Arcana

Watching the Olympics always makes me want to go out and do various athletic feats. Now I'm vaguely interested in seeing if there's either a curling club or an ice skating lesson set out there. (Or, I could just stick with wall climbing).

With respect to MMORPGs, and perhaps RPGs in general there's a paradigm of "Eastern-style" vs. "Western-style", mostly referring to the developer. Blizzard is a Western-style developer. They make the game accessible and easy. NCSoft is an Eastern-style developer. They make the game hard and that's because their players expect it to be hard. Since the "dumbing-down" of games (or streamlining, whatever), a lot of Western players simply can't play Eastern games anymore because they're "too hard". Or, maybe they were never that fun to begin with and it just took the release of a few other games for people to realise that.

If you want to hear arguments about this for years, then talk about this kind of stuff in the context of World of Warcraft vs. "old school, hardcore MMORPGs" like FF13, DAoC, Everquest, and possibly even Aion. WoW did away with things like harsh death penalties (no XP loss on death), reduced flying times, made it so that gold couldn't buy everything, and made it so that you played about an average of 4 to 5 hours to get a level up. Traditional MMORPGs? Punishment for dying (even at the hands of another player), expensive money sinks, long grinds to level, and so forth. All of the non WoW players call the WoW players wowkids and lament the destruction of the MMORPG since Blizzard introduced the genre to the casuals.

I suggested a format that is similar to one that I've experienced in Victoria, a local "software project manager's round table" group. You get a bunch of people who use the opportunity to not only learn but to also network with local software managers in the area. Every 6 weeks someone sets up a presentation that is of interest to the group and is intended to stir up discussions. After the meeting the managers work on "choosing the next topic" usually from a list of "hot topics" and then get someone to volunteer for it. Usually the presentations end up running for about an hour, possibly with a dinner break in between, and business minutes run for about half an hour. It would be up to the presenter to decide how much interaction he or she wants to provide to the others. Livestream is a broadcasting/screen-sharing service that you might want to look at for supporting screen sharing. Procaster and UStream appear to be similar services.

I hate to be the downer, but I am concerned about the actual format of the meetings and how this will work differently than what we already do. What will make this focus on music, instead of "random gossip this week"? What will we be doing in these meetings - will it be lecture/presentation style, where someone presents for 20m and then takes questions? Will it be a discussion about "guitar playing techniques"? Is it going to involve exercises? Or are we going to do all of these and it depends on whoever's presenting? Maybe we'll get a volunteer each week to do a presentation and people who are interested will come out? If we do it like that, how would it be different doing it live than if we just made this an online podcast? Or, is Dyne going to sit down and organize information and teach everyone in the format of an online course? How are many of us going to learn if we don't have guitars/drums/violins/flutes/FLStudio? How is it going to be different from the "Workshop" threads that we see right now? What will the benefit be of a Facebook group? I've never, ever had a discussion on Facebook in which I've learned something useful. Also, while talking on IRC is useful it's only useful to a point and it's easy to get carried away in the "talk" aspect and not put into the "music" aspect. If we come out ot this I think we would be disappointed if most of it was just spent "chatting" as we normally do. Also, many of us already do online "practices" in the form of One-hour Compos and other similar exercises. How will this compliment those kinds of activities? I think it's a good idea, but I'm also curious about what we each are going to get out of this especially if the group gets really, really big. The current structure is unclear so I would like to see some stronger ideas of what everyone will do together. The more structured this is, the more success everyone will get out of it, especially if a group gets very big. Personally I recommend a presentation/discussion format, where someone volunteers every meeting to set up some kind of demonstration on how to do some particular thing, using some online collaborative software (Skype screen sharing, VNC, StickAm, etc) and then teaches or leads a discussion about a particular issue that affects musicians. The meeting idea is posted in advance and then those who are interested in it can decide to come out. That way you get to include people who are actually interested about the topic and want to learn. So, if meeting #1 is a tutorial on FLStudio, then someone can skip it if he doesn't like FLStudio. Meeting #2 might be done by someone about "synth design". Meeting #3 about "how to play advanced guitar". And so forth.

I agree with Meteo Xavier here.

If I take the word "congratulations" and then take out all of the letters that appear in the name "DragonAvenger" then all I'm left with is "ctultis"!

Does the free Kontakt player still not load this library nicely? I downloaded a starter pack (I think it's Kontakt 3.5?) for free recently and there's no limit on how long you can use it.

I was about to mention this. EVE Online is similar to Freelancer in the development of a world, navigating jump gates, trading and buying upgrades, but is not as arcade-like. Mostly in EVE Online combat is more click-target, attack, wait a bit, click as needed to adjust your target and position.

How would this library sound in the hands of someone who knows virtually nothing about guitar? Like, can you just drag and drop MIDI notes and it's fine?

DSP hardware is to real-time audio as GPU hardware is to real-time graphics, pretty much. Just as a graphics processing unit does super-fast real time processing of graphics (especially when it comes to textures and lighting), your DSP will allow you to do super-fast real time processing of audio (especially effects). Aside to Zircon: I have no experience with DSP personally, but based on what I know about computer architecture, I would intuitively believe that adding DSP hardware would reduce your latency, not add to it. This is because instead of processing real-time audio on your general processing unit (which is busy doing stuff like running FLStudio, plugins, your OS, etc.) you can do the real-time audio processing on the DSP instead. Thus, you bypass the processor. Most latency delay is because the bits associated have to go through a processor, not because they travel throughout your computer. However if your drivers aren't good or your operating system has no idea how to route the audio correctly to the correct device then it may very well add latency.

Most places don't charge you until they ship the item, check if that's what Play-Asia does. If that's the case then there's little risk if you order something that's backordered.

I would love to get a setup like this actually. One way I attempt to compensate a bit is by setting up an exercise ball for computing at home, but there are a few problems with it, mostly that the exercise ball I have is a bit too high for where I have the keyboard tray at. Definitely not a cardio workout, but it's a good way to build up core strength.

Oh I should also add, I'm seeing a LOT of determined people posting in this - people who play competitive sports or want to go to the Olympics. I actually went to a decent talk about "exercising for the lazy". In lieu of actual "2 hours of the gym each day" activities, the woman was suggesting ways to cut back on fatty foods and how to keep active simply by making basic lifestyle modifications. While you won't get the body of a Greek god by doing these things they'll help you be a bit more active as well. The talk was aimed mostly at students but would apply to most people who have an office job. These involved things like: - stop taking elevators - get off the bus one stop before you arrive at your destination (or getting on one stop later) - going up or down one extra floor to use the washroom - going to the far cafeteria for lunch instead of the close one - buying trail mix, fruit, or veggies as a snack instead of muffins, donuts, or bagels - not using cream cheese, butter, or jam - ordering vegetarian entrees at lunch instead of meat ones - packing your own lunch - walking around the floor as a break The basic idea is that, if you don't have the mental conviction to get out to the gym regularly, then make choices so that you can get exercise in here and there.

I paid for a year of indoor wall climbing. It's totally not cardio though. I go twice a week for about an hour. I could stand to gain some weight, a few years ago I worked on gaining weight and gained about 10 pounds in 12 weeks, but since then I've lost it because it was too difficult overall to maintain the diet (cost factored in quite a bit especially the cost required for weight gain supplement). I used to do martial arts in Waterloo, but since I moved I stopped. For me, a big factor is accessibility. If you want to work out, you have to make this kind of stuff accessible to you - know how to do general calisthetics (like the ones Monobrow has posted) and keep small weights of varying sizes close to where you work so that when you take that 10m break to walk around your apartment you can do some shoulder lifts or V-crunches.

Prot hangs out in IRC I think?

Did you write that line? It's awesome.

What's the official finalized dates, are they still as they are on the front post? Also, anyone here have recommendations for accommodation? I am especially interested in learning about what the lodging and the transportation situation is going to be like so I can decide around where I'd want to stay. If I went I'd be sharing a room with my significant other. If anyone who knows Vegas could leave some tips I would appreciate it.

When playing Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, or Xenogears, I could also just mash the X button and win. What turn-based RPGs do you enjoy that have strategy as a basis for their gameplay?

Can you provide more details about what you don't like about the combat?

I got enough to realise that your original statement was ambiguous. However with the added context in which you state that you don't like MMORPGs makes it more clear. Though overall I don't see why an MMORPG's pseudo-real-time combat is that much different from turn-based battles, unless the turn-based battle is more turn-based strategy (like Final Fantasy Tactics). Real-time requires you to press buttons, and occasionally move within a certain amount of time (usually a few seconds). Turn-based just pauses the entire game and lets you enter one (or more) actions.

Are you suggesting that the Real-time MMO-type Gameplay makes turn-based JRPG gameplay feel antiquated, or are you suggesting that the trend of real-time MMO-type gameplay in modern JRPGs now is making you not care about JRPGs anymore?

Damn maybe I should play Grandia III. I have all kinds of RPGs from the PS2 era that I haven't touched yet too.

Did you get to work in the BioWare Office in Edmonton with the other team members, or do you do all of your work remotely with other developers? How did you like doing this remote collaboration? Did you feel connected with the other aspects of the game's design (art, development)?