Month: September 2008
Joomla seems like a good thing to know
Bought a book about Joomla a lil bit ago and just reading over it makes it seem like a wonderful platform for doing a whole bunch of really really neat things. It kinda makes me want to redo the custom CMS i’ve been making at work for the last 3 months for fuddruckers. Well ok there’s some pretty significant things that aren’t in there for that particular job. Nonetheless it looks like a very robust foundation to know and be able to expand upon. So I’m goind to get started on the Drakkheim.com lan planning / management site just to get more comfortable with the ins and outs of the system.
Hopefully once I knock it out I’ll have the knowledge to use Joomla as a base platform for many many other things that I’ve got planned both at home and at work.
In completely unrelated news Robert Asprin and Lody Lynn Nye have released another book in the wonderful MYTH series called Myth-Chief.. Jeez come to think of it I’ve been following those for close to 15 years now.. Well here’s to another 15.
Waaaaargh
Yup… I was weak. Warhammer Online is out and available online at EA’s web store. Hmm I guess the downside of instant gratification online delivery is that I’ll never ever ever be bored again… or wealthy 🙂
Overall they’ve done a great job with the in game systems, maps etc. Pull up your map and quest locations are indicated in a faded red, so you always know where to go. Quest rewards seem to be fairly varied with public quests being really cool and fun. Yeah the whole public quests and open group concepts really go a long way as to breaking the ice and meeting people to play with.
The PvP parts of the game (which can give XP) are a blast and full of adrenaline. I can’t wait to get to start doing the keep sieges etc.
Class variation is pretty cool and at least the chaos classes are a lot of fun with unique playstyles (duel sword wielding melee healers anyone?) and runor has it they’re looking at putting some of the cut classes back in over the next couple months.
So how it’ll play out in the long run is anyone’s guess but the outlook is pretty good. If my interest in the game plays out like DAoC / WoW then I’m in for about 6 months or so before it just gets boring. Guess I’ll find out.
Who Am I
Ran across the fact that I’ve drawn this particular character half a dozen times without intentionally doing so. Gonna try and do a couple more.. this time on purpose.
Reusability
Witcher – first impression
Ok, so the initial download is 14gb… ouchy… so that took most of a day.
Wow.. this does not feel like the old Neverwinter Aurora engine. (or look like it for that matter)
Just about an hour into it, the first 15 minutes were intro videos and cutscenes and some in-game cutscenes. I didn’t skip any of them, very well done and felt like either a solid introduction to things or tied into the game seamlessly. Combat is more diablo than NWN but then again I’m not all the way throught the tutorial part so that may change.
Its pretty, very pretty, and architectually things feel more authentic than most western rpgs’ attempts at a ruined castle.
If the story is half as good as the reviews make it out to be the enhanced edition is going to put up on hell of a fight for RPG of the year. (Fallout 3 has got it’s work cut out for it.)
The Witcher gets a head start.
Looks like the guys who make the Witcher couldnt contain themselves any longer.
Sources report that “The Witcher: Enhanced edition” is popping out today. The big decision is, buy it off stardock, steam or wait for the box to hit stores and get the extra goodies. I’m partial to stardock, but steam’s platform is better and I like goodies.
*sigh*
Well I guess there are worse problems to face.
[edit: steam offers 10% off until the 16th]
2 Another Size Test
Let the holiday rush begin.
Well the holiday gaming season looks to be kicking off a bit early this year.
Here’s my shortlist:
- Rockband 2
- Warhammer online
- The witcher enhanced edition
- X3:Terran Conflict
- Crysis: Warhead
- Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway
- Lost in Blue: shipwrecked
- Lego Batman
Yeah. That’s just september. Ie, 2 weeks. Rockband, is a must before x-mas but since its a party game it’s not that important. I’d say witcher and x3 are the 2 biggies.. granted I pre-ordered Brothers in Arms a long time ago (steam had a bundle deal). Might give WAR a month after launch or two before sinking into another mmo. Yeah, and october looks to be just as full of noteworthy releases.
1 Test
Sporedom
Hmm, so spore is out.
Played it a bunch for the last couple days and still kinda not sure what I think about it. Which is, well, kinda weird. Some parts are good, very good in fact. Some parts ..eh not so much. But the exploration factor.. wow.. just wandering around and seeing the other critters that exist, if you at all enjoy a trip to the zoo you’ll be well pleased.
A small ookiness factor, and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it. Just by sigining into the spore online world (as prompted to do so at the game startup) it turns out everything I create winds up online for other people to see.. Which is.. a little invasive.. in my opinion.. http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=srch-drakkheim
Anyway, It’s a nice little toy that Im sure to play with for a long time.
Another weekend gone..
Ahh another weekend come and gone.
Lots and lots of musing about game dev type stuff not sure if anything will actually come of it, whatever.. no biggies.
ArmA, specifically the player made ‘Evolution Blue’ level, may well be the best co-op fps game ever. Spent most of satuday clearing out the first two and a half towns gaining some ranks, driving & flying some bigger and more well armed vehicles. The only thing it needs are some better tutorials on how to manage your squaddies. It’s one heck of a learning curve but when you get the hang of it rolling into a hostile town with your squad is well worth it. Heck, I’d buy a game just based off this one level (if they fixed a couple little bugs too).
Elsewhere.. Spore releases today. (download currently at 42%), totally promises a fun and addictive toy to play with for a loong time. The creature creator (free trial here) shows off the versatility of the game.
Server move
Well things are now settling down here on our new server.
Got a handful of old and new domains consolidated across the board and some nre goodies lined up.
Most notably would be the start of development on the dream wars. Got a good start on the dsesign spec and some of the data modeling up and running. It’s an ooold idea I had a long time ago but with the new png support that’s universal plus a bunch of new nifty ajaxy2.0buzzwordladen tools at my disposal it actually might be doable now. The biggest concern is how browsers support 3-400 pngs with 8bit transparency. I hope pereformance doesnt just suck.
anyway.. more layout changes and general tweaking still needs to be done all over the place. But it’s a beginning.
