The Singularity – Economic Analysis

female_cyborg__iii___electric_by_enn_srsbusiness-d4o8n9o
Art by enn-srsbusiness.deviantart.com

Abstract:

This brief paper looks at a point in the analysis of the Singularity Problem which appears to be overlooked: The difficulty of building or maintaining an infrastructure to support the Singularity goals, whatever they might be. The building and maintenance of infrastructure to accomplish human goals, whether those goals be the building of Smart Phones- compare this with the Paperclip Maximizer – or Transportation or World Wide Energy or Computer Chips of all kinds is a major problem for humanity and consumes a major part of humanities creativity, effort and resources. In the analysis that I’ve heard and studied – references below – on this subject, an economic analysis of the limiting factors of developing an maintaining the necessary infrastructure is either left out entirely, often in the case of fictional treatments, or glossed over. I suggest that just as biology and economics have developed theories of population and market collapse due to resource constraints, so should the analysis of the singularity treat more thoroughly the issues of the development and maintenance of the required infrastructure. It is my view that such analysis will likely calm many of the fears of catastrophe that accompany presentation of the singularity and its effect on humanity.

Updated 13 Jan 2015 – see below

Continue reading “The Singularity – Economic Analysis”

Tera – What Comes After 65?

Tera_2015_12_15_13_12_31_809x
An Explorer

So, the current level cap for Tera is 65. It used to be 60. What happened and what’s likely to happen next time and does that mean anything for how you might want to play this MMO or any other?

Let’s look at what happened:

When the “Fate of Arun” update happened, Blue Hole took a page from the Wow playbook. Briefly, this is what happened in the Pandaria expansion of Wow a few years ago: “A new threat has appeared on the horizon and we need to take a ship voyage to get there. The ship crashes and you begin a new journey on a distant land.” Sound familiar? In case you are new to Tera, this is exactly what you will see in Tera when you reach level 60 and then embark on the Sky Cruiser Endeavor.

Continue reading “Tera – What Comes After 65?”

Mark Zukerberg benefits Mark Zukerberg

A90_01167
The Real Story About Mark’s Altruism

So Mark didn’t really donate 99% of his fortune to charity. Unlike Bill and Melinda Gates who formed a Non-Operating Private Foundation, Mark will make just another LLC to hide his money from taxes and do anything he wants with it including Lobbying, which is hardly charitable.

Good Going, Mark. Hide your money from taxes and shareholders. Very cool.

 

Tera – Level 65 Slaying Crystal Test

A90_01159
Testing Crystals

After the previous test, it occurred to me that there were some additional tests that should be done.

  • Testing at level 65 rather than just at level 47. The discussion where Slaying crystals were mentioned was discussing high level dungeons.
  • Testing the obvious combination of One Slaying Crystal and Three Pounding Crystals.
  • Testing no crystals at all.

These tests have been done. But the results have not been that surprising. They show that:

  • One Slaying vs Four Pounding showed a little more than 9% improvement.
  • One Slaying and Three Pounding vs Four Pounding showed about 22% improvement.

Continue reading “Tera – Level 65 Slaying Crystal Test”

Tera – Slayer Crystal Test

A90_01156
Testing Crystals

I recently became aware of a method of fighting in dungeons that seemed quite surprising. Apparently some folks equip Slayer crystals in dungeons in an effort to up their Crit stat. These crystals only increase crit however, when your HP is below 50%. This causes some very strange behavior :

  • Healers are discouraged from healing players since they over heal – above 50%.
  • HP Pots are using during combat to manage HP to the correct level so that the Slayer crystals have their effect.
  • This causes an Economy in Pots apparently, where some folks make Gold based on the creation and sale of Pots.

I decided to do a test to see if Slayer Crystals had more benefit than the obvious other choice of Pounding Crystals which have recently been added to the game. I’ve done this test and recorded the video. The video and a PDF file of the data analysis spreadsheet are available for your review.

Bottom Line: Slayer Crystals, under the conditions of this test, appear to be about 20% better than Pounding Crystals. But the difficulty of keeping your health below 50%, and the issue of not being able to use healers, would seem to outweigh this advantage.

Continue reading “Tera – Slayer Crystal Test”

Tera – Time for Class Hauls?

TERA-logo

Time for Some Tera Class Hauls

No, not Class Halls, but Class Overhauls. One of the things that impresses me about World of Warcraft is that they are willing to periodically change major aspects of their classes and supporting mechanisms as changing game requirements demand. Not only have they changed Talent trees multiple times, but Glyphs, and even Class Skill Trees have changed dramatically over past releases.

I think that it’s time for Tera to consider some major overhauls to the class skill trees and this document tries to lay out some ideas for those changes and rationale for them.

Let me say first of all that I’ve been playing Tera for over two years and that I’m a severe Altoholic. I’m not even going to say how many toons I have at this point, but suffice it to say that I’ve played all the classes in PvE and also done Corsairs with all the classes. I was around before the Avatar Weapon change and the changes that made enchantment easy with the introduction of Feedstock. Also I’ve done the PvE Story content for Fate of Arun and done a dungeon there. I’m not a dungeon raider expert, but I’ve done plenty of dungeons at all levels. So I think I have the experience to know what I’m talking about to suggest these changes.

Continue reading “Tera – Time for Class Hauls?”

WildStar – Fun, Engaging, and Free to Play

Warrior with Attitude
Warrior with Attitude

WildStar has been out for some time, but in September, they changed to Free to Play. While they talk about being able to experience all the content, they have a long list of caveats on their Free to Play page. This is an interesting contrast with Tera, which is Free to Play with a Premium option which basically gives you an XP and Gold boost and a fancy mount. Tera’s list of caveats are the feature list for Premium which costs $15 / mo rather than a list of Don’t-Gets for the WildStar free-2-play choice. Anyway, with all that aside, I gave it a try and bottom line – I’m impressed. This is not a complete review, I’m sure you can find a ton of those out there, and since it’s F2P, you can try it yourself and see. I’ll do quick comparison with some observations compared with Wow, Tera and some other games I’ve played recently.

So what does WildStar have going for it? Yes, it’s a Wow Clone. No bones about it. Two factions vying for dominance on the ancient planet of Nexus and the technology of the Eldans who have disappeared. Well, its a start. But recall that Wow has had since 2004 to build their brand.

Not that Big Really

The first thing one notices about WildStar is the small size of the download – 12 GB. What! Only 12 GB?? Wow is 40GB and Tera is more than 30 GB. And you’d be right. WildStar is just starting out as a franchise and the size of the download shows it. The environments feel a little cramped and a little same ole same ole as you move around. But not claustrophobic, just not wide open like Wow or Tera. But the character models are detailed. So they are not going to have to backfill with new character models later like Wow has had to do. Update: Actually, the environments from level 6 or so on feel very spacious. There are long vistas and while the mountains and foliage is stylized, nothing feels cramped in those areas.

Continue reading “WildStar – Fun, Engaging, and Free to Play”