My March Post

So, here is the start of my March post. I guess I have alot of cleaning up to do from last month, so let’s see how hard this’ll be. I’ll start with the hard and emotional stuff.

First off, I may get my comp taken away due to grades, so this might be my last post for a month (which would suck) but I deserve it…. I guess. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say it’s a big amount of grounding for something small.

Second, I think I have a problem with BZFlag. I’ll keep it as simple as that, but my ethics and morals on there have been like wiped out. Some of you that are on BZFlag and have seen me recently can probably relate. I can’t say I’m sorry to you guys, because I’m not…I can’t play BZFlag for fun anymore and now I’m going on just to tease people which is jerkish and bi###y, but I just don’t know…I should probably just uninstall BZFlag, forget it for good before I do something horrible.

[EDIT: As of August 2009 The scratched out phrase does not apply anymore. I play the game as-is and have fun. No more worries, sorry about typing that up in the first place, sometimes I hate myself.]

Thirdly, I lost the game.  What is the game you ask? Well, the goal of the game is not to think about the game, when you think about the game, you lose the game, and you have to acknowledge that you lost the game by saying “I lost the game” out loud, or in an IM conversation you’re having with someone. You can never win the game because when you try to make someone think about the game to make them lose the game, you think about the game and you lose the game. And now that you know what the game is, you are playing the game, and you have already lost the game. You then have 30 minutes to clear your mind of the game, before you can lose the game again. Today so far, I have lost the game 14 times including just now, which is typical for half the day gone (I keep records of how many times I lose the game each day). You lose the game more when you play the game.

Fourthly, Fighter’s Field 3D is almost out, but if I get grounded, it won’t be released on April 1st, but on May 1st. :\
Check out http://z-gamers.net and http://forum.z-gamers.net for more info on what’s going on.

Eh, I’ll stop with the starting phrases, but that’s all I can think of. I had alot more to say but I just had a mind sweep. Ugh, writer’s block, now I’m just writing whatever comes to my head. Eh, whatever, I can’t think when I am not in the good mood, so I guess this is it to the post. :\ I can’t believe I can’t think right now, I had this very long post planned out that would take about 10 minutes to read, but now I got nothing. Well, I should stop typing because this is just stupid…Bye.

Diablo 2 – Fun

So, even though it is a pretty old game, Diablo 2 was something I have recently bought. I guess I’m sort of getting into a computer game buying mood now because I bought Spore, now I bought Diablo 2. Guess I can have fun with computer games if I can’t get a current generation console. Anyways, so here’s my Diablo 2 review.

Diablo 2       9/10 
Game 9/10, Graphics 7/10, Online 10/10, Entertainment 9/10, Replayability 10/10.

Game: The game itself is very fun in my opinion. Who wouldn’t want to run around killing enemies, gaining experience, leveling up, learning new skills, and do quests? It just contains so much to do for such a simple concept. I was amazed at how fun it is compared to alot of games with similar graphics/implementations.

Graphics: The game may not be too strong in the Graphics score, but that doesn’t mean the graphics suck. Most of the graphics are pretty detailed, they’re just tiny giving the impression that they are low quality, which is not true. I do agree that it would’ve been nice to see larger images though to make it seem more graphically friendly.

Online: Online play is fun, interactive, and simple. You can use your own computer as a server or use Battle.net’s free online service to host a game. Chatting and picking rooms are simple enough and don’t require much time to get used to. Most players call their game names by what act or part they’re on or what they need help with.

Entertainment: Diablo 2 receives a 9 instead of a 10 due to the fact that it is slightly repetitive. And by slightly, I mean Very Slightly. The areas are randomly generated each time you restart a server on online play apparently (I might need clarity on that statement) which I think is a good thing because that keeps the game interesting and fun. Knowing how to get through every maze or puzzle perfectly each time is lame. Other than the length of time in certain areas, the game has too much variety in enemies, items, and dungeons, to make you bored.

Replayability: Diablo 2 has 5 classes normally, but I got the expansion set so that makes 2 additional classes for 7 total. First off, playing each class through the whole game may take a very long time. You also have to consider that the skill tree is so large that putting skill points on different skills each time dramatically affects game play each time, so you may have to play literally 10s of times before you start figuring out every single combination. The random dungeons (Again, might need clarity) also keep the game very random and fun, and random enemies make each time you do that one quest unique and fun.

Overall: This game is very addictive and fun, single player and multiplayer! I like how when more players play in one game, the strength of the monsters increases. This makes it so much more fun than people running through areas casting a few things and making quests cheap for others, it actually requires more teamwork. Interesting death concept, that when you die you have to collect all your equips and gold from your dead body if possible. I did have to restart the game one time and just collect my equips without the gold because I didn’t put a town portal, but that’s ok. Tons of different weapons and armor also made this game so interesting in that each time you played, you will probably have different weapon and armor sets, depending on what you found! Definitely worth the $40. (It’s actually cheaper, but I got the Battle Chest which contained Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 2 Expansion Set, and the Diablo 2 Ultimate Strategy Guide.

Fun fun, so what else have I done over the past week. (Actually, almost two weeks since I posted now) Let’s see… I did continue work on Fighter’s Field 3D. Although I have yet to release it, I am still working on it. I guess since there’s no consequence for not releasing a game, I never release on the release date which sucks, because schoolwork I’d always do it before the due date no matter what, but this however I keep delaying. Guess it’s just my problem…

That is pretty much it for the past two weeks, haven’t done much else. Going to update my pic soon on the About Me page because it’s outdated. (I think it’s almost 1.5 years old now)

Oh yeah, check out http://z-gamers.net and look at Bawl Maze, released by XSkulls. Not the best, but a fun little 3d ball rolling game. If you haven’t noticed, we got a paid domain name too thanks to XSkulls, we thank ya!!

Missing Out On a Whole Month

So, this is my first blog post I am putting on here for January 2009, and it will probably be my only one. Well, first off, Happy Late New Year to everyone I’ve made my New Year’s Resolution, and I hope you did too and have started this year off great.

 

To get things moving quickly, I’ll start off by talking about the biggest things that have happened during this month from January 1^st.

 

My year started off pretty exciting with me getting Spore and Sparkcash for Christmas. The game Spore is a computer game where you create your own creature and go on a vast adventure through time as your creature evolves through the 5 essential stages to become a futuristic intelligent society. I found the game to be very fun and have reached the Space Stage (Like most people). I’m sure if you had read other Spore reviews then you already do know this and do not need a whole new review, so I will not go into any details but I just wanted to mention that it is very fun.

 

Sparkcash is the currency used in the game Fiesta when you pay real life money to get Sparkcash. Now, you may find that it is very dumb to spend real money on an online game (I know the feeling, and I’ve been waiting forever for this) and you know, you’re right, it is a dumb game to be wasting real life money on but I guess if I’m happy then I do not mind (Of course everyone says that). I’m pretty sure if you played Fiesta for almost half a year now, you may be interested in getting Sparkcash. Sparkcash is now found at Target stores conveniently in Sparkcash cards of $10 and $25 values. You get a little more than 17,000 Sparkcash with a $25 card.

 

So, those cover the things that happened since Christmas. Now then, recently I have been reading more science fiction books. I did finish the Rama series and must say I really liked the series. Here I quickly rate each book from the series with a short summary of why I rated it that.

 

Rendezvous with Rama: 6/10 – So, this book was all about exploring a ship, with some life that doesn’t interact with the crew very much. Basically sets the stage for the rest of the books.

 

Rama II: 8/10 – This is where the real action starts. The crew that is talked about through the rest of the Rama series is revealed. About a quarter of the book is spent on Earth, then the rest of the book is mainly most of the crew escaping Rama, and then leaving Nicole, Richard, and O’Toole stranded in Rama.

 

Garden of Rama: 9/10 – This book is when all of the kids that Nicole has with Richard and O’Toole are born. I love how the book starts off with Nicole writing about the events that happened in the spaceship. This is where they meet The Eagle and finally start understanding what is happening. They set up what the City of Rama will look like, and now I see where the places from the final book come into play.

 

Rama Revealed: 10/10 – The final book in the series is full of action, romance, and stories all wrapped up in this book to make it probably the biggest and best book in the whole series. Everything gets wrapped up very logically and it’s very hard to get a story to close that’s this complicated so well. All the events that have happened in the previous books now have a large role in the whole story.

 

So there are my personal ratings for that series.

 

Upon Liberalphie’s (Name of friend from Fiesta) / Warinthestar’s (Name of friend from BZFlag) recommendation, he suggested I read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. So I picked up the book and read the first chapter, then I stored it away for maybe half the week. I didn’t like the first chapter but then I thought, heck might as well see if I can figure out what’s so great about this book and I continued to read it. I soon figured out the whole story and was reading it through. Within the week I have finished the book and I love it.

 

The Andromeda Strain: 8/10 – The book was a cool experience. The concept of a virus from space was interesting and how it created the mysteries of the two survivors kept the plot going through most of the book. I loved how the laboratory was set up with 5 floors, each floor a more secured area. The only bad thing about this book was the ending which I did not like. It made logical sense, but it sure seemed boring. If you didn’t understand science and how strains worked, you may have thought that there would be a sequel or something like that. I just felt kind of disappointed by the ending.

 

As you know, I’ve read most of the books of Arthur C. Clarke after I got recommended to read those, so I did. Well, since I got recommended to read one of Michael Crichton’s books, I decided to start getting involved in more of his books. I just finished The Sphere, another great book by him. Fantastic, I loved it completely.

 

The Sphere: 9.5/10 – Fantastic book. I loved the characters in the book, they talked about how exciting or unexciting the adventure underwater will be, and I never thought the underwater environment would be so harsh. The Sphere that was introduced was so interesting too, the secret messages from what eventually became known as Jerry. This book was interesting from page 1 to page whatever the end was, but it was a great book. All the characters were so realistic with different developed attitudes. And because of this, the whole book was kept very interesting. Why didn’t it get a 10? Because, again, I thought the ending of this book kind of was bad. They just completely forgot about their power, never to use it again. I think I’m starting to see a pattern with Michael Crichton’s books. The endings resolve everything.

 

So what am I reading now? I am reading The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton. I’m almost halfway into it, very interesting so far. In my next post I’ll review the book too.

 

Enough about the book stuff. My birthday party is in 2 days and I cannot wait. (And my birthday’s on a Saturday this year )

 

Fighter’s Field 3D – Yes yes, the long awaited wait is almost over. When I release this, fighter’s field will be so much different. (Ok, maybe not completely but it’ll be funner [Yes, that is not a work{At least I don't think so}])

 

Here’s some of the features of this new version.

 

Class Split at Class Upgrade Lv40. You will be able to choose from two class splits once you reach level 40 and have completed Class Upgrade II. By doing this, you get split through class and your skills and stats will differ when you reach higher levels. This allows you to slightly customize your build some more once you reach this point in the game.

 

New Areas! Yes, lots of new areas. New places to explore, new challenges to face. The abyss, snowy areas, and more await you in this new release!

 

New Bosses! Each area will now contain a boss room, where you can challenge your strength and try to conquer the strongest there is in Fighter’s Field land. These bosses require endurance and lots of time to defeat and they will cast skills too.

 

Status Effects! Enemies now can poison, stun, and fear you, making your adventures more harder than before.

 

CPU PVP! Ever wanted to challenge another player playing Fighter’s Field, but I haven’t decided to make it online yet? Well, this will simulate this in that you can vs. a player of your choice to try and defeat! The higher level the player is, the more gold you could win if you defeat it. Even though it is a CPU, it’ll be able to use all the class’s skills that it has, and any HP and MP potions it contains. If you defeat the player, you get 50x(diflevel+5) gold, where diflevel is the difference between their level and yours. (You can do “fun matches”) if the player you vs. is 6 or more levels lower than you.

 

New Armor, Weapons, and Inventory! There will now be an official inventory for Fighter’s Field 3D. You will be able to view all your items from a simple interface, and use, equip, get rid of, or just see your items in general.

 

Everything’s 3D!!! Just the big change from 2D to 3D required lots of changes to the game engine, and now that it is almost complete, there will be drastic changes in the game play and game style you were used to in the 2D version!

 

And finally, New GUI! The login screen, class selection screen, stats view areas, and other things have been modified so that everything can be seen more clearly and better!

 

With all these great features to look forward to, make sure you look out for this version coming soon to computers near you!!!

 

Ok, I’m almost done here, now as you know, I use messengers so I talk to my friends a lot. Well, here’s two conversations that I thought were really fun and I had to show online. You decide whether they’re cool of not, but otherwise, here they are.

 

Joshua and Robert Talking:

 

…
(10:56:38 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I do not know
(10:56:55 PM) Robert Irwin: why not just say i don’t know
(10:57:03 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I don’t know
(10:57:14 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Can’t focus much at night
(10:57:25 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am brain dead
(10:57:32 PM) Robert Irwin: so i noticed
(10:58:04 PM) Robert Irwin: wait if your brain dead…
(10:58:13 PM) Robert Irwin: and your still typing…
(10:58:28 PM) Robert Irwin: then that would mean you would have to be…
(10:58:29 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I must have some brain working, yes
(10:58:49 PM) Robert Irwin: A ZOMBIEEEEE!!!!!!!!
(10:58:57 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am not dead
(10:59:03 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I am only brain dead
(10:59:17 PM) Robert Irwin: but part of you is still dead
(10:59:27 PM) Robert Irwin: you are the living dead
(10:59:35 PM) Robert Irwin: therefore you are a zombie
(10:59:39 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: okay.
(11:00:02 PM) Robert Irwin: you stay away from my brains!!!!
(11:00:10 PM) Robert Irwin: you zombie you!
(11:00:25 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Maybe so, according to dictionary.com, zombie could be
a person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless, or seemingly rote; automaton.
(11:01:42 PM) Robert Irwin: according to mythology a zombie is a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket
(11:02:01 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Okay Robert.
(11:02:01 PM) Robert Irwin: and they’re dead too
(11:02:10 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: I can sound like a computer Robert.
(11:02:21 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: An auto-response mechanism that responds to text commands
(11:02:44 PM) Robert Irwin: so now you are a computer zombie who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket
(11:03:04 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Sure Robert. I am a computer zombie who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket.
(11:03:15 PM) Robert Irwin: k
(11:04:02 PM) Robert Irwin: this is starting to sound like something you would read on bash huh
(11:04:15 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: no Robert, it is not
(11:04:25 PM) Robert Irwin: k
(11:04:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: bash is a computer programming code created for the unix command line
(11:04:47 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: you may however Robert, be referring to a humor website called http://bash.org
(11:04:54 PM) Robert Irwin: yes
(11:05:13 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: If this http://bash.org is what you speak of Robert, then yes Robert, this may be something you read on http://bash.org
(11:05:30 PM) Robert Irwin: @$$#*!&
(11:05:43 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Invalid Syntax : Please try again
(11:06:20 PM) Robert Irwin: 692251 x 8 =
(11:06:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: 5538008
…

(11:09:19 PM) Robert Irwin: wait so you have to go in ten minutes
…
(11:10:41 PM) Robert Irwin: ZOMBIE auto-response unit
…
(11:11:32 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: According to previous definition, a zombie, a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket, would not be me, as I do not fit these characteristics Robert, therefore I am not a
ZOMBIE auto-response unit
(11:12:41 PM) Robert Irwin: hello
(11:12:45 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Hello Robert.
(11:13:18 PM) Robert Irwin: why is this zombie auto-response unit not zombie auto-responding
(11:14:30 PM) Robert Irwin: hey what is your news article on for world history
(11:14:34 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: It may be due to the factoid that I am not a ZOMBIE auto-response unit which was stated using the definition zombie earlier, which was, a person who terrorizes the local village by preying on their young and sucking the brain matter right out of their skulls through the eye socket according to you, which meant that I was not a zombie auto-response unit. Therefore with this inference, I cannot be a zombie auto-responding unit auto-responding
(11:15:34 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: World History is a topic in itself, usually due to educational purposes. However you may be referring to the recipient Joshua Sigona which you can address if you need to ask something specific to this client.
(11:16:33 PM) Robert Irwin: you could be a rusty cyborg with a human brain for cannibalism of the brain and then you would be a zombie and a person and an auto-response unit at the same time
(11:17:13 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: You speak of these things without commen logical sense Robert. Please elaborate or evaluate your response.
(11:19:24 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Joshua Sigona, a client is trying to contact you directly, the recipient, Robert. Would you like to accept contact with this client?

(11:19:50 PM) Robert Irwin: if you were a cyborg you would be a robot and a person at the same time which would mean that you could be an auto-response unit and a human and still terrorize the local village at the same time but you would have to be decomposing slightly at least to be considered the living dead so the rust would be the decomposition on this part and yes i would accept
(11:20:24 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Error : Cannot process two commands at once. Please re-evaluate your previous command.
(11:21:02 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Joshua Sigona, a client is trying to contact you directly, the recipient, Robert. Would you like to accept contact with this client?
(11:21:21 PM) Robert Irwin: yes
(11:21:36 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Output Accepted. Transmitting Input.
(11:21:40 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Hey Robert…lol

 

Joshua and Michael Talking:

 

(8:29:29 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: so how many days are you behind?
(8:29:35 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: 12
(8:30:03 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: …
(8:30:10 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: procrastination to the max
(8:30:34 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: if procrastination was a class, you would pass with flying colors
(8:30:52 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: Great, where do I sign up
(8:31:27 PM) lemons.mike@gmail.com: Well…. I would have the forms for you to sign up but I have been putting off on making them
(8:31:43 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: XDXD
(8:32:37 PM) Joshua / Sidaphela: ahah, that’s something for my blogDid you know that I am posting this using Microsoft Word 2007? I recently got Microsoft Office 2007 recently and I love it. It has all the great features from previous versions of Office, but now you get them in neat little ribbons with all the functions and even extra features. Some may argue that compared to previous versions of office that using a ribbon is hard and that they were used to normal submenus. Well, once you get used to the interface you will love it too. I give the program a rating of 10/10, good job Microsoft!

 

Ok, that is pretty much it for now. I will start posting more regularly in February. So, hope to see you all then!

Happy December!

So, it’s that time of year again, time to bring out the christmas trees, lights, and whatever, but I’m just glad it’s almost 2009. One of my favorite numbers if 9, so 2009 is a year I am looking forward to.

Anyways, enough of that, if you haven’t noticed, I haven’t made a single post in three weeks! It seems that I am quite lazy and procrastinate longer and longer to type it up, and now that I am taking the time to type up one long blog post, I have to include everything I originally wanted to say. So let’s back up about 2 weeks ago to Sunday, November 23rd. So what’s so special about this date? Well, this day was when I got the chance to do 2 saxophone solos for my church group. It was very fun, I enjoyed it, the crowd enjoyed it, and I didn’t realize I had such a passion for Saxophone. I guess it’s just that I never play it much, so I never see how fun it could be, but after this event, my views on playing the Eb Alto Saxophone has changed.

So then we head into the week of Nov. 23~29th. So we had school for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, pretty normal, but then Thursday until today, we had Thanksgiving Break. Had a good Thanksgiving, as usual, ate a bunch, then started work on an interesting concept developed by Z-Gamer member XSkulls. Fighter’s Field 3D. Now, if you’ve been following Fighter’s Field, I recently released the long-awaited version 0.3 which includes 5 new skills for each class, and the level cap being lv39. I am lv37 right now, but that’s beside the point. So I have worked hard over the past few days, and here’s some beta screenies of what Fighter’s Field 3D will eventually look like! (Forum post at http://zgamers.phpbb2.us/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26)

So, some obvious things from these images. One is that there are new healthbars, two is that all the drawing has been transformed to follow the camera, and three, I am still working on many things for this game.

But this was done over two days, and it was rapid progress. I am still working on it as of right now and pretty soon I will have a lot more done.

I also found a neat wordpress blog recently, called “Naked Paul Toast’s Insights” at http://blog.nakedpaultoast.com/. The reason why I specially mention this blog is because he has quite an amount of similar interests to me. He has mostly humor, Game Maker, and technology topics in his blog, all of which I like, so I now watch his posts every once in awhile also. Maybe you’d like to check it out if you like my blog.

Also, I have been balanced in my activeness between working on Game Maker, playing Fiesta Online, and playing BZFlag, so I’m kinda in a combination of everything I used to do now. That is all for today, hopefully I won’t delay my posts as long anymore, see you later.