Windy Weather

Dragon Wars

The weakened and bloodied Red Oracle Dragon flew off after the latest battle and called cynically over it’s shoulder, “You won this battle, but your Open Sorcery is now tainted! I shall return!”.
The battle had been going on for decades. The Red Oracle Dragon and the Green Google Dragon fighting over the Sorcery of the Java. This magic had once been powerful, but now even this powerful magic was leaking away into the ether. Once it was seen as a saving force for good and a powerful influence that would consolidate the power of it’s creator, the Yellow Sun Dragon. At the time, the power of the Yellow dragon was fading. It’s Solaris and Server Magic was fading, as all magic powers do in time.

The world was moving on to the great Intel Blue Dragon and the Yellow force of the Solaris magic was no long powerful enough. But the Java Magic was seen as a force that might control this loss of influence, since the Java magic was Crystal Color Independent. The Java Magic would draw power from any color of magic chips, since it’s power was Interpreted by the color of crystal that was nearby. Using this multi-color magic was seen as the way to revitalize the magic of the Yellow Dragon. Continue reading “Dragon Wars”

Unavailable Items?

World of Warcraft is notorious for this. Making items “no longer available” in the game.

Why should an item become “no longer available”?

The item must be kept in the client forever. Yes FOREVER, since some players will have the items and they must be displayed or otherwise operate correctly when they are used.

If an item is truly “removed” from the game, it must be replaced by something of equal value and there must be an overwhelming reason to remove it. I’m having a very hard time thinking of a reason that would call for an item to be permanently removed from the game.

Removing an item is not the same as changing it. If a weapon or armor piece or set is too powerful, or too weak, then one can easily change the stats on it to make it more in line with the play styles of the game. This is done all the time.

Here are some of the Excuses that game designers have used to remove items from the game, and the reasons that none of them hold up.

Continue reading “Unavailable Items?”

Flying Mounts – Why Dumb Them Down?

In January 2007, Blizzard released World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This expansion included flying mounts in Outland. You had to reach level 60 to purchase flight training and a mount. You could only fly in Outland, the new continent. In the Cataclysm expansion flight was possible in all areas, except the starting areas.

Now, after all this time, other MMOs are adding flying. Guild Wars 2, in Heart of Thorns, has added flight, well Gliding actually, where you can glide in the whole world, but only for a limited distance.

In a few days on May 17, 2016, Tera is adding flying mounts. Again these mounts have limited range. Why are these games dumbing down flight?

Continue reading “Flying Mounts – Why Dumb Them Down?”

My, Don’t These Trees Look Similar?

Trees Below Dalaran in Wrath of the Lich King

On 13 November, 2008, Blizzard released Wow Wrath of the Lich King including Northrend and the city of Dalaran. Below Dalaran there are two trees.

On 25 January 25, 2011, Tera was released in South Korea. On the Island of Dawn, the starting area for all characters is this tree at Tower Base.

Continue reading “My, Don’t These Trees Look Similar?”

Watch out for Bogus Chart Scales

Here’s a completely bogus chart that was displayed on the Yahoo News site yesterday. Every line has a different scale. What can a chart mean where every line has a different scale? What does it tell you?

Probably not what you think it tells you. Be careful, news folks apparently are playing fast and loose with intelligence and logic in this election year.

Update: Here is the chart corrected with bars with a constant scale added. Of course the Democratic and Republican scales are different because their “to win” numbers are different. But as you can see by looking at the bars I’ve added below each original bar, the original bars are drawn with different scales. The added bars are all scaled to the “to win” maximums.

Why would Clinton and Trump show at about 50% when they have than 80% of the delegates required? And why would Sanders, Cruz and Kasich be scaled lower than they should be?

It’s not clear what message the original chart was trying to get across, but it’s clearly misleading.

: ww

Windows 10 Update is Unkind with Bandwidth

Windows 10

Windows 10 Update takes no account of whether you want to use the computer. It just downloads the updates and you have no control. Here’s an example.

My daughter and I frequently visit over a VPN – from SoftEther.org – and we are both on Windows 10. Today when we set up the connection, and began talking on Mumble, our voices began breaking up and the other communications were under severe stress.

Continue reading “Windows 10 Update is Unkind with Bandwidth”

Boogie Board – Not What You Think

Recently I’ve been playing a game where I really need two monitors, but I don’t have two monitors. So I’ve been reduced to writing down notes on slips of paper. Here you can see how those slips have been piling up. Most have something on both sides.

Well on a shopping trip to WalMart I saw a Boogie Board, but they could not find it to sell it to me. The Walmart inventory said there were 21 in stock, but the sales person could not find them. Boggie Board is only about $25, although the price varies widely. But I came home and found one on-line and ordered it for the same price.

Updated: see below

Continue reading “Boogie Board – Not What You Think”

Linux Mint Media System

Here are the specs for my Linux Mint Media System

System: Host: Armor30LM18 Kernel: 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.3.1)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.2) dm: mdm Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine: System: ASUS product: All Series
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: B85M-G v: Rev X.0x Bios: American Megatrends v: 0410 date: 06/28/2013
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-4570S (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 23145
clock speeds: min/max: 800/3600 MHz 1: 3166 MHz 2: 3451 MHz 3: 3400 MHz 4: 3425 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GK107 [GeForce GT 640] bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0fc1
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVE7 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1 Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:8c20
Card-2 NVIDIA GK107 HDMI Audio Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0e1b
Card-3 Microdia driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 003-002 chip-ID: 0c45:17cf
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-21-generic
Network: Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac:
Drives: HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (17.5% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: SanDisk_SDSSDA12 size: 120.0GB serial: 161322400751
Partition: ID-1: / size: 103G used: 12G (13%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.52GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID: System: supported: N/A
No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Unused Devices: none
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C gpu: 27.0
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Repos: Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
deb http: //mirrors.kernel.org/linuxmint-packages serena main upstream import backport
deb http: //mirrors.us.kernel.org/ubuntu xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb http: //mirrors.us.kernel.org/ubuntu xenial-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http: //mirrors.us.kernel.org/ubuntu xenial-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http: //archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ xenial partner
Info: Processes: 201 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 612.1/7922.8MB
Init: systemd v: 229 runlevel: 5 default: 2 Gcc sys: 5.4.0

Client: Unknown python2.7 client inxi: 2.2.35

Tera – Layoffs and Rewards

Two things have happened in the last few days over at Enmasse, publisher of Tera in North America.

Enmasse just laid off a bunch of developers.

And they just started a new Rewards Program to encourage more participation among their player base.

First lets look at that Layoff Announcement. They say they have laid off Developers.

Continue reading “Tera – Layoffs and Rewards”

GW2 – Heart of Thorns – Go with Friends

GW2_2016_03_28_09_16_39_914 — Guilded Hollows Guild Hall

I’ve recently been playing the Heart of Thorns expansion for Guild Wars 2. I resisted it for a while. $50 seems like a lot to pay based on all the money I’ve already spent to buy and upgrade the original game. I think that Arena Net could have given the expansion away and made it up in in-game purchases that folks would purchase, or at least have priced it at $29, which would have been a no-brainer purchase price.

But regardless of that, I now have the expansion and I’ve played it enough to recommend it, with a provisio. Don’t try to Solo the new content. It apparently is designed for groups only. And not even one friend is enough. Join a Guild. It is best to run with a half dozen to a dozen folks to get the full experience and avoid the heart break of being left alone in the jungle. The Maguuma Jungle is a very nasty place with groups of powerful Veteran bosses just around every corner.

Continue reading “GW2 – Heart of Thorns – Go with Friends”