the entire game system you could perpetuate the game for decades. You own realm, you colonize it, make it your own, work in a cooperative online space in shared settlements, and then expand out into the wyldlands where you fight for territory.

You don't have classes and levels, you have a character you build into whatever you want and respec if you get bored.

You can adventure and go delving into dungeons, you can play cards, you can fight using monsters, you can race vehicles you built, you can explore unknown maps which aren't mapped and that've never been visited by another play but have points of interest in them.

You can actually live the fucking virtual world instead of just running through the motions and grinding your character in the usual online computer game.

That's what an MMORPG should be. A true virtual world.

And that is something no studio or developer is ever going to make. It exists only in my head.