Games
This was a triumph!
Aug 9th
Because I’m a pretty crazy guy, I decided to put up some Portalism in my room. Here’s the result… The Portals show their respective counterparts like in the game.
Original Portal screenshot
In the beginning there was Aperture: Portal Prelude
Jul 31st
Most of the times the things that have a sequel, have a prequel. This time it’s slightly different, as this prequel does not come from the makers of the game, and the successor is scheduled to release some time next year. I am talking about one of the most awesome mods for one of THE most awesome games I have ever played… Portal: Prelude.
Portal: Prelude, as its name states it, is an unofficial prequel to the game Portal. Its story revolves around the pre-GlaDOS epoch, even before she was plugged in. At this time, test subjects were monitored by real Aperture Science employees whose work was tedious, lengthy and repetitive. This is why they decided to build a great artificial intelligence that could both replace them in these difficult tasks, but also take responsibility for many other tasks within the complex and compete with Black Mesa’s superiority. All employees of the Aperture Science complex are now eagerly awaiting GlaDOS. Maybe even a little too eagerly, as the upcoming events will tell.
Taken from the About Page.
As the original, the game features 19 chambers in which you must demonstrate your puzzle solving skills. But be prepared to be thinking a little more then you might be used to. For a one-man project, the chambers sure are well thought through, and really present some good training for your brain.
The mod is about 800 MB in size, and freely available from the page. However bear in mind support for the mod is no longer provided. Also, there appear to have been issues with the free version of Portal Valve recently gave away for a limited time only. In my case though, the mod loads just fine without any modifications. Chances are it will work nicely for you also.
Prelude tries to re-create the dark atmosphere and the somewhat cinister and dark humor of the original, and so far for me, this worked greatly. I am deeply impressed at this one-man project (at which at a later stage three people were involved).
Before you go and get it, please consider this warning:
Portal: Prelude
Developers: Nicolas “NykO18″ Grevet, Jérémy “Capitaine Mousse” Barbe, Marc “Moroes” Bidoul
Type: Modification
Genre: First-person shooter, Puzzle video game
Based on: Portal, Valve
Original Release Date: October 10, 2008
Website: www.portalprelude.com
Like Google Maps, only for EVE
Jul 19th
So after I got a dynamic database running that allows you to browse through all available items in EVE, I sat down for another project. This time I wanted it to be something more epic and something that has not been done before, at least not that I know of.
Pretty recently I learned about the pretty amazing capabilities of the in-game browser of EVE Online. It has certain Javascript-calls built-in that allow to directly access in-game windows, information, or even directly manipulate your gameplay. For example it is possible to alter your course from the built-in browser. I thought this could be pretty cool when combined with something fancy.
Of course there is an in-game map in 3D and so on, but it is very limited as to what information it can provide. So I decided to bring that map to the browser. In 2D at least. The result is Cerberus Maps, a web-based map of the EVE-Universe. Why Cerberus? Because the corp I have founded and that I am in is called Cerberus Network.
First of all you need to sit down and get the basics straight, like zooming and moving – that was easy. The real problem is to accurately calculate the position of each system, on the map. This was quite an interesting challenge, seeing that CCP stores spatial coordinates in exponential values. The engine I for that is something I’m so proud of, I gave it a name… in fact, so proud, that I just had to give it some metal.
But just talking about it is boring. I’d love to show the stuff to you! Some screenies.
Maps in the in-game browser. Since the browser has a modified Chrome under the hood, this is no problem. The map is completely movable, the “+” and “-” buttons zoom in and out. The dots represent a solar system, each with its own stations, planets, asteroid belts, and moons. They are also colored by their security level. The more red they are, the less secure they are. When the mouse hovers over one, the name and security level is shown (very true to actual in-game mechanic). Hovering also automatically fills the search field.
Clicking the “Search” button displays the Detailed Information pane. Useful data is displayed such as Stargate connections, their securities, and in which region and constellation they are located. Stations and planets are linked. In this example I clicked a link for a station, which opened the in-game info for that location.
When you click on the link of the system you are viewing, the autopilot of your ship will set a course to that system. If however you are unsure what the route looks like, you can click the Map icon beside the name, which will open the in-game map without setting a course – but it will tell you how far it is on your current autopilot setting.
And that’s all I wanted to show you right now. Over time I’ll improve it, but I guess for now it’s a pretty good start.
Have fun!
Cerberus Maps
IGB will request trust. You have to accept this as otherwise the navigation functions will not work.
CAPTAIN’S BLOG, SUPPLEMENTAL
Those that came before us:
Landmark Support has now been added for in-game browser. The top-right now has a checkbox which will enable landmark beacons. Clicking on one will open more information about the landmark.
This is… not really the end of the World Of Warcraft
Jul 9th
So to conclude, the super-thread got locked at just under 50,000 replies without any comment.
In turn, Mike Morhaime (CEO & Cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment) posts this response:
Hello everyone,
I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard’s success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment
Let the shitstorm be a lesson to you. You just don’t take people’s privacies. People kinda tend to get somewhat pissed when you do. Got that? Good.
Fairytale Gone Bad: World Of RealID
Jul 8th
While being a serious contender to be one of the longest, fastest growing, and most active threads I have ever seen in my Internet life, Blizzard still hasn’t said anything. The monster of thread (Threadtitan, even) is just short of 2,200 pages at this writing, with over 43,000 posts – mostly against the implementation of a feature that is quite possibly THE strongest FAIL a company could ever have come up with in, well, human history, really. At this rate the thread is still growing at an average of a post every 10 seconds, if nnot even faster.
You can see all statistics about this thread (which sure is on its way to become an Internet legend) here.
Some have this feature enabled and are probably unaware that it already reveals the actual name to people in-game. Looks a bit like this:
So you pretty much get the idea of HOW FREAKING FANTASTIC this is going to be.
// UPDATE
The Thread has now been locked without any comment. This sure will make some people kinda pissed off.
This is the end of the World … of Warcraft
Jul 6th
So basically the super-clever folks over at Blizzard, who happen to make a little online game called “World Of Warcraft”, had the incredibly bright idea to release the actual real-life names of players. But not just like that. After the next expansion is being deployed, there will be a change on the official forums. From then on in, everytime you post, your actual name will be visible beneath your avatar, and then the in-game name. The only opt-out feature you get, is whether or not to display your in-game name – the display of your real name however cannot be turned off.
Well it’s safe to say that it’ll go pretty quiet on their forums pretty soon.
Recently, we introduced our new Real ID feature http://eu.battle.net/realid/, a new way to stay connected with your friends on the new Battle.net. Today, we wanted to give you a heads up about our plans for Real ID on our official forums, discuss the design philosophy behind the changes we’re making, and give you a first look at some of the new features we’re adding to the forums to help improve the quality of conversations and make the forums an even more enjoyable place for players to visit.
The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.
Source – This page lists all known information about a developer who already released his name
The entire threadnaught on the topic, on the WoW forum – the responses speak for themselves.
Great going Blizzard!
CAPTAIN’S BLOG, SUPPLEMENTAL
After said Blizzard employee revealed his name, he was forced to disconnect his phone line and to delete his Facebook account.
CAPTAIN’S BLOG, SUPPLEMENTAL
The complete Thread-Titan with over 1800 pages (at the time of me looking at it) can be found here
EVE Tool I made, an Item Database
Jun 23rd
The EVE universe is big and vast, over 150 light years long axis to be precise. The database behind the game is equally as vast from what I have seen, so I thought that’s a challenge. I sat down and had a look at how it all works, and the first thing I came across after some digging is a PDF file that shows the relations of everything in-game in the database. Looks a little bit like this:
You can find the actual PDF here.
After making sense of what is what, and what I needed, I started to construct a little network of PHP files that will ultimately work together to let you browse, display, and search for all available items/ships in game. This is the DB showing information for the Hulk:
So if you wanna have a look at the page itself, feel free to do so.
Comments and opinions are appreciated.