On Pre-ordering and the like...

As many of you know, I have a special place in my heart for gaming companies, but as of the last few years, I've being getting more and more disillusioned with the whole getup. There's the problems with the premise, the lack of quality in some areas(Although graphics seems to be uncompromising), and such... but there's one thing that gets me more then all of these: Pre-ordering.

Let me explain. Pre-ordering is one of those funny ducks when it comes to games, that I feel conflicted about. For large companies like Electronic Arts, it's evil, plain and simple. Usually these games are offered at a 20$ premium to thier standard price, and the extra content is... sad, at best. For a small company, I could understand how if you're struggling to get the resources off the ground(Like Mojang), it's vital... but when your game already has a multi-million dollar development budget, it's small beans... it's almost to the point of exploitation of the gaming public.

Let's look at a case example: Fallout New Vegas. I admit, I like to pick on this game for various reasons, some of them founded, some of them not. One of the boggest things I hate is the pre-order bundle. It's basically a cheat: You get one of five sets with your purchase that makes the early game drastically easier. For the same cost of the pre-order bundle, you can buy all five for the cost of what it would have sold for on pre-order on Live Marketplace.

It's things like this that make it seem like the companies are more serving their board of directors then their customers. I hope they all start to shape up.

A Troubling Trend...

I've been noticing a troubling trend in customer service lately, and I thought I'd blog about it here. It seems to be spreading to all sectors, but I find it most prevelent in the Online Games Sector. I call it the "We Do Whatever We Want" Syndrome, and it has some troubling implications  for the future of consumers everywhere.

It seems that a number of years ago, a near and dear company to my heart, Blizzard Entertainment, discovered that there may be potentially problems to their aging data centers. The easiest and simplest quick fix, in their eyes, was to amend the terms of use for their most played game, World of Warcraft. In short, the amendment made it so that they were not required to reimburse the player for any lost time in the game due to technical problems, or any problems of the type. This is from the Terms of Use document on the site:

THE GAME AND THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS, AND BLIZZARD DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE GAME OR THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE GAME OR THE SERVICE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. BLIZZARD EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. 

Take a minute and read that over. It, in a nutshell, says that any warranties, stated or implied (Most provinces and states require sellers to have a 30, 60, or 90 day warranty period, with receipt of purchase) for malfunction or defect in the product. (Fun fact: This is the one way to get out of a cell phone contract; have a problem with the phone within 30 days.)

This is more of a global problem with gaming companies. Some game companies, like Kingdom of Loathing, don't have the active number of staff members needed to police the problems that arise from thier games, and as such, I have a personal patience for their responses, as most people who play their games do. Then there are other companies like Dovo Games.

It's cruel, but I have no respect for Dovo Games. Their techs are usually slow to respond, and don't respond with troubleshooting problems. Heck, this is the usual response from them:

Dear ******, we have filed your words and will submit to the related department for further check. Thank you so much for your support and patience. Wish you good luck.

This is not good customer service. It may be cruel, but I would rather have the guy who is fixing the problem respond to me rather then some automated "it's being dealt with" message. It's the same message that seems to happen every time, and I get angrier every time I see it. it makes me not want to submit bug reports, and instead exploit, exploit, exploit.

It seems like it's going to take a big case to get everyone back on track, and boy, I hope I'm not part of it.

BTO - Getting Started Hints and Tips

Business Tycoon Online is one of the most popular web games on the internet - with good reason. It has a complexity that's second to none, and almost infinite expandability. The game however, is filled with potential pitfalls and traps for the new player, and although you can grow relatively fast without paying in, like many other games, most of your starting chest is spent on frivolous things. Here are some tips to help you get through this starting time:

1) Protect your Gratis Gold! Upgrades can wait!


You start the game with a almost unbelievable amount of gold, averaging 200 - 300 pieces to start with! While this may not sound like much, it's better to hold onto it and use it for Occult Training and Senior Training of highly skilled purple and red employees then to use it on finishing store upgrades faster. This is one of those lessons that it takes time and patience to learn though, so why it's number one on the list.

(Note: There are also other tings that gratis gold can be used for, such as some items in the shop and special prizes in the occasional updates. More then once you will kick yourself for spending hundreds of Gold or Gratis Gold when a event airs days later.)

2) The Factory is your lifeline to profit!

Factory goods will always beat out standard goods, so it's good to start getting your factory going early. Plan on making at least 1000 of each of the industries goods and selling them to the system for each device level, as the more you make and then sell, the higher amounts of raw materials you generate per day will be. Even a quality H good will provide enough of a bonus to make it worth while, although it's usually wise to balance between the number of goods you stock your store with, and the number you have for sale.

(Note: Want to figure out whether a good is worth purchasing? Take the daily base profit of your store, and multiply it by the good bonus that the said good gives. If the revenue(What you're left with) is more then the purchase price, you've made up the amounts!)

Another piece that should go into this same topic is oil wells. A oil well takes 1,000,000 TCN to explore for, and has a 50% chance of striking oil, however, even if one does not produce gas or diesel(bonuses to shops and production, respectfully), oil can usually be sold for upwards of 5,000 TCN a barrel in some cases, usually leading to a income gain for just drilling. There are some disadvantages however: You can only mine 500 barrels a day and the oil derrick takes 250,000 TCN worth of damage per day. Not horrible, but can sometimes be annoying.

3) Don't make your own guild; Join one!


The most damaging thing you can do as a newbie is to create a guild. On Kong-BTO, most older players poach employees from new guild leaders that are over the 3-day mark, as so many of them don't return. Your easiest solution is to join a already well established guild, of level 4 or above. Why?

• You're protected from poaching attacks from rival players. It's common for guild mates to gang up and hit the offender with store disturbances, media attacks and the like.
• You gain a revenue and Store Upgrade Bonus every day based on the level your guild is. The higher the level, the bigger the bonuses.
• Often, you can gain free things from guild mates just for being allies, such as medals, cars, trips and the like.

Remember, though, you're one with this guild. Donate some everyday, and when you get to higher levels, buy a trip or two for your mates!

4)Train your employees daily!


So, why train your employees daily? For one, each session boosts their loyalty and skill. Second, after they reach 100% proficiency, they start earning points towards their execution and management skills. These bring bonuses to all activities that your employees attend, and maxing them out is the key to NPC Landmark.

Speaking of which...

5)NPC Landmark, Horse Train, and Funfain EVERY DAY!


I'm not kidding here. Once you can, max out the amount of times you can do each of these activities every day. The funfair is full of nice items that make your life easier, and having a high level horse earns you all sorts of nice goodies, like junior equips and other similar things. NPC landmark is a great place to get bricks, gold and diamond contracts, and sponsorship vouchers via Easter Eggs. If you play luck fragments twice a day, you'll get a luck cupon that can be exchanged for gold, as well as the NPC Landmark Certificates.

6) Watch the trade market.


The trade market can make your life simple and easy, if you watch it enough. Mis-priced goods, charitable old players and the occasional sale can propel you forward in business like you would not believe.

These are just some of the tricks I've learned over the past few months. If you need any other pointers or would like some help, leave a comment and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Ink: Why I hate and love this movie

I've just tonight be introduced to what will be my most hated and loved movie: Ink. This movie is spectacular, the actors are great, and the visuals are awesome. It has a story, and it sticks to it until the end. It keeps you guessing, and the characters all have qualities that make them redeemable in the end.

"So, then why do you hate it?"


This movie revolves purely around the story of how the main character screws up his life. From first glance, it seems to be a chaotic mixture of the after life and the real world, and this one man who is having the worst time of his life. We enter the movie just as he makes his ultimate failure: He has a car crash and is knocked unconscious.

From there it's a nauseating flurry of flash backs, and we learn more about his family. His wife just recently passed on, and thanks to a alcohol problem from his high stakes job, he looses custody of his daughter. The visuals are spectacular, and the ending ties it all nicely together. This is a masterpiece that, although visibly low budget, is of a quality that has not been rivaled in Hollywood in many, many years.

So, why do I hate it?

This movie suffers from a syndrome that affects all great movies, called Self-Referential Bullshit, or SBD. There is so much symbolism, twists, plot points and turns that it's far too much to be stomached in one sitting. At the end, you feel like you've just eaten a black forest cake the size of a tire; Happy, somewhat fulfilled, and about to throw up.

This being said, I urge you to see this movie. It's produced by a indy company Double Edge Films, and I sincerely urge you to check it out. There's a lesson here for all of us, but be careful. Read a light book first or watch some Ren and Stimpy... you'll need as empty a mind as possible to take in all of the awesome.

Falling to Obsurity

It makes me sad when one of the people that I used to love to watch just looses it.

For quite a while now, I've been a fan of Jason "LordKat" Pullara. He can be quite funny, and I loved to watch most of his shows quite a while ago for the humor and effort he put into them. It was enjoyable, and you could tell that he actually cared about his audience. For the last six months however, something's changed.

It started back when he cancelled his Until We Win series. The last episode is well worth watching, because this is the general feeling I've gotten from most of his productions since. It's a man who doesn't care, trying to get this done as quickly as possible. At least, that's how it's been until this article.

The article is nothing but a number of cheap shots at the community, fulled by his own frustration over the lack of understanding of the bill by the community. I understand his position, and I do side with his arguments on two fronts:

1. The copywrite holders have the final say on all of their copywrited works. That's the law.
2. The streaming video or LP of a game is definite copywrite infringement.

However, he goes about pushing his arguments through by belittling the community, calling them idiots and such. The actual content of the article, while containing some valuable information, is complete garbage. It's the slavering rantings of a deranged madman.

The trip downhill for this former net-celeb has been grinding down for a long time, and I hate to say it, I think I'm glad to finally see it hit rock bottom. He needs to take control of his site, and stop relying on the community to populate it with articles, or just give up and admit defeat. I, for one, am declaring him dead to me, and I urge the rest of you to do the same.

Game Development - Tokenizer

Recently, I've started studying a bit about a very specific and somewhat nightmarish method of programming: Tokenizers

What is a tokenizer?


A Tokenizer is a piece of code that serches through a text document or data stream for different pre-set "tokens" and modifies the program as it reads. If it does not recieve a specific token, that part of the object is then set to a value standing for unused(In my case, 0).

So, Why bother?


Here's the interesting thing about tokenizers: They make your game infinitly moddable. Take dwarf fortress for example; everything in the game, from the material the earth is made up out of, to the structure and types of creatures, to even what foods and goods can be produced, are built from a token based system. This means that the end user can add and tinker with the game as they please, adding much more replayability to what may stagnate quickly.

I also want to build a tokenizer system for ease of content creation. I havent decided yet to waht extent the end user will be able to influence the world through token modification(There will be some things, such as overland geography, that will be locked out.)

Yeah, that's all well and good. Aren't you making a browser game though?


This is what really excites me about a tokenizer system. With the correct group of data tags, I can just import all the game data in from external, easy to mod sources. The framework is the only piece of the puzzle that will be time consuming, and once it's up and proven then the basic frame can be used in any number of projects.

It basically allows me to go from a full hard coded source to a engine, which is really exciting for reusability.

So... how would it work?


The basic idea is that you have a script(Probably in a flash file) that is retrieving a constant data stream from a server location. All of that information is just placed in a properly formated XML file, for example. The script goes through each character of the stream, looking for start and stop characters(eg. [ and ]).

Once the script has found a start character, it stores all the values between it and the stop character in a temporary string, which is then compared to all of the tolkens in the program. Once it finds the tolken it's looking for, it empties all of the information between the tags into a data appropriate container. It does this with all the information on the file in the preloading sequence.

Occasionally, the program will also update these tolkens and refresh the values stored in the engine, lets say once a hour.

(I have some more to add, but I'll do it later. Please pester me if I forget.)

Pockie Ninja - Basics - Simple Leveling Tips

Pockie Ninja, like many other browser based games of the type, is a grind fest. There are few easy ways to earn XP, and those that you have are either dangerous, expensive, or both. I thought I'd write a simple guide to help people along who struggle with the low levels.

#1. Complete your quests

It's a simple truth of all games like this that quests give amssivly out of proportion floods of xp, versus what one would normally get from grinding. When you have a quest avalible, do it.

#2. Save those gift cupons

There are many things that one can spend gift cupons on, but the one thing that I seem to find gives the most bang is HP/Chakra carier bags. It works in Los Noches, which saves a tonne of trouble, and it means that you can easily join groups of players with far faster computers for Slots, which seems to give a large proportion of good equipment rewards.

#3. Get apprentices

A junior player with two apprentices can net over 8000 xp a day without even playing, and one who maximises thier availible apprentices can walk away with a extra 10,000 Xp. Something simple to think about.

#4. Use xp maks and fresh beer

Fresh beer(+1.25% xp) and xp marks(varies) are a essential to any slots group or monster grind. It dosen't seem like much at first, but the extra 100 or so xp per battle really adds up in the end.

#5. Level and equip your pet.

High skilled pets can be the difference between life and death in some matches, so make sure you have one with at least one attack skill equipped. I run a potato normally with suppression(stun + attack) and block on, and it has saved my butt more times then I can count. Higher skill = tougher monsters, more xp.

#6. ALWAYS do Los Noches.

Los Noches is simply pure xp. You don't get bonuses, but it also dosen't take movement power, and seems to be able to generate 1/10th of what you need to level up each day. It's worth it. Note: XP marks do not work in Los Noches.

#7. Always do Valhala

Even if you have to run the intro course, always do val. The items, xp and stones make it one of the best areas in the game to farm, and you will never, ever regret doing a instance.

#8. Run slots at least once a day

It's a silly thing and the xp is not worth it, but there are great rewards hidden...