...when upon waking up you find a 10 quid note someone dropped and no one claims. :D
Got a Subway for breakfast, had some coke flavored caffeine called Monster Assault, tasty stuff, bought some caffeine pills, listened to some Dresden Files: Wight Night [that's what it should be called so unless you write it down it sounds like 'White Knight' or good hero instead of 'Wight Night' or soul vampire night], had a shower, got to the library and now just procrastinating before doing some college work.
Didn't go running last night because last weekend really did a number on me, I left it too late, and today I feel great, so go do an epic run tomorrow and it'll be far more productive.
Kinda annoyed at the skin on my hands at the moment because they got freeze dried by the cold autumnal air and the epidermis is dry and tight. Freaking annoying, though minor relief comes from licking them. Need some moisturizer or something but I hate how oily that shit makes my hands for hours. I once tried to power through that shit though and my knuckles are badly scarred from where the skin dried out and cracked and bled so.
Currently trying to listen to My Chemical Romance's final album called 'Conventional Weapons' which I've only found one or two good songs on - Boy Division and Kiss the Ring. The rest are just awful bland things which only serve to evidence that some bands should bow out before their fire burns out.
There is some pop music out currently which is sticking in my head, but I've no clue what the songs are called, only heard them when moving between shops which play the stuff, and have no desire to wade through the utter crap in the top 40 to find maybe two or three songs total which appeal to me.
Lady friend is kinda annoying me at the moment because sometimes she seems hot and sometimes she seems cold and I'm not sure where I stand, and I hate not knowing where I stand. Of course this laptop is slowly reducing my care of anything which isn't pure information.
The way my brain works is semi-psychopathic; I see the world as an assemblage of information. I don't usually feel emotion, not because I can't, but because there's so much momentum behind my thoughts that I get into specific head spaces of mental thought, and analysis and deduction of incoming and outgoing information is one of my favorite head spaces. I could be emotional, or I could be creative, or I could be rational, or whatever depending on what I focus on. To get work done, to interact with computers, to play games, I don't feel emotion or use imagination, I just see, think and do. And that's where my head's at right now.
For relationships of any sort this is problematic as my lady friend talks to me and I try to rationalize and solve what she is saying instead of caring. And when she's not talking to me and off doing other stuff I don't really care about her existence. I probably should care really, but I don't because I'm occupying a head space that makes me hyperational and want to be there instead of worrying about relationship bull shit.
I'd do very well to find someone who understands this sort of thing, has as much intelligence [roughly defined as memory, deductive ability, etc.], and can run in the same sort of mode and doesn't expect me to be all warm and caring and isn't all warm and caring when on the job.
The issue of course is that I'm so weird that my sort of weirdness isn't prolific enough to make finding someone like me likely. I have to try to make do with what is available in the human population.
My lady friend isn't an ideal mate, but I don't know anyone else that's better at the moment. That's the basis of most human relationships really. Imperfect but what you've got to work with.
No call back from the recruitment company the job center referred me to last week. Going to go see them tomorrow morning before checking in with the job center.
Watching S08E03 of Doctor Who. The Promised Land is starting to reveal itself, which is interesting, and the bickering between The Doctor and Robin Hood was funny. The issue is that I've seen multiple versions of the Robin Hood tale, including the Kevin Costner full motion picture, and found it a bit lackluster so. It's still not quite matching up to the first episode of the series though. Started on a high note, and the last few episodes will probably be excellent, but the center seems a bit underwhelming.
A while back when I had nothing to use but my iPhone I got into using an online forum called Reddit.
Normally I am loath to use forums because the people who use them have the mental functions of pet rocks and the moderators are a breed of Nazi that believes that if they can get away with it then who the fuck cares about rationality or reason when they can abuse their power and ban you for breathing.
However, since I started using it, apart from the occasional troll, being banned once for 'Slap Fighting' from Ask Reddit because a flamebaiter kept harassing me*, and once being accused of stealing porno pictures and reposting them on Tumblr and infringing on copyright theft** I've enjoyed using the site overall.
* Yeah, I got banned because someone went through my post history posting insulting and nasty replies when all I said to him was that I was not going to engage him and asked him why he was doing it. Like I said, mods are universally assholes who don't care about contextual circumstances. It's in their job description to not give a fuck.
** I do repost porn pictures from a subreddit called Gone Wild on Tumblr under another name, but only ever 1 image from any one person, I link to where I found it, and the people who post them don't give a flying fuck about who downloads and reposts them elsewhere anyway.
One of the subreddits is called No Sleep, and it's where people post scary and creepy stories from a first person perspective. OK, so it's rules [each subreddit has it's own ruleset] are retarded because you can't say...
"Good story, but insert critique of your narrative and compliment on structure here."
...without it being removed by the mods. You have to go use NoSleepOOC for that. No, in the subreddit itself you have to act like all the stories are totally legit and the posters are talking about real events as a form of ongoing roleplay. It's stupid, retarded, and ill conducive to proper feedback on creative work, but, like with Wikipedia, I have no control to make idiots grow the fuck up and see reason, so I live with it.
The reason I mention it is because what I thought would be a good idea some time ago is to turn the stories in No Sleep into anthology collections, books which could be constructed with artwork and sold in shops and online as eBooks, via Kindle and that maybe.
Some of them really are quite worth the read, and the entire process isn't that complicated for someone already trained in the design of computer games and their concomitant artistic assets.
You simply built the necessary artwork in photoshop, collect and edit together a whole bunch of stories once you have the authorization of their authors, and then publish the book via Lulu or any one of the self-publishing websites who take your money and publication dat and hand you a printed book in bulks of a thousand or so.
When I posted this I naturally started at the above base principles and got in return from other users a whole bunch of utter tripe way beyond a base concept about contracts and royalties and how it's a far better thing for a single author to seek self-publication [a hellish task which I understand requires 10,000 pitches and ten times that many rewrites or more before someone says yes, we'll take this] rather than contribute to a collected anthology, as though a novice writer doesn't need nor want to appear beside other works which encourage people to buy the volume because they know one writer and get recognition and cred.
I mean, I even got told by some stupid bastard that any author with brains wouldn't use a publisher or contribute to an anthology because the professional job role of publishers is to make money off the work of creative people.
Which is entirely true, if you take away a publisher's entire functioning workload of finding halfway decent authors, collating and editing their work, ensuring they deliver on time, making sure their work is advertised and distributed properly, etc. etc. Ya know, the entire role of administration of a creative work doesn't need to be paid for, and every author is naturally skilled in the task without any outside aid whatsoever.
I am a games designer and I design games. When you have publishers or anyone else, including programmers or artists, trying to do my job, they cock it up royally because they are not skilled in the task like I am. Likewise I don't really care about the majority of their job/s, constructing a creative artifact from a verity of sources not withstanding.
It's one thing to be a creative genius, but it's another to understand administration of creative artifacts, and someone has to pay for that service, and it's going to have to come from the revenue generated by the proliferation of the creative artifact, either to the author for doing a half assed job of it or to someone else for professional execution.
Anyway someone directed me to an eBook put together by, I think, the mods of the subreddit itself.
- http://nosleepebook.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/2014-ebook-issue-2/
I would download this and give my professional opinion on it's design, but the library I'm in doesn't allow for downloads from Mediafire [fucking idiot should not have used that when Lulu is free and available to anyone once they've made an account] but from what I remember when I checked it out on my phone a professional media designer like myself could do a lot better than this.
The point is that like most things I have an idea for making something and a lot of people show up to tell me it can't be done for a lot of bullshit reasons, think they're helping, and instead are just confirming my conviction that most of humanity needs to be fucking nurtured.
The issue I have with executing this idea here and now [apart from the obvious limitations on my time at present] is that this toy PC here can't handle running photoshop so I can't make the art assets. I can however run around No Sleep and pull together a whole bunch of stories and make a prototype then post that as a proof of concept idea on the forums.
If the authors have one iota of sense they will see my work and get on board. If they don't, and let's face it that I'm expecting that they won't, they'll go apeshit and tell me not to publish their work on the assumption that I'm trying to profit from it, because people are irrational morons.
NOTE: I'm making this note here as a preemptive I told you so [HAI DUDE FROM PAST SELF!] because from past experience I have the abilities of a prophet so I want to make it very clear that I saw this bullshit coming and have no intention of profiting from other peoples work, I'm just trying to create something here.
I'll still form the book, because if nothing else it'll look good in my portfolio as 'I made an anthology book, isn't it uber cool' even if the morons who wrote the content won't allow me to publish it so we can both profit from it's distribution out into the world.
Like I've always said, I can but try, and also like I've always said, the universe usually sneers at anything I try and tries to kill it with prejudice. Doesn't stop me from trying though, as evidenced by the fact that I'm still breathing.
Right, I need a widdle and maybe a drink and I really need to get some college work done, so I think I've rambled on enough for one day.
The above eBook and a few other projects [including buying merchandise from airport lost and abandoned luggage sales from auctions held in London, UK, and selling it on eBay] will have to wait until I have more time and money to invest in doing it.
Hope anyone reading this is having a nice day like me. :)
Showing posts with label The Dresden Files. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Dresden Files. Show all posts
07/10/2014
06/10/2014
Going Apeshit, not Just for the Apes...
In the blur of stress, hunger and tiredness at the end of last week I totally lost it when replying to my course tutor for the Certificate in Basic Policing Course. I mean, I just let him have it, swearing included. Fuuuck, lol.
He mailed me this morning about not liking my tone and attitude so, now that I've got my shit together, I sent him one back, still angry as ever loving fuck but this time precise and explanatory. Long story short he eventually accepted that I have no control over what the job center orders me to do and gave me time to get my college work done.
I mean, like I've been posting, someone turns around and tells you in detail about the crap he's being put through, it's hard to argue with him.
Point is that I think I've got the college off my back and can get my coursework done now. Don't have to see the job center until Wednesday so we'll see how that goes. And haven't been called by the recruitment company yet. Had sleep. Had food. Even had entertainment as I've downloaded some of the new Doctor Who and watched that whilst eating. I'm fine, for the moment. So long as nothing else goes wrong.
This also means I've not got a lot to write about, except maybe Doctor Who...so why not...
First though, check out a musician called Kraddy on YouTube. He did a RMX for a band I like called The Used, on a track called Put Me Out. Fucking epic tune.
I checked out some of his other work, and though some of it is a wee bit too far into the Drum and Base genre than I'd like, some of it is rather well suited between melodic rage RAWR music and heart beat thumping exercise music.The best music is that which makes me want to tear apart a thick sheet of steel, and practically gives me the power to do it. That's what you need around mile 10 during a 20 mile sprint.
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park did epically with his RMX of one of their own songs called Victimized. Same thing; thumping based, speed, power, but with grace that makes you wanna summon fire and lay waste to quick deadly shadows like a flame throwing ninja mage. YEH.
Right Doctor Who. New Doctor. Old Doctor. I said before, either here or on Twitter, I can't remember which, that I really enjoyed S08E01, and I did. It's well written, well filmed, well presented and the older doctor makes sense given the over arching theme that he's effectively dying for the last time and this serves as his epitaph. When he said 'Oooh, I'm Scottish' that was all kinds of awesome and I laughed heartily.
S08E02 on the other hand was slightly less awesome, but it made it's point. A reflection of the doctors own mind, though the point is a tad bit tired now. We know he's a destroyer of worlds, we've been over this, and shining light on it again, even if it fits in with the tone and theme of the season, is a bit repetitive.
The women, can't remember her name, who seems to run Heaven, whatever that actually is, is very interesting, and as usual, I'm tearing out chest hair [I'm bald :P ] trying to work out who the hell she is and what's happening to those people.
The other question, which will probably be the S08 cliffhanger, naturally, is of course how they're going to continue the Doctor Who franchise after this season. Either they'll give him a new set of regenerations [though it's a bit obvious], pull the Doctor from an old time frame into the new and sort of reboot the series, or actually kill 'The Doctor' [or let him die anyway] and then introduce an entirely new [and possibly female] Timelord [he had a daughter at some point who is out in the universe somewhere so].
Those are my guesses at where they could go, but they'll probably think of something.
Point is that I take back what I said about the older actor and approve of this new Doctor, but I'm only two episodes in and if they fail to deliver as the episodes go on then I may change my mind. GG so far.
It's fucking epic to finally have access to uTorrents though. I restored The Dresden Files onto my MP3 player and can now listen to any of those on the move again. Still need to download better copies of a couple of The Iron Druid Chronicles, all of Harry Potter and The Discworld, but that's not impossible, just time consuming. Easiest to simply download the next few books of the series I'm listening to [currently on book 10 of Dresden, and have 11 and 12 on the device waiting] and then grab new ones when I near the end of the last book. Eventually I'll have my library fully restored again that way without spending hours and hours doing nothing but downloading audiobooks. :)
[SIDE NOTE: I swear Cowl is Justin Du Mourne and Kumori is Elaine Mallory. It makes so much damn sense with the attack on Arc Angel, Elaine being near the mad fae Queen, Nemesis having a hand in both the death of Harry's mother (by way of Lord Wraith) and the imprisoning of Harry's God Mother for the events of Grave Peril, and how Elaine showed up during Wight Night to report on events to Cowl as his agent caused the destruction of two thirds of the White Court, etc. etc.]
About time I went and did some college work if I want to go running tonight, when I hope it's not bloody raining. Got plenty of salad and things to eat, rent's paid, laundry is done, and so long as I keep up with my job center meetings and do my college work I should be OK in a few weeks.
If I do the work.
If I do the work because I keep procrastinating.
Goin...
He mailed me this morning about not liking my tone and attitude so, now that I've got my shit together, I sent him one back, still angry as ever loving fuck but this time precise and explanatory. Long story short he eventually accepted that I have no control over what the job center orders me to do and gave me time to get my college work done.
I mean, like I've been posting, someone turns around and tells you in detail about the crap he's being put through, it's hard to argue with him.
Point is that I think I've got the college off my back and can get my coursework done now. Don't have to see the job center until Wednesday so we'll see how that goes. And haven't been called by the recruitment company yet. Had sleep. Had food. Even had entertainment as I've downloaded some of the new Doctor Who and watched that whilst eating. I'm fine, for the moment. So long as nothing else goes wrong.
This also means I've not got a lot to write about, except maybe Doctor Who...so why not...
First though, check out a musician called Kraddy on YouTube. He did a RMX for a band I like called The Used, on a track called Put Me Out. Fucking epic tune.
I checked out some of his other work, and though some of it is a wee bit too far into the Drum and Base genre than I'd like, some of it is rather well suited between melodic rage RAWR music and heart beat thumping exercise music.The best music is that which makes me want to tear apart a thick sheet of steel, and practically gives me the power to do it. That's what you need around mile 10 during a 20 mile sprint.
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park did epically with his RMX of one of their own songs called Victimized. Same thing; thumping based, speed, power, but with grace that makes you wanna summon fire and lay waste to quick deadly shadows like a flame throwing ninja mage. YEH.
Right Doctor Who. New Doctor. Old Doctor. I said before, either here or on Twitter, I can't remember which, that I really enjoyed S08E01, and I did. It's well written, well filmed, well presented and the older doctor makes sense given the over arching theme that he's effectively dying for the last time and this serves as his epitaph. When he said 'Oooh, I'm Scottish' that was all kinds of awesome and I laughed heartily.
S08E02 on the other hand was slightly less awesome, but it made it's point. A reflection of the doctors own mind, though the point is a tad bit tired now. We know he's a destroyer of worlds, we've been over this, and shining light on it again, even if it fits in with the tone and theme of the season, is a bit repetitive.
The women, can't remember her name, who seems to run Heaven, whatever that actually is, is very interesting, and as usual, I'm tearing out chest hair [I'm bald :P ] trying to work out who the hell she is and what's happening to those people.
The other question, which will probably be the S08 cliffhanger, naturally, is of course how they're going to continue the Doctor Who franchise after this season. Either they'll give him a new set of regenerations [though it's a bit obvious], pull the Doctor from an old time frame into the new and sort of reboot the series, or actually kill 'The Doctor' [or let him die anyway] and then introduce an entirely new [and possibly female] Timelord [he had a daughter at some point who is out in the universe somewhere so].
Those are my guesses at where they could go, but they'll probably think of something.
Point is that I take back what I said about the older actor and approve of this new Doctor, but I'm only two episodes in and if they fail to deliver as the episodes go on then I may change my mind. GG so far.
It's fucking epic to finally have access to uTorrents though. I restored The Dresden Files onto my MP3 player and can now listen to any of those on the move again. Still need to download better copies of a couple of The Iron Druid Chronicles, all of Harry Potter and The Discworld, but that's not impossible, just time consuming. Easiest to simply download the next few books of the series I'm listening to [currently on book 10 of Dresden, and have 11 and 12 on the device waiting] and then grab new ones when I near the end of the last book. Eventually I'll have my library fully restored again that way without spending hours and hours doing nothing but downloading audiobooks. :)
[SIDE NOTE: I swear Cowl is Justin Du Mourne and Kumori is Elaine Mallory. It makes so much damn sense with the attack on Arc Angel, Elaine being near the mad fae Queen, Nemesis having a hand in both the death of Harry's mother (by way of Lord Wraith) and the imprisoning of Harry's God Mother for the events of Grave Peril, and how Elaine showed up during Wight Night to report on events to Cowl as his agent caused the destruction of two thirds of the White Court, etc. etc.]
About time I went and did some college work if I want to go running tonight, when I hope it's not bloody raining. Got plenty of salad and things to eat, rent's paid, laundry is done, and so long as I keep up with my job center meetings and do my college work I should be OK in a few weeks.
If I do the work.
If I do the work because I keep procrastinating.
Goin...
14/06/2014
On Design...
Ye gods I feel like fried sheet. -_-
In my efforts to prep for my Day 2 fitness exam I think I gave myself a cold.
I don't get ill for several years, healthy as a horse, run like the wind, but the moment someone wants to measure my fitness level I get a strep infection for three months and then a cold a week before the test.
I hate this fucking world. >:|
---
Regarding other things that make me angry:
If you're writing fantasy fiction, or drawing fantasy characters, or, ya know what, if you go anywhere near fantasy anything, learn what things are fucking called.
Just met a guy on DeviantART who decided to draw a Dwarf - short, broad, line based patterns on his clothes with squares and diamonds, long white beard, granite express, the works - and then he tells me he's a Gnome Warlock.
But for crying out loud, Gnomes are effectively natural midgets.
Other stupidity includes people naming their Wyverns as Dragons. No, that is a Wyvern. It's only got two legs and bat like wings. It's a draconian bird, not a bloody true Eastern Dragon. And what's it doing breathing fire like that? True Dragons breath fire to guard their hoards, but that thing would burn it's own nest to cinders.
Poetic license is all well and good when it comes to rewriting Game of Thrones with more magic, but don't tell me that bloody flying lizard is a Dragon when it's very obviously a dam Wyvern.
And Nagas, oh idiots of DeviantART who I had a three month argument with over a misnamed Medusa, are lower half snakes, upper half humans regardless of if it has snake hair or not. Snake hair on a human, now that's a Medusa. What you have there is very clearly a Naga.
Get it right or go home.
A lion is a lion, and not a cheetah simply because you like the word and that they run quick and this specific lion you've defined in your work is fast on his feet.
---
What else...well, there's computer game genres.
The more or less industry standard list is on Wikipedia, although it seems to me like every shop, developer, player and anyone talking about them categorizes games their own way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres
What do we have here?
Action games. Action? Really? What interactive software doesn't include action of some kind? I've never played a game in my life where I thought, 'this game, this game right, what it needs is action of some sort because it just doesn't have any'. Biggest misnomer in the history of naming conventions.
Action-adventure. OK, firstly you've got two genres with the same word, which suggests that the latter is a sub-genre of the first, and secondly the addition of the word 'Adventure' does nothing for clarification on what games are part of that genre. Legend of Zelda includes both 'Action' within your own context and certainly has a deep and abiding adventure to it, but it's neither stealth nor horror, so wtf?
Roleplaying. Like action, most games give you a role to play, and it's a misnomer on general principles because most roleplaying games in my experience are essentially strategic number crunchers, and level grinders with more emphasis on base maths and inventory management than anything else.
Sports. Most sports titles are in fact based on the principles of strategic management of assets, environmental navigation, and effectively the same gameplay as your average combative game. Hell, eSports use strategy titles like StarCraft II because they play almost precisely like football games.
And the rest are 'We've not got a good way of categorizing these, so we're lumping a lot of gameplay types into the minc. category and closing the browser'.
The second word is related to systemic design whereby you have the base information of a game, which is presented via a setting [system mask; matter which can be quantified by math for example], that is built using an environment, which is interacted with via an interface, and those interactions are quantified.
The most important factor about my genre list is that no game belongs to only one genre. Quite the opposite in fact; all games belong to every genre, but are categorised by their apex aspect.
Take away any given factor entirely from a piece of interactive software, and you no longer have a game.
A game of the Strategy [Information] genre could be Civilizations for it's emphasis on information management, but it includes a setting, an environment, an interface, and interactions between units and the civilizations themselves via diplomacy.
It is categorised as a Strategy [Information] title but includes lesser components of all other genres, if quite significantly developed. Primarily though it's about information and numbers.
Tetris, under this definition protocol, would in fact be a Racing [Interface] title as it's emphasis is on precise control of the interface. It has information [different kinds of blocks and a score], a setting [the presentation stylization of information and environment], an environment [block shapes which drop down a rectangular gameworld], and interactions between the controllable units [lines vanish if made from wall to wall, if blocks pile up to the ceiling the game ends], if beyond the interface all of these are most basically defined, but nevertheless those components are part of the entire design of the software.
This is a genre categorization system designed by a actual games designer, an interactive software engineer, and not superficial morons who coined the 'Action' genre.
---
The last pertinent thing I can think of in relation to this, especially as I need to go get on with my college work, is this:
The lack of education of games industry 'professionals' is shocking.
No one has ever sat down and categorized computer game cameras for example. No one except for me anyway.
First person [Eye], second person [Shoulder], third person [Behind-the-Head], topdown [Birdseye] and sideon [Spectacle], with Cinematic [Rail] for recording in-game movies.
It's not complicated, it's not hard to build if you know about quaternions matrix math, but go find a university, find the head tutor and/or course designer and ask them about the different sorts of cameras in computer games, their best use protocols, and if the course includes how to make them and see what they say.
A blank look and/or a deflection is what you'll probably receive.
Games are interactive software. Virtual engines. They have components to them which are standard because of the technology we have, like 2D monitors and TVs. And no one I've ever met builds the basics. No one sees them like I do.
I know it's a young industry, it's still in it's infancy as far as RnD is concerned, but it just seems to me that people go around doing the same stupid shit over and over without ever actually sitting down and thinking about how to do it the right way for once.
If I had the time I'd go over the whole user customization of game content issue in RPG's. How old character classes are, as a concept, and how the addition of mastery trees is dam stupid in comparison to the rejected notion of freeform character class construction, but that'll have to wait for another time...
---
Got through Week 2 of my Certificate in Basic Policing course last night. Week 3 and 4 left to go by Thursday. Lots of running around on Monday still to do, revision for Week 5 exam on Saturday, and the forms for my Day 2 police interview Friday are under my keyboard and need filling out.
Asides from that; fight my cold and the strep [good grief] and don't play too much Hearthstone.
Against my better judgement I'm half tempted to give League of Legends ranked another go. Not out of expectation of being allowed to rank up through the ELO Hell I mentioned last post you understand, but out of a change of pace really. Hearthstone is OK, but I need to spend a lot more money on it before I can realistically rank up, and I'm not that bothered to do so.
Tempted to play World of Warcraft as well. Did a few years back around Lich King. Left after I made an OP Hunter who couldn't be killed because of a flaw in their pet/ranged system where my damage output on pet masteries resulted in insta-murder of anything I was fighting. Plus they required me to spend 10,000 hours grinding to gain a decent flying mount and I thought 'Fuck that'.
They might have made some improvements in several major updates though, especially to PvP and I wouldn't mind doing some third person rather than topdown.
We'll see...
Food, shower, college work, and maybe a trip to the hypermarket for caffeine later.
GG.
In my efforts to prep for my Day 2 fitness exam I think I gave myself a cold.
I don't get ill for several years, healthy as a horse, run like the wind, but the moment someone wants to measure my fitness level I get a strep infection for three months and then a cold a week before the test.
I hate this fucking world. >:|
---
Regarding other things that make me angry:
If you're writing fantasy fiction, or drawing fantasy characters, or, ya know what, if you go anywhere near fantasy anything, learn what things are fucking called.
Just met a guy on DeviantART who decided to draw a Dwarf - short, broad, line based patterns on his clothes with squares and diamonds, long white beard, granite express, the works - and then he tells me he's a Gnome Warlock.
UPDATE: Before blocking me from his account he sent me a message saying 'maybe I'll decide what and how do I draw?', direct quote from http://philiera.deviantart.com/
I don't remember telling you what you can and cannot or how you do or do not draw anything man. What I remember is telling you that you drew a Dwarf and are calling is a fucking Gnome.
I don't know what it is about artists but for some reason the ability to draw goes hand in hand with the ability to not see reason. They think with their emotions and when you settle down to try to explain anything to them they fly off the handle instead of listening to a word you say...OK, so do most people because most people are godawful dumb, but artists, almost intentionally, miss the fucking point.Nothing against Gnomes, and Warlocks can be interesting as dark wizards, especially Blizzard's masters of the demonic realms in World of Warcraft.
But for crying out loud, Gnomes are effectively natural midgets.
Halflings, Hobbits, or as I prefer 'Lilli' which is short for Lilliputian - the antithesis of Gargantuan, as I prefer the word Gargant instead of Giant, the opposite of which would be Small or Tiny possibly, which is ridiculous as a racial name - are miniature humans.My point here is this; I know my fantasy races and lore. And ye gods is it ever annoying when people misname things, like someone going around calling their dog a fox when it's clearly a German Shepard.
Halfling was coined by Wizards of the Coast after a copyright disagreement with Tolkien over the use of the word Hobbit, and Hobbit is related to Hob, as in Hobgoblin, or of the Hearth and Home which is why they're so homely. I go with Lilli and Gargant, both of which sound better and are taxonomically accurate.
Gnomes are a sort of Light Fae like variant of Lilli, their opposite being the Goblins, which are technically Dark Fae, although some people prefer to lump Goblins into the same category as Orcs, which are effectively bestial humans, especially those in World of Warcraft. Elves of course are the Light Fae opposite of Orcs, their grace an antithesis to the brutality of the Orcs.
Other stupidity includes people naming their Wyverns as Dragons. No, that is a Wyvern. It's only got two legs and bat like wings. It's a draconian bird, not a bloody true Eastern Dragon. And what's it doing breathing fire like that? True Dragons breath fire to guard their hoards, but that thing would burn it's own nest to cinders.
Poetic license is all well and good when it comes to rewriting Game of Thrones with more magic, but don't tell me that bloody flying lizard is a Dragon when it's very obviously a dam Wyvern.
And Nagas, oh idiots of DeviantART who I had a three month argument with over a misnamed Medusa, are lower half snakes, upper half humans regardless of if it has snake hair or not. Snake hair on a human, now that's a Medusa. What you have there is very clearly a Naga.
Get it right or go home.
A lion is a lion, and not a cheetah simply because you like the word and that they run quick and this specific lion you've defined in your work is fast on his feet.
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What else...well, there's computer game genres.
The more or less industry standard list is on Wikipedia, although it seems to me like every shop, developer, player and anyone talking about them categorizes games their own way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres
What do we have here?
Action games. Action? Really? What interactive software doesn't include action of some kind? I've never played a game in my life where I thought, 'this game, this game right, what it needs is action of some sort because it just doesn't have any'. Biggest misnomer in the history of naming conventions.
Action-adventure. OK, firstly you've got two genres with the same word, which suggests that the latter is a sub-genre of the first, and secondly the addition of the word 'Adventure' does nothing for clarification on what games are part of that genre. Legend of Zelda includes both 'Action' within your own context and certainly has a deep and abiding adventure to it, but it's neither stealth nor horror, so wtf?
Roleplaying. Like action, most games give you a role to play, and it's a misnomer on general principles because most roleplaying games in my experience are essentially strategic number crunchers, and level grinders with more emphasis on base maths and inventory management than anything else.
Sports. Most sports titles are in fact based on the principles of strategic management of assets, environmental navigation, and effectively the same gameplay as your average combative game. Hell, eSports use strategy titles like StarCraft II because they play almost precisely like football games.
And the rest are 'We've not got a good way of categorizing these, so we're lumping a lot of gameplay types into the minc. category and closing the browser'.
NOTE: Recently I've grown to really hate Wikipedia and Wiki's in general. Their rules, apparently, don't allow for people to define self-evident facts about, for example, a book series.
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher has 15 books out in it's series as of 14/06/2014. Each 5 thus far, so 5, 10 and 15, all contained the same antagonist. It is a fair prediction that this is intentionally the case by the author. I stated that based on precedent and rumour the final in the main series of 20 books, which has been confirmed by the author for definite, will feature the same antagonist as 5, 10 and 15 as they feature every fifth book.
This observational note counts as 'Original Research' and is therefore inadmissible to any Wiki website despite being self-evidently the case. A statement of fact of the nature of three books, a definition of a trend in their creation, and the statement of the fact that a rumour exists that each fifth is thus is not original research, it is a factual conceptualisation of the truth.
By this logic you could not post on the 'Sky' Wikipedia entry that the sky is in fact usually a blue colour to humans. That's original research. Self-evident, obvious, and a statement of fact it might be, but unless a meteorologist wrote about it in a published work with evidence to prove it, it would be inadmissible.
Someone actually used the phrase 'Truth and fact don't actually matter here' during the argument, and it was at this point I just walked away shaking my head. When they stop mattering, so to does the argument.Whatever, so the point is that I categorise games thus:
- Strategy [Information]
- Roleplaying [Setting]
- Platforming [Environment]
- Racing [Interface]
- Combat [Interaction]
The second word is related to systemic design whereby you have the base information of a game, which is presented via a setting [system mask; matter which can be quantified by math for example], that is built using an environment, which is interacted with via an interface, and those interactions are quantified.
The most important factor about my genre list is that no game belongs to only one genre. Quite the opposite in fact; all games belong to every genre, but are categorised by their apex aspect.
Take away any given factor entirely from a piece of interactive software, and you no longer have a game.
A game of the Strategy [Information] genre could be Civilizations for it's emphasis on information management, but it includes a setting, an environment, an interface, and interactions between units and the civilizations themselves via diplomacy.
It is categorised as a Strategy [Information] title but includes lesser components of all other genres, if quite significantly developed. Primarily though it's about information and numbers.
Tetris, under this definition protocol, would in fact be a Racing [Interface] title as it's emphasis is on precise control of the interface. It has information [different kinds of blocks and a score], a setting [the presentation stylization of information and environment], an environment [block shapes which drop down a rectangular gameworld], and interactions between the controllable units [lines vanish if made from wall to wall, if blocks pile up to the ceiling the game ends], if beyond the interface all of these are most basically defined, but nevertheless those components are part of the entire design of the software.
This is a genre categorization system designed by a actual games designer, an interactive software engineer, and not superficial morons who coined the 'Action' genre.
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The last pertinent thing I can think of in relation to this, especially as I need to go get on with my college work, is this:
The lack of education of games industry 'professionals' is shocking.
No one has ever sat down and categorized computer game cameras for example. No one except for me anyway.
First person [Eye], second person [Shoulder], third person [Behind-the-Head], topdown [Birdseye] and sideon [Spectacle], with Cinematic [Rail] for recording in-game movies.
It's not complicated, it's not hard to build if you know about quaternions matrix math, but go find a university, find the head tutor and/or course designer and ask them about the different sorts of cameras in computer games, their best use protocols, and if the course includes how to make them and see what they say.
A blank look and/or a deflection is what you'll probably receive.
Games are interactive software. Virtual engines. They have components to them which are standard because of the technology we have, like 2D monitors and TVs. And no one I've ever met builds the basics. No one sees them like I do.
I know it's a young industry, it's still in it's infancy as far as RnD is concerned, but it just seems to me that people go around doing the same stupid shit over and over without ever actually sitting down and thinking about how to do it the right way for once.
If I had the time I'd go over the whole user customization of game content issue in RPG's. How old character classes are, as a concept, and how the addition of mastery trees is dam stupid in comparison to the rejected notion of freeform character class construction, but that'll have to wait for another time...
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Got through Week 2 of my Certificate in Basic Policing course last night. Week 3 and 4 left to go by Thursday. Lots of running around on Monday still to do, revision for Week 5 exam on Saturday, and the forms for my Day 2 police interview Friday are under my keyboard and need filling out.
Asides from that; fight my cold and the strep [good grief] and don't play too much Hearthstone.
Against my better judgement I'm half tempted to give League of Legends ranked another go. Not out of expectation of being allowed to rank up through the ELO Hell I mentioned last post you understand, but out of a change of pace really. Hearthstone is OK, but I need to spend a lot more money on it before I can realistically rank up, and I'm not that bothered to do so.
Tempted to play World of Warcraft as well. Did a few years back around Lich King. Left after I made an OP Hunter who couldn't be killed because of a flaw in their pet/ranged system where my damage output on pet masteries resulted in insta-murder of anything I was fighting. Plus they required me to spend 10,000 hours grinding to gain a decent flying mount and I thought 'Fuck that'.
They might have made some improvements in several major updates though, especially to PvP and I wouldn't mind doing some third person rather than topdown.
We'll see...
Food, shower, college work, and maybe a trip to the hypermarket for caffeine later.
GG.