I figure I might as well head this one off before somebody asks (ha!).
Essentially, I was on 4chan, which is sort of like the internets answer to Mos Eisley, and I was having a heated discussion with somebody in their video games board over something non-consequential (obviously). We exchanged insulting portmantau composites, I did some research, discovered he was right and I was wrong, I apologised, the entire board reacted like common courtesy was some kind of foreign entity and acted like a bunch of idiot babies to compensate.
To the best of my knowledge they are still doing so.
And that's why if you ever find yourself on 4chan (good god you MUST be lost) and you see someone called I apologised on 4chan, that's me that is.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Honk Honk I'm a Tonk
Lately I've been playing World of Tanks. It always impresses me just how active their online marketing is, heck, if you look at my google adverts bar you've got a reasonable chance of seeing a link to it.
Of course that can be a double edged sword, 90% of the games you see advertised this way are tosh, so people make the initial assumption that this carries through to WoT.
I wont say this couldn't be further from the truth, but WoT is definately fun. At it heart it's actually quite a basic game, you and 14 other people in their WW2 tanks vs 15 other tankers in a fairly diverse mix of maps as you attempt to either defeat the opposing team or capture their base. That's it.
In truth we could do with some more game modes.
Anyway the real meat of it is that if your computer can run the high-fidelity settings then World of Tanks really does look excellent, you can tell that a mountain of work has gone into making the vehicles in this game look and operate in as real to life as they possibly can. It also works on the free to play model used by many Korean online games, where they make their money not in a monthly subscription, but rather through premium microtransactions - and from a purely business perspective I have to admire how tempting they make them without actually gimping a players ability to win and enjoy the game.
The microtransaction medium involves the purchase of a in-game currency simply called gold for real money and with this gold you can do a variety of things. A premium account increases the money and research you receive in battle by around 50% which makes it easier to level up and get thos bigger and better tanks but only lasts for a certain amount of time, gold can also be transferred into cash, and is used to convert a fully researched tanks left over research into a communal pool, lastly it can also be used to by special premium tanks. Some of these tanks come from factions not currently supported in the game such as land lease british tanks, or captured French Tanks such as the Somua S35. These vehicles also come with a 50% boost to cash earned.
There are niggles with the game though. Ever since it went live for some reason the servers seem incapable of running 30 people online at once without lagging, this has been a consistent problem as well. Then there's the infamous issue of the invisible tank problem where a bugged, or possibly just plain badly thought out spotting system allows tanks to dissapear from plain sight like magic. There's also some bugged issues involving armour that the WoT team are being sluggish with rectifying. Also, although it's been promised, the game needs an easier way of reporting bad behaviour ingame, as is the responsibility falls to the person being griefed or insulted to provide the burden of proof and make the extra effort to contact the support team in order for anything to get done. This basically ensures that the malcontent in question will get away unreported simply because it's such a faff. This is one of those things that should have been fixed BEFORE going live but didn't. It's quite clear that the WoT teams priority is including as many tanks as possible over gameplay balance or bug fixing, which from one point of view is okay, since tanks are the main draw here, but a little bit better customer service would be nice.
So, is World of Tanks worth a play? Yes. Has there never been a better time to start playing World of Tanks now that it's gone live? No, that would be a few months back when you got free gold at the start of every day during the open beta phase. But you missed that boat.
Basically, I reccommend giving it a go, and when you get bored of it, wait for them to add something new (American Tank Destroyers and the French Faction is apparently being worked on) and come back to it then.
I mean come on, it's free.
Of course that can be a double edged sword, 90% of the games you see advertised this way are tosh, so people make the initial assumption that this carries through to WoT.
I wont say this couldn't be further from the truth, but WoT is definately fun. At it heart it's actually quite a basic game, you and 14 other people in their WW2 tanks vs 15 other tankers in a fairly diverse mix of maps as you attempt to either defeat the opposing team or capture their base. That's it.
In truth we could do with some more game modes.
Anyway the real meat of it is that if your computer can run the high-fidelity settings then World of Tanks really does look excellent, you can tell that a mountain of work has gone into making the vehicles in this game look and operate in as real to life as they possibly can. It also works on the free to play model used by many Korean online games, where they make their money not in a monthly subscription, but rather through premium microtransactions - and from a purely business perspective I have to admire how tempting they make them without actually gimping a players ability to win and enjoy the game.
The microtransaction medium involves the purchase of a in-game currency simply called gold for real money and with this gold you can do a variety of things. A premium account increases the money and research you receive in battle by around 50% which makes it easier to level up and get thos bigger and better tanks but only lasts for a certain amount of time, gold can also be transferred into cash, and is used to convert a fully researched tanks left over research into a communal pool, lastly it can also be used to by special premium tanks. Some of these tanks come from factions not currently supported in the game such as land lease british tanks, or captured French Tanks such as the Somua S35. These vehicles also come with a 50% boost to cash earned.
There are niggles with the game though. Ever since it went live for some reason the servers seem incapable of running 30 people online at once without lagging, this has been a consistent problem as well. Then there's the infamous issue of the invisible tank problem where a bugged, or possibly just plain badly thought out spotting system allows tanks to dissapear from plain sight like magic. There's also some bugged issues involving armour that the WoT team are being sluggish with rectifying. Also, although it's been promised, the game needs an easier way of reporting bad behaviour ingame, as is the responsibility falls to the person being griefed or insulted to provide the burden of proof and make the extra effort to contact the support team in order for anything to get done. This basically ensures that the malcontent in question will get away unreported simply because it's such a faff. This is one of those things that should have been fixed BEFORE going live but didn't. It's quite clear that the WoT teams priority is including as many tanks as possible over gameplay balance or bug fixing, which from one point of view is okay, since tanks are the main draw here, but a little bit better customer service would be nice.
So, is World of Tanks worth a play? Yes. Has there never been a better time to start playing World of Tanks now that it's gone live? No, that would be a few months back when you got free gold at the start of every day during the open beta phase. But you missed that boat.
Basically, I reccommend giving it a go, and when you get bored of it, wait for them to add something new (American Tank Destroyers and the French Faction is apparently being worked on) and come back to it then.
I mean come on, it's free.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Armada 2525
Purchasing this was a mistake. Financially I believe I can probably support it but, it's just a not a good game, and you can't return anything bought over Steam.
I mean, I've always been a fan of this particualr genre, but like all niches there are good examples and bad ones, and unfortunately Armada 2525 falls into the latter catagory.
I mean, there are some good ideas present, but there's absolutely nothing original or that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Furthermore the presentation is poor in all areas, the minimap is difficult to get information from, and Ship battles are a dull, counter-intuitive mess.
It doesn't suprise me in the least that Armada 2525 have never put out Demo, as then nobody would have ever bought it. I wouldn't even pirate this game.
To be fair, a lot of it feels similar to how Paradoxes Sword in the Stars felt early on in it's life, so it's possible that all it needs is a bit of post release polish. However, that said it's already been released for a fairly long time with no changes, plus it's a homage to a much older DOS game (which irksomely enough happens to be better than this remake).
There are good games out there where you lead an interstellar nation to victory through "various" means, most of them involving gunboat diplomacy, but this isn't one of them.
I mean, I've always been a fan of this particualr genre, but like all niches there are good examples and bad ones, and unfortunately Armada 2525 falls into the latter catagory.
I mean, there are some good ideas present, but there's absolutely nothing original or that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Furthermore the presentation is poor in all areas, the minimap is difficult to get information from, and Ship battles are a dull, counter-intuitive mess.
It doesn't suprise me in the least that Armada 2525 have never put out Demo, as then nobody would have ever bought it. I wouldn't even pirate this game.
To be fair, a lot of it feels similar to how Paradoxes Sword in the Stars felt early on in it's life, so it's possible that all it needs is a bit of post release polish. However, that said it's already been released for a fairly long time with no changes, plus it's a homage to a much older DOS game (which irksomely enough happens to be better than this remake).
There are good games out there where you lead an interstellar nation to victory through "various" means, most of them involving gunboat diplomacy, but this isn't one of them.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
I figure I might as well post this.
This is essentially the only decent picture I got SOMEHOW out of the entire day.
Can I be honest? This is hardly the best paint scheme in the world Forgeworld. It's a far cry from the Black and Red colours of the old Chaos Dwarves. Also, they were showing off a whole regiment of the new Chaos Dwarves. Unfortunately using the Hellcanon design looks.
I still can't believe were ditching the Babylonian style hats, at the moment all Chaos Dwarves look like are titchy chaos warriors, which isn't actually supposed to be the case.
Ah well. Have a picture of Daleks vs Cybermen. With some humans incongruously involved as well, pesky humans!
Also, did anyone else know they made a Willow boardgame? What's up with that face?
Can I be honest? This is hardly the best paint scheme in the world Forgeworld. It's a far cry from the Black and Red colours of the old Chaos Dwarves. Also, they were showing off a whole regiment of the new Chaos Dwarves. Unfortunately using the Hellcanon design looks.
I still can't believe were ditching the Babylonian style hats, at the moment all Chaos Dwarves look like are titchy chaos warriors, which isn't actually supposed to be the case.
Ah well. Have a picture of Daleks vs Cybermen. With some humans incongruously involved as well, pesky humans!
Also, did anyone else know they made a Willow boardgame? What's up with that face?
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Salute 2011
Since I went to Salute yesterday, I figure I'd probably best give a report about it. I'd supply pictures, but my sisters digital camera kept trying to focus on things behind what I was taking pictures of and everything is fuzzy and terrible.
Anyway, the day started with me getting up at 6 in the morning since we had advance tickets and would probably be allowed to get in early (or so we thought, for some reason people who bought tickets on the day were let in before us. We all agreed that this was a disgrace).
Since this was my first time in Salute, I didn't really have anything to judge this year against but other people I talked to told me that this year seemed to have less stands than last, Games Workshop were noticably absent, even though Black Library and Forgeworld had stands there. That said, with Wayland Games, Leisure Games and Maelstrom all selling GW stuff, they probably still came out okay at the end of the day all the same. Fantasy Flight's absence was also noticeable, especially given that Privateer Press had set up a stand.
On arriving the first 5000 people were given a goodie bag containing a carrybag for an army case, a brochure, some business cards, a leaflet talking about Osprey's new modern warfare game "Force on Force" a pewter American Civil War model and a tiny (3mil at least) Volkswagen Beetle. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WENT TO SALUTE MAKE SURE TO CHECK YOUR BAGS FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS BEFORE THROWING THE BAG OUT, IT REALLY IS TINY.
This years theme was the Civil War, but it was really only half-heartedly implemented, and several people who had turned up with western themed costumes shuffled about the stands looking embarrassed at how badly they'd misread things. At one point a re-enactment team marched through the hall, but they gave up within minutes.
Anyway, Flames of War were showing off their new Armoured War Train sets and Vietnam Rules (the rules of which come free with this month's copy of Wargames Illustrated) and whilst I was interested in getting a Sheridan tank for my collection, they only sold them in 3 man sections at £22 which was more than I was looking to spend.
Whilst I never managed to get a game in any of the demo games going on as they were always too busy, I don't really mind, I had a lot of fun rifling through the bring and buy sections and looking at all of the products on offer.
Forgeworld weren't really showing off anything that they hadn't already shown previously, aside from their WW2 ruleset, but I'll get interested in a GW made WW2 ruleset when they remember that Epic Armageddon is one of their properties and combine the two.
Seriously, that ruleset is MADE for WW2 battles.
The main thing I noticed as I browsed the stands was that the price of metal really has skyrocketed lately. Spartan Game's Firestorm Armada had metal escorts worth more than the giant battleships that they escort (and Firestorm Armada has some stupidly huge ships) . But stranger still was how much more expensive even simple items like dice towers and movement trays are now. £4 for a simple tray? £12 for a plastic dice tower? You are having a laugh surely.
The state of our economy with regards to the small businessman nothwithstanding, I enjoyed Salute, but I feel that I saw and did everything I needed to see and do by lunchtime, and by which point I was really only killing time until the draw.
The first six names drawn out of the hat turned out to have had the same idea as I'd had and left early. We nearly won that 250 quid by process of elimination.
Maybe next year. Maybe.
Anyway, the day started with me getting up at 6 in the morning since we had advance tickets and would probably be allowed to get in early (or so we thought, for some reason people who bought tickets on the day were let in before us. We all agreed that this was a disgrace).
Since this was my first time in Salute, I didn't really have anything to judge this year against but other people I talked to told me that this year seemed to have less stands than last, Games Workshop were noticably absent, even though Black Library and Forgeworld had stands there. That said, with Wayland Games, Leisure Games and Maelstrom all selling GW stuff, they probably still came out okay at the end of the day all the same. Fantasy Flight's absence was also noticeable, especially given that Privateer Press had set up a stand.
On arriving the first 5000 people were given a goodie bag containing a carrybag for an army case, a brochure, some business cards, a leaflet talking about Osprey's new modern warfare game "Force on Force" a pewter American Civil War model and a tiny (3mil at least) Volkswagen Beetle. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WENT TO SALUTE MAKE SURE TO CHECK YOUR BAGS FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS BEFORE THROWING THE BAG OUT, IT REALLY IS TINY.
This years theme was the Civil War, but it was really only half-heartedly implemented, and several people who had turned up with western themed costumes shuffled about the stands looking embarrassed at how badly they'd misread things. At one point a re-enactment team marched through the hall, but they gave up within minutes.
Anyway, Flames of War were showing off their new Armoured War Train sets and Vietnam Rules (the rules of which come free with this month's copy of Wargames Illustrated) and whilst I was interested in getting a Sheridan tank for my collection, they only sold them in 3 man sections at £22 which was more than I was looking to spend.
Whilst I never managed to get a game in any of the demo games going on as they were always too busy, I don't really mind, I had a lot of fun rifling through the bring and buy sections and looking at all of the products on offer.
Forgeworld weren't really showing off anything that they hadn't already shown previously, aside from their WW2 ruleset, but I'll get interested in a GW made WW2 ruleset when they remember that Epic Armageddon is one of their properties and combine the two.
Seriously, that ruleset is MADE for WW2 battles.
The main thing I noticed as I browsed the stands was that the price of metal really has skyrocketed lately. Spartan Game's Firestorm Armada had metal escorts worth more than the giant battleships that they escort (and Firestorm Armada has some stupidly huge ships) . But stranger still was how much more expensive even simple items like dice towers and movement trays are now. £4 for a simple tray? £12 for a plastic dice tower? You are having a laugh surely.
The state of our economy with regards to the small businessman nothwithstanding, I enjoyed Salute, but I feel that I saw and did everything I needed to see and do by lunchtime, and by which point I was really only killing time until the draw.
The first six names drawn out of the hat turned out to have had the same idea as I'd had and left early. We nearly won that 250 quid by process of elimination.
Maybe next year. Maybe.
Does /tg/ need Mods/Janitors?
This post SHOULD be some sort of insipid "I started a blog, Yay me!" sort of thing, but that seemed somewhat passe.
Instead, I'd thought I'd open up with a somewhat controversial topic instead. Not that this is going to be the case all of the time. Most of the time I'd like to think this blog will be talking about the vidya and wargaming in general, but only time will tell.
Getting back on topic, does /tg/ the Traditional games board of 4chan need moderators and janitors?
If perhaps mods and janitors were infallible superhumans then yes. Hell, if they actually did they job they were supposed to do then it would work fine. But you've got to question the sort of personality that would actually put themselves forwards, and would be online enough to make them the first choice for being a Janitor of a 4chan board.
Certainly this doesn't mean that all mods and janitors are bad, /m/ has had some amazing mod/janitor induced moments in the past. /tg/ however? Nope. Every Janitor we've ever had has either been a powertripping fagoot, or an enabler who looks the other way as one guy gives the rest of them a bad name. /tg/ doesn't have a mod, it occaisionally get's the odd random roving mod who deletes porn if he notices enough reports from general fa/tg/uys or Janitors but that's about it.
Touhou-Guy-Gate pretty much proves as well that said mods don't actually pay any attention to what they're banning a guy for as well.
We've had at least two janitors over the years who's service doesn't surpass shite at best, and were out and out trolls at worst. The first one had all the hallmarks of a militant feminist (what the fuck one of those was doing on 4chan I can't even begin to speculate) who deleted any picture of a woman not wearing a duffel coat or heavier, then came the return of a Janitor who Moot had previously stripped of his authority for acting like an asshole.
Suprise fucking suprise he immiediately started acting like an asshole, deleting touhou pictures solely for trolling purposes. Then came his crowning moment, where he cyberbullied an autistic kid and then managed to get him permabanned from 4chan.
The outcry was tremendous, Moot himself came down to asnwer the cries of injustice.
His answer being "Cry moar faggots"
Although by this point this could be considered par for the course for Moot's dealings with /tg/ given that at the time we had a goddamn sarcastic sticky essentially banning meta-threads in a move straight out of the Dictators Handbook.
This pretty much set the tone for Janitors on /tg/. It leads us currently to the utterly bizarre situation where it's okay to talk about the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, but not Wakfu. Then came a sticky asking people on /tg/ to stop bitching about Matt Wards latest abortion of a Codex. Which is like King Cnut commanding the tide to not come in* at best and shows a woeful lack of understanding just why /tg/ was made to begin with.
Some people even now claim that /tg/ is better with these "janitors", claiming that it would be a hell of a lot worse without it, claiming that it would be beladen with spam and porn.
This pretty much demonstrates them to be newfags or trolls, the old pre-captcha, pre-janitor /tg/ was always laden with what they would call spam and it didn't burst into goddamn flames. Anything a Janitor needed to do, was largely dealt with when we got capcha, we don't really need anything more than that (assuming, knock on wood, that Capcha does keep out automated spam).
Also, even if /tg/ was full of fucking shit threads, it's not like those threads wouldn't last longer than a couple of hourse before dropping right off the board. 4chan, by it's very nature, is ephermeral, a bad thread will die, a good thread can survive upto several days (maybe even as long as a week) Stop acting like a bad thread is capable of physically hurting you, just ignore it and move on.
So, given that capcha does most of his work now, what does a Janitor with too much free time do?
That right: Abuse the fuck out of his power knowing full well that no matter how hard we complain with legitimate concerns, Moot, the power that be, will always take his side.
Does /tg/ need mods or janitors.
No. Hell no. Heck, time was when our lack of moderation was considered our strongest asset. Now though? Hitlers burnt down the reichstag, blamed it on a retard and got himself emergency powers, and what was once a democratic Weimar Republic enthusiastically votes away it's freedom with both hands raised.
/tg/ doesn't need moderation. It just needs people to download the 4chan addon for firefox and learn how to minimise threads. Also, if the population in general could try to be a little less horrified at every little thing that would help too. But then, it wouldn't really be /tg/ would it?
*Yes, I'm aware the Cnut was deliberately doing that to make the point that he WASN'T all powerful just for being king, but you get the idea.
Instead, I'd thought I'd open up with a somewhat controversial topic instead. Not that this is going to be the case all of the time. Most of the time I'd like to think this blog will be talking about the vidya and wargaming in general, but only time will tell.
Getting back on topic, does /tg/ the Traditional games board of 4chan need moderators and janitors?
If perhaps mods and janitors were infallible superhumans then yes. Hell, if they actually did they job they were supposed to do then it would work fine. But you've got to question the sort of personality that would actually put themselves forwards, and would be online enough to make them the first choice for being a Janitor of a 4chan board.
Certainly this doesn't mean that all mods and janitors are bad, /m/ has had some amazing mod/janitor induced moments in the past. /tg/ however? Nope. Every Janitor we've ever had has either been a powertripping fagoot, or an enabler who looks the other way as one guy gives the rest of them a bad name. /tg/ doesn't have a mod, it occaisionally get's the odd random roving mod who deletes porn if he notices enough reports from general fa/tg/uys or Janitors but that's about it.
Touhou-Guy-Gate pretty much proves as well that said mods don't actually pay any attention to what they're banning a guy for as well.
We've had at least two janitors over the years who's service doesn't surpass shite at best, and were out and out trolls at worst. The first one had all the hallmarks of a militant feminist (what the fuck one of those was doing on 4chan I can't even begin to speculate) who deleted any picture of a woman not wearing a duffel coat or heavier, then came the return of a Janitor who Moot had previously stripped of his authority for acting like an asshole.
Suprise fucking suprise he immiediately started acting like an asshole, deleting touhou pictures solely for trolling purposes. Then came his crowning moment, where he cyberbullied an autistic kid and then managed to get him permabanned from 4chan.
The outcry was tremendous, Moot himself came down to asnwer the cries of injustice.
His answer being "Cry moar faggots"
Although by this point this could be considered par for the course for Moot's dealings with /tg/ given that at the time we had a goddamn sarcastic sticky essentially banning meta-threads in a move straight out of the Dictators Handbook.
This pretty much set the tone for Janitors on /tg/. It leads us currently to the utterly bizarre situation where it's okay to talk about the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, but not Wakfu. Then came a sticky asking people on /tg/ to stop bitching about Matt Wards latest abortion of a Codex. Which is like King Cnut commanding the tide to not come in* at best and shows a woeful lack of understanding just why /tg/ was made to begin with.
Some people even now claim that /tg/ is better with these "janitors", claiming that it would be a hell of a lot worse without it, claiming that it would be beladen with spam and porn.
This pretty much demonstrates them to be newfags or trolls, the old pre-captcha, pre-janitor /tg/ was always laden with what they would call spam and it didn't burst into goddamn flames. Anything a Janitor needed to do, was largely dealt with when we got capcha, we don't really need anything more than that (assuming, knock on wood, that Capcha does keep out automated spam).
Also, even if /tg/ was full of fucking shit threads, it's not like those threads wouldn't last longer than a couple of hourse before dropping right off the board. 4chan, by it's very nature, is ephermeral, a bad thread will die, a good thread can survive upto several days (maybe even as long as a week) Stop acting like a bad thread is capable of physically hurting you, just ignore it and move on.
So, given that capcha does most of his work now, what does a Janitor with too much free time do?
That right: Abuse the fuck out of his power knowing full well that no matter how hard we complain with legitimate concerns, Moot, the power that be, will always take his side.
Does /tg/ need mods or janitors.
No. Hell no. Heck, time was when our lack of moderation was considered our strongest asset. Now though? Hitlers burnt down the reichstag, blamed it on a retard and got himself emergency powers, and what was once a democratic Weimar Republic enthusiastically votes away it's freedom with both hands raised.
/tg/ doesn't need moderation. It just needs people to download the 4chan addon for firefox and learn how to minimise threads. Also, if the population in general could try to be a little less horrified at every little thing that would help too. But then, it wouldn't really be /tg/ would it?
*Yes, I'm aware the Cnut was deliberately doing that to make the point that he WASN'T all powerful just for being king, but you get the idea.
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