I arrived in 9UY and did like I normally do, warped to the sun to start to create some bookmarks. (I suppose I’m going to have to change my tactics now that I’ve announced that, huh?)  Thought this was a nice artsy-fartsy shot with the reinforcement timer in the background and the foreground looking like it was on fire…

I caught up with a bunch of Against All Authorities and Ushra’khan pilots on a gate. Our corp’s ex-ceo was among them.  Somehow I’d managed to forget to exclude people in my corp from my “reds” tab… He woulda just bombed me if I locked him, I’m sure.

After warping into an enemy fleet we took the last hostile as a pet.  He had the entire fleet’s disruptors on him and he even got some repair drones to keep anyone from accidentally popping him.  Note that I still haven’t managed to remove Maestro from my overview…

another shot of our pet…

More to come as the campaign continues.  The I-hub should exit reinforced  on Friday morning, and the station will follow on Saturday afternoon.  Should be a great weekend.

I’m of the opinion that if you can’t write at least once a week about something you probably don’t belong in the business of blogging about it.  I break that rule far too often when it comes to my blog, but as a New Year’s resolution I’ll be attempting to blog about whisky AND games at least once a week.  Each.

I’ve been gathering my tasting notes on the Glenfiddich 15yo Solera Reserve as that’s the bottle I have that’s closest to being retired. (empty)  but I’m not quite ready to finalize and publish them.  As an alternative today I offer you a collection of some of the finest whisky related blogs the internet has to offer.  If you’re using google reader you can subscribe to this group here.  The same address will let you subscribe via ATOM to the group.

The OPML file can be found here. (you’ll want to right-click/save as…)  This XML file should let you bulk import these RSS addresses into your feed reader of choice.

I’ve been using this group for close to two weeks and it provides me with 1 to 10 articles a day.  If you have a whisky related blog that isn’t listed, let me know by leaving a comment, emailing me (dan[at]autumnrayne[dot]net) or hitting me up on twitter.  I’d ask that you have at least 3 whisky related posts and have been running for a few months before submitting your blog (this blog is not included yet.)  This prevents spam, etc.  I’ll let you know when the OPML file updates in my weekly posts, but if you’re subscribed to the ATOM feed or through google reader it should be automagically adding any new feeds I put in.

Cheers.

Over the last year or so I’ve discovered fine liquors.  That’s not to say that I wasn’t aware there were whiskies out there besides Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, I just didn’t any reason to pony up the extra cash to get drunk on fancy spirits.  Mostly because my drinking habits were single-minded: get drunk with friends.

In my old age I’ve found it to be more satisfying (and easier on my morning-afters) to enjoy a small drink of exceptional quality.  Much like my college room mate who spent a small fortune on micro and foreign beers to line the kitchen walls, I’ve been bitten by the “malt bug.”

It started innocently enough.  We were in the habit of buying gin and gradually found ourselves weary of the simple offerings of the corner liquor store.  Luckily there’s a bigger liquor store that lies directly on my route home from work and soon enough we were drinking Hendrick’s gin and tonics.  As the weather grew colder, I started buying little bottles of cheap whiskies when I went to the store as a treat.  I became interested in what separated a bourbon from a Kentucky Bourbon from a scotch from an Irish whisky from a whiskEy so I turned to wikipedia.  Wikipedia led me to searching for an entry-level, modestly priced scotch to try.

Soon there was a new bottle of Aberlour a’bunadh (batch 26) on our kitchen table as an early Christmas present to myself.  It was shortly followed by an Ardmore traditional and a Glenfiddich 15 y/o Solera Reserve… My wife eyes me suspiciously when I walk in the door these days, looking for the tell-tale black bag that  means I spent more money at the liquor store.

We had the opportunity to go out to dinner with Elena’ s grandparents last night, and her grandmother was entertaining us with tales of all the people she’d met over the course of the year, and suddenly she stopped and said “you know, I wish I had written down everything we’d done with them so I could remember all the details and plan for their next visit.”  In that spirit (pun intended) I’m going to be adding a whisky category to autumnrayne.net to keep track of my tasting notes and experiences.  I will also probably pull the whisky content out into a “new” blog so that people who are only interested in following that facet of my writing can do so without being bogged down by the video game stuff.  (and vice versa.)

In an effort to keep my brain from leaking out my ears any more than it already does  I’ve decided to take some proactive… err, action towards building my game development/programming/design skills.

Enter the best flash game of all time, Curveball: http://www.curveball-game.com/

Curveball was one of those games that got me through my Senior Year (aside from WoW, which I couldn’t exactly play in class.)  The goal is simple, engage in a game of 3d pong against a computer opponent who grows faster with each round.  The twist is that if the paddle is moving when it connects with the ball, the path of the ball will warp like you’d expect a real object to.  (think four-square or pool)  Points are scored for the amount of curve applied to the ball, the accuracy of your hit, and for getting it past the computer’s paddle.

This is the first problem with the game. It would be possible to stay on level one and get an endless amount of points for curving the ball at slow speeds.  I think there should be an exponentially increasing point cap to the level.  For example on level one you can either get the ball past the computer’s paddle three times or gain 1500 points to move to level two.

Problem two: zee scoreboard, eet does nothing!

Problem three: while I can certainly appreciate the “Tron” aesthetic, in an effort to showcase my uber UI design abilities, I’ll be updating the look a little bit.

First and foremost however, I need to get a working game.  Here are my steps:

1. Player paddle movement

2. Ball movement (straight lines)

3. NPC paddle movement

4. Ball physics implementation (curves, increasing velocity, friction?)

5. Scoring

6. Level gating (3 rounds or X number of points to advance)

7. increasing “intelligence” of NPC paddle movement (faster reaction time to ball position changes.)

8. Central scoreboard

9. Art/UI update

10. Evaluation

I’ll post updates with a current build of the game as I progress.  I’d welcome all your comments along the way.

I think I’m about halfway through the main Fallout3 narrative.  I just hit level 11 last night while finishing up the storyline bits in Vault 112. (I’m doing my best not to say anything that might spoil the game for people who haven’t played it so bear with me.)

It was after Vault 112 that I ran into the first game design issue that made me want to turn off my PS3—escorting NPCs.

Basically you are joined by someone who tells you that you need to go all the way across the map to get to the next part of the quest.  Um, ok… the game has taught you by now that you can travel instantly to any place you’ve already been, but this NPC takes off running at break-neck speed across the map and the story is such that I’m inclined to follow.  So we run and run and run and run and finally I’m like “fuck this guy, I’m teleporting my ass to Rivet City.”

So I do.  (being sure to save before hand incase I happen to break the game by doing so…)

I pop on over to where he told me to go, and he’s no where to be found.  I walk outside the city and note that I can see where he is on my little radar doohicky.  Rather than go back and find him, I decide to go talk to the scientist he’s coming to see.  Oh wait, there he is!  As soon as I talk to sciencechick he descends the staircase and proceeds to have a long conversation without any subtitles (which was awesome since I was playing with the sound practically off because my wife was sleeping.)

So now we’re joined by sciencechick to go off somewhere else.  Knowing now that I might not break the game by teleporting to the destination I do so.  Ok, so they aren’t here yet.  No worries, says I—I’ll use the “wait” feature.  So I wait 2 hours, nothing.  I wait another 2 hours and still nothing.  Super.  So off I go to find them.

I end up killing some super mutants (milk bottle to the face, sucka.) and the game updates my quest saying “go tell the people who were supposed to be with you that it’s ok to come in now.”  Um, sure.  Just one problem-I don’t know where they are.

I mosey around the building looking for where they might be hiding, or maybe a phone/intercom to call them and let them know that it’s ok to come in, but nothing.  I head out the door to save and teleport back to my house when its “OH HAI, HOW ARE YOU?!” there they are.

So now I have to “escort” them to the center of the building, which is possibly the most annoying thing in the world.  MMOs have taught me that when someone asks to be escorted anywhere you should expect ninjas to appear from nowhere and try to kill them.  So I stay close.  Here’s the issue with this: when your targetting recticle passes over the NPC, they stop to say something inane like “what can I do for you?” and pause for a full 10 seconds before continuing to move at the slowest pace in the history of the world. I know you can move fast, Mr. NPC-man.  I watched you book it across the wasteland for a good 10 minutes before I ditched your ass.  Stop talking to me and get to where you’re going… and keep an eye out for ninjas.

We get to the center of the building ninja-free, and they begin to mingle amongst themselves.  Um.  Guys?  Guys?  Over here.  I had a quest that you need to let me finish now please.  No, you can’t do anything for me.  Stop talking and finish my quest so I can go to bed.  Finally, he positioned himself in front o f a computer and I decided that maybe I should talk to him.  Voila!  My quest was done.

I went outside, saved, and went to bed.

Ugh.  Make interacting with NPCs beyond just dialogue not suck please.

While we’re on the subject can we discuss why/how I can teleport across the Capital Wasteland?  I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong—but how does it fit into the game world?  Has the radiation broken down my body like Sandman (from spiderman 3) allowing me to dissassemble myself and move through space at an increased velocity?  I wish they had explained it somehow.