Juju

Update: Welp I got a cheap-o geforce4 for like 45 bucks... the game is 100% smoother. Plus I figured out how to remap the controls, it even has an option to remap things in "EQ Style". So it's now pretty smooth, and I can move around. I made a scout/marksman/artisan and I had a LOT of fun tonight. I think I was just having a bad day last night. Either that or the patch today fixed a lot of things.

It is still way too dark at night, but I suspect it's probably like EQ where that can be improved with some goggles or something. I take back 90% of what I said below. The game is FUN. So far I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars. ;)

So last night I played for about 4 hours, made a Wookie Artisan (crafter). Here's how it went: first 2 hours screwing with settings because the performance on my 1.1ghz, 512ram, geforce3 was nearly unplayable. Finally was able to move around with better then 5 fps. Spent the next 1.5 hours trying to figure out a better way to move around. The default mouse-look movement system SUCKS and I still can't get the camera to follow me when using the keyboard so that when I try to turn left the camera is locked and my character just turns and I can't see where I'm going. The game is WAY too dark, adjust gamma and it's a little better but menus are now too bright. Maybe it's just the planet I chose to start on. No one can understand me because I'm a wookie and we can't speak english and no one has learned wookie yet. The /find waypoint system that shows a line to the thing you're looking for fails half the time and dead ends in the side of a wall. But I figured out how to survey for resources, got enough skill to advance only to find that I need lots of credits. So I try the mission terminals (brings back bad memories of Anarchy Online). Closest delivery mission I could find is probably an hours walk away. Figure I'll survey for resources along the way. But for some reason the glowy waypoint marker thingy when serveying stops working, I get annoyed having to run in circles to avoid monsters, and I logout and decide to make a Human Scout tomorrow and do Artisan secondary.

When I saw there was a crafting CLASS I thought cool so you can advance without having to fight - not true. I can run around and gather resources and craft, gaining crafting experience, but to advance a skill level you need credits. So you can sell your wares to other players? Nope, at least not in the begining since no one wants your junk. So you can either pick up a gun and go fight or do lame ass "delivery" missions and run around for a few hours running in circles trying to avoid monsters that want to eat you since you can't defend yourself. Or you can play a wussy dancer and dance half naked and beg for tips.

So anyway, the first night sucked, but hopefully tomorrow will be better. Overall the game feels like EQ and AO got together and had a bastard child.

IntyOS - An Operating System for the Intellivision. If anyone is old enough to remember that crappy console that competed with Atari. :)

http://www.warhammeronline.com giggles uncontrollably

Now that Everquest Online Adventures is almost out for the Playstation 2, the first thing I thought was how the heck are you supposed to talk to people? Well you can either get a seperate usb keyboard or one of these humongous controllers. Shesh. Why don't they just get a PC? I think MMOGs on consoles is just plain stupid until someone gets around to makeing one that uses voice chat like they have on the xbox.

Slashdot has a story asking if the Metaverse has finally Launched?. A new system called simply "There" has entered public beta. Its an interesting 3D chatroom that is being compared to The Sims Online. However as one person put it: "I'd rather not have to worry about my "urination" meter while hanging out with friends in a virtual world thank you.". Well put. There looks sweet due to the fact that it not only has a nice interface but more importantly has a developer program where people can skin existing objects and model their own unique objects (using gmax - a free version of 3D Studio) for a price and actually sell them in game (for real cash). All it needs is a sword fighting program. They also plan on making money by selling virtual items like Nike shoes. groan All in all it looks sweet and I look forward to getting into beta.

What really amazes me is that Blaxxun is behind all this. Woah... I didn't even know they were still around. I remember trying out their stuff way back in the day. (circa 1996) Back when I was seriously into Activeworlds. Which got me thinking and found that Activeworlds is still alive and kicking too. I even found that my Citizen account was still in the system. I even owned a world server, unfortunately I can't remember the name of my world to see if it's still in their system to renew. Man this brings back memories. Maybe I'll have to resurrect my old world server and play around with it again. Unfortunately even though my computer and 3D card is probably 100 times faster, Activeworlds doesn't look that much better then it did back then.

While reading the comments on Slashdot, I found out about something called NeL, an open source platform for developing massively multiplayer online games. And unlike most other open source mmog engines, this one is actually being used to develop a really slick looking game called Ryzom. (even though it's by a bunch of cheese-eatin' surrender-monkeys) Check out these screenshots. No mmog is complete without half naked chicks in bikinis. Unfortunately it's still in beta also, hope I get in too.

massively multiplayer online chess Yes you read that right... chess. He even said he'd pay the first person 100 bucks to actually make it. I think its a damn good idea. I've been trying to think of a good idea for a simple game to write... lol

EverQuest for the Pocket PC - Great, now I can play Ultima... err I mean Everquest on an ipaq... this is worse then the console version... what were they thinking? It's not even multiplayer... (more screenshots here)

Check this out. A battery operated Atari joystick with 10 classic Atari games built in! Just plug the stick into your TV. Only thing missing is pac-man. ps: this would fit nicely in my christmas stocking :)

Apparently some people have found a rather interesting use for the Trance Vibrator (not entirely safe for work) add on for the Playstation 2 game Rez. Japan never ceases to amaze me!