Bloo Notes

The 90% Solution to Most Customer Support Issues

2008-03-07T09:13:00.001-08:00

The solution to 90% of all account financial issues, i.e., complaints:
DON'T ENTER INTO CONTRACTS WITHOUT READING THE CONTRACT. You're giving us your credit card, for Thor's sake!

The solution to 90% of all login problems:
RECORD YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD SOMEWHERE YOU WON'T LOSE IT. When one account has the login name "foo" and the gamename "bar", but you also created an account when you were drunk one night and couldn't remember the other password with the login name "bar" and the gamename "foo", do not be surprised when you can't login to the first account with the password of the second account, nor that when you unsubscribe one, the other continues.

The solution to 90% of all technical problems:
HIRE A TEENAGER TO FIX/UPGRADE YOUR COMPUTER. Scratch that. Teenagers don't know crap about computers anymore. Hire a burned out PC gamer in his 30s.

So, We announced some news...

2008-02-25T14:54:00.001-08:00

...I'm not going to get into the merits of the announcement of the newly announced Playnet deal that will license the game in China.

But I am damned embarrassed by all the racism, ignorance and racism I see on our forums. Good thing I'm not a mod or the banhammer would be scarred from heavy use. As it is, I'm thankful I have an ignore feature for the forums. Lot of names added to that recently.

Monster Haiku

2007-08-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

(I'm not entirely happy with this, but it's going in the right direction)

Longing Zombie

my life now simple
all desires gone but one
brains Brains BRAINS BRAINS BRAINS!

Frankenstein's Monster

the bolts on my neck
delivered the spark of life
the itch I can't scratch

The Mummy

Tanna leaves wake me
Not the afterlife promised
Must kill you all now

Vampire

Blood far too salty.
Atkins diet eternal
Vegans, my salad.

Rolling Eyes

2007-08-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

Old, but neat. It's a wireless camera ball that rolls around under your control. The Eye Ball R1. And tough enough to throw into places.

I'm sure the next version will actually be on a little hover rotor so you can have your own school of flying camera-copters, just like Mike McQuay predicted in Hot Time in Old Town.

Rotten Tomatoees 100 'best' sci-fi movies.

2007-07-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

This list is shite. But to spare you 100 clicks:

1 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
2 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
3 Metropolis (1926)
4 Alien (1979)
5 Minority Report (2002)
6 The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
7 Children of Men (2006)
8 The Host (2007)
9 Star Wars (1977)
10 Aliens (1986)
11 The Road Warrior (1981)
12 The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
13 Galaxy Quest (1999)
14 Brazil (1985)
15 The Terminator (1984)
16 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
17 Solaris (1972)
18 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
19 Frankenstein (1931)
20 Mad Max (1979)
21 Repo Man (1984)
22 Back to the Future (1985)
23 Sleeper (1973)
24 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
25 Gojira (1954)
26 Young Frankenstein (1974)
27 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
28 Men in Black (1997)
29 Ghostbusters (1984)
30 Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
31 The Invisible Man (1933)
32 The Matrix (1999)
33 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
34 Forbidden Planet (1956)
35 Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
36 Blade Runner (1982)
37 Them! (1954)
38 Time Bandits (1982)
39 The Fly (1986)
40 THX 1138 (1971)
41 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
42 2046 (2005)
43 Re-Animator (1985)
44 12 Monkeys (1995)
45 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
46 Delicatessen (1991)
47 Donnie Darko (2001)
48 Serenity (2005)
49 District B13 (2006)
50 Things to Come (1936)
51 Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
52 Save The Green Planet! (2005)
53 They Live (1988)
54 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
55 Fantastic Voyage (1966)
56 Westworld (1973)
57 Planet of the Apes (1968)
58 The Brother From Another Planet (1984)
59 Altered States (1980)
60 Robocop (1987)
61 Open Your Eyes (1997)
62 Jurassic Park (1993)
63 The Thing (1951)
64 Pi (1997)
65 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
66 Escape from New York (1981)
67 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
68 The Abyss (1989)
69 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
70 Time After Time (1979)
71 Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
72 Seconds (1966)
73 Alphaville (1965)
74 Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
75 The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
76 X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)
77 Videodrome (1983)
78 Gattaca (1997)
79 Total Recall (1990)
80 The War of the Worlds (1953)
81 The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
82 Dark City (1998)
83 Signs (2002)
84 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
85 Innerspace (1987)
86 Starman (1984)
87 Return of the Jedi (1983)
88 Flash Gordon (1980)
89 War of the Worlds (2005)
90 Death Race 2000 (1975)
91 A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
92 It Came From Outer Space (1953)
93 Dreamscape (1983)
94 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
95 Dark Star (1974)
96 A Boy and His Dog (1975)
97 The Thing (1982)
98 Primer (2004)
99 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
100 Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Wax On, Mutherfrakkers!

2007-06-17T00:32:00.000-07:00

Cobra Kai Never Dies. Must appreciate Karate Kid to enjoy this video and song from No More Kings.

London Called

2007-05-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

...and I answered.

Great place. Pub. Imperial War Museum. Pub. British girls. Pub. Japanese food (Don Katsu). The British Museum. Turkish food (Haloumi grilled cheese and mixed grill). Pub. British food (Sunday Roast at the pub and fish and chips). Hampstead Heath. Smoked Salmon. Kenwood House. Scones with Devonshire cream and strawberry jam. Pub. Being just in front of Critical Mass and escaping in a tiny car. The bridge at the Embankment Pier. Jazz concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall. Pub. Homemade biscuit topped Chicken pot pie and chili. Almost more walking than my busted ankles could handle.

Not necessarily in that order.

Jokur007 wants a post

2007-05-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Con's over and I'm going away to recover.

I'll be posting videos of the roundtable discussion (which features several questions from Jokur007) as soon as I'm back and find my firewire cable.

I suck at Texas Hold 'Em, but then, maybe if I knew what beats what, I'd do better.

The blocks of the ancient Egyptian pyramids were probably made like cement, cast into blocks from a limestone concoction (though there are still some actual quarried granite slabs involved. The ceramics and materials scientist talked about in the article believes that recreating that material would make an excellent building material for the future: cheap and loooooong lasting.

Fun With History: Bayeux Tapestry

2007-05-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

JoeMac showed me this. I thought this was pretty awesome. Reminds me of reading 1066 And All That.

Easy To Do Lists With Google

2007-05-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

My mom needs/wants an online To Do list. It makes sense for her, since she travels a lot and things can easily get missed. I could use one myself, but it has to go a loooong way to beat paper. I didn't have a precise list of requirements, I assumed I'd know it when I see it.

I've tried one of the small Google home page gadgets, but it isn't good for printing, so that wasn't right. I asked for some suggestions and tried these:

Tada List
StikiPad
Remember the Milk

Tada List was the early favorite.

But all of these suffer from a similar problem: they are Yet-Another-Website-To-Remember-And-Login-Too.

Leaving aside, who are they really, and if these services are free, how are they going to make money, which are fair questions, to varying degrees, they are a bit over-engineered for my unexpressed requirements. Full-featured GTD (Getting Things Done) integration, not needed (I've got the book but I haven't been able to finish it - no pun intended).

Ultimately, I found a solution that will work better, at least I hope. The winner, for now, is Google.

Google Home Page ("iGoogle" I guess it is now)
+ Google Docs
+ Google home page gadget that displays Google Docs list on your home page
= FTW

So now the upper left corner of my google page looks like this:

Although Google Docs isn't as over-featured as Word for printing things, it prints just fine and is great for web reading as well.

This is how a blog dies....

2007-04-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

...not with a bang, but with a end of posting.

I've pretty much decided to kill this puppy.

Until I do for sure: unmoderated comments!

RTFE

2007-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

Would you notice this if it were in the EULA (End User License Agreement) that you click through when you sign up for an account on a website, or install software, or, say, login to an online game?

By accepting this agreement, you admit your public support for and endorsement of the following statements: "baby seals should be clubbed," "puppies and kittens are for eating," and "Wookies can't dance,"as well as other statements that we, in our sole discretion, decide to attribute to you in the future. You furthermore consent to have your name, likeness and personal information (and that of your immediate and extended family, existing now and as may come into existence in the future), including but not limited to your address, personal email, phone number(s), place of employment, income tax statements, social security number, spending habits, itemized list of all pornography purchased, borrowed, stolen, downloaded or otherwise viewed, all credit cards and bank accounts, sexual preference, blood type, criminal history report, history of illicit drug use, personal sexual history (or lack thereof), and personal hygiene and grooming habits) made public in any form existing now or that may be developed in the future, including, but not limited too, town crier, hand bills, car windshield flyers, book form, displayed on the side of a large building in l0 foot size letters, silkscreening on t-shirts, painted on coffee mugs, shown on massively huge tv screens at sporting events, television scolling text 'crawlers', read over loudspeakers at places of public transportation and aboard airplane flights, inclusion in fortune cookies, emailed to everyone in the world, displayed on orbital blimps, laser-painted on the face of the moon, spelled out in asteroids or transmitted into the aether via Morse code).

No. Probably not.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2007-01-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

Support flood ebbing
I'm cresting the hill of support issues as a result of our annual December patch crisis and all its follow on. Still some slogging to go, but should be back to normal very soon.

Damn Ghosts!
There's a fix test for a memory leak from the corpses now (damn ghosts!) in open test now: see the Production Notes.

SSE2 is the way
Looks like very, very few players (much less than 1%) are still on non-SSE2 processors. So don't be surprised if we soon stop supporting them entirely. Doing so will let us save some time on creating multiple architecture executables and, much more significantly, fixing things when they break for one but not the other (to say nothing of diagnosing correctly which one a player was using when they encounter a problem).

Idea for next MMO: You buy the box, the game is free.
You pay us $2000. We ship you a good box and give you access to the game for at least 4 years. You install any other hardware - your deal is void and No Refund. You can install approved software only.

The box itself won't be the $2000 cost, we have to cover the costs of game production of course. We'll open it up for people who don't buy the box, after release, but if you want support, that's extra.

Overtime, we could probably decrease the cost of the box+game, or upgrade the box.

Actually, for $300 year, we'll send you a new video card every year.

Blogger's idea of bold is strange
Select some text in blogger and press the b button, and in the HTML you get

[span style="font-weight:bold;"]this[/span]

Yet [b]this[/b] works fine if you enter it manually. Neat, huh. (No, not really).

And the [pre] function does not.

Aside: Reading I Should Have Done
I picked up Melville's Moby Dick the other day and started it. I think I heard someone talking about this on National Public Radio not too long ago, and how it was very innovative, etc.

Fart jokes and mentions of bloody fighting in Afghanistan in the first short chapter! Who knew? Some phrases that catch my mind:

...[I]t is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...

With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

...[A] purse is but a rag unless you put something in it.

...I always go to sea as a sailor.

Hello, Kungsbacka!

2007-01-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

I occasionally check my Google Analytics report on viewership of this here pseudo-blog.

According to it, most of you few who visit here, at least recently, have been here before and are coming via Toto's blog (Chamfering). At least most of the visits.

Kungsbacka, Sweden is the top visitor at 16%, followed by Vancouver, BC. Then it drops a lot, but Scandanivia (26) beats out the USA (23) with Falun and Sundbyberg Sweden, Tromsø, Norway and Kuopio, Finland. Sweden alone ties America, so I'm gonna call that a win for Sweden!

I think Bangkok, Thailand is most distant but Gladesville, Australia and Palmerston North, New Zealand are also in the running given the flat map is a distortion of reality, and 'great circle arcs' and such make it hard for me to estimate (and I'm too lazy/busy-with-other-things to look it up). Rugby Union fans, I wonder?

I don't have much to post. We think we've fixed a few things with the game that should go out very soon, such as the ATI disappearing bushes and a memory leak.

Ugh.

2007-01-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

(no text)

Here it is

2006-12-15T12:41:00.001-08:00

WIKI.WWIIONLINE.COM

For now, you can only read. Soon, we'll let all premium subscribers have editing access.

It's here

2006-12-15T09:47:00.001-08:00

For those that see, it can be seen.

It's coming

2006-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Not today, but probably tomorrow.

Not here, but somewhere close.

It's coming. And it will be good.

Console-Ation

2006-11-29T09:32:00.000-08:00

The impulse to get a new console is growing. Even though I just finished GTA: San Andreas on my PS2 a couple of months ago, and blazed through Okami on it more recently (ok, I didn't get quite to the ultimate end because it got boring - but it's a beautiful game!). Looking at all the consoles that are out now, I've only done a casual analysis of them. And calling it an "analysis" is a stretch - it's more like "Oh shiny box!", "Ohh different shiny box!", "Ohhhhh other different shiny box with a weird angle and nunchucks!"

Based on what I've heard from others, this is how it seems to me (tell me if I've got this right - or wrong):

Wii: ideal for playing games with friends who are in the same room as you (and for adorable little girls early adventures in cursing - maybe I can borrow a teammate's kid to play Wii for me and curse at the game, so I can giggle like an idiot all day). But caution for the slippery handed and flailing maulers.
XBox 360: ideal for playing console games with friends who are somewhere on the intralix, with a good UI, good online features, media center type features, background downloading of files and updates, easy to take your controller and play at a friend's house (but why would you want to do that?). But, you can do all that with a PC...
PS3: ideal for... line gnomes selling to Ebay speculators?

Hmm. Maybe I can resist the urge to get a new console. My PS2 still works fine.

I'm still miffed that the PSP wasn't just a little bit larger (I thought it was originally planned to be able to play DVDs - but noooooo, must.have.proprietary.memory.format. The bastards.).

Favorite Words in Spam

2006-10-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, I see a neat word in spam email subject lines. A real word, not a made up one. Words that I would be impressed to see someone use in a casual conversation.

Today's word:hebephrenic.

A person who suffers from hebephrenia - A type of schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms, senseless laughter, delusions, hallucinations, and regressive behavior.

I first encountered the term in Philip K. Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon. A neat story about an asylum/sanitarium for those with strong mental problems, but so many of them that they formed clans along the lines of their conditions. There were the "Manses" (manics), "Heebs" (hebephrenics), and various others. A "normal" person is sent there for reasons I don't recall, and the others considered being a "Norm" just another mental illness.

Manifesto Propaganda

2006-08-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Greg Costikyan 's Manifesto Games has launched its beta. It aims at being an independent online game publisher. It started as a rant and it became a business plan.

I registered today as "bloo" and got a free download of Plasmaworm.

His blog is pretty insightful and worth a gander or three.

Who will be first against the wall, now that the revolution has come?

The revolution will be downloaded.

Top or Bottom?

2006-08-24T10:30:00.001-07:00

Ok, people. It's getting to be rigoddamndiculous. Pick one: Top or Bottom!

A Top looks like this:

And the horse you road in on!
-Bar

> Foo said:
> This, that and the other thing

A Bottom looks like this:

> Foo said:
> This, that and the other thing.

And the horse you road in on!
-Bar

If you're a Switchhitter, just stop using email altofreakingether, ok? All you're doing is making a mess. Here's what happens with a switcher gets involved.

First, a nice 'All Bottoms' exchange, with chronological (numbers) indicating order in time:

>>> Foo said:
>>> This, that and the other thing. (1)

>> Bar said:
>> And the horse your road in on. (2)

> Foo said:
> Help me find me keys and we can drive out! (3)

That's what she said! (4)
-Bar

Now with swishy switching:

That's what she said! (4)
-Bar

>>> Foo said:
>>> This, that and the other thing. (1)

>> Bar said:
>> And the horse your road in on. (2)

>> Foo said:
>> Help me find me keys and we can drive out! (3)

Bar set the pattern with an initial Bottom approach. Foo followed suit. Then bar swivelled on his swishy ass and went Top.

Now make each exchange two or more paragraphs and have a couple of interstitial responses, add one Switchhitter and watch them make an email discussion HORRIBLY BROKEN!

When you switch, you're telling me that nothing discussed below is important or relevant anymore. You might as well not include any previous text so that I won't have any idea what you're talking about and I can jump right past potential confusion and start ignoring you immediately.

Blog or Brant?

2006-08-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'm cutout for this blogging thing. It is just talking in a vacuum mostly, and I do enough of that in my own head - most of which is not for publication.

Hypothetically, I could start making outrageous statements all the time, to get people to look, and have a lot of ads and affiliate programs and the like. Some people are able to make a little money at that. But...eh. Why bother?

Some popular blogs, particularly related to gaming, are really just weBRANTs against others. "Look how special I am, 'cause I tell you how other people are asshats!"

One often encountered element is the 'creative' insult. Usually seen in the form of verbose new combinations of insulting phrases and cursewords, which I can't be bothered to give examples of at the moment. While appreciation for a good insult is often seen as a trait of the intellectual elite, and maybe it is, it is also a pretty cheap path to go down. Take one thesaurus, grind sprigs of Wilde, Shaw and other 19th century British wit in a mortar, a dash of vinegar and bile, a pinch of pepper, simmer over envious heat, serve piping hot.

But after Stephen Fry's indictment of Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" as "so much loose stool water" and "assgravy", the bar has been set too high for amateurs.

Muddied Waters

2006-08-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, 11, 12 days without an update? Can this even be called a 'blog'?

Nothing major I want to post on really. I have been playing around with Mud 1, a bit. But more in my head than in the game. Going back to the old school, has really got me questioning a lot of game design, or maybe it's world design. And a lot of specific ideas that might be interesting to do in a game have been coming to me lately. Many hasty chicken scratches on notepads. Something's stirring, but it isn't soup yet. Just muddy water with some shiny stuff in it.

Masochistic Devel's

2006-07-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

JWilly commented:

Of course, then one looks at the latest Bruce Woodcock data on the combat-sim genre's share of MMOLG subscriptions (as opposed to fantasy, sci-fi/superhero and social genres) being only 0.3%, and the idea of targeting an underserved sub-segment of that 0.3% seems kind of masochistic.

Oh, well.

I think it is more a question of costs of creation, maintenance, and on-going development. If you can keep the costs down, much smaller subscriber bases can be profitable.

When you compete in the same 'attention space' as the behom-o-crafts, you're not going to hit the top of Bruce's chart. But those charts don't show profit.

Think about hollywood movies and their opening weekend box office gross: if you're not number 1, you're viewed as a failure. Look at Clerks II which just came out. According to Mr. Smith, the movie cost $5 million to make and grossed $10 million on opening weekend (marketing costs not in that, but still, the point is there).

He explains that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was the model for his latest release. It generated $30 million in box office, but $36 million in DVD sales. You've just got to "plug lower numbers in the equation", as Mr. Smith says. A comparable result with Clerks II will allow Mr. Smith to keep making his movies for a long time - without requiring significant distributor investment.

A similar principle can be adopted in gaming, and I suspect that it is in casual games.

Create a game that will be successful and viable at 5,000 annual subscribers. Your annual gross revenue would be $600,000 [5000 x $10/month x 12 months/year]. With a planned minimum lifetime of 2 years, (hopefully longer but let's be conservative at this point): $1.2 million.

That has to fund: pre-launch dev, post-launch maintenance, and post-launch dev. Pre-launch dev time is hard to predict precisely, but let's say 18 months, for a total time horizon of 42 months. Since you want to take some money off the table, you need to do everything for an even million, giving you a return of 20% if all those numbers play out. In an oversimplistic view, that would give you a monthly budget of $23,000/month, or $285,000/year.

Can you create, maintain and continue to develop a game for $285,000/year?

Yes, you can. But this does describe the shape of the world of what you can afford to spend money on. It would have to be a very small staff and a small game, but if you accidentally end up with 7,000 or 10,000 subscribers, then things start to get very profitable.

It may not be the game you're dreaming of, but it is viable and can be successful. A gaming example, though non-MMO, is Combat Missions. Made by a small team, they made the game they wanted to make, and 'published' it themselves via mail order. When I first heard about this game in 2000 I think, I bought 4 copies for myself, my brother and friends. I spoke once to one of them (memory fails me), because I was curious about how effective the mail-order system had been for them. While I couldn't get any details, it was very clear that they were very happy with the results.