Another big stint without a gamelog. Getting precariously close to dropping the ball totally on them.
Stronghold Kingdoms (100h) - Finally weaning myself off this one. House 13 imploded a little just as Warlock and world of Tanks caught my interest. Still pop in once a day to pick up cards and keep things ticking over.
World of Tanks (60h) - New filler for time. Starting to get into the higher tiers where strategy and teamwork are needed.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane (50h) - Civ5 meets Master of Magic meets Majesty. Environment and random maps are awesome, but AI doesn't really match up.
Guild Wars 2 Beta (23h) - One beta weekend, but a really good feel about the open world content. Some were heralding the PvP or WvW as the shining part of the experience, but for me they felt too similar to the orinial, whereas the outside world was ahead of other MMOs. I also really like the way it just gets out of the way and lets you play. So many little things that just make doing what you want, when you want, a breeze.
Diablo III Beta (5h) - Kept dropping every 2 minutes or so from connection issues in the beta, and was completely put off with the whole online-only mode it was offering. The recent launch issues only highlight this as an issue.
Realm of the Mad
God (2h) - Multiplayer with Cam.
Terraria (2h) - Multiplayer with Cam.
League of Legends (2h) - First wins of the day when people ask me to play.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Warlock impossible win
Warlock: Master of the Arcane (or is that Master of Magic?) has been just the thing to celebrate my 40th. It has all the fundamental mechanics of Civ5, inspired my Master of Magic, and is set in the realm of Majesty. I've enjoyed all 3 games in the past, but with a completely new developer you never know what you're going to get.
I grabbed the demo and played enough to see that this was a definite purchase, but unfortunately couldn't find anyone to gift it to me with 5 hours to go for pre-order. I picked it up anyway and will work out who got it for me later on.
The main thing I enjoyed about the game is the environment. It really feels like the world is more active and agressive than Civ5, and is really interesting pushing back the shroud. Sometimes it's been rats or ogres to fight, or an NPC city, or a really good city position, or even an untimely death for the the explorers. It all makes exploration worthwhile.
Building cities to keep the economy going also feels like back in the Civ2 days where there isn't any artificial limits to stop city expansion. With the random maps and lots of different resource tiles to use, city placement is great for optimising.
In the first (normal difficulty) game I had pretty much the whole northern continent to myself, and had over 20 cities before pushing down onto one of the AIs. It looked like a foregone conclusion and moving 30+ units a turn seemed to drag down the experience.
In the second game I cranked it to impossible and once again expanded hard. I took out one of the AI's single city with the help of the other, but the 2nd remained allied with me while remaining on a single city. I'd once again built on just about every exposed piece of land, explored both worlds while settling fully one of them, before finally figuring out that I'd probably have to kill the other AI to win. With 4 paladins against a horde of skeletons, it was over in ~4 turns. Wonderful world, woeful AI. Why doesn't it expand?
I set another challenge to see if I can win it while only having one city myself. Played a couple of starts, butt just felt like the exploration part of the game suffered a lot in doing so. Do I want to spend a lot of time playing an unfun game just to beat the AI at their own game?
Next challenge was to se how fast I can beat them. They seem to be super effective early on, but then hampered by their inability to expand or tech up, so I know I'd eventually steamroll them if given enough time and gives a good expand vs fight mechanic to play with. Played a couple of games with some interesting challenges, but eventually came up with a winning strategy: summoned rats.
Starting a new game with Grum-gog and +100 Mana, I figured I'd be able to get 7 rats out (one a turn) and ignore the food cost. This was helped by a pretty decent staring position, but the rats really swamped their ability to kill enough or even fireball. Finished the game in 10 turns, but I'd say that there's another couple of turns that could be shaved off due to some agressive NPCs attacking me from the top.
I grabbed the demo and played enough to see that this was a definite purchase, but unfortunately couldn't find anyone to gift it to me with 5 hours to go for pre-order. I picked it up anyway and will work out who got it for me later on.
The main thing I enjoyed about the game is the environment. It really feels like the world is more active and agressive than Civ5, and is really interesting pushing back the shroud. Sometimes it's been rats or ogres to fight, or an NPC city, or a really good city position, or even an untimely death for the the explorers. It all makes exploration worthwhile.
Building cities to keep the economy going also feels like back in the Civ2 days where there isn't any artificial limits to stop city expansion. With the random maps and lots of different resource tiles to use, city placement is great for optimising.
In the first (normal difficulty) game I had pretty much the whole northern continent to myself, and had over 20 cities before pushing down onto one of the AIs. It looked like a foregone conclusion and moving 30+ units a turn seemed to drag down the experience.
In the second game I cranked it to impossible and once again expanded hard. I took out one of the AI's single city with the help of the other, but the 2nd remained allied with me while remaining on a single city. I'd once again built on just about every exposed piece of land, explored both worlds while settling fully one of them, before finally figuring out that I'd probably have to kill the other AI to win. With 4 paladins against a horde of skeletons, it was over in ~4 turns. Wonderful world, woeful AI. Why doesn't it expand?
I set another challenge to see if I can win it while only having one city myself. Played a couple of starts, butt just felt like the exploration part of the game suffered a lot in doing so. Do I want to spend a lot of time playing an unfun game just to beat the AI at their own game?
Next challenge was to se how fast I can beat them. They seem to be super effective early on, but then hampered by their inability to expand or tech up, so I know I'd eventually steamroll them if given enough time and gives a good expand vs fight mechanic to play with. Played a couple of games with some interesting challenges, but eventually came up with a winning strategy: summoned rats.
Starting a new game with Grum-gog and +100 Mana, I figured I'd be able to get 7 rats out (one a turn) and ignore the food cost. This was helped by a pretty decent staring position, but the rats really swamped their ability to kill enough or even fireball. Finished the game in 10 turns, but I'd say that there's another couple of turns that could be shaved off due to some agressive NPCs attacking me from the top.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Grabbing the Pole
I had to cover an English class today as my 12's were off on camp. A little mixup allowed me to go through the lesson planned and see what it was all about. Short stories. And poetry. Didn't really get into the poetry in school, but the one they had to analyse intrigued me: Robert Frost's "On a tree fallen across the road"
The 10's were to discuss how the form of the poem helped enhance the content, but unfortunately most were struggling with the content itself. To me it's all about human endeavour, but that's really only the baseline. From there, three different paths open out for interpretation:
1) An exhortation to, not put off the final goal as we have all that we need within us to attain such things, gives us hope. We CAN conquer anything; the North Pole, even space.
2) Once you know that it's about human endeavour, the character of the tree's comments change: I don't want to block you, just stop you long enough to think about human endeavour. Why do we always insist on our own way? Is there anything that we are missing in our determined pursuit of our goals? As a lamenting tree, maybe it is the natural beauty to be found even in fallen timber that is glossed over. After a quick google it seems that others had picked up on this angle, but with Frost's penchant tfor including nature in his poems may make this a more obvious conclusion than it should.
3) In my own lopsided mind another interpretation sprung up; a warning. If we are solely focused on solving the problem in front of us, maybe we don't see the unanticipated consequences of that solution. Maybe if we literally siezed the Earth by the (north) pole, we may find that instead of the Earth blissfuly circling in place, we are flung out into space!
Now that needs a Draw Something inspired image via ProCreate:
The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not to bar
Our passage to our journey's end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are
Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an axe.
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.
The 10's were to discuss how the form of the poem helped enhance the content, but unfortunately most were struggling with the content itself. To me it's all about human endeavour, but that's really only the baseline. From there, three different paths open out for interpretation:
1) An exhortation to, not put off the final goal as we have all that we need within us to attain such things, gives us hope. We CAN conquer anything; the North Pole, even space.
2) Once you know that it's about human endeavour, the character of the tree's comments change: I don't want to block you, just stop you long enough to think about human endeavour. Why do we always insist on our own way? Is there anything that we are missing in our determined pursuit of our goals? As a lamenting tree, maybe it is the natural beauty to be found even in fallen timber that is glossed over. After a quick google it seems that others had picked up on this angle, but with Frost's penchant tfor including nature in his poems may make this a more obvious conclusion than it should.
3) In my own lopsided mind another interpretation sprung up; a warning. If we are solely focused on solving the problem in front of us, maybe we don't see the unanticipated consequences of that solution. Maybe if we literally siezed the Earth by the (north) pole, we may find that instead of the Earth blissfuly circling in place, we are flung out into space!
Now that needs a Draw Something inspired image via ProCreate:
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
GameLog 242-245
Another missed bi-weekly stint. Not looking good for the accuracy of these GameLogs. Luckily there's really only been one game on the playlist.
Stronghold Kingdoms (300h) - The old Grepolis clan moved into Stronghold Kingdoms, and it seems to be a welcome change of scenery. The game is VERY sticky, and probably not a good fit with my optimising mentality. It always feels like I neeed to spend more and more time in the game to eek out the advantage. Nearly quit a couple of times, but have now settled into a more healthy and sustainable rhythm. Steam has tis gam out at 630 hours, but a lot of that will be it running in the background.
Realm of the Mad God (25h) - Good startup game for LANs, as well as multiplayer with Cam.
Age of Empires Online (20h) - Some changes and a recommendation from the Thamms got me into this one. Had the Games for Windows Live glitch when attempting to run through Steam and took 40 minutes to get the game going even when I knew what the problem was. I don't know how they are doing it, buy GFWL is going backwards and is a big putoff for any game shipping with it. Once past that debacle, the game is more RTS than I thought, making it a welcome change to the usual world-time based MMOs. With GFWL it's hard to recommend to others though.
Crusader Kings 2 (10h) - The Strathearns have taken a bit of a back seat to other medieval castle building, but looks like the new DLC might be a good reason for a restart.
Terraria (10h) - Playing hardcore mode with map resets to keep it different. On daily rotation for Cam's multiplayer.
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (10h) - Free weekend for the game. Nothing to do with M&M apart from loose connection to the world. Plays more like Geomancer or Puzzle Quest, which was a nice diversion.
Shogun 2 (5h) - DLC on special the play Gempei war. Plays slighttly differently with more emphasis on influence rather than just military might.
Dwarf Fortress (4h) - Couple of adventures again and a valley map with an elevated river for fun dam building exercises.
Fallen Enchantress beta (3h) - Tried a run through to get to the end game. Seems faster paced now, but still too easy to steamroll the competition.
League of Legends (3h) - First wins of the day when people ask me to play.
Stronghold Kingdoms (300h) - The old Grepolis clan moved into Stronghold Kingdoms, and it seems to be a welcome change of scenery. The game is VERY sticky, and probably not a good fit with my optimising mentality. It always feels like I neeed to spend more and more time in the game to eek out the advantage. Nearly quit a couple of times, but have now settled into a more healthy and sustainable rhythm. Steam has tis gam out at 630 hours, but a lot of that will be it running in the background.
Realm of the Mad God (25h) - Good startup game for LANs, as well as multiplayer with Cam.
Age of Empires Online (20h) - Some changes and a recommendation from the Thamms got me into this one. Had the Games for Windows Live glitch when attempting to run through Steam and took 40 minutes to get the game going even when I knew what the problem was. I don't know how they are doing it, buy GFWL is going backwards and is a big putoff for any game shipping with it. Once past that debacle, the game is more RTS than I thought, making it a welcome change to the usual world-time based MMOs. With GFWL it's hard to recommend to others though.
Crusader Kings 2 (10h) - The Strathearns have taken a bit of a back seat to other medieval castle building, but looks like the new DLC might be a good reason for a restart.
Terraria (10h) - Playing hardcore mode with map resets to keep it different. On daily rotation for Cam's multiplayer.
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (10h) - Free weekend for the game. Nothing to do with M&M apart from loose connection to the world. Plays more like Geomancer or Puzzle Quest, which was a nice diversion.
Shogun 2 (5h) - DLC on special the play Gempei war. Plays slighttly differently with more emphasis on influence rather than just military might.
Dwarf Fortress (4h) - Couple of adventures again and a valley map with an elevated river for fun dam building exercises.
Fallen Enchantress beta (3h) - Tried a run through to get to the end game. Seems faster paced now, but still too easy to steamroll the competition.
League of Legends (3h) - First wins of the day when people ask me to play.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
ICS and Homegroups
While setting up a new wireless router network up at the farm, I had an odd bug where Windows 7 would not connect to the homegroup on the internal network. The reason seemed to be that the internal connection was set up automatically when I used ICS from the USB modem, and there was no default gateway on the new network. With no default gateway, Win7 would not allow the change of network type to 'home' (just remained as an unidentified network with public location).
Thanks to Sanoh for the insight into changing Win7 network type, and Ghost301 for his crossover cable ICS & Homegroup setup to confirm the process.
Thanks to Sanoh for the insight into changing Win7 network type, and Ghost301 for his crossover cable ICS & Homegroup setup to confirm the process.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Choose your own Adventure
Matt Hintze delivered an interesting TEDxUF talk titled "Choose your own Adventure" as a way for online education to teach the same content in multiple different ways. This seems to be very close to my thoughts on the future of education, but another roundabout way of getting there. Student's personality and learning styles would certainly come into the decision making process of which method / teacher to learn from. But I hadn't considered making it overtly part of the process by giving a minute snippet to see whether the student likes the style presented. Yet more good ammunition for the recommendation engine to process.
Could learning style and teacher presentation style also be captured by data analysis? You could map the student onto other students who have successfully completed the learning activity by comparing their learning landscape up to that point. Close matches can be used as trailblazers to recommend certain exit paths, with an indication of likely successes or failures along that path. Adding a student's goal into the mix could also help the system target high success paths leading from the current activity to the goal. Would learning styles and teaching styles be captured in data like that? I don't mind the idea of a 1 minute preview, apart from it being still too long for someone to make an effective decision between potentially hundreads of options. Maybe the recommendation engine gives them a default that they can opt out of by watching the teaser video?
Friday, March 23, 2012
Future of Attribution?
During the FutureOfEducation web seminar I attended today, I managed to ask David Warlick a question regarding attribution:
Sounds like a little bit of swings & roundabouts as I'm sure those same set of students will find out (possibly at Uni) that standing on the shoulders of giants allows a more targeted analysis for those developed critical thinking skills.
There seems to be a broadening of attribution from traditional books & journals to all sorts of online media such as blogs / podcasts / even presentations like this. At the same time there is another method of attribution gaining popularity: that of the kudos to another user in web 2.0. EG: like button for facebook, or +1 in Google +, or the kudos in slashdot, or the the favouriting of images in flickr.It didn't come out as eloquently as I'd written it, but David's response went a different direction than what I was expecting. He mentioned that attribution is having a resurgance in schools now as a focus for critical thought. Instead of simply attributing an idea to another authorative source, the degrading of authorative sources on the net means that students need to be able to create their own critical analysis and apply their own logic to the problem.
Do you believe that these two systems will eventually merge where attribution goes from a simple +1 all the way up to published works?
Sounds like a little bit of swings & roundabouts as I'm sure those same set of students will find out (possibly at Uni) that standing on the shoulders of giants allows a more targeted analysis for those developed critical thinking skills.
Open content
A very interesting talk on moving beyond textbooks to open content. This fits in very well with my ideas on virtual education and highlights an important part of the puzzle: the curriculum needs to be solid and dependable.Since we have just moved to a national curriculumm, I would like to think that this is an almost ideal time for something like this to be adapted to the australian primary and secondary education system. Initially I was thinking this could be open repositories for moodle, but it looks like a wiki with links to anthing is a better way to go.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Inventing on Principle
Great talk by Bret Victor regarding Inventing on Principle: choosing a principle to stand by and making it your responsibility to change the world to that principle. Great insights into new programming tools to accomplish his principle: Creators need to immediately see what their changes do.
Monday, March 19, 2012
GameLog 238-241
Another missed bi-weekly log. Must remember to check alarm :/
Crusader Kings 2 (120h) - Very polished update of Crusader Kings. The 7 deadly sins also make much more sense as one of the major character changes are the virtues & vices. Tried multiplayer with Sandy, but it's laggy and drops out over LAN (?). Currently into the 4th generation of the Strathearns
Jagged alliance (40h) - Good take on the old series. Bit concerned about no fog of war when paused though. If it weren't for Crusader kings, I'd have probably finished this one off.
Realm of the Mad God (6h) - Tried this one out for LAN, which may still be a goer, but it's simple enough for Cameron to play too.
Fallen Enchantress beta (4h) - New beta and the experience point system feels a little wonky now. Lots of other pieces coming together though.
Grepolis (4h) -Game finally came to an end with EN pushing once again over top of an inactive player on our wonder islands. Some went over to join Evolution, but that's it for me. More time for notorious now.
Dwarf Fortress (2h) - New version finally! Adventure mode is a little bit better, but possibly even more viscious than before.
League of Legends (2h)
Dungeon Defenders (1h)
Terraria (1h) - Quick couple of games with cam.
Crusader Kings 2 (120h) - Very polished update of Crusader Kings. The 7 deadly sins also make much more sense as one of the major character changes are the virtues & vices. Tried multiplayer with Sandy, but it's laggy and drops out over LAN (?). Currently into the 4th generation of the Strathearns
Jagged alliance (40h) - Good take on the old series. Bit concerned about no fog of war when paused though. If it weren't for Crusader kings, I'd have probably finished this one off.
Realm of the Mad God (6h) - Tried this one out for LAN, which may still be a goer, but it's simple enough for Cameron to play too.
Fallen Enchantress beta (4h) - New beta and the experience point system feels a little wonky now. Lots of other pieces coming together though.
Grepolis (4h) -Game finally came to an end with EN pushing once again over top of an inactive player on our wonder islands. Some went over to join Evolution, but that's it for me. More time for notorious now.
Dwarf Fortress (2h) - New version finally! Adventure mode is a little bit better, but possibly even more viscious than before.
League of Legends (2h)
Dungeon Defenders (1h)
Terraria (1h) - Quick couple of games with cam.
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