How to make a PC FPS - 10 simple rules

I never thought I would have to do this. Actually that's a lie. I probably always have secretly wanted to. After so many a lol-shoot-the-man-lol games of recent years, so many that just fail on the PC (yes, the whole console/PC FPS rant again), I'm kind of fed up. Two titles that I will leave unannounced are AGAIN ports of their console counterparts. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you how to make a successful FPS on PC. I'm not going to talk about the theme of the game or the narrative structure or even the underlying game play mechanics. That's totally your job, and sif I'm going to do your job. What I will do is tell you what you need to have in your game. Or in some cases, what not to have.

1. Do not start your game with "Press the start button to begin".
Why do I need to press start ... to start? Why am I not looking at the main menu right now? What is the point of it to begin with? Why is it even here? In fact ... what start button? There is no start button on a keyboard. The only start button I know of exists on a ... oh. Now I get it. First sign of a bad console port? "Press the start button to begin".

2. Have a customizable graphics/game engine.
So you have either bought a game engine or made your own from scratch. Both are good options, nothing really wrong with either of them. This engine should (should) have a plethora of settings enabling certain input/output options and video parameters. This should range from everything, from anti-aliasing to texture settings. Allow your user to tweak them, and not through hidden config files in some roaming account attached file. A PC gamer wants to make the game look and feel just right. It is the very definition of why we own a PC and play games on them.


3. No mouse acceleration.
Seriously, fuck off. No one likes that shit. We are using a keyboard and motherfucking mouse for Christ's sakes. I don't need my mouse to speed up as I pan to the left because I am already looking at my target. Yes I just did a 180 degree spin instantly. It's what you can do with a mouse and it is not impressive. It is normal. On that note, no aim-assist. Or at least off by default. Using a mouse is precision aiming enough. If I want to shoot someone in the left earlobe than I will god damned shoot them in the left earlobe. I don't want some shit locking onto their head when I am checking out that palm tree behind them. Palm trees need loving too.

4. Have a 'console' with a decent array of commands (no, not the physical console you play on your TV)
From demo-recording to commands turning certain features on/off. Why? Because it will make your game that much more pleasant to play. And navigate. And benchmark. And mod. Do I need to explain why these are good things? Every good LAN game has had admin control commands to both set up games and prevent people from exploiting certain things. Commands allowing a fluent 'console' user to do things quickly on the fly is a good idea.

5. Dedicated server and LAN support
Holy hell. Which bogan from the dumpster thought the current (i.e. lack of) method of delivering modern multiplayer PC games was a good idea? If someone on your development team is suggesting this, shoot them. They are stupid. Yes, I can understand the want for online system security. Yes, I can understand the need for wanting control over all your servers (definetly not the right way to do it in any case). And YES, I can understand that this style of multiplayer gaming is quite popular ... on consoles! We are not playing on a console. We do not want to connect to the internet to play against our housemate who lives in the next room. Even consoles don't impose that insanity. PC gaming is about having options, not limiting them. Think about it. In 10 to 15 years from now, how in hell is someone going to even play your game in multiplayer? Which leads on to ...

6. Anti-consumer DRM
I could write an entire essay on why certain types of DRM are bad and how the whole piracy/punishing your customers model of things just doesn't work. I won't, at least not today. Simply put ... just don't. Games will always be cracked, workarounds devised and online authenticity checks disabled. Sure, you might stop 20% of otherwise illegitimate buyers. But needing to log on to three separate accounts alongside a profile and making an online tag which checks every nano-second to see if you are connected to the net is just awful design. There are many other and better ways of going about this. Take a look at League of Legend's business model. The game is free, and they still make heaps of dough!

7. UI Design, feedback and size matters. Or simply, lack thereof.
Crosshairs, weapons and indicators do not need to take up 1/3rd of the screen. I am not sitting 3 metres from my television. I am sitting a foot away from a monitor which takes up 60% of my view. I can see how much ammo I have very easily thank you, you don't need to flash it across my screen every time it is low. No, a red splash of paint across my view is not a good indication that I am taking damage and am nearly dead. Now I can't see anything you retard! UI elements and indicators do not need to disappear all the time. They should not be blocking my view as they should not be enormous. Where is this guy shooting me from? Is he behind this enormous mountain of a weapon you have me carrying? He was. Now I'm dead. Good.



8. Jumping.
Do you like jumping? I like jumping. Jumping is awesome. You can like ... totally get on top of things by jumping. Especially those chest high walls you see so much of today. Provide enough kinetic energy to yourself while jumping and you can totally jump OVER things. WHOA!!! Did you see that insane wall jump I just did? What about this rocket jump here? You didn't? Why the hell not? Because I can't actually jump you say? WTF? WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I JUMP!!??!!?
Why indeed. Besides games like DOOM, jumping has been in about ... 95% of games? At least games where you control a dude in some way. I don't know where it originated or even why it was introduced recently, but several FPS titles as of late have inhibited your ability to move positively along the Z axis for a brief period of time, at will, completely. Why? WHY!? Was the primary game designer drunk that day when you guys talked about jumping in the game? Is he fat and has something against people jumping? Could you not convince him that jumping is just one of those things a game should have ... like moving forward? I don't need to be able to bunny hop, rocket jump, wall jump or anything that crazy. But I do want to jump. Please let me jump?

9. Mouse support in menus.
Seriously. Wtf is wrong with some of you? You are using a mouse to aim in the game. Mouse support is obviously already in the engine ... in a 3D setting. Remove an axis and now you have 2D mouse support. Hooray!! Of course its never that simple is it. Your mouse support is actually just the code from the right analog stick adjusted to read from a different input peripheral. It was never supposed to exist in the menus, so it never will. Those PC Gamers can just suck it and wrap their cheated hands around yet another terrible console port.

10. Unsimplified controls.
What does any PC MMO, strategy game or flight sim game have in common? If you guessed ... a billion keys to press, then you would be correct. See, there is this device we use. It's called a keyboard. It has lots of buttons. Over quadruple the amount of buttons a controller has, in fact, and that's not including the buttons on another device we call the mouse. Those buttons (should) allow us to do many things. So when you have your insane grenade button that ... oh I don't know, throws a grenade when you tap it and changes grenades when you hold it down ... that is stupid. It takes too long, is inefficient and is stupid. Separate the functions onto different keys and then we can talk. How about that Zoom button you say? Only three levels of zoom after tapping the same button three times? Why not use the scroll-wheel? That gives you a massive number of zoom levels. It's used to change weapons you say? What, all two of them!!!??

Ugh

-_-

It's alive ... IT'S ALIVE!!!

It is that time of the year again. Well ... half decade, you could say. Roughly every 3 to 3.5 years I have been upgrading my home PC system. Mainly to play games, but also mainly to have a machine that isn't a sloth at certain tasks (e.g. video editing). The last time I did this it was in preparation for games like Crysis and UT3 which the system handled amiably at the time. However, while the system is still competent in many regards, it is starting to show its wrinkles here and there, as well as lacking many of the current gen shinies (e.g. DX11).

This time I decided to take a chance and buy components that I thought to be even more cost efficient and powerful than before. This required me to buy components from approximately five stores from around the country to get the stuff I wanted. Three were from Brisbane, one from Sydney and the other was from eBay, shipped from Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous but there is simply no one store in Australia that stocks only the best of the best.

The list of components were as follows:

- ASRock FATAL1TY P67 PROFESSIONAL
- G.SKILL Ripjaws-X 8GB (4GB x 2) PC3 17000 (DDR3-2133)
- Antec ATX TruePower 750W
- Intel Core i7 2600
- Gigabyte ATI 6970
- Kingston 128G SSD V-Series SATA2 G3
- Random assortment of other minor parts


I also bought an additional case for the retiring computer with the intention for it to be used as a media/guest/LAN computer should the situation arise.


So what did I learn from this experience? Simply put: never do it again. Ordering parts from around the country is fine, especially if you do your research and figure out the credibility of the sources. The problem is Brisbane's courier service. Would you believe that one package that I ordered from Brisbane (online store only) took 6 days longer to deliver than the package I ordered from Melbourne? I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for that level of service. It's just bad, and my faith in Brisbane's courier ability has dropped considerably.

Anyways, this computer (which will incidentally be 'Predator Mk V') should get me through Shogun 2, Crysis 2, FEAR 3 and Rage without so much as a hiccup and probably last me another 3.5 years at least. Lets hope the games during this time will actually have be worth upgrading for :)

Let the Doves Free!!!

When I was growing up, there was but one cartoon that my sister and I would actively try to watch. Before it was banned from commercial television in Australia, that is. It was Ren and Stimpy and it is probably the cause of my demented sense of humour nowadays.

Why am I bringing it up? Well, when you are a kid you sometimes notice the brilliance of things without even consciously being aware of it. Although your parents and surrounding environment have a tremendous affect on your upbringing, you begin to develop your own interests and hobbies that diverge from your parents and siblings perspectives. Playing computer games is but one of mine.

But before computer games there was cartoons, and although our parents didn't necessarily disapprove of them, they found some (such as Ren and Stimpy) to be a little extreme. With good reason too. Watching some of these episodes back now with a greater understanding of the world gives me an even greater appreciation for the material I grew up on. Ren and Stimpy was much more than the insane adventures of a chihuahua and a cornish rex. It was an introduction to some very adult themes which are hidden subliminally underneath the madness, and an appreciation for brilliant classical music, such as Habanera from Bizet's Carmen. Laugh as you may, but you cannot deny the genius gone into scenes such as the following:



Wilbur Cobb, the old senile gheezer in this scene, is probably my favourite character from the series and even now someone I see myself acting like from time to time. Particularly talking in malapropisms and general 'eggcorn' (eye sea, egg sell lent, hell oh etc). Hell, when I grow old I hope my body falls apart and uncontrollable disgusting things happen. Especially in the presence of my friends and family so I can lean over to them and say...

"You know what I just did? I just pissed myself. You deal with it." - Dylan Moran

Jumping Jack Rabbits!

As a follow up to my rant about missing arena shooters a few weeks ago, I thought I would make a short post about what exactly 'bunny hopping' is in first person shooters is. Or at least what it should be deemed as.

Many games, especially older ones, had some technique of moving faster than normally intended. Some of these were innocent exploits of in-game physics. Others were hard-coded in. Gaining control of these techniques and using them to your advantage was considered essential to becoming a better player and opened an entirely new avenue of possibilities in terms of player skill and creativity. Moving around a map with efficiency was just as important as shooting your enemy.

One such technique was called 'bunny hopping'. This existed in games such as the Quake and Half-life series which actually are all derivatives of the same engine. In Serious Sam, bunny hopping was coded in and made significantly easier for players to use. In the Unreal Tournament series it was non-existent, but replaced with 'dodge jumping' and other combinations of jumps. The truth is, while most games had some sort of movement enhancing options, they were not all performed the same way.

I will freely admit I am not an expert at bunny hopping in the Quake engine games. In fact I am sure I am pretty terrible at it. Nevertheless, these 'trick jumps' were the sort of thing you naturally picked up on after playing a few hundred games and it was not uncommon to see other players doing it as well online. After pressing jump so many times you begin to get a feel for the physics, and certain situations where you turn the mouse randomly to allow you to accelerate faster than you should. "Why..." you ask, "... should I simply not emulate this all the time?".

Sad as it may be, there seems to be some confusion amongst newer gamers as to what 'bunny hopping' is/was. "It's where you press jump repeatedly" they will say, "making you much harder to hit." Well, half of that is true. When you bunny hop, you do become a little harder to hit. But it is not as simple as pressing jump. As true 'bunny hopping' is remarkably different for every (oldskool) game, I think I will use a simple demonstration.

This is not bunny hopping:

That is called pressing forward and jump repeatedly.

This is bunny hopping:

... and I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

Mainly because you will need a keyboard and mouse to start with.

:)

How absurd!

Well I just couldn't not put this in.


I mean, who doesn't like a violently insane red-headed angry man shooting laser beams out of their arms and instagibbing people with the most powerful move in a fighting game ever?

No-one, that's who.

And if you're no-one, then you're stupid!

I like my weapons how I like my music ... heavy and metal!

If I had more free time on my hands and/or possibly wasn't doing some sort of research already, there is something I would probably look in to a bit more. This something is, quite simply, the appropriateness of certain types of music for gaming and how they can affect the player's performance. It is probably something that doesn't require much investigation as we already know that music does have an incredible affect on how people can behave. Athletes train to certain upbeat, fast paced music to keep their energy flowing and their frame of mind set in the right place. Relaxing cinematography is usually accompanied by likewise music, and not deathmetal. It's not exactly a science.

I'm certain many gamers, myself included, prefer to play their own type of music when playing games. Many a time in Warsong Gulch in WoW I would turn some distortion guitar based metal on, or sometimes the Hellmarch theme from the Command and Conquer series. Some games such as the Unreal Tournament series already nail a particular type on music to the board which depending on your taste can be suitable enough for you. Playing a particular style of music can make you both play a certain way and enhance the mood of the situation. It's almost like taking drugs...

So, during the recent flooding events taking place here, while I have still had electricity I thought I would make a short experimental LoL video. The footage is ... average paced . It's not surprising, it comes from an averagely paced game. Usually you don't feel overexcited or (too) bored when watching footage of someone else playing. But what if you were to over-dramatise the events that were happening? Make the relatively simple game play seem chaotic and incredible through music and simple editing alone?


Recommend changing to high (720p) resolution playback. Tis my first HD video ever uploaded! I don't know about you, but re-watching it back does leave a slightly more titanic edge to the whole thing. I would like to think it is successful, but I guess it depends on your taste in music, really.

Special regard given to hotpies, m1c_ch3ck and MorePieNow who participated in the filming and killing.

Also, a free chocolate given to the first person to tell me where the music in the video is from.

Zero Frags Left?

Hmmm. This post has been a long time coming. Indeed, while I have hinted at it and beat around the bush with semi-related discussion in the past, this post is something I actually am concerned about for the future of gaming and my general interest in it. I am also not incredibly tired or drunk (I think), so you can safely assume that what you read here is actually what I am thinking. So, equip your Hats of Ranting (+1 to rage generation) and prepare to listen to a grown man piss and moan about seemingly trivial stuff in as callous and pretentious a manner as possible. Well, sort of.

In gaming society today, there is (as I have mentioned many a time before) a slight disconnection between a large number of the major game developers and the PC as a gaming platform. Simply put, the PC is not considered to be the bread and butter, default, go-to platform for making a game anymore. Make a game on a computer you may, but for all intensive purposes it will probably end up being on console. Or on a hand-held. Or on a damn phone. The point is, unless you are an indie developer going through Steam or Blizzard Games, making big titles exclusively for PC (i.e. console ports later) is not considered profitable. A good part of the reasons for this is due to piracy. The general nature of the gaming PC is to provide an open and customisable platform, which inadvertently allows tech savvy people various options for playing a game illegitimately. Write an executable crack, tamper with some config files, adjust network protocols etc. You don’t and can’t do this on a less open, less sophisticated environment like a console. So it is unsurprising that even major players in the market, such as Microsoft, have such a strong foothold in terms of where and how they want to drive the consumer market. They have even publicly stated their stance on developing for the PC, releasing ‘facts’ that both bewilder and stun long time PC gaming fans such as myself. Gotta sell those Halo copies somehow I guess…

I’ve mentioned all this before, so I won’t bring it up in depth again. The main point of this article is quite simple. I miss arena shooters. Seriously. Inside my favorite genre of gaming it would easily be my favorite sub-genre of FPS. The last true arena shooter in my honest opinion was Unreal Tournament 2004. UT3, while good, was a step back from something that could and should have evolved into an epitome of gaming skill. Instead it was tacky, sluggish and tailored for … you guessed it … console players. It has now been 7 years since any form of successor has risen from the ashes of continuously slower, tackier, repetitive and outright boring FPS games. The problem? I don’t think it’s going to change. Games like Call of Duty and Halo are considered the norm nowadays, and why? Their game play is anything but intense. The decision making processes one makes in combat during these games are simplistic and primitive. These kind of games have come into fruition at a time when the console market exploded around them and so they have been branded as the benchmark. The true arena shooters of the past are either forgotten or simply unbeknown…


Now I’m talking about the multi-player, deathmatch/CTF game here, not the single player narrative bull crap everyone cares so much about (and plays once and forgets). The feature component of any FPS game should be that visceral, physical feel to the game play that the player is engrossed in. A good arena shooter (i.e. any shooter that has deathmatch/CTF/domination game modes) should push this experience to the limit. You should be able to literally ‘feel’ your actions and behaviors and intrinsically understand how they affect the current game state for you, without even thinking about it. Your gaming avatar and your control over it should be like a natural extension of your body. The funny thing is, even since the days of Doom and Quake this has been achieved. The level of control given to an adept player just feels … right. You get used to it and the sky literally becomes the limit. A true arena shooter doesn’t impose degenerative rules or chance based game play elements designed to add catch-up or random elements to the game. It should have strong, predefined rules with few restrictions and multiple features to accelerate game play, not hamper it. What the fuck am I talking about? Well let’s see...

It seems that today, most people are content with their control of their FPS character alone. Aim and move, shoot some dudes, jump here and there. Congratulations, you are a casual player. In a not-so-recent article by a dude called Shamus Young (yeah, he has a proper blog) I would personally rank you at about the Duke 3D or Quake level. Why? Well, because that’s where you are if you think your handle of FPS games is good if that’s what you can achieve. There is (or at least there used to be) so much MORE to FPS games than just that. The best way I can describe this is if I draw up some comparative scenarios, so let’s do that:

Scenario A: I’m playing Modern Warfare 2. I have spawned with the best weapons the game currently allows me to use. I just got hit a few times while running past an open doorway. I’m still alive, but I got hit up pretty bad, indicated by the amount of blood on my screen. I have nowhere to escape to, but if I wait a few seconds for my magical invisible health bar to refill, I can come back round the corner and spray the piece of tinfoil the enemy is hiding behind with ½ a clip of overpowered 1 shot headshot, 3 shot body kill machine-gun fire. I aim down the sites to perform this action, severely limiting my view and movement speed, but somehow making me fire 3x more accurately (because I am now aiming a gun). Said enemy dies quite epicly. He also respawns and comes looking for me as I attempt to camp in a similar position. After several engaging moments of looking down a corridor, the enemy appears once again and I again shoot him full of lead. I decide to stay at this vantage point and repeat this activity on several more opponents until I run out of ammo. I then use grenades, for even faster/louder results. When they run out, I then get up and attempt to knife someone with my 10 yard instagib melee button, successfully at first, but dying moments later.

Scenario B: I’m playing Unreal Tournament 2004. All I have is my starting weapon and a sniper rifle. I just got hit a few times while running past an open doorway. I’m still alive, but I got hit up pretty bad, indicated by the low valued numeric symbols on my HUD. I have nowhere to escape to and don’t have regenerating health, so I’m pretty fucked! However, I know my movement speed is my greatest tool. I attempt to double dodge-wall jump back across the open doorway, firing my sniper rifle at the first sight of enemy I see. I surprise my foe with my random aggressive choice of movement and remove his head in the process. I take a tiny bit more damage and am now nearly dead. I want to find health as I know the next engagement with an enemy will be my demise. I move quickly but carefully to the closest known location of a health pack. Unfortunately my previous opponent must have predicted this decision and although he has inferior weaponry, is now guarding the only access to the health pack. Desperate, I make for an alternative route, but as he has full health and I have almost none, I die in the process. AS I DAMN WELL SHOULD!!! I respawn, quickly, and decide my best course of action is to gain a firepower advantage. I head to the rocket launcher, keeping in mind where I think he is and where he could possibly be at this point in time.

I probably sound like a bit of an elitist here, but let’s briefly detail the differences in these two situations in these games:

• In MWF2 I spawn with all the equipment you need and have regenerating health, completely taking out the need to prioritize control of parts of the map for various pickups. You run around, shoot people and camp at good locations to kill them instantly with your instagib-machinegun. The ability to shoot through walls negates the need for me to orientate myself appropriately, turning fights into a spray fest. Enemies that die fast/instantly remove the need for me to carefully wear down the opposition to deliver precise killing blows where necessary. Camping in an advantageous, hard to reach location is beneficial for ambushing unsuspecting opponents, especially as I am aiming down the scope and have the RNG machine already in my favour. Although I move slowly, so does everyone else, making hitting people generally quite easy. Grenades and knife usage grant me incredibly easy kills, sometimes without even aiming. I am, overall, a terrible FPS player, but because the skill ceiling in this game is so incredibly low I am actually doing very well. Against people both worse and better than me.

• In UT2004, I spawn with the worst weapons in the game. They are situationally viable, but generally speaking, I will get outgunned if I don’t grab something better. Not having the best weapons or regenerating health makes me want to control parts of the map where they exist. This is not easy, especially when other players are doing it as well. People move quickly and have multiple movement options other than just walking/running. They are hard to hit, but so am I making fights more about skill in aiming and less about luck. Not having regenerating health makes the game balanced around how much damage is effectively done in an engagement. I can/will kill someone, even if it takes me a few tries. However it will not be easy. Besides moving quickly they could still have better pickups than I, so I need to take control of that aspect as well. Camping is illogical. I need to think ahead of my opponent and do what I think they would be doing in the same situation. Or sometimes … what they wouldn’t be doing. The skill ceiling in this game is so high, I am sometimes overwhelmed by both the number of things I can/should be doing and the fact that while I am an excellent player, there is still someone out there who is better than me.

… This is just deathmatch. I could bring up other game modes like CTF, but I don’t think it is necessary. I hope from these small descriptions you can begin to see the differences in game play these two games offer. You may argue that MWF2 is not an arena shooter, but what else is there to compare it to nowadays? The truth is MWF2 is simplistic and uncomplicated. UT2004 is not. In fact, in a game like UT2004, you begin to let your intrinsic nature take over when the game play starts moving and flowing like a battle where you have total control. You begin to pull off extraordinary feats of skill, such as stuff like this, which would be accusable for cheating! They probably would be nowadays, but 7 years ago it would have been normal. Maybe lucky, but definitely routine. UT wasn’t the only game though. Even Half-Life and TFC had the components for making extraordinary arena shooter moments, which I think brings to attention the most important aspect about these games in general. You may design a game, perhaps unintentionally, to have a conceived level of control that players will have. If you let this control run a little bit rampant, impose less rules and boundaries on what people can do, then you don’t force people to play in the same box as everyone else. If you let players own creativity and flair come into existence during play … then you can allow players to achieve incredible things such as the following, and be one step closer to making the perfect arena shooter.



The only question remaining is whether or not there will ever be another one?

My noob Banner Designs

When I did Creative Industries at QUT, I did not really enjoy it. I only did it for about 1.5 years and I didn't like it for a ... variety of reasons, most of which I won't discuss here for the sake of not turning this into a rant. While many of the reasons were to do with my own personal problems with how the Faculty was run/managed, one of the primary ones is that I simply wasn't that great at it.

That's probably a bit of an over-exaggeration. I was mediocre at it. Using Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and the various 3D and audio/video editing software was something I quite enjoyed and, although I thought what I was doing was great (as it sometimes was), more often than not it would be regarded as ... mediocre (as it was most of the time). There were people who, for whatever reason, were considered (and were) better at it. So, after awhile I decided this wasn't really the type of work I wanted to get into as it was and always had been more of a hobby for me.

Also, some of the people were fucking douchebags.

Anyways, back on topic. Since I have started this stupid blog of mine, I have gone through quite a few header/logo designs. It has never really been because I was unhappy with the prior one, its more just because it gives me something to do. However, each and everyone has a small history or tale to them, describing what my interests were at the time of their design.

(God I am going to hate myself for doing this...)


The first and longest one to be used was basically supposed to be my two main characters in WoW. Razial and Laizar, both Undead, were Warlock and Warrior respectively (sif she is a Deathknight). The semi-naked pink woman with wings is Bronlissa, Razial's Succubus. She has seduced many a foe while I hadoukened firey death in their direction, from level 30-80. Succubi are awesome, by the way. Other than that, there really isn't much else to it. This was the banner I used when this blog was still for a unit at QUT, talking about game design.

The next one was the beginning of the whole new redesign ... thing. I dunno, I was probably incredibly tired (or drunk) when I made it. Just like I always am whenever I post something on here. I think what was going through my mind at the time was to figure out a way to get 3-4 things combined from different universes and not make it look goofy. The idea would also give me a 'template' to work from, which wouldn't take long to edit as the idea is already in place. Basing the idea around a crosshair in a game I would segregate the quadrants into ... well you have eyes, you can see the damned thing. It's got some Evangelion, some Quake 3, some SFIV, some code and something from Aliens. And yes, Asuka's boobs are enormous. That's why I picked it.


The third one didn't stay up for long. I can actually say I wasn't happy with this one at all. Maybe because it was too similar in content to the second one, but it just didn't give off the right vibe in my opinion. Besides the upskirt upside-down Chun-Li and the nightelf with the enormous rack, their wasn't really anything being said about wtf this blog is about. Which is funny because I don't even know what it is about right now.


The fourth one was actually one I spent a little bit more time on. Instead of just slapping images into each quadrant and rotating it slightly, I chose to implement some of the things I learnt to do with 'leading the eye'. The Unreal Tournament symbol in the background is the focus point of this effect, with the text supporting its circular design. The images themselves were meticulously placed so as to carry over this eye leading business, but probably could have been done better. Raziel, Akuma and a scene from Street Fighter X Tekken were all new, as well as Kerrigan from Starcraft. SC2 was coming out at the time. Seemed only logical to me.

I am probably cutting myself short here when I talk about how easily these are made. They take about 30 mins, most of which is me looking for stupid pictures to put in. Although there isn't much difficulty involved, thinking about how colours and orientation can affect an image is a big thing. Although I am still not happy with this one (text is off), this is probably the most colour and contrast abusing one so far, making pot smoking hippies happy (I assume). Elements of both Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (Morrigan) and League of Legends (Mordekaiser) are new with Akuma and Asuka making returns. Funny how their names are both similar. I've also got this whole ... popping out thing going on. Looks alright I guess. And yes, Asuka's ass is hanging out a mile. That's kinda why I picked it.

Ugh. You can probably tell when it comes to the whole artsy-fartsy side of things ... I really just don't like talking about it. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I really don't get the whole idea of pretending something that someone has done is so incredible, especially when taken out of context. You know that art piece about the black door with the red outline? I can't remember who did it, but when I heard people carrying on about it in Gr 9 art class (yes, I did art back then), I think I cringed a little. It was a black door ... with a red outline.

Anyways, that will do for the moment. Might come back here and spew some more words when I get this bad taste out of my mouth.

The Hand of God

Gaming has been rather … well I wouldn’t say uninteresting, but certainly slower than normal for me lately. Maybe it is because I haven’t bought a game in many a month or the simple fact that as I am becoming older, simply playing and being interested in the medium is becoming less prevalent. It’s not a bad thing, I guess.

I guess I should mention something university related every once in awhile. The most noticeable thing that has occurred in that area lately would easily be the conference I attended in Wellington for four days. At the Australasian IE2010 this year from the 21st – 23rd of November, I presented my honours work from the year before in front of roughly 40 people, most of which were probably rather uninterested. I met some interesting people and had a few job/study offers from random dudes. Except for another student presenting his topic on sketching in RTS games, I think my topic was certainly much more on the technical end of things (as opposed to conceptual and creative design). Being incredibly tired and disoriented, I ended up treating the presentation much more like I would tutor a classroom of students. Although I relied heavily on my notes, I was strangely much more capable of tackling questions and situations than I previously remember myself being able to do. The many weeks of talking, describing and arguing with students is probably paying off, boosting confidence and general social/discussion skills for the better. It’s a useful thing, I guess.


Apparently the Cataclysm is coming. One day from now to be precise. Ah … World of Warcraft. The fun, immersive, distracting timewaster I have tried to slay many a time in the past. But like all good mobs, its respawn time is short enough for most people to simply stick around until it rears its beautiful, disgusting head once more. Sitting on the fence is the name of the game here. I am simply not convinced. Too many times I have played this game only to have everyone I know either doing their own thing or having no interest in doing things together. PUGging with randoms is the same thing as soloing to me now. It is rather absurd considering how massively multiplayer it is supposed to be. For the first time though, I feel I am completely able to resist the urge, having both more important and more interesting things to do. Besides the possibility of rated battlegrounds … it is exactly the same thing as the previous three iterations. No amount of fancy ‘world changes’ and ‘new spells’ are going to convince me that it isn’t about pressing buttons to get purples. I say I probably won’t be playing it now, but in three weeks I will probably be squawking some WoW jargon to a friend, complaining about an instance.

It is true, but the game I have still been playing the most is good ol’ League of Legends. A free, quick, easy, simple game that everyone should do themselves justice and play. Lately I have been expanding my character roster to include various support and tanking roles. The more important of these roles would be Shen, my first true tank and a rather challenging character to play. By now I have played dozens of games with him and I don’t think I could have tolerated doing PuGs without him. You see, I was kind of spoiled from level 1 by starting off doing 5v5s with 4 of my friends. Generally speaking, they were already above average at the game (debatable, yes, but still). I ‘grew up’ with these people, talking of balanced team comps with sensible numbers of tanks, support and ranged and melee damage dealers. Initially, our rather terrible tactics evolved into more structured and sensible strategies that we derived over the course of several games together. Warding, jungling, timing and positioning became more a matter of instinct and natural group cohesion having it imposed and executed progressively more efficiently, over time. Vent also helped a lot.

So when I finally got around to PuGging properly at around level 12+, I was flabbergasted at how terrible your average player actually was. If they were not disconnecting continuously or AFK, they were usually in a state of total idiocy. Overextending and feeding on both sides was rampant. The idea of jungling and warding was completely alien to them. Arguments about everything were the norm. No support. No covering of lanes. No teamwork. No selflessness. It was pretty much Team Deathmatch from a top down perspective. Also, if you lose, it is apparently the rest of your team’s fault and by no means your own.

So, entering this world of lunacy was a godsend with the character Shen. The ability to teleport to any teammate from anywhere on the map, remove possible enemies from doing damage for a short period of time and absorb a good chunk of it too allowed me to correct the all too frequent mistakes made by so many a team mate. My only wish is if I could do it on a much shorter cooldown and more reliably. Being an energy using character means you are frontloaded in ‘ability’ for roughly 3 of your 4 spells, but being energy reliant means you need to wait for it to recharge in order to use those abilities again, regardless of their actual cooldown. Not worrying about mana is great, but in a 10 second teamfight you need to choose your spells wisely (let alone have the energy to do them in the first place). This is really where the whole difficulty in Shen lies, having the energy to taunt at the right time and the foresight to gauge when you should try and kill someone.

Also his taunt isn’t so straightforward. If you use it to initiate you will taunt nothing but air. Its taunt range is less than the range indicated by the skillshot. You need to be close if not in melee range to effectively get it off (assuming it doesn’t bug and/or lag is taken into account). A clever team will simply disperse or run back from you, making the initiating process sometimes rather difficult. This unnecessary difficulty, as well as his teleporting shield Ultra has convinced me that the most effective way to initiate is to use what people term an offtank (or soak) as a proxy. Usually a tanky dps character that doesn’t have real taunting capabilities, sending them into the thick of the fray solo should bait the enemy into taking him out. The instant he is engaged, teleport on to said friend, grab agro off 2-5 people and force the teamfight to take place on your terms using your abilities as they were designed. Hopefully your dps have come in and engaged at this point.

Of course this process is rather theoretical, and though I have executed and pulled it off with often glorious results, with PuGs or timid teammates it can be quite disastrous. But it is for that very reason that I quite enjoy tanking with Shen. As difficult as it may be to get things working in order, when the planets do align (as they seem to do more often now than before) you can truly bestow the hand of god amongst friend and foe alike. The results are worth the effort:

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them”