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    ‏إظهار الرسائل ذات التسميات The Ancient Gaming Noob. إظهار كافة الرسائل
    ‏إظهار الرسائل ذات التسميات The Ancient Gaming Noob. إظهار كافة الرسائل
    EVE Online Blazes a New Trail with UI Only Mode Wilhelm Arcturus Proving once again that EVE Online is different from most MMORPG’s, CCP announced on the forums on Friday that they had put a new “UI Only” mode option on the test server. Just to be clear, what this option does is allow players to turn off the 3D rendered EVE Online universe and operate with just the UI elements.  This is the opposite of the “hide UI” option that any game worth its salt has. You get the overview and chat channels and inventory and controls and brackets and pretty much everything except the pretty view of space and all the ships that occupy it.  You get to be under the hood, go instruments only, fly the overview. Instead of this: Space and structures in the view You get this: Keep your pretty pictures, I just want the data I cannot think of another MMORPG where this would not only be a viable feature, but kind of a big deal.  I know people who are stoked for this feature to come into the game. Because, when you’re in one of those grinding null sec battles with thousands of objects on grid with you and you turn on the in-game system monitor and see how much RAM the client is gobbling up and how hard you are pushing your GPU, having the option to let go of a significant amount of processing the client need to do can be a big win, especially if you’re in with multiple clients. This will be a boon when it gets pushed to the live client. Of course, it won’t do anything to help with the underlying problem of the servers struggling to handle those big fights with thousands of objects on grid.  Time dilation will still suck and the server will eventually get way behind, stop responding, or just fall over if too many people land on it.  But your GPU won’t be melting as well, and your system will have resources to keep streaming Netflix or play the other game you have going while you wait for your doomsday to cycle. Control-shift-F9 will be your new friend. (Unless you’re like me and out there to take screen shots.) https://ift.tt/30wqE9T

    EVE Online Blazes a New Trail with UI Only Mode Wilhelm Arcturus Proving once again that EVE Online is different from most MMORPG’s, CCP announced on the forums on Friday that they had put a new “UI Only” mode option on the test server. Just to be clear, what this option does is allow players to turn off the 3D rendered EVE Online universe and operate with just the UI elements.  This is the opposite of the “hide UI” option that any game worth its salt has. You get the overview and chat channels and inventory and controls and brackets and pretty much everything except the pretty view of space and all the ships that occupy it.  You get to be under the hood, go instruments only, fly the overview. Instead of this: Space and structures in the view You get this: Keep your pretty pictures, I just want the data I cannot think of another MMORPG where this would not only be a viable feature, but kind of a big deal.  I know people who are stoked for this feature to come into the game. Because, when you’re in one of those grinding null sec battles with thousands of objects on grid with you and you turn on the in-game system monitor and see how much RAM the client is gobbling up and how hard you are pushing your GPU, having the option to let go of a significant amount of processing the client need to do can be a big win, especially if you’re in with multiple clients. This will be a boon when it gets pushed to the live client. Of course, it won’t do anything to help with the underlying problem of the servers struggling to handle those big fights with thousands of objects on grid.  Time dilation will still suck and the server will eventually get way behind, stop responding, or just fall over if too many people land on it.  But your GPU won’t be melting as well, and your system will have resources to keep streaming Netflix or play the other game you have going while you wait for your doomsday to cycle. Control-shift-F9 will be your new friend. (Unless you’re like me and out there to take screen shots.) https://ift.tt/30wqE9T

    أكتوبر 04, 2020 0

    Proving once again that EVE Online is different from most MMORPG’s, CCP announced on the forums on Friday that they had put a new “UI Only...

    WoW Classic with Fall Conquest and AQ War Supply Completion Wilhelm Arcturus While most of the news out of Blizzard lately has been focused on the now delayed Shadowlands expansion, there were still a couple of items that have come up around WoW Classic of late. Classic is as classic does The first has to do with the AQ war supply effort and unlock of the raids.  Any realm that has not finished the war supply event will find that it is automatically completed come Tuesday: On Tuesday, October 6, all WoW Classic realms that have not completed their AQ War Supply turn-ins will see them autocomplete to 100%. Immediately thereafter, the supply delivery period will begin on each realm. We look forward to seeing you in Silithus! Realms that were struggling to get there will now be able to advance.  Word is that there was only on US realm in that state and a couple more in the EU, so this won’t be a boost across many servers.  Still, the event unlocked back in late July, so you do have to wonder what those realms were up to. Then there is the WoW Classic Fall Conquest event, a 15v15 Arathi Basin tournament that will be streamed by Blizzard.  The EU tournament started yesterday… sorry Euros if you’re reading about it here for the first time… but the US tournament doesn’t pick up until next weekend.  The schedule is posted if you want to watch, and if you want to compete you have until Thursday to register a team.  There is a $6,000 prize pool that will be split between the top teams in each region. https://ift.tt/2OTvjzd

    WoW Classic with Fall Conquest and AQ War Supply Completion Wilhelm Arcturus While most of the news out of Blizzard lately has been focused on the now delayed Shadowlands expansion, there were still a couple of items that have come up around WoW Classic of late. Classic is as classic does The first has to do with the AQ war supply effort and unlock of the raids.  Any realm that has not finished the war supply event will find that it is automatically completed come Tuesday: On Tuesday, October 6, all WoW Classic realms that have not completed their AQ War Supply turn-ins will see them autocomplete to 100%. Immediately thereafter, the supply delivery period will begin on each realm. We look forward to seeing you in Silithus! Realms that were struggling to get there will now be able to advance.  Word is that there was only on US realm in that state and a couple more in the EU, so this won’t be a boost across many servers.  Still, the event unlocked back in late July, so you do have to wonder what those realms were up to. Then there is the WoW Classic Fall Conquest event, a 15v15 Arathi Basin tournament that will be streamed by Blizzard.  The EU tournament started yesterday… sorry Euros if you’re reading about it here for the first time… but the US tournament doesn’t pick up until next weekend.  The schedule is posted if you want to watch, and if you want to compete you have until Thursday to register a team.  There is a $6,000 prize pool that will be split between the top teams in each region. https://ift.tt/2OTvjzd

    أكتوبر 04, 2020 0

    While most of the news out of Blizzard lately has been focused on the now delayed Shadowlands expansion, there were still a couple of item...

    Crag Boar Rebellion and the Sunken Temple Video Wilhelm Arcturus Ula somehow found the time to produce a video of the instance group that pulls together our various runs in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar, the Sunken Temple.  She posted it over at her blog, but I want to post it here as well so I remember where to find it. This is actually the third instance group video about that instance.  As we prepped for our 4 person runs she also put out a trailer to highlight our coming adventures in the swamp of sorrows, which included some of our first run. And then there is the ancient video I did about the instance group and the Sunken Temple back after Blizzard had trimmed down the instance to meet the needs of the dungeon finder to deliver a boss fight in 30 minutes or less. The post with that video contains extensive director’s commentary about making the video, the instance, and our group, written at a time when we thought we would never see if on anything but a pirate server ever again. That is our Sunken Temple collection… so far. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

    Crag Boar Rebellion and the Sunken Temple Video Wilhelm Arcturus Ula somehow found the time to produce a video of the instance group that pulls together our various runs in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar, the Sunken Temple.  She posted it over at her blog, but I want to post it here as well so I remember where to find it. This is actually the third instance group video about that instance.  As we prepped for our 4 person runs she also put out a trailer to highlight our coming adventures in the swamp of sorrows, which included some of our first run. And then there is the ancient video I did about the instance group and the Sunken Temple back after Blizzard had trimmed down the instance to meet the needs of the dungeon finder to deliver a boss fight in 30 minutes or less. The post with that video contains extensive director’s commentary about making the video, the instance, and our group, written at a time when we thought we would never see if on anything but a pirate server ever again. That is our Sunken Temple collection… so far. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

    أكتوبر 03, 2020 0

    Ula somehow found the time to produce a video of the instance group that pulls together our various runs in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar, the S...

    Honest Trailers Looks at Streaming Services Wilhelm Arcturus I just want to point out that I wrote my two posts about streaming services, yesterday’s and the previous one, before this video came out. That said, the profusion of streaming services and their popularity now during the pandemic makes it a timely topic, and the Screen Junkies teams looks into services beyond what I have explored so far.   Of course, since I just wrote about some of those services, it is interesting to see where my opinion aligns or diverges from theirs.  Also, I forgot that Netflix was no longer the place to watch Friends as HBO paid a bunch of money to have it on HBO Max.  I might know that if I could access HBO Max rather than whatever HBO service I’m allowed to have on the Roku. Still, I feel solid with my own assessments. And even Honest Trailers cannot plumb the full depth of channels out there.  My wife keeps asking me at bed time, when the lights are out and I have no electronics handy, if we can get Acorn or Britbox or some other oddball channel because she saw an ad for a show that we might want to watch and it is on that particular service.  And don’t get me started on trying to explain how the PBS app works. If you are really hot on this topic, then you will probably enjoy the Honest Trailers Commentary video that goes along with the above, where they run through the trailer and talk about why they said what they did and expand upon their opinions.  I enjoyed it. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

    Honest Trailers Looks at Streaming Services Wilhelm Arcturus I just want to point out that I wrote my two posts about streaming services, yesterday’s and the previous one, before this video came out. That said, the profusion of streaming services and their popularity now during the pandemic makes it a timely topic, and the Screen Junkies teams looks into services beyond what I have explored so far.   Of course, since I just wrote about some of those services, it is interesting to see where my opinion aligns or diverges from theirs.  Also, I forgot that Netflix was no longer the place to watch Friends as HBO paid a bunch of money to have it on HBO Max.  I might know that if I could access HBO Max rather than whatever HBO service I’m allowed to have on the Roku. Still, I feel solid with my own assessments. And even Honest Trailers cannot plumb the full depth of channels out there.  My wife keeps asking me at bed time, when the lights are out and I have no electronics handy, if we can get Acorn or Britbox or some other oddball channel because she saw an ad for a show that we might want to watch and it is on that particular service.  And don’t get me started on trying to explain how the PBS app works. If you are really hot on this topic, then you will probably enjoy the Honest Trailers Commentary video that goes along with the above, where they run through the trailer and talk about why they said what they did and expand upon their opinions.  I enjoyed it. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

    سبتمبر 27, 2020 0

    I just want to point out that I wrote my two posts about streaming services, yesterday’s and the previous one , before this video came out....

    Pandemic Binge Watching and Some More Channels Wilhelm Arcturus Previously on Pandemic Binge Watching I wrote about the three long established streaming services that have been staples of our watching habits, even before the current series of unfortunate events. Hulu is the little channel that could.  We originally got it in order to watch The Handmaid’s Tale, then cancelled.  But it is the service I keep coming back to.  I had to get it to get through all of Archer after that fell off of Netflix.  At one point a year of so back I had a plan to simply replace our Comcast cable lineup with the local channel and sports package you can through get through Hulu, but was brought up short on the details. My wife is a hockey fan, and we can get the channel that carries all the Shark’s games, but on Hulu it runs 20-30 seconds behind the cable broadcast and my wife was quickly annoyed that her game night texting buddies would announce somebody scored before it ever made it to our screen.  That is literally a deal breaker here it seems.  A pity, because I was good with every other aspect of it, especially picture quality.  Comcast put in a really bad compression algorithm a year of so back, so their HD service barely looks like HD anymore.  The streaming services look much better. Hulu has a lot going for it. Upside: Some very good original content.  I mentioned The Handmaid’s Tale already, and did a post previously about Catch-22. The channel really excels at being the place to go watch seasons of things once they have wrapped up on cable channels that do not have their own streaming service yet. Hulu has a bunch of subscription options.  You can go cheap if you can handle some commercials, or opt to pay a bit more to remove them, and add on a number of additional options, up to and including a basic cable replacement. Downside: Their interface hides the depth of the channel more so than some competitors I could mention.  If Netflix is a hyper puppy trying to get your attention, Hulu is an old sheep dog that can’t be bothered some days. Not so much original stuff as you might imagine. Really needs some of the features that Prime and Netflix have adopted to skip show intros and the like.  I realize this is related to the relationship they have with networks and what not, and that they are getting some of the features going, but still.  I do get a bit pissy when content from other networks won’t even let you fast forward past promos. Current Status:  Subscribed and using the service to subscribe to Showtime rather than get into Showtime’s app.  Also still watching Bob’s Burgers.   On paper Disney+ should be a subscribe and never leave channel for our family.  It has all of the MCU movies, all of the Star Wars movies and (almost) all the shows, all of the Disney catalog that they’ll still admit to, and it has every episode of The Simpsons.  I should literally be parked in front of that channel forever. Upside: Inexpensive at $7.00 a month.  Can get it bundled with Hulu. Literally everything 14 year old me could want. The Madalorian was pretty good.  We watched that every week through its first season. Downside: The Hulu bundle made you take the ad sponsored version of the service last I checked, plus you have to take ESPN as well, in which I have no interest.  The faux seasons pro sports are putting on now are not enticing at all. I’m not 14 any more.  I have seen almost everything on the service already.  Hell, I have a significant fraction of it on DVD or Blu-Ray. Not much new/original content No Star Wars Holiday Special?  Are you kidding me? Current Status:  Currently not subscribed, but another season of The Mandalorian is coming up soon. Starz came to us when they had an offer back in March to get 6 months of their service for $30.  The thought was that we could finish up Outlander, but that stopped clicking with us after a couple seasons.  We came for that, but stayed for The White Queen and its follow on series, which I mentioned previously. Basically Starz is a lesser version of HBO, an old school cable movie service that has expanded into some original content and its own stand-alone streaming app. Upside: Always has dozens of movies available to watch on demand. Some very good original content Downside: Really a lesser version of HBO in too many ways.  Not so many movies you’d watch, not so many original series that you’d stick around for. The UI design of their app always leaves me feeling I need to press the button to start a show or movie one more time that other apps. Easily the hardest app for me to read text on from the couch.  They expect you to read the show/movie titles from the thumbnail. Current Status:  Just lapsed, but The Spanish Princess 2 is coming up, so could return I suppose. Apple TV+ is the latest channel we’ve tried.  I have been wary of it in the past because Apple has run it like the iTunes store in the past, where it is essentially a store front to sell you content, and there are a lot of other options in that market.  Also, it required an Apple device in the past.  Recently they have made it an app that I can get on our Roku and they have added a subscription and some original content. I have been tempted to try it if only to watch The Morning Show, which has gotten good buzz, but my wariness as to what else one gets with their subscription has left me cold.  It is easier to figure out the difference between HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO Max that to get that info out of Apple. But then Long Way Up was announced and my wife is a big Ewan McGreggor fan and watched Long Way Round and Long Way Down, so suddenly we had to give it a try. Upside: At $5.00 a month, the cheapest subscription service so far. Available soon in a bundle deal with Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud. Some original content, including Greyhound. Some additional content from other sources available as well. Splashy fresh UI. Apple has the cash to fund content worth watching. Downside: Easily the most annoying service to sign up for in my experience so far.  You cannot sign up through Roku… somebody tell Epic Games… their web site is barely functional, and it is unclear to me if you can even sign up if you don’t have an iOS device.  I mean, I think you can, but my experience suggest it won’t be easy. The original content is extremely limited.  I think I’ve named most of it already.  There is not a lot of “there” there. Plays like an old school service, metering out an episode a week for their shows… though I suppose they really need to, given how little of it there is, in order to keep people subscribed. The additional content is nothing special.  I think it is literally a subset of what I get on Hulu as part of that subscription. 98% of the service is there to offer you up rent or buy options.  It is the iTunes store on your TV. That splashy, fresh UI is overwrought and unclear at times and doesn’t always render correctly on the Roku.  But their website doesn’t always render correctly on anything besides Safari, so go figure.  But at least it mostly works on the Roku.  Apple does not make a Windows or Android client. Hard to tell if it is a work in progress that needs more time or if Apple arrogance levels have exceeded their eWorld peak, back when I heard Apple execs saying they would own the online experience because they could rebrand a literal copy of AOL. Current status: Subscribed at least until we finish up get the last episode of Long Way Up. https://ift.tt/3mXCMdo

    Pandemic Binge Watching and Some More Channels Wilhelm Arcturus Previously on Pandemic Binge Watching I wrote about the three long established streaming services that have been staples of our watching habits, even before the current series of unfortunate events. Hulu is the little channel that could.  We originally got it in order to watch The Handmaid’s Tale, then cancelled.  But it is the service I keep coming back to.  I had to get it to get through all of Archer after that fell off of Netflix.  At one point a year of so back I had a plan to simply replace our Comcast cable lineup with the local channel and sports package you can through get through Hulu, but was brought up short on the details. My wife is a hockey fan, and we can get the channel that carries all the Shark’s games, but on Hulu it runs 20-30 seconds behind the cable broadcast and my wife was quickly annoyed that her game night texting buddies would announce somebody scored before it ever made it to our screen.  That is literally a deal breaker here it seems.  A pity, because I was good with every other aspect of it, especially picture quality.  Comcast put in a really bad compression algorithm a year of so back, so their HD service barely looks like HD anymore.  The streaming services look much better. Hulu has a lot going for it. Upside: Some very good original content.  I mentioned The Handmaid’s Tale already, and did a post previously about Catch-22. The channel really excels at being the place to go watch seasons of things once they have wrapped up on cable channels that do not have their own streaming service yet. Hulu has a bunch of subscription options.  You can go cheap if you can handle some commercials, or opt to pay a bit more to remove them, and add on a number of additional options, up to and including a basic cable replacement. Downside: Their interface hides the depth of the channel more so than some competitors I could mention.  If Netflix is a hyper puppy trying to get your attention, Hulu is an old sheep dog that can’t be bothered some days. Not so much original stuff as you might imagine. Really needs some of the features that Prime and Netflix have adopted to skip show intros and the like.  I realize this is related to the relationship they have with networks and what not, and that they are getting some of the features going, but still.  I do get a bit pissy when content from other networks won’t even let you fast forward past promos. Current Status:  Subscribed and using the service to subscribe to Showtime rather than get into Showtime’s app.  Also still watching Bob’s Burgers.   On paper Disney+ should be a subscribe and never leave channel for our family.  It has all of the MCU movies, all of the Star Wars movies and (almost) all the shows, all of the Disney catalog that they’ll still admit to, and it has every episode of The Simpsons.  I should literally be parked in front of that channel forever. Upside: Inexpensive at $7.00 a month.  Can get it bundled with Hulu. Literally everything 14 year old me could want. The Madalorian was pretty good.  We watched that every week through its first season. Downside: The Hulu bundle made you take the ad sponsored version of the service last I checked, plus you have to take ESPN as well, in which I have no interest.  The faux seasons pro sports are putting on now are not enticing at all. I’m not 14 any more.  I have seen almost everything on the service already.  Hell, I have a significant fraction of it on DVD or Blu-Ray. Not much new/original content No Star Wars Holiday Special?  Are you kidding me? Current Status:  Currently not subscribed, but another season of The Mandalorian is coming up soon. Starz came to us when they had an offer back in March to get 6 months of their service for $30.  The thought was that we could finish up Outlander, but that stopped clicking with us after a couple seasons.  We came for that, but stayed for The White Queen and its follow on series, which I mentioned previously. Basically Starz is a lesser version of HBO, an old school cable movie service that has expanded into some original content and its own stand-alone streaming app. Upside: Always has dozens of movies available to watch on demand. Some very good original content Downside: Really a lesser version of HBO in too many ways.  Not so many movies you’d watch, not so many original series that you’d stick around for. The UI design of their app always leaves me feeling I need to press the button to start a show or movie one more time that other apps. Easily the hardest app for me to read text on from the couch.  They expect you to read the show/movie titles from the thumbnail. Current Status:  Just lapsed, but The Spanish Princess 2 is coming up, so could return I suppose. Apple TV+ is the latest channel we’ve tried.  I have been wary of it in the past because Apple has run it like the iTunes store in the past, where it is essentially a store front to sell you content, and there are a lot of other options in that market.  Also, it required an Apple device in the past.  Recently they have made it an app that I can get on our Roku and they have added a subscription and some original content. I have been tempted to try it if only to watch The Morning Show, which has gotten good buzz, but my wariness as to what else one gets with their subscription has left me cold.  It is easier to figure out the difference between HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO Max that to get that info out of Apple. But then Long Way Up was announced and my wife is a big Ewan McGreggor fan and watched Long Way Round and Long Way Down, so suddenly we had to give it a try. Upside: At $5.00 a month, the cheapest subscription service so far. Available soon in a bundle deal with Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud. Some original content, including Greyhound. Some additional content from other sources available as well. Splashy fresh UI. Apple has the cash to fund content worth watching. Downside: Easily the most annoying service to sign up for in my experience so far.  You cannot sign up through Roku… somebody tell Epic Games… their web site is barely functional, and it is unclear to me if you can even sign up if you don’t have an iOS device.  I mean, I think you can, but my experience suggest it won’t be easy. The original content is extremely limited.  I think I’ve named most of it already.  There is not a lot of “there” there. Plays like an old school service, metering out an episode a week for their shows… though I suppose they really need to, given how little of it there is, in order to keep people subscribed. The additional content is nothing special.  I think it is literally a subset of what I get on Hulu as part of that subscription. 98% of the service is there to offer you up rent or buy options.  It is the iTunes store on your TV. That splashy, fresh UI is overwrought and unclear at times and doesn’t always render correctly on the Roku.  But their website doesn’t always render correctly on anything besides Safari, so go figure.  But at least it mostly works on the Roku.  Apple does not make a Windows or Android client. Hard to tell if it is a work in progress that needs more time or if Apple arrogance levels have exceeded their eWorld peak, back when I heard Apple execs saying they would own the online experience because they could rebrand a literal copy of AOL. Current status: Subscribed at least until we finish up get the last episode of Long Way Up. https://ift.tt/3mXCMdo

    سبتمبر 26, 2020 0

    Previously on Pandemic Binge Watching I wrote about the three long established streaming services that have been staples of our watching h...

    The End of the Line for the DS Series at Nintendo Wilhelm Arcturus The Verge reported that at some point in the last week or so Nintendo updated their Japanese site to indicate that the remaining units in the DS lineup, the 3DL XL, 2DS, and 2DS XL are “out of production.” If you go the US Nintendo site, mention of the DS line of handheld console has been completely scrubbed, save for the support area, where it now lives in the “Other Systems” category with the Wii, the Wii U, and older generations of the DS line. So ends Nintendo’s dual screen handheld line.  The Switch was not supposed to replace it, not according to Nintendo at least, and the initial Switch model was certainly bulky enough compared to the pocket sized DS line to support that argument.  But then came the Switch Lite and the writing was on the wall. Though, to my mind, the real death knell of the DS line was Game Freak moving core Pokemon RPG development to the Switch.  In our family we played some other games on the DS, but it was primarily the Pokemon console, and those core titles were always best sellers on the platform. The end was always coming some day, and I haven’t really played anything on my 3DS XL for ages, but it is still a bit of a sad note. On the flip side, the DS line had a hell of a run. Released in late 2004, when the PlayStation 2, original XBox, and GameCube were the current console generation, it persisted through to pre-orders for the PlayStation 5.  The hardware went through a series of revisions, starting with the DS, then the DS Lite, then the DSi and DSi XL.  Then came the 3D plan, with the 3DS and 3DS XL, the latter getting a couple of revisions during its time.  Finally, in order to satisfy the budget end of the spectrum, there was the 2DS, unique in its form factor, and the final entry in the lineup, the 2DS XL. That last entry, which was also the last model I owned, was basically the 3DS XL with some improvements and a the 3D option remove.  It was, in its way, the pinnacle of the line, 3D ending up being more of a gimmick than a serious feature for most people. But we had a number of the various models along the way. Back in early 2008 we bought a pink DS Lite for our daughter to keep her entertained on a trip that included a six hour flight.  Later that was joined by a cobalt blue DS Lite of my own, since Pokemon seemed like a lot of fun.  My daughter and I played a lot of Pokemon together. Pokemon Diamond and the DS Lite The WiFi features of the early units were ahead of their time.  It could be a bit finicky, but it was a deep feature.  Pokemon Diamond and Pearl had its underground feature that allowed players to interact in the caves and visit each other’s bases. (And steal their flags!)  There was online trading between players around the world.  And I was extremely impressed with the WiFi integration with the Wii as demonstrated by games like Pokemon Battle Revolution and Pokemon Ranch. And my little cobalt blue DS Lite was, and remains, a solidly built unit.  It went on a lot of trips and I never had a problem with it.  Battery life was excellent. My daughter got a DSi at one point, then a DSi XL, which I thought was a great improvement.  Age was creeping up on me by then and the little DS Lite screen was starting to be blurry to me. Then the 3DS line came along.  We skipped that initially, there being no real incentive to go to a little 3DS from the big DSi XL, but Nintendo eventually came out with the 3DS XL.  My daughter wanted one for Christmas and, once she had one, I got myself one for my birthday a couple months later.  We were back and playing Pokemon again. And Pokemon was always the main game for us.  I think the peak for my daughter and I, the point when were were the most into it, was during Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.  The game was good and the tropes of the core RPG series still felt fresh to us. There was the Pokewalker, the pedometer which allowed you to unlock Pokemon by getting out and walking… or, you know, cheating.  It communicated with the DS Lite via the IR port.  Only one Pokewalker went through the wash. Pokewalker on my Belt There were many download events, the ones where you had to go out to Toys R Us or GameStop to collect.  We event went to the regional championships just to see what was going on. And, of course, Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver was the game where I caught them all for the first and only time.  I got the National Pokedex first, which qualifies you for the achievement in the game.  But that was only 485 Pokemon, because they don’t make you get the rare, event Pokemon.  But I managed to hunt them down, getting the final one by playing Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs to get an egg that could be transferred into Pokemon SoulSilver , which would then hatch a Mamphy, with could be bred with a Ditto to get an egg that would hatch  a Phione, the last Pokemon I needed.  I had 493 Pokemon registered, back when that was all there was. Back when 493 was all there was I think we might have burned ourselves out on Pokemon with that run.  We played Pokemon Black & White, but were never that into it, as we skipped Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 when they came out, though I went back and played White 2 later.  It was a decent entry, and actually bucked a few of the tropes of the series. Then there was the dead time, when the new Pokemon titles were on the 3DS, but we didn’t go there until the XL models came out.  Those saw a return to Pokemon for us and a modest revival of our passion for the games. We played through Pokemon X & Y, Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, and Pokemon Sun & Moon, though we stumbled a bit with Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon.  We bought it, but neither of us finished it.  We were again in the “too samey” phase again.  But my daughter did devote a lot of time to Animal Crossing: New Leaf after Pokemon faded. And that was it.  Literally the day after my wife bought me the 2DS XL for Christmas, Game Freak announced that there would be no more Pokemon games on the DS platform.  The Switch was the future. The 3DS hung around, and even saw a bit of a sales spike at one point after that, but without Pokemon there to anchor the platform, it seemed like time was drawing down on it, which brings us to this past week. The units are still here.  I can still play Pokemon if I want.  But the support services have been fading since the Switch came out.  None of the DS series Pokemon games can use their global trade center or other connectivity that made the games so vibrant.  That has all been turned off.  And soon enough the store and all the other bits that Nintendo has to maintain will go away.  Like the Wii before it, the DS series will become isolated, stand alone game consoles. Still, as I said, a hell of a run.  Almost 16 years have gone by since the first units shipped, and you can still play games made for the very first DS on the final 2DS XL units.  And it was a platform for some crazy ideas.  Let’s just start with the whole two screens idea, one being a touch screen.  Then there were the IR ports and the cameras and then 3D support, which included freaking 3D camera capabilities along with AR support along with all the things Nintendo did with WiFi along the way. Seriously, they got Netflix to make an app to stream their video service on the 3DS series.  I tried it.  It was crap quality, but you could watch stuff. So it goes. If I want to play Pokemon today I have a Switch Lite.  It is a nice little unit.  The screen quality is very good.  But it won’t replace the DS series in my heart.  There is too much of my life tied up in that. Other eulogies for the DS platform: Ars Technica The Verge (not the story linked above) Gizmodo BBC https://ift.tt/2nWzAzE

    The End of the Line for the DS Series at Nintendo Wilhelm Arcturus The Verge reported that at some point in the last week or so Nintendo updated their Japanese site to indicate that the remaining units in the DS lineup, the 3DL XL, 2DS, and 2DS XL are “out of production.” If you go the US Nintendo site, mention of the DS line of handheld console has been completely scrubbed, save for the support area, where it now lives in the “Other Systems” category with the Wii, the Wii U, and older generations of the DS line. So ends Nintendo’s dual screen handheld line.  The Switch was not supposed to replace it, not according to Nintendo at least, and the initial Switch model was certainly bulky enough compared to the pocket sized DS line to support that argument.  But then came the Switch Lite and the writing was on the wall. Though, to my mind, the real death knell of the DS line was Game Freak moving core Pokemon RPG development to the Switch.  In our family we played some other games on the DS, but it was primarily the Pokemon console, and those core titles were always best sellers on the platform. The end was always coming some day, and I haven’t really played anything on my 3DS XL for ages, but it is still a bit of a sad note. On the flip side, the DS line had a hell of a run. Released in late 2004, when the PlayStation 2, original XBox, and GameCube were the current console generation, it persisted through to pre-orders for the PlayStation 5.  The hardware went through a series of revisions, starting with the DS, then the DS Lite, then the DSi and DSi XL.  Then came the 3D plan, with the 3DS and 3DS XL, the latter getting a couple of revisions during its time.  Finally, in order to satisfy the budget end of the spectrum, there was the 2DS, unique in its form factor, and the final entry in the lineup, the 2DS XL. That last entry, which was also the last model I owned, was basically the 3DS XL with some improvements and a the 3D option remove.  It was, in its way, the pinnacle of the line, 3D ending up being more of a gimmick than a serious feature for most people. But we had a number of the various models along the way. Back in early 2008 we bought a pink DS Lite for our daughter to keep her entertained on a trip that included a six hour flight.  Later that was joined by a cobalt blue DS Lite of my own, since Pokemon seemed like a lot of fun.  My daughter and I played a lot of Pokemon together. Pokemon Diamond and the DS Lite The WiFi features of the early units were ahead of their time.  It could be a bit finicky, but it was a deep feature.  Pokemon Diamond and Pearl had its underground feature that allowed players to interact in the caves and visit each other’s bases. (And steal their flags!)  There was online trading between players around the world.  And I was extremely impressed with the WiFi integration with the Wii as demonstrated by games like Pokemon Battle Revolution and Pokemon Ranch. And my little cobalt blue DS Lite was, and remains, a solidly built unit.  It went on a lot of trips and I never had a problem with it.  Battery life was excellent. My daughter got a DSi at one point, then a DSi XL, which I thought was a great improvement.  Age was creeping up on me by then and the little DS Lite screen was starting to be blurry to me. Then the 3DS line came along.  We skipped that initially, there being no real incentive to go to a little 3DS from the big DSi XL, but Nintendo eventually came out with the 3DS XL.  My daughter wanted one for Christmas and, once she had one, I got myself one for my birthday a couple months later.  We were back and playing Pokemon again. And Pokemon was always the main game for us.  I think the peak for my daughter and I, the point when were were the most into it, was during Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.  The game was good and the tropes of the core RPG series still felt fresh to us. There was the Pokewalker, the pedometer which allowed you to unlock Pokemon by getting out and walking… or, you know, cheating.  It communicated with the DS Lite via the IR port.  Only one Pokewalker went through the wash. Pokewalker on my Belt There were many download events, the ones where you had to go out to Toys R Us or GameStop to collect.  We event went to the regional championships just to see what was going on. And, of course, Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver was the game where I caught them all for the first and only time.  I got the National Pokedex first, which qualifies you for the achievement in the game.  But that was only 485 Pokemon, because they don’t make you get the rare, event Pokemon.  But I managed to hunt them down, getting the final one by playing Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs to get an egg that could be transferred into Pokemon SoulSilver , which would then hatch a Mamphy, with could be bred with a Ditto to get an egg that would hatch  a Phione, the last Pokemon I needed.  I had 493 Pokemon registered, back when that was all there was. Back when 493 was all there was I think we might have burned ourselves out on Pokemon with that run.  We played Pokemon Black & White, but were never that into it, as we skipped Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 when they came out, though I went back and played White 2 later.  It was a decent entry, and actually bucked a few of the tropes of the series. Then there was the dead time, when the new Pokemon titles were on the 3DS, but we didn’t go there until the XL models came out.  Those saw a return to Pokemon for us and a modest revival of our passion for the games. We played through Pokemon X & Y, Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, and Pokemon Sun & Moon, though we stumbled a bit with Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon.  We bought it, but neither of us finished it.  We were again in the “too samey” phase again.  But my daughter did devote a lot of time to Animal Crossing: New Leaf after Pokemon faded. And that was it.  Literally the day after my wife bought me the 2DS XL for Christmas, Game Freak announced that there would be no more Pokemon games on the DS platform.  The Switch was the future. The 3DS hung around, and even saw a bit of a sales spike at one point after that, but without Pokemon there to anchor the platform, it seemed like time was drawing down on it, which brings us to this past week. The units are still here.  I can still play Pokemon if I want.  But the support services have been fading since the Switch came out.  None of the DS series Pokemon games can use their global trade center or other connectivity that made the games so vibrant.  That has all been turned off.  And soon enough the store and all the other bits that Nintendo has to maintain will go away.  Like the Wii before it, the DS series will become isolated, stand alone game consoles. Still, as I said, a hell of a run.  Almost 16 years have gone by since the first units shipped, and you can still play games made for the very first DS on the final 2DS XL units.  And it was a platform for some crazy ideas.  Let’s just start with the whole two screens idea, one being a touch screen.  Then there were the IR ports and the cameras and then 3D support, which included freaking 3D camera capabilities along with AR support along with all the things Nintendo did with WiFi along the way. Seriously, they got Netflix to make an app to stream their video service on the 3DS series.  I tried it.  It was crap quality, but you could watch stuff. So it goes. If I want to play Pokemon today I have a Switch Lite.  It is a nice little unit.  The screen quality is very good.  But it won’t replace the DS series in my heart.  There is too much of my life tied up in that. Other eulogies for the DS platform: Ars Technica The Verge (not the story linked above) Gizmodo BBC https://ift.tt/2nWzAzE

    سبتمبر 20, 2020 0

    The Verge reported that at some point in the last week or so Nintendo updated their Japanese site to indicate that the remaining units in t...

    Quote of the Day – This Cynicism is Inconceivable! Wilhelm Arcturus My biggest disappointment with modern internet discourse is that there’s a significant amount of cynicism, especially in forum or reddit debates, and a portion of people assume the worst. -Chris Roberts, forum post in response to player complaints This is one of those “irony is dead” moments. I mean, I’ll give him his “you’re looking at this from the outside” so you don’t know what is really going on, which is true enough.  But that also speaks to transparency.  We’re on the outside looking in, so we depend on what Chris Robert’s and his team tells us. We are now eight and a half years down the road from the Kickstarter campaign, almost six years past the promised launch date, with a game that is still in alpha, with many promised features not yet available, and which has consistently and repeatedly missed promises.  All the while, Chris Roberts has milked his following for $300 million for a game that hasn’t shipped yet. In that atmosphere, it seems comically oblivious to bemoan the state of cynicism on the internet when his actions have created a situation where cynicism is the natural, normal response.  Chris Roberts is in a world of his own making.  To whine about people not believing him after he has, to be polite, misinformed people since day one strains credulity. Yes, I get the optimism inherent in software development, and can wax for pages about why it is more art that science and how almost any big project is built on a foundation of quicksand.  But at some point your optimism starts to work against you.  The people you’re trying to keep with you will get to one blown promise, one missed date, one broken feature too many and will feel the fatigue of the effort of believing.  You will lose their trust, they will turn on you, and they won’t believe any more of your empty statements.  You don’t have to be Derek Smart to figure out that the plan is a lie and that the milestones of progress are mirages that remain firmly fixed on the horizon. And he cannot stop.  At the end of his post he says: I can promise you the gameplay I described is not a pipe dream, nor will it take 10 to 20 years to deliver We’re already more than eight years down the road, so ten years seems like optimism at this point.  How can you even write that and not feel your fingers burn from the self-delusion? So my gut response to the quote at the top of the page is, “Tough shit!  You made this bed, you sleep in it!” Seriously, the cynicism is there because he and his team have repeatedly promised people things that have failed to come to pass.  Most people are not stupid enough to keep believing every new promise after so many have been broken.  Some will, because they have invested so much in the projected, financially and/or emotionally, but a rational person will stop accepting things at face value from somebody with a track record like Chris Roberts. And it isn’t like Chris Roberts is alone in this arena.  I lost my faith in Camelot Unchained earlier this year when Mark Jacobs announced that they were working on another game.  CU was already in the years delayed category as well, having also failed to meet many milestones, so credulity was at the breaking point. Then there was Lord British, who pushed out Shroud of the Avatar and ran, leaving backers with something that didn’t much match what was promised up front, save in the most general ways. Nearly every crowd funded MMO projected has disappointed and sowed the seeds of discontent along the way.  I am surprised when anybody these days even floats the idea of crowd funding an MMO because it has been proved to be a path to disappointment. And this is cast against a culture of undeserved hype from the video game industry overall, of over promising and under delivering, of demos that don’t reflect reality, and of reviews where the acceptable score range to keep your site in game company advertising is 8-10 out of 10, that has laid a groundwork of cynicism.  A game developer must sail in a sea of skeptics who will doubt their every promise because so many before them have polluted the waters. Chris Roberts ought to know this.  He has been in game development since the late 80s.  He should know better. But apparently he does not.  And so he whines about the unfairness of it all, this cynicism that he helped create. https://ift.tt/2FIXH3k

    Quote of the Day – This Cynicism is Inconceivable! Wilhelm Arcturus My biggest disappointment with modern internet discourse is that there’s a significant amount of cynicism, especially in forum or reddit debates, and a portion of people assume the worst. -Chris Roberts, forum post in response to player complaints This is one of those “irony is dead” moments. I mean, I’ll give him his “you’re looking at this from the outside” so you don’t know what is really going on, which is true enough.  But that also speaks to transparency.  We’re on the outside looking in, so we depend on what Chris Robert’s and his team tells us. We are now eight and a half years down the road from the Kickstarter campaign, almost six years past the promised launch date, with a game that is still in alpha, with many promised features not yet available, and which has consistently and repeatedly missed promises.  All the while, Chris Roberts has milked his following for $300 million for a game that hasn’t shipped yet. In that atmosphere, it seems comically oblivious to bemoan the state of cynicism on the internet when his actions have created a situation where cynicism is the natural, normal response.  Chris Roberts is in a world of his own making.  To whine about people not believing him after he has, to be polite, misinformed people since day one strains credulity. Yes, I get the optimism inherent in software development, and can wax for pages about why it is more art that science and how almost any big project is built on a foundation of quicksand.  But at some point your optimism starts to work against you.  The people you’re trying to keep with you will get to one blown promise, one missed date, one broken feature too many and will feel the fatigue of the effort of believing.  You will lose their trust, they will turn on you, and they won’t believe any more of your empty statements.  You don’t have to be Derek Smart to figure out that the plan is a lie and that the milestones of progress are mirages that remain firmly fixed on the horizon. And he cannot stop.  At the end of his post he says: I can promise you the gameplay I described is not a pipe dream, nor will it take 10 to 20 years to deliver We’re already more than eight years down the road, so ten years seems like optimism at this point.  How can you even write that and not feel your fingers burn from the self-delusion? So my gut response to the quote at the top of the page is, “Tough shit!  You made this bed, you sleep in it!” Seriously, the cynicism is there because he and his team have repeatedly promised people things that have failed to come to pass.  Most people are not stupid enough to keep believing every new promise after so many have been broken.  Some will, because they have invested so much in the projected, financially and/or emotionally, but a rational person will stop accepting things at face value from somebody with a track record like Chris Roberts. And it isn’t like Chris Roberts is alone in this arena.  I lost my faith in Camelot Unchained earlier this year when Mark Jacobs announced that they were working on another game.  CU was already in the years delayed category as well, having also failed to meet many milestones, so credulity was at the breaking point. Then there was Lord British, who pushed out Shroud of the Avatar and ran, leaving backers with something that didn’t much match what was promised up front, save in the most general ways. Nearly every crowd funded MMO projected has disappointed and sowed the seeds of discontent along the way.  I am surprised when anybody these days even floats the idea of crowd funding an MMO because it has been proved to be a path to disappointment. And this is cast against a culture of undeserved hype from the video game industry overall, of over promising and under delivering, of demos that don’t reflect reality, and of reviews where the acceptable score range to keep your site in game company advertising is 8-10 out of 10, that has laid a groundwork of cynicism.  A game developer must sail in a sea of skeptics who will doubt their every promise because so many before them have polluted the waters. Chris Roberts ought to know this.  He has been in game development since the late 80s.  He should know better. But apparently he does not.  And so he whines about the unfairness of it all, this cynicism that he helped create. https://ift.tt/2FIXH3k

    سبتمبر 19, 2020 0

    My biggest disappointment with modern internet discourse is that there’s a significant amount of cynicism, especially in forum or reddit de...

    Pandemic Binge Watching and the Big Three Channels Wilhelm Arcturus Let me just get out the obligatory “TV was a lot different when I was young” before we move on.  I tell my daughter about the days before DVRs or VCRs, when you had to be there and ready to watch at a specific time in order to see a show or movie.  A whole weekly magazine was devoted to the TV schedule, which was kind of amazing logistically because the channels were different in every major media market.  The LA TV Guide was useless in Chicago or New York. And don’t even get me started on the pre-cable days and fiddling with an antenna to get the TV signal.  And I am just old enough to remember pre-solid state TVs, where you had to turn them on and allow a couple of minutes for them to warm up before a clear picture would resolve itself on the screen.  Or a fuzzy picture, if the antenna wasn’t just right.  It was a different time. Today we have a Roku Stick that juts out from the side of our 46″ LCD TV.  I bought that back in December because there was demand in our house for the Disney+ channel and the PlayStation 3, our streaming device up until that moment, was just seconds from being completely out of support, so no new apps were being made for it.  And, when I looked at it a couple month later, all the old apps were dead too.  So it was just in time. And, as the pandemic has gone on, we have spent more and more time streaming content over the Roku and very little time watching traditional commercial television.  I’d cancel the cable TV service, but Comcast would raise my monthly charge to just have internet.  So we just leave it there, idle, though I may go in and trim some features, like the extra we pay for HD channels.  The Comcast Xfinity HD compression algorithm was changed a couple years back and what you get now looks pretty bad.  If it even qualified as 720p I’d be surprised.  Maybe sports will come back and we’ll want to watch something like that. Anyway, this will be a few posts running down of the channels in order of length and depth of investment in each, and I will start with the big three staples of our house currently. HBO, or Home Box Office back in the day, is probably the first premium channel I ever ran into.  Our friend Gary had a bootleg HBO receiver on their antenna mast back in the day when it was broadcast via line-of-sight transmission from Mount Umunhum into the valley.  It was just movies back then, and the occasional filler 30 minutes of Video Jukebox, which might have pre-dated MTV. I have subscribed to HBO as part of cable or satellite or streaming a number of times over the years, and I always end up cancelling it after a while.  They never have many movies that interest me, and for a long time they only had a few shows, and none of this was on demand.  But that has changed. Upside: Usually has a couple of recent release movies we might want to watch. Has a deep field of good TV series that they have produced on which to binge like The Wire, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Succession, Generation Kill, and a few others.  I could watch the first two seasons of The Wire on repeat. Downside: Priced at a premium tier. Like a lot of movie channels, there are a bunch of movies you’ll skip right past because you’ve seen them or know you’ll never watch them.  Oh, and they come and go monthly, so you have to keep an eye on that. Has some series that are decent but which got cancelled quickly, so you have a few episodes and a longing for more. The UI of the app is not very sophisticated, though I will admit that the UI of none of the streaming apps are ideal.  We are once again up against the limitations of screen real estate and exactly how big things need to be to be able to see/read them from the couch.  But HBO, for all its prestige of being one of the elder services, is behind the pack when it comes to features, at least when compared to the two services below. Has clung to the old school “episode every week” format for new show content.  This works for topical shows, like Last Week Tonight, and worked during Game of Thrones, when everybody was talking about that at the water cooler on Monday, but that was an exception, not the rule.  Most of the time it feels like they drag shows out week by week because they have nothing else new coming and just want to keep you subscribed.  Our general house rule is to let a series get at least six episodes in so we can watch them in pairs, though it is better still if we just wait until the season is over and watch at our own pace. I also remain confused as to their branding.  I have HBO Now, or I did, but there is now HBO Max, which I cannot have because they are in a fight with Roku, though I can get HBO Max if I cancel HBO Now and subscribe to HBO via Hulu.  Or something like that.  I am not sure what I am missing by not having HBO Max.  Also, wasn’t there HBO Go for a while? Current Status: Still subscribed.  Waiting for Lovecraft County to get further along. Our original stop for binge watching, back when Netflix used to just send disks through the mail.  We burned through seasons of the show 24 three disks at a time.  With no commercials and using the chapter advance to get past the “previously” and the credits, each hour long episode boiled down to under 30 minutes, so we would watch a disk a night. Eventually Netflix managed to get to the “net” part of its name and started streaming back before that was much of a thing. Anyway, fast forward to today where Netflix is your prime location for streaming old episodes of Friends, a show we only used to watch because it was adjacent to Seinfeld at one point and the once place where you can watch Tiger King. Upside: Overall, lots of stuff available. Lots of new and original content showing up all the time.  When they drop a new series, it is all episodes on the table, ready to binge.  And they have hit the mark multiple times with shows like Stranger Things and Tiger King. Top of the class when it comes to features like “skip the ‘previously’ segment” at the start of a series show and “skip credits” so you can get straight into the content. Tries really hard to flag content you might like based on your viewing, and isn’t that bad at it.  And it allows you to make profiles so when your daughter binges anime on her profile you don’t end up with the weeabo selection on your own recommendations. Downside: Has, over time, dramatically decreased the amount of third party content they have licensed.  There are still some good third party items in the mix, and of course Friends, but they are more about their own stuff these days. A lot of their own content isn’t that great.  Some of it is okay.  I was good with a pass through once on things that otherwise got mixed reviews, but it can be really hit and miss.  A bunch of it is foreign television that has been dubbed in English and branded as “Netflix Original” and dumped into the listings.  Some dubbed stuff is okay, though a dubbed show really has to have a strong underlying plot for that not to become a distraction. Really wants stuff playing on your screen.  The only service where I will leave something selected, walk away to do something, and come back to find myself starting episode three already.  You can tone that down some in the settings, but they don’t make it easy. Current Status: Still subscribed, waiting for the next bit of binge fodder to drop while I get through Parks & Recreation. Amazon Prime is the streaming service we sort of backed into because we had Amazon Prime for free delivery and suddenly it included a video service. Upside: Has content for Prime members, which occasionally has a movie I want to watch when I want to watch it.  I caught The Battle of Britain the other day. Continues to ramp up some decent original content like The Man in the High Castle, The Boys, and Hanna.  If you’re going to dub something, Comrade Detective is how you do it. Has caught up to Netflix on the “skip this” features without trying to start playing video at you every time you pause the cursor for a moment.  Also, just added profiles. Can subscribe to a variety of other services like Showtime or Starz in their interface.  Also has a huge library of pay per view titles in its catalog. Downside: Not a lot of selection when compared to Netflix when you consider the price differential.  But maybe the free shipping takes a bite out of the content options. Not as easy to navigate as Netflix.  Not that Netflix is great, but on Prime everything is smaller and less intrusive and feels like they are not trying as hard.  Prime also lists out each season of a show as its own entry, which feels like they are trying to look like they have more content than they actually do. Searching for titles will lead you to a lot of things that are pay per view.  This sets it apart from the other two where everything you find on the service you can watch without additional payment. The last time I tried a pay per view movie I had to get up from the TV and go into my office to order it on my computer before I could watch it on the TV.  I guess that keeps down the accidental purchases. Some spotty or indifferent shows.  Also clings to the “one episode a week” idea of content deliver, except when it gets impatient and suddenly releases half a season, the doles out the rest more slowly. Status: Still subscribed for free shipping, Twitch games, and other stuff, while finishing up Counterpart and waiting for all the episodes of The Boys season two to become available. Next time I’ll look at Hulu, Disney+, and Starz. https://ift.tt/2FxlFhC

    Pandemic Binge Watching and the Big Three Channels Wilhelm Arcturus Let me just get out the obligatory “TV was a lot different when I was young” before we move on.  I tell my daughter about the days before DVRs or VCRs, when you had to be there and ready to watch at a specific time in order to see a show or movie.  A whole weekly magazine was devoted to the TV schedule, which was kind of amazing logistically because the channels were different in every major media market.  The LA TV Guide was useless in Chicago or New York. And don’t even get me started on the pre-cable days and fiddling with an antenna to get the TV signal.  And I am just old enough to remember pre-solid state TVs, where you had to turn them on and allow a couple of minutes for them to warm up before a clear picture would resolve itself on the screen.  Or a fuzzy picture, if the antenna wasn’t just right.  It was a different time. Today we have a Roku Stick that juts out from the side of our 46″ LCD TV.  I bought that back in December because there was demand in our house for the Disney+ channel and the PlayStation 3, our streaming device up until that moment, was just seconds from being completely out of support, so no new apps were being made for it.  And, when I looked at it a couple month later, all the old apps were dead too.  So it was just in time. And, as the pandemic has gone on, we have spent more and more time streaming content over the Roku and very little time watching traditional commercial television.  I’d cancel the cable TV service, but Comcast would raise my monthly charge to just have internet.  So we just leave it there, idle, though I may go in and trim some features, like the extra we pay for HD channels.  The Comcast Xfinity HD compression algorithm was changed a couple years back and what you get now looks pretty bad.  If it even qualified as 720p I’d be surprised.  Maybe sports will come back and we’ll want to watch something like that. Anyway, this will be a few posts running down of the channels in order of length and depth of investment in each, and I will start with the big three staples of our house currently. HBO, or Home Box Office back in the day, is probably the first premium channel I ever ran into.  Our friend Gary had a bootleg HBO receiver on their antenna mast back in the day when it was broadcast via line-of-sight transmission from Mount Umunhum into the valley.  It was just movies back then, and the occasional filler 30 minutes of Video Jukebox, which might have pre-dated MTV. I have subscribed to HBO as part of cable or satellite or streaming a number of times over the years, and I always end up cancelling it after a while.  They never have many movies that interest me, and for a long time they only had a few shows, and none of this was on demand.  But that has changed. Upside: Usually has a couple of recent release movies we might want to watch. Has a deep field of good TV series that they have produced on which to binge like The Wire, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Succession, Generation Kill, and a few others.  I could watch the first two seasons of The Wire on repeat. Downside: Priced at a premium tier. Like a lot of movie channels, there are a bunch of movies you’ll skip right past because you’ve seen them or know you’ll never watch them.  Oh, and they come and go monthly, so you have to keep an eye on that. Has some series that are decent but which got cancelled quickly, so you have a few episodes and a longing for more. The UI of the app is not very sophisticated, though I will admit that the UI of none of the streaming apps are ideal.  We are once again up against the limitations of screen real estate and exactly how big things need to be to be able to see/read them from the couch.  But HBO, for all its prestige of being one of the elder services, is behind the pack when it comes to features, at least when compared to the two services below. Has clung to the old school “episode every week” format for new show content.  This works for topical shows, like Last Week Tonight, and worked during Game of Thrones, when everybody was talking about that at the water cooler on Monday, but that was an exception, not the rule.  Most of the time it feels like they drag shows out week by week because they have nothing else new coming and just want to keep you subscribed.  Our general house rule is to let a series get at least six episodes in so we can watch them in pairs, though it is better still if we just wait until the season is over and watch at our own pace. I also remain confused as to their branding.  I have HBO Now, or I did, but there is now HBO Max, which I cannot have because they are in a fight with Roku, though I can get HBO Max if I cancel HBO Now and subscribe to HBO via Hulu.  Or something like that.  I am not sure what I am missing by not having HBO Max.  Also, wasn’t there HBO Go for a while? Current Status: Still subscribed.  Waiting for Lovecraft County to get further along. Our original stop for binge watching, back when Netflix used to just send disks through the mail.  We burned through seasons of the show 24 three disks at a time.  With no commercials and using the chapter advance to get past the “previously” and the credits, each hour long episode boiled down to under 30 minutes, so we would watch a disk a night. Eventually Netflix managed to get to the “net” part of its name and started streaming back before that was much of a thing. Anyway, fast forward to today where Netflix is your prime location for streaming old episodes of Friends, a show we only used to watch because it was adjacent to Seinfeld at one point and the once place where you can watch Tiger King. Upside: Overall, lots of stuff available. Lots of new and original content showing up all the time.  When they drop a new series, it is all episodes on the table, ready to binge.  And they have hit the mark multiple times with shows like Stranger Things and Tiger King. Top of the class when it comes to features like “skip the ‘previously’ segment” at the start of a series show and “skip credits” so you can get straight into the content. Tries really hard to flag content you might like based on your viewing, and isn’t that bad at it.  And it allows you to make profiles so when your daughter binges anime on her profile you don’t end up with the weeabo selection on your own recommendations. Downside: Has, over time, dramatically decreased the amount of third party content they have licensed.  There are still some good third party items in the mix, and of course Friends, but they are more about their own stuff these days. A lot of their own content isn’t that great.  Some of it is okay.  I was good with a pass through once on things that otherwise got mixed reviews, but it can be really hit and miss.  A bunch of it is foreign television that has been dubbed in English and branded as “Netflix Original” and dumped into the listings.  Some dubbed stuff is okay, though a dubbed show really has to have a strong underlying plot for that not to become a distraction. Really wants stuff playing on your screen.  The only service where I will leave something selected, walk away to do something, and come back to find myself starting episode three already.  You can tone that down some in the settings, but they don’t make it easy. Current Status: Still subscribed, waiting for the next bit of binge fodder to drop while I get through Parks & Recreation. Amazon Prime is the streaming service we sort of backed into because we had Amazon Prime for free delivery and suddenly it included a video service. Upside: Has content for Prime members, which occasionally has a movie I want to watch when I want to watch it.  I caught The Battle of Britain the other day. Continues to ramp up some decent original content like The Man in the High Castle, The Boys, and Hanna.  If you’re going to dub something, Comrade Detective is how you do it. Has caught up to Netflix on the “skip this” features without trying to start playing video at you every time you pause the cursor for a moment.  Also, just added profiles. Can subscribe to a variety of other services like Showtime or Starz in their interface.  Also has a huge library of pay per view titles in its catalog. Downside: Not a lot of selection when compared to Netflix when you consider the price differential.  But maybe the free shipping takes a bite out of the content options. Not as easy to navigate as Netflix.  Not that Netflix is great, but on Prime everything is smaller and less intrusive and feels like they are not trying as hard.  Prime also lists out each season of a show as its own entry, which feels like they are trying to look like they have more content than they actually do. Searching for titles will lead you to a lot of things that are pay per view.  This sets it apart from the other two where everything you find on the service you can watch without additional payment. The last time I tried a pay per view movie I had to get up from the TV and go into my office to order it on my computer before I could watch it on the TV.  I guess that keeps down the accidental purchases. Some spotty or indifferent shows.  Also clings to the “one episode a week” idea of content deliver, except when it gets impatient and suddenly releases half a season, the doles out the rest more slowly. Status: Still subscribed for free shipping, Twitch games, and other stuff, while finishing up Counterpart and waiting for all the episodes of The Boys season two to become available. Next time I’ll look at Hulu, Disney+, and Starz. https://ift.tt/2FxlFhC

    سبتمبر 13, 2020 0

    Let me just get out the obligatory “TV was a lot different when I was young” before we move on.  I tell my daughter about the days before DV...

    Pandemic Binge Watching Part Three – The New Season Wilhelm Arcturus In parts one and two I went on about shows we started on fresh.  But the binge-watching life isn’t all about brand new shows.  Sometimes the agonizing year long wait ends and something you watched before comes out with a new season.  So I am going to cover a few of those shows we’ve watched and, in the process, answer the most important question: Do you need to go back and watch past episodes? (You should just watch everything if you haven’t started on a show, but if you’re up to date and a new season comes along, the question is valid.) Homeland – Showtime production, most seasons on Hulu 8 seasons total We watched the first three seasons of Homeland way back in the day, back when it wasn’t clear that Carrie Matheson was really the central unifying figure of the show.  Also, I think we watched on DVDs from Netflix.  Somewhere along the way we caught season four.  And then, when surfing around for something to watch I saw that Hulu had all but the final season available, so off we went. Carrie is clearly the center and a pattern is now apparent where she must at some point each season: Fight with Saul Make a bunch of promises she won’t keep Screw over somebody who trusts her Join forces with Saul Go off her meds or otherwise off the reservation Eventually turn out to be right She is both the best and worse of the show.  Fortunately, there is a host of excellent supporting roles to hold things together when the script sends her off the rails and I find the stories interesting… though some seem very quaint given our current president.  Somebody agonizes over doing a mildly bad thing that Trump would approve in a heart beat.  I keep thinking, “Remember when somebody would resign over that?” Now we just need to find season 8 to finish up the series. Good for: A look back at some old school political and spy drama. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: No.  Carrie will mouth enough connecting exposition about her current status with the agency and Saul to let you know where things stand. Marcella – Netflix Three seasons total A psychological police drama about a detective who comes back to the force and is back following a serial killer who was active before she left.  Trouble at home and her of mental trauma play into her view of the world and make her a compelling character.  We burned through the first two seasons pretty quickly. Good for: Somebody who wants an investigation that might leave unanswered questions Do you need to rewatch past seasons: No.  For the first couple of episodes of season three you’ll think you have to, because nothing makes any sense, but eventually they explain.  Just ride it out. Umbrella Academy – Neflix Two seasons total The unorthodox time and space bending super hero story about a set of kids, all born on the same day, who were collected and adopted by one Sir Reginald Hargreeves who wants them for their super powers.  Crazy, compelling, interesting, and fun to watch.  I enjoyed it.  Season two just makes things all the more crazy and compelling. Good for: Somebody sick of the scale of MCU. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: Oh fuck yeah.  If you go into season 2 and haven’t recently watched the first season, you’ll end up having to pause and look things up just to keep things straight.  There are way too many moving parts.  They do a quick summary, but it isn’t enough.  If you don’t know their numbers and their powers by heart, just watch the first season again. Killing Eve – BBC America, available on Hulu Three seasons total A charming, fresh, exciting new show in its first season, featuring spy craft and assassination in the current day, Killing Eve grabbed a lot of people  Then the show didn’t quite know what to do with itself after the first eight show run.  First season good, second season okay, third season… unsatisfying.  The Eve and Villanelle dynamic is what gives the show life, but they can’t always be sneaking up on each other I guess.  And Jodie Comer (who was also one of the Elizabeths in The White Princess which I mentioned in part one) plays the quirky Villanelle so well that even unsatisfying was fun at times. Good for: Somebody in search of something that seemed charming, fresh, and exciting in 2018. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: The past seasons are the good stuff.  If you dive right into season three you’ll feel a little lost, but I’m not sure you’ll care. Lucifer – Netflix Five seasons total The devil has left hell and got himself a nightclub in LA… you’d probably think Vegas first, but really, LA is where he would go when you think about it… under the name Lucifer Morningstar.  He can help people get what they desire for a price.  And then he runs into Detective Chloe Decker of the LAPD and the whole thing turns into Castle set in LA with the devil rather than a mystery writer. Still, I liked Castle for a few seasons.  The problem is that in both the main question is whether the devil/writer will finally get together with the homicide detective and you can only put that off for a few seasons before the question has to be resolved, after which the show dies.  Or, at least that was what happened with Castle. It is dumb, and was a Fox show for three seasons, so there are a lot of episodes where the quality varies, but the actors are mostly good.  Lucifer his siblings and parents become part of the plot and they are often much more interesting than the petty grievances of mankind. Good for: Somebody who wants a remake of Castle with the devil? Do you need to rewatch past seasons: Nah, it really isn’t that deep. Hanna – Amazon Prime Two seasons total Based on the 2011 film, there is a secret government super soldier program, some wolf DNA, some young girls, and… well… call it a girl’s school version Jason Bourne.  Lots of action, evil government operatives, top secrets stuff, and so on.  The first season was okay, though not all that memorable.  The second season goes a little more into project Treadstone… erm, UTRAX… and the girls, their school, and their mission.  Things are still over the top, but I found it more interesting. Good for: Somebody who wants a girl’s school version of Jason Bourne? Do you need to rewatch past seasons:  The first season is so narrowly focused that you’ll get by even if you’ve forgotten it.  Flashbacks and characters stating exposition will fill in the gaps. https://ift.tt/2ZaeBhC

    Pandemic Binge Watching Part Three – The New Season Wilhelm Arcturus In parts one and two I went on about shows we started on fresh.  But the binge-watching life isn’t all about brand new shows.  Sometimes the agonizing year long wait ends and something you watched before comes out with a new season.  So I am going to cover a few of those shows we’ve watched and, in the process, answer the most important question: Do you need to go back and watch past episodes? (You should just watch everything if you haven’t started on a show, but if you’re up to date and a new season comes along, the question is valid.) Homeland – Showtime production, most seasons on Hulu 8 seasons total We watched the first three seasons of Homeland way back in the day, back when it wasn’t clear that Carrie Matheson was really the central unifying figure of the show.  Also, I think we watched on DVDs from Netflix.  Somewhere along the way we caught season four.  And then, when surfing around for something to watch I saw that Hulu had all but the final season available, so off we went. Carrie is clearly the center and a pattern is now apparent where she must at some point each season: Fight with Saul Make a bunch of promises she won’t keep Screw over somebody who trusts her Join forces with Saul Go off her meds or otherwise off the reservation Eventually turn out to be right She is both the best and worse of the show.  Fortunately, there is a host of excellent supporting roles to hold things together when the script sends her off the rails and I find the stories interesting… though some seem very quaint given our current president.  Somebody agonizes over doing a mildly bad thing that Trump would approve in a heart beat.  I keep thinking, “Remember when somebody would resign over that?” Now we just need to find season 8 to finish up the series. Good for: A look back at some old school political and spy drama. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: No.  Carrie will mouth enough connecting exposition about her current status with the agency and Saul to let you know where things stand. Marcella – Netflix Three seasons total A psychological police drama about a detective who comes back to the force and is back following a serial killer who was active before she left.  Trouble at home and her of mental trauma play into her view of the world and make her a compelling character.  We burned through the first two seasons pretty quickly. Good for: Somebody who wants an investigation that might leave unanswered questions Do you need to rewatch past seasons: No.  For the first couple of episodes of season three you’ll think you have to, because nothing makes any sense, but eventually they explain.  Just ride it out. Umbrella Academy – Neflix Two seasons total The unorthodox time and space bending super hero story about a set of kids, all born on the same day, who were collected and adopted by one Sir Reginald Hargreeves who wants them for their super powers.  Crazy, compelling, interesting, and fun to watch.  I enjoyed it.  Season two just makes things all the more crazy and compelling. Good for: Somebody sick of the scale of MCU. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: Oh fuck yeah.  If you go into season 2 and haven’t recently watched the first season, you’ll end up having to pause and look things up just to keep things straight.  There are way too many moving parts.  They do a quick summary, but it isn’t enough.  If you don’t know their numbers and their powers by heart, just watch the first season again. Killing Eve – BBC America, available on Hulu Three seasons total A charming, fresh, exciting new show in its first season, featuring spy craft and assassination in the current day, Killing Eve grabbed a lot of people  Then the show didn’t quite know what to do with itself after the first eight show run.  First season good, second season okay, third season… unsatisfying.  The Eve and Villanelle dynamic is what gives the show life, but they can’t always be sneaking up on each other I guess.  And Jodie Comer (who was also one of the Elizabeths in The White Princess which I mentioned in part one) plays the quirky Villanelle so well that even unsatisfying was fun at times. Good for: Somebody in search of something that seemed charming, fresh, and exciting in 2018. Do you need to rewatch past seasons: The past seasons are the good stuff.  If you dive right into season three you’ll feel a little lost, but I’m not sure you’ll care. Lucifer – Netflix Five seasons total The devil has left hell and got himself a nightclub in LA… you’d probably think Vegas first, but really, LA is where he would go when you think about it… under the name Lucifer Morningstar.  He can help people get what they desire for a price.  And then he runs into Detective Chloe Decker of the LAPD and the whole thing turns into Castle set in LA with the devil rather than a mystery writer. Still, I liked Castle for a few seasons.  The problem is that in both the main question is whether the devil/writer will finally get together with the homicide detective and you can only put that off for a few seasons before the question has to be resolved, after which the show dies.  Or, at least that was what happened with Castle. It is dumb, and was a Fox show for three seasons, so there are a lot of episodes where the quality varies, but the actors are mostly good.  Lucifer his siblings and parents become part of the plot and they are often much more interesting than the petty grievances of mankind. Good for: Somebody who wants a remake of Castle with the devil? Do you need to rewatch past seasons: Nah, it really isn’t that deep. Hanna – Amazon Prime Two seasons total Based on the 2011 film, there is a secret government super soldier program, some wolf DNA, some young girls, and… well… call it a girl’s school version Jason Bourne.  Lots of action, evil government operatives, top secrets stuff, and so on.  The first season was okay, though not all that memorable.  The second season goes a little more into project Treadstone… erm, UTRAX… and the girls, their school, and their mission.  Things are still over the top, but I found it more interesting. Good for: Somebody who wants a girl’s school version of Jason Bourne? Do you need to rewatch past seasons:  The first season is so narrowly focused that you’ll get by even if you’ve forgotten it.  Flashbacks and characters stating exposition will fill in the gaps. https://ift.tt/2ZaeBhC

    سبتمبر 06, 2020 0

    In parts one and two I went on about shows we started on fresh.  But the binge-watching life isn’t all about brand new shows.  Sometimes t...

    SuperData Say Pokemon Go was All Go Go Go in July Wilhelm Arcturus SuperData Research got their monthly chart out for July last week and I am going to squeeze in a post about it here on the last day of August. SuperData Research Top 10 – July 2020 On the PC side of the chart, the usual top four remain in place, though League of Legends regained the top spot on the chart after being down in second for June. Valorant, the shooter from Riot, moved up a spot.  It showed up on the scene in sixth place, but moved to fifth this month, swapping positions with Roblox.  World of Tanks, which fell off the list last month, returned in seventh spot, just ahead of World of Warcraft.  And bringing up the rear are CS:GO and Fortnite.  The Sims 4, which was in tenth spot for June fell off the list. For consoles, the much talked about Ghost of Tsushima topped the chart.  Per the report: Ghost of Tsushima sold 1.9M digital units in July to become the fastest-selling new PlayStation IP. The game far outpaced the early sales of other new franchises launched on PlayStation 4: Horizon: Zero Dawn sold 1.9M units in its first two months on the market in early 2017, and Days Gone sold 1.3M units in its first two months after launching in late April 2019. Ghost of Tsushima also set the record for the biggest console game ever launched during the month of July. The Last of Us Part II, also a PlayStation exclusive, set the June record only one month prior. A lack of alternative entertainment options due to COVID-19 has contributed to the success of recent PlayStation titles during what is historically a quiet season for new game releases. GTA V pulled in fifth place, just ahead of Fortnite, and Pokemon Sword and Shield made it on to the list thanks to the expansion for the game launched on the Switch.  Paper Mario: The Oragami King also got a mention from SuperData: Paper Mario: The Origami King sold 555K digital units in July. While its performance was nowhere near those of the last big Switch exclusives, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (5.0M) and Pokémon Sword and Shield (2.7M), the game did better than Fire Emblem: Three Houses when it launched in July 2019. And on the mobile end of the chart Pokemon Go rose to first place based on a dedicated, if smaller, following. Pokémon GO had its second-biggest revenue month ever. Earnings were just 0.4% lower than in August 2016, when the game was a global phenomenon. Now, however, it relies on a dedicated core of high-spending players, and July 2020 user numbers were just 15% of what they were in August 2016. July revenue was up thanks to the ‘Pokémon GO Fest’ in-game event on July 25 and 26. The event required a $15 fee to access a range of challenges and activities. Meanwhile, the venerable Candy Crush Saga remained on the list, holding on in tenth position. SuperData also pointed out the game Free Fire, which grabbed third place in July. Free Fire has become the number two [three?] mobile game by carving out a niche in emerging markets. The mobile battle royale title from Singaporean publisher Garena has the distinction of being the world’s top Southeast Asian-published game. The game runs well on affordable, low-spec mobile phones and regularly tops the charts in markets like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America. I’ll have to keep an eye on Free Fire going forward, representing the markets it does. NPD also has their top ten chart for July available as well.  As always, NPD numbers are US only, combine PC and console sales, and doesn’t always include digital sales (where noted). Ghost of Tsushima Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Paper Mario: The Origami King* The Last of Us: Part II Animal Crossing: New Horizons* Ring Fit Adventure Mortal Kombat 11 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe* Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris *Digital sales on Nintendo eShop not included Being focused on retail, the NPD list is heavy on console titles, as they depend on physical sales much more than PC games.  And, while Ghost of Tsushima tops the list as expected, half the list is also Nintendo products, showing again how much they depend on retail over digital sales.   https://ift.tt/3gLpdK3

    SuperData Say Pokemon Go was All Go Go Go in July Wilhelm Arcturus SuperData Research got their monthly chart out for July last week and I am going to squeeze in a post about it here on the last day of August. SuperData Research Top 10 – July 2020 On the PC side of the chart, the usual top four remain in place, though League of Legends regained the top spot on the chart after being down in second for June. Valorant, the shooter from Riot, moved up a spot.  It showed up on the scene in sixth place, but moved to fifth this month, swapping positions with Roblox.  World of Tanks, which fell off the list last month, returned in seventh spot, just ahead of World of Warcraft.  And bringing up the rear are CS:GO and Fortnite.  The Sims 4, which was in tenth spot for June fell off the list. For consoles, the much talked about Ghost of Tsushima topped the chart.  Per the report: Ghost of Tsushima sold 1.9M digital units in July to become the fastest-selling new PlayStation IP. The game far outpaced the early sales of other new franchises launched on PlayStation 4: Horizon: Zero Dawn sold 1.9M units in its first two months on the market in early 2017, and Days Gone sold 1.3M units in its first two months after launching in late April 2019. Ghost of Tsushima also set the record for the biggest console game ever launched during the month of July. The Last of Us Part II, also a PlayStation exclusive, set the June record only one month prior. A lack of alternative entertainment options due to COVID-19 has contributed to the success of recent PlayStation titles during what is historically a quiet season for new game releases. GTA V pulled in fifth place, just ahead of Fortnite, and Pokemon Sword and Shield made it on to the list thanks to the expansion for the game launched on the Switch.  Paper Mario: The Oragami King also got a mention from SuperData: Paper Mario: The Origami King sold 555K digital units in July. While its performance was nowhere near those of the last big Switch exclusives, Animal Crossing: New Horizons (5.0M) and Pokémon Sword and Shield (2.7M), the game did better than Fire Emblem: Three Houses when it launched in July 2019. And on the mobile end of the chart Pokemon Go rose to first place based on a dedicated, if smaller, following. Pokémon GO had its second-biggest revenue month ever. Earnings were just 0.4% lower than in August 2016, when the game was a global phenomenon. Now, however, it relies on a dedicated core of high-spending players, and July 2020 user numbers were just 15% of what they were in August 2016. July revenue was up thanks to the ‘Pokémon GO Fest’ in-game event on July 25 and 26. The event required a $15 fee to access a range of challenges and activities. Meanwhile, the venerable Candy Crush Saga remained on the list, holding on in tenth position. SuperData also pointed out the game Free Fire, which grabbed third place in July. Free Fire has become the number two [three?] mobile game by carving out a niche in emerging markets. The mobile battle royale title from Singaporean publisher Garena has the distinction of being the world’s top Southeast Asian-published game. The game runs well on affordable, low-spec mobile phones and regularly tops the charts in markets like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America. I’ll have to keep an eye on Free Fire going forward, representing the markets it does. NPD also has their top ten chart for July available as well.  As always, NPD numbers are US only, combine PC and console sales, and doesn’t always include digital sales (where noted). Ghost of Tsushima Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Paper Mario: The Origami King* The Last of Us: Part II Animal Crossing: New Horizons* Ring Fit Adventure Mortal Kombat 11 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe* Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris *Digital sales on Nintendo eShop not included Being focused on retail, the NPD list is heavy on console titles, as they depend on physical sales much more than PC games.  And, while Ghost of Tsushima tops the list as expected, half the list is also Nintendo products, showing again how much they depend on retail over digital sales.   https://ift.tt/3gLpdK3

    أغسطس 31, 2020 0

    SuperData Research got their monthly chart out for July last week and I am going to squeeze in a post about it here on the last day of Augu...

    Fourteen Years of Spaceship Meta Wilhelm Arcturus Another year has gone by since I started playing EVE Online.  Fourteen years ago today I rolled up my first character using a name I had originally made up back in 1986 to play another online spaceship game.  This pre-dates the launch of the blog by two weeks, so EVE Online was the last new game I started playing before I started this mess. New Eden Me I don’t really have much to say for this anniversary.  I think I have told and re-told the tales of my early days enough and I barely do anything new anymore.  New Eden is like a story that keeps going, a book I cannot quite put down.  Some chapters were so good that I can put up with some more pedestrian times in the hope of something interesting coming up again. Like a war. Well, we have a war, a good one, with lots of stuff blowing up and potentially a climactic ending.  A last stand in 1DQ1-A would be something… though I thought a last stand in VFK-IV would be something as well, and we didn’t get that.  But I’ll write about the war some more later. Today I thought I would reflect on something else.  In looking for something to write about I started thinking about all the ships I had flown and how the meta of the game dictated many of those choices.  Even early on, when I was wandering about solo and chasing the goal of mining perfection, there was an optimal path forward.  You went from the Bantam to the Osprey to the Retriever to the Hulk. Oh, and you totally needed a Mammoth to haul ore on your alt.  That was the optimum configuration. Mammoth and Retriever… with jet can… back in 2007 That all got shaken up later on.  They redid the mining barges and exhumers, then added mining frigates.  You need never mine in a combat ship any more as you climb the ladder to the Rorqual, the current mining pinnacle. But change is the way of things. Early on the Rifter, the icon frigate of New Eden for so long, was what you flew.  Now you don’t.  Maybe you fly a Kestrel instead, or an Atron, if you want to go do some frigate PvP.  Just not a Punisher.  Two mid slots are never enough. It is fun to think about the cycles over time, of balance passes bringing one hull or another to predominance and then further tweaks casting that same hull down.  When I came out to null sec, the Maelstrom was the CFC ship of the line and the Hurricane the battlecruiser of choice.  I had a Digi-cane at one point, though I couldn’t tell you what that signified. Then there were some changes and the era of the MWD Drake came into being, moving along at 1,300 m/s and spewing heavy missiles.  That was good because back then I had few skill points, but I had invested heavily in shields, heavy missiles, and the battlecruiser skill. (Back when it and destroyers were just a single skill for all empires.)  Then some counters came up and then heavy missiles got a nerf and we were on to something else. Meanwhile the Malestroms gave way to the Dominix when drone assist was the thing.  Then came Megathrons then the Apocalypse and then a mix of the two.  We were hot on the Machariel for a bit, then the Typhoon off and on, and then back to the Megathron.  The Rokh and the Abaddon show up now and again as well for special tasks.  Oh, the Rokh showed up again just last week in a new doctrine: To this day I remain mildly amused at the spot the Ferox now plays in null sec fleets.  To have suggested it as a doctrine back in the day would have been met with derision.  I remember an early attempt to form a doctrine around it had to be called the “non-ironic Ferox doctrine” just to indicate that it was serious.  Now you can’t show up to a fleet fight without tripping over Ferox wrecks, while a Drake on the field is a rare sight indeed.  We actually blew up an NSH Drake the other day and I was practically shocked. The a balance pass comes, the meta shifts, and a new ship becomes the doctrine flavor of the month.  How many times have people complained, at least out in null sec, that the game has become Ishtars online, or Lokis online, or Feroxes online?  If we’re talking destroyers then it is Cormorants online for sure.  Or maybe Jackdaws online.  Caldari hulls seem to be doing pretty well. The only sure things are that eventually something will change and that somebody will start complaining about the new meta, whatever it ends up being. Well that and that some ship will remain left out.  The balance pass doesn’t promise every hull a chance.  I’ve never flown a Hyperion, for example.  The Harbinger was popular for about five minutes during a break with the Ferox.  But the Ferox came back and I never got to fire the lasers on the Harby in anger.  And we had a Cyclone doctrine for about 15 minutes one summer afternoon years back.  I know because I have a screen shot. Orbiting the customs office in some Cyclones Cruisers also seem neglected, save for the Caracal.  But they tend to be fragile.  I think every Rupture I ever flew ended up getting pipe-bombed.  So heavy assault cruisers rule the day.  I have at least flown some of those in combat.  The Ishtar, the Cerberus, and the Munnin seem to always have a place.  Eagles were popular for a season, and Zealots seem to come and go.  The Sacrilege is a hot item currently, and I see a Vagabond now and then, but I don’t think I have ever seen a Deimos in the wild.  Probably not suited to the kitey bullshit… the term of art these days… that FCs favor. And then there are the faction ships, especially faction battleships.  They come and go or have special roles. The nice thing is that after fourteen years I think I can fly any subcap you throw at me.  I even trained up the EDENCOM hulls to V since they were released. The story of the game and your own history with it can be told in many ways.  Expansions.  Skill points.  Battles.  ISK.  Or even the ships you flew and when you flew them. Addendum: The Greybill linked to some videos about ships and their popularity over the years in EVE Online.  You can find the videos listed below: T1 and Faction Frigates T1 and Faction Cruisers Assault Frigates Heavy Assault Cruisers T1 and Faction Combat Battlecruisers T1 and Faction Battleships Those graphs are for the game overall, so don’t always reflect the null sec meta.  In battleships you could see the drone assist era with the Dominix at the top.  But after that the Machariel rules the roost, likely based on low sec, as it is a fairly rare doctrine in our corner of null sec these days.  Though, that said, null sec is also Feroxes and Munnins online most days, so battleships do not get that much weight out where I live in any case. https://ift.tt/2EENS5X

    Fourteen Years of Spaceship Meta Wilhelm Arcturus Another year has gone by since I started playing EVE Online.  Fourteen years ago today I rolled up my first character using a name I had originally made up back in 1986 to play another online spaceship game.  This pre-dates the launch of the blog by two weeks, so EVE Online was the last new game I started playing before I started this mess. New Eden Me I don’t really have much to say for this anniversary.  I think I have told and re-told the tales of my early days enough and I barely do anything new anymore.  New Eden is like a story that keeps going, a book I cannot quite put down.  Some chapters were so good that I can put up with some more pedestrian times in the hope of something interesting coming up again. Like a war. Well, we have a war, a good one, with lots of stuff blowing up and potentially a climactic ending.  A last stand in 1DQ1-A would be something… though I thought a last stand in VFK-IV would be something as well, and we didn’t get that.  But I’ll write about the war some more later. Today I thought I would reflect on something else.  In looking for something to write about I started thinking about all the ships I had flown and how the meta of the game dictated many of those choices.  Even early on, when I was wandering about solo and chasing the goal of mining perfection, there was an optimal path forward.  You went from the Bantam to the Osprey to the Retriever to the Hulk. Oh, and you totally needed a Mammoth to haul ore on your alt.  That was the optimum configuration. Mammoth and Retriever… with jet can… back in 2007 That all got shaken up later on.  They redid the mining barges and exhumers, then added mining frigates.  You need never mine in a combat ship any more as you climb the ladder to the Rorqual, the current mining pinnacle. But change is the way of things. Early on the Rifter, the icon frigate of New Eden for so long, was what you flew.  Now you don’t.  Maybe you fly a Kestrel instead, or an Atron, if you want to go do some frigate PvP.  Just not a Punisher.  Two mid slots are never enough. It is fun to think about the cycles over time, of balance passes bringing one hull or another to predominance and then further tweaks casting that same hull down.  When I came out to null sec, the Maelstrom was the CFC ship of the line and the Hurricane the battlecruiser of choice.  I had a Digi-cane at one point, though I couldn’t tell you what that signified. Then there were some changes and the era of the MWD Drake came into being, moving along at 1,300 m/s and spewing heavy missiles.  That was good because back then I had few skill points, but I had invested heavily in shields, heavy missiles, and the battlecruiser skill. (Back when it and destroyers were just a single skill for all empires.)  Then some counters came up and then heavy missiles got a nerf and we were on to something else. Meanwhile the Malestroms gave way to the Dominix when drone assist was the thing.  Then came Megathrons then the Apocalypse and then a mix of the two.  We were hot on the Machariel for a bit, then the Typhoon off and on, and then back to the Megathron.  The Rokh and the Abaddon show up now and again as well for special tasks.  Oh, the Rokh showed up again just last week in a new doctrine: To this day I remain mildly amused at the spot the Ferox now plays in null sec fleets.  To have suggested it as a doctrine back in the day would have been met with derision.  I remember an early attempt to form a doctrine around it had to be called the “non-ironic Ferox doctrine” just to indicate that it was serious.  Now you can’t show up to a fleet fight without tripping over Ferox wrecks, while a Drake on the field is a rare sight indeed.  We actually blew up an NSH Drake the other day and I was practically shocked. The a balance pass comes, the meta shifts, and a new ship becomes the doctrine flavor of the month.  How many times have people complained, at least out in null sec, that the game has become Ishtars online, or Lokis online, or Feroxes online?  If we’re talking destroyers then it is Cormorants online for sure.  Or maybe Jackdaws online.  Caldari hulls seem to be doing pretty well. The only sure things are that eventually something will change and that somebody will start complaining about the new meta, whatever it ends up being. Well that and that some ship will remain left out.  The balance pass doesn’t promise every hull a chance.  I’ve never flown a Hyperion, for example.  The Harbinger was popular for about five minutes during a break with the Ferox.  But the Ferox came back and I never got to fire the lasers on the Harby in anger.  And we had a Cyclone doctrine for about 15 minutes one summer afternoon years back.  I know because I have a screen shot. Orbiting the customs office in some Cyclones Cruisers also seem neglected, save for the Caracal.  But they tend to be fragile.  I think every Rupture I ever flew ended up getting pipe-bombed.  So heavy assault cruisers rule the day.  I have at least flown some of those in combat.  The Ishtar, the Cerberus, and the Munnin seem to always have a place.  Eagles were popular for a season, and Zealots seem to come and go.  The Sacrilege is a hot item currently, and I see a Vagabond now and then, but I don’t think I have ever seen a Deimos in the wild.  Probably not suited to the kitey bullshit… the term of art these days… that FCs favor. And then there are the faction ships, especially faction battleships.  They come and go or have special roles. The nice thing is that after fourteen years I think I can fly any subcap you throw at me.  I even trained up the EDENCOM hulls to V since they were released. The story of the game and your own history with it can be told in many ways.  Expansions.  Skill points.  Battles.  ISK.  Or even the ships you flew and when you flew them. Addendum: The Greybill linked to some videos about ships and their popularity over the years in EVE Online.  You can find the videos listed below: T1 and Faction Frigates T1 and Faction Cruisers Assault Frigates Heavy Assault Cruisers T1 and Faction Combat Battlecruisers T1 and Faction Battleships Those graphs are for the game overall, so don’t always reflect the null sec meta.  In battleships you could see the drone assist era with the Dominix at the top.  But after that the Machariel rules the roost, likely based on low sec, as it is a fairly rare doctrine in our corner of null sec these days.  Though, that said, null sec is also Feroxes and Munnins online most days, so battleships do not get that much weight out where I live in any case. https://ift.tt/2EENS5X

    أغسطس 30, 2020 0

    Another year has gone by since I started playing EVE Online .  Fourteen years ago today I rolled up my first character using a name I had or...

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