Dwell On It

Hatters gonna hat

Tateru Nino — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:33:10 +0000

I’m a social gamer. This doesn’t mean that I play what are commonly called “social games”, because generally, they aren’t actually social, and while they might be compelling to some – particularly to those whose experience with electronic entertainment is a bit limited – they’re not generally a lot of actual fun.

No, I’m a social gamer. I like to communicate about games. I like to talk about them. I like to write about them. I like to have enjoyable cooperative gaming experiences with my friends and family – in the same room, if at all possible. I also like to just play them.

That’s the sort of social gamer I am.

Now, here’s the sort of social gamer that I am not…

Haters gonna hate

Tateru Nino — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:02:33 +0000

You’ve seen the phrase. Perhaps you’ve seen it often.

“Haters gonna hate.”

It’s a simple truism – tautological, in fact – but most times you see the phrase, it’s a sign that the person writing it has switched their brain off, just when they should be making sure that it is on.


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Little Text People at GDC

Tateru Nino — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:24:38 +0000

If you’ve got a pass for GDC (all-access or a summits/tutorials pass), you can catch the 60 minute talk at 11am on 5 March in room 2006 at the West Hall as a part of GDC’s AI Summit.

Linden Lab Acquires Game Studio LittleTextPeople

Tateru Nino — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:31:55 +0000

Technology and Team Join Linden Lab to Support Company’s Strategic Initiative to Launch Innovative New Digital Entertainment Products This Year


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Opposite day

Tateru Nino — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:25:03 +0000

Adorkable Peapod threw out a blogger challenge. Blog the opposite of what you normally blog. That was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, since being relentlessly (even unpredictably) eclectic is just a part of my natural charm.

However, there’s one thing that I don’t normally do, and that’s fashion-blogging. So I went out and got mys Read more ...

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Play it now – Jagged Alliance: Back in Action

Tateru Nino — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:45:47 +0000

I had Meltdown slip up behind one of the guards, who was kneeling behind a short barricade of sandbags, watching for an external threat. The guard had no time to react when Meltdown shot her twice in the back of the head. I knew there was another guard nearby, and expecting that he might hear the shots, I had Meltdown drop to her belly and slither around the other side of the barricade where she would be out of sight.

As expected, he heard the shots, and dashed out just in time to spot Meltdown before she got behind cover, but not with enough time to aim and fire before she was out of sight.

I expected him to try to circle around, and prepared Meltdown for that, but he didn’t. Instead, he hunkered down partly covered by the trunk of a small tree, aimed his pistol and just waited. Meltdown had nowhere to go, and all he had to do was wait.

While this standoff continued, I instructed Fox to belly-crawl towards him, along the side of a building. There was a low, concrete barrier to the guard’s left, just slightly to his rear. Fox easily slipped into position.

I coordinated the two. Fox would pop up, and fire a shot at the guard, then drop again. As soon as she fired, Meltdown would move up into a crouch and empty her magazine at the guard, who would hopefully have turned towards the new threat, but be denied a target as Fox vanished from his sight.

It worked beautifully. Fox took a shot over the barrier, catching the guard by surprise, and then dropped as he turned towards her. Meltdown popped up at the first shot, aimed and fired three of her own shots, taking him down.

He didn’t stand a chance, and that was just the way I wanted it.

There were other guards, but they were far too far away to have heard the action. I instructed the girls to reload, and began planning their approach towards the next guard post, checking the lay of the terrain, cover and patrol routes.

I was just fifteen minutes into playing Jagged Alliance: Back In Action.


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New comic: Unmarked

Tateru Nino — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:20:57 +0000

Jump to the new comic, or new readers can click the banner to begin at the rather rough beginning:

A good effort

Tateru Nino — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:07:32 +0000

Linden Lab saw a fair bit of backlash this week with its call for blog contributors. You submit an article, and the Lab edits or rewrites it and posts it on the site as an exclusive guest contribution.

The backlash was such that some comments on the post were deleted, commenting was closed and the post itself (while still accessible) appears to have disappeared from the front page of the community site.

What people objected to is that they’re not paying for the writing. I don’t actually think that’s something to kick the Lab in the head about.


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Second Life to help educate rural Indian farmers on climate trends

Tateru Nino — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:06:29 +0000

The team of experts from the University of Southern Queensland’s Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments (ACSC) may work diligently at predicting future climate changes but how do you get that information to regional farmers throughout the world?

The ACSC has recently completed a successful trial of a web-based discussion-support for climate information for regional Indian farmers in Hyderabad and are hoping to extend the program to the rest of India and then to other nations.

The way it works is deceptively simple— using the ACSC’s research, staff and students from Toowoomba’s University of Southern Queensland (USQ) campus hold a casual discussion about upcoming climate trends over the online virtual world program Second Life.

The llGiveInventory throttles

Tateru Nino — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:05:15 +0000

Roblem Hogarth has dug out the information for when and how the S Read more ...

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A landmark ruling

Tateru Nino — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:57:32 +0000

Something just happened. Something important.

On Tuesday, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that when two boys forced a third (by violence) to give them two of his Runescape items, that it was theft.

Now, you might think that that is a landmark ruling for digital goods as lawful property. It isn’t. Well, it is, but it isn’t in the way that you might think. It’s far more interesting than that.

Stuck trying to log into Second Life? You’re not alone

Tateru Nino — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:23:35 +0000

At present there seems to be a moderately serious problem with the central “presence” service in Second Life. Either some user logouts are not being properly recorded, or the serialising and storing of their attached assets or scripts is not working as it is supposed to.

This is leaving quite a few Second Life user accounts in a Limbo state, where the system “cannot log you in” until some future date, that never actually arrives.


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Second Life’s greatest strengths are also its greatest weaknesses

Tateru Nino — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:02:03 +0000

If I were to make a list of the top three things that are responsible for Second Life being as great as it is – and that is exactly what I’m doing today – it would read equally well as a list of things that hold Second Life back.


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2ndMe Launches Final Version and Offers Free SL Export

Tateru Nino — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:07:11 +0000

2ndMe, a fast growing service for Second Life residents, changed its status from beta to final on 16th of January 2012. All promised features like Adobe Flash 11-based core, animation and hardware acceleration support were successfully released. Also, from now on 2ndMe users enjoy free export of their avatars to Second Life.


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The golden rule of arts and sciences

Tateru Nino — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:14:57 +0000

SOPA isn’t dead. Far from it.

The people behind that bill and a host of other bills over the years are able to bring that bill, or its equivalent, back as many times as they please, until they have a legislature and president willing to pass it and sign it.

SOPA primarily is supported by money, but it is primarily only opposed by speech.

Money buys votes, essentially. It buys the votes of the legislature, because money buys your vote.

Fangs or GTFO

Tateru Nino — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:30:47 +0000

What do you think when you see an ad banner for Second Life? More to the point, what would you think if you were one of the many millions of people who knew nothing about Second Life?

Mostly, something like Vampire Wars, mixed with Farmville.


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Convalescence

Tateru Nino — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:57:15 +0000

I’m too sick to read, or write or do much of anything right now. Running a fever.

So, more on the parametric mesh deformer.

Lab requests feedback on Read more ...

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Qarl turns back on Lab rejection, “the code is open”

Tateru Nino — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:34:03 +0000

Following the seemingly specious rejection of the contributed prim-alignment tool earlier in the week, Qarl has declined to make the changes suggested by the Lab.

In the past, when code contributions have been made, the Lab has been willing to pull out all the stops to make its own contribution to the code in some cases, even going so far as to rewrite a contribution’s code from the ground up to meet its requirements or to overcome stylistic or technical objections.

The Lab has not chosen to do that this time and, while I cannot reasonably speculate on what the Lab is thinking and why – in this instance, the temptation is so very great.


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Linden Lab rejects Qarl’s prim-alignment tool

Tateru Nino — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:57:36 +0000

At least partly because it only really works with standard prims, you know, being a prim-alignment tool.

Actually, the Lab’s argument here seems to be that the alignment tool is incomplete (though I’d say it is more complete than a number of features I’ve seen the Lab ship over the last few years), and that since it provides assistance to only one set of fiddly, annoying tasks that it should not be included.


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The end of the world (as we know it)

Tateru Nino — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:44:33 +0000

I’m an end-of-the-world survivor. Through my life, there have been dozens of dates set for doomsday. Magic comets, mysterious asteroids, the second coming, planetary alignments, the rapture, you name it. People keep picking dates and years that the world will end – so many that I don’t think I’ve lived through a single year when there has not been at least one prediction that the world would end that year.

Stubbornly, the world has refused to end, much to the embarrassment and chagrin of many doomsday prophets.

Welcome to 2012.