A few months ago there was an incident where a man on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit tried to blow up an airliner, but only succeeded in setting his pants on fire before being subdued by the other passengers. The response was quite predictable-politicians and citizens alike were outraged by this lapse in security and demanded that billions of dollars be spent to figure out how to stop incidents like this. Obviously we need even more intrusive, costly, and time consuming scanning of all passengers on airliners. I'm sure that determined, intelligent terrorists will never figure a way to get past that.
This bizarre overreaction is exactly the response that terrorists hope for when they attack. Compared to September 11th, which simultaneously hijacked four airliners, this attack was a joke. The terrorist did not even kill one person. Yet the exact same response is generated-we need more security and we need it yesterday.
There is a point where additional security steps and checkpoints do not add anything to safety and you have to rely on other means to locate threats. Somewhere between half a million to a million people fly each day in the United States-and if you count the other terrorist on a plane a few years ago, that means that there are a total of three days in the last 10 years where terrorists were on-board airliners. So, if we scan every single passenger that adds millions of benign scans to sort through to find the potential criminals. This is not helping to find needles in the haystack, this is adding hay to the pile.
A smarter method would simply be to make sure that intelligence on potential terrorists is actually used to stop them from boarding planes in the first place. In the case of this incident, the man's father told the government that his son was possibly going to be involved with some sort of terrorist act, yet he was still allowed to board the plane. The 9/11 hijackers had some intelligence surrounding them as well, yet it was not acted on. The intel needs to get into action at airports faster and then we will have actually made a step toward real security, not useless scans that make people feel slightly better about flying.
However, the biggest gains are to be made, in my opinion, by simply accepting that there is a tiny risk of a terrorist being aboard a plane. If said terrorist appears on a flight, all that needs to happen is for the passengers to overpower him. The last two attacks showed that Al Qaeda is simply unable to get more than one person on flights, so this should not be difficult to accomplish, even if he is armed. It is simply impossible for the government to defend every inch of border and every airliner from the potential of a terrorist entry, instead citizens must take some initiative to defend themselves. If you see something suspicious, report it. If someone tries to take over your plane, don't just sit there, subdue him.
Incidentally, it's rather amusing that people won't trust the government with anything involving health-care, social security, and taxes, but then come crying for protection from terrorists as soon as any incidents are reported. Yes, I'm sure the government that can barely run Medicare is going to be able to protect every single inch of US territory from potential terrorist attacks. This intense fear people feel about terrorism is completely illogical. If you change your behavior because of terrorism, then they have achieved their goal. The only sensible response is to act as Londoners did after the bombings of their subway, go right back on board the next day.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
RPG Leveling and Character Development Systems
Most RPGs feature some sort of system where characters gain power as the game progresses, allowing them to fight more powerful monsters. As with player equipment, there are some games that do this well and others that make it a confusing mess.
Games that do this well include, by no means an all-inclusive list, some of the Final Fantasy games, Mass Effect, and the Baldur's Gate series. Games that do this poorly include The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Final Fantasy 8 and 12. I'm sure Final Fantasy 13 does it poorly as well, but I haven't played that one.
What separates the first series of games from the latter? I'll compare Final Fantasy 9 with Final Fantasy 8 to show how 9 is far superior.
Both games feature characters that level up automatically after the turn-based battles. However, Final Fantasy 8 has the additional quandary of having Guardian Forces, or GFs-which can be summoned during combat to attack the enemy. There are quite a few GFs in the game, which more than doubles the number of characters you have to gain experience for in order to compete with enemies. In Final Fantasy 9, all you have to do is gain experience for the main characters of the story, simplifying the process greatly.
Both games handle how abilities, which can range from stealing from enemies to get items to casting spells, are learned. In Final Fantasy 8, many abilities are taught by GFs, which have to be leveled to learn these abilities. Then, any character with that GF can use the abilities it knows. Some characters have to have books purchased for them to teach specific abilities, such as the tricks for Rinoa's dog that it can use for her limit breaks. Lastly, any character can use magic, but they have to "draw" the magic from enemies during battle, at a rate of about 5-10 units per use of the draw command, or from various points around the world, which only provide 5-10 units of the spell and then run out for a period of time. This is tedious because when you find a new magic spell on an enemy you have to spend 3 hours drawing it out so all your characters have enough of it to go around. You can only hold 100 units of each spell as well. Additionally, this magic is used to bolster the regular abilities of each character. For example, you can put the spell "cure", which heals a player's characters, into their health stat to provide a boost to health. This boost depends on how much of the cure magic you have on hand drawn from the enemy. So, when you use magic, it depletes your statistics as well.
If all of this isn't confusing enough, whenever you change characters you have to move all of your drawn magic and GFs around to each of them so that they will be competent. If you fail to do this, they will be worthless. Additionally, unlike most of the Final Fantasy games, monsters become stronger as your characters level. So spending time leveling up doesn't really give you a boost if you're having trouble with a particular boss fight or area-the monsters will still be roughly the same difficulty. This entire system is the reason I never finished Final Fantasy XIII-it was needlessly complicated and forced the player to put a lot of tedious work into each character.
In comparison, Final Fantasy IX is much easier to understand. Characters level automatically and each character has specific tasks they are good at. The main character, Zidane, is the only one who can steal items. Vivi is a mage who casts offensive magic. Steiner is a knight who is good at attacking with his sword. These basic facts aren't changed with the leveling system, instead their aptitude for their specific role is improved.
As for how abilities are gained, the system is fairly easy as well. Every weapon and piece of armor has abilities on them that the characters can learn through acquiring AP-which are gained from fighting enemies. Once an ability is learned, you can change the piece of equipment for something better, but you still keep the option to equip the ability on your character's menu. For instance, if you learn antibody, which makes a character immune to poison, from a piece of wrist armor, when you remove the wrist you can still choose to use the antibody ability. Every character has a specific amount of points available to allocate to equipping these abilities. So it becomes a tactical choice of which abilities to select. If you're fighting monsters with poison attacks, it's a good idea to equip every character with the antibody ability. Monsters also do not level up along with your characters, which means that if you're struggling with a fight you can go back and strengthen your party to progress further.
As I hope you can see from my summary, Final Fantasy 9 has a far superior system in place for character development. Stick with systems that are easy to pick up and logical and you increase the player's enjoyment of a game. No one likes to have to spend three hours in the menu trying to customize their characters when it could take three seconds.
Games that do this well include, by no means an all-inclusive list, some of the Final Fantasy games, Mass Effect, and the Baldur's Gate series. Games that do this poorly include The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Final Fantasy 8 and 12. I'm sure Final Fantasy 13 does it poorly as well, but I haven't played that one.
What separates the first series of games from the latter? I'll compare Final Fantasy 9 with Final Fantasy 8 to show how 9 is far superior.
Both games feature characters that level up automatically after the turn-based battles. However, Final Fantasy 8 has the additional quandary of having Guardian Forces, or GFs-which can be summoned during combat to attack the enemy. There are quite a few GFs in the game, which more than doubles the number of characters you have to gain experience for in order to compete with enemies. In Final Fantasy 9, all you have to do is gain experience for the main characters of the story, simplifying the process greatly.
Both games handle how abilities, which can range from stealing from enemies to get items to casting spells, are learned. In Final Fantasy 8, many abilities are taught by GFs, which have to be leveled to learn these abilities. Then, any character with that GF can use the abilities it knows. Some characters have to have books purchased for them to teach specific abilities, such as the tricks for Rinoa's dog that it can use for her limit breaks. Lastly, any character can use magic, but they have to "draw" the magic from enemies during battle, at a rate of about 5-10 units per use of the draw command, or from various points around the world, which only provide 5-10 units of the spell and then run out for a period of time. This is tedious because when you find a new magic spell on an enemy you have to spend 3 hours drawing it out so all your characters have enough of it to go around. You can only hold 100 units of each spell as well. Additionally, this magic is used to bolster the regular abilities of each character. For example, you can put the spell "cure", which heals a player's characters, into their health stat to provide a boost to health. This boost depends on how much of the cure magic you have on hand drawn from the enemy. So, when you use magic, it depletes your statistics as well.
If all of this isn't confusing enough, whenever you change characters you have to move all of your drawn magic and GFs around to each of them so that they will be competent. If you fail to do this, they will be worthless. Additionally, unlike most of the Final Fantasy games, monsters become stronger as your characters level. So spending time leveling up doesn't really give you a boost if you're having trouble with a particular boss fight or area-the monsters will still be roughly the same difficulty. This entire system is the reason I never finished Final Fantasy XIII-it was needlessly complicated and forced the player to put a lot of tedious work into each character.
In comparison, Final Fantasy IX is much easier to understand. Characters level automatically and each character has specific tasks they are good at. The main character, Zidane, is the only one who can steal items. Vivi is a mage who casts offensive magic. Steiner is a knight who is good at attacking with his sword. These basic facts aren't changed with the leveling system, instead their aptitude for their specific role is improved.
As for how abilities are gained, the system is fairly easy as well. Every weapon and piece of armor has abilities on them that the characters can learn through acquiring AP-which are gained from fighting enemies. Once an ability is learned, you can change the piece of equipment for something better, but you still keep the option to equip the ability on your character's menu. For instance, if you learn antibody, which makes a character immune to poison, from a piece of wrist armor, when you remove the wrist you can still choose to use the antibody ability. Every character has a specific amount of points available to allocate to equipping these abilities. So it becomes a tactical choice of which abilities to select. If you're fighting monsters with poison attacks, it's a good idea to equip every character with the antibody ability. Monsters also do not level up along with your characters, which means that if you're struggling with a fight you can go back and strengthen your party to progress further.
As I hope you can see from my summary, Final Fantasy 9 has a far superior system in place for character development. Stick with systems that are easy to pick up and logical and you increase the player's enjoyment of a game. No one likes to have to spend three hours in the menu trying to customize their characters when it could take three seconds.
Item Enhancement/Customization-Irritating and Unnecessary
I remember games like Shining Force and Final Fantasy III where all you had to do to pick equipment for your characters was to visit the weapon and armor stores in each town and buy the new gear. There was no confusion or additional complexity-just hand over some money and get items that did more damage or added more armor. Games like Baldur's Gate took it a step further by adding additional effects to weapons, such as fire damage or the infliction of poison. However, it was still pretty easy to figure out if the new sword you found was better or not.
I began replaying Final Fantasy X last week and what a difference. Items by themselves don't add anything, instead they have slots where they can be upgraded. So, for instance, you can get a sword that has four slots for potential upgrades and fill each of them with various abilities. These can range from adding bonuses to magic damage and healing, physical damage, armor values, immunities to certain damage types, and a slew of much more confusing abilities like SOS Nulfrost, which gives character protection from frost damage if their health drops low enough. This may not sound that confusing in this format, but then consider that many fights with bosses and other enemies in the game cause items to drop with various combinations of these abilities. Additionally, you can add them yourself to items by using various ingredients found in the game. So, toward the end of the game you may end up with around 10 weapons to pick from and it becomes incredibly difficult to figure out which one is best out of the list.
I usually end up ignoring the gear entirely because it doesn't make much of a difference anyway-but it's the idea itself that infuriates me. Since when is it fun to have to spend 15 minutes browsing through all the possible enhancements for items? You need a strategy guide to figure out the optimal choices and it's just a needless complication to my fun.
World of Warcraft is another game with many options for upgrading equipment. You can enchant many of your items with different boosts, add gems to items that improve them, and make other upgrades as well. This makes acquiring a new weapon or piece of armor, which used to be a joy for me in games like Baldur's Gate, a pain because I now need to go find out what items I have to dredge up in order to enchant and gem them to make them more powerful. Unlike Final Fantasy X, you actually do have to do this too, don't think you can skip out of enchanting and gemming your gear. You'll get kicked out of groups if your gear doesn't have every possible buff.
This concept is progressing beyond RPGs to other types of games, like FPS. Every single weapon in Call of Duty can have attachments added to them, ranging from different weapon sights to grenade launchers to an underslung shotgun. At least these are easier to figure out what they do, but I still don't like to see this trend spreading to more and more games. Do we really need every games for every genre to have a ton of customization options?
Keep things simple. It's fine to have new items, everyone loves getting rewards for beating bosses. But make them easy to figure out and for god sakes, stop adding complex systems that require collecting 50,000 insect wings from around the world to marginally boost their effectiveness. It makes it a lot easier for game balance if you don't have to account for all of the buffs that players will add to their items in addition to the item's regular statistics.
I began replaying Final Fantasy X last week and what a difference. Items by themselves don't add anything, instead they have slots where they can be upgraded. So, for instance, you can get a sword that has four slots for potential upgrades and fill each of them with various abilities. These can range from adding bonuses to magic damage and healing, physical damage, armor values, immunities to certain damage types, and a slew of much more confusing abilities like SOS Nulfrost, which gives character protection from frost damage if their health drops low enough. This may not sound that confusing in this format, but then consider that many fights with bosses and other enemies in the game cause items to drop with various combinations of these abilities. Additionally, you can add them yourself to items by using various ingredients found in the game. So, toward the end of the game you may end up with around 10 weapons to pick from and it becomes incredibly difficult to figure out which one is best out of the list.
I usually end up ignoring the gear entirely because it doesn't make much of a difference anyway-but it's the idea itself that infuriates me. Since when is it fun to have to spend 15 minutes browsing through all the possible enhancements for items? You need a strategy guide to figure out the optimal choices and it's just a needless complication to my fun.
World of Warcraft is another game with many options for upgrading equipment. You can enchant many of your items with different boosts, add gems to items that improve them, and make other upgrades as well. This makes acquiring a new weapon or piece of armor, which used to be a joy for me in games like Baldur's Gate, a pain because I now need to go find out what items I have to dredge up in order to enchant and gem them to make them more powerful. Unlike Final Fantasy X, you actually do have to do this too, don't think you can skip out of enchanting and gemming your gear. You'll get kicked out of groups if your gear doesn't have every possible buff.
This concept is progressing beyond RPGs to other types of games, like FPS. Every single weapon in Call of Duty can have attachments added to them, ranging from different weapon sights to grenade launchers to an underslung shotgun. At least these are easier to figure out what they do, but I still don't like to see this trend spreading to more and more games. Do we really need every games for every genre to have a ton of customization options?
Keep things simple. It's fine to have new items, everyone loves getting rewards for beating bosses. But make them easy to figure out and for god sakes, stop adding complex systems that require collecting 50,000 insect wings from around the world to marginally boost their effectiveness. It makes it a lot easier for game balance if you don't have to account for all of the buffs that players will add to their items in addition to the item's regular statistics.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
FPS Weapon Choices
I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 lately, just activated prestige mode for the first time. One aspect of the game that I'm forced to think about is whether all the different firearms available really add to the game's quality. Although I despise Halo, I couldn't help but agree with one point that a Bungie Developer made at the Game Developer's Conference, namely that:
"For a shooter, you should have no more than 1 weapon per role. If you add weapons that satisfy the same role but are different, you’re simply adding complexity and NOT depth."
If you look at any weapon class in Modern Warfare 2, from handguns to assault rifles, you'll find that there are many weapons with similar roles. For instance, there are two 3 round burst fire assault rifles, the Famas and M16A4, three semi-auto sniper rifles, and somewhere around 5-7 fully automatic assault rifles. Worse, from the perspective of one trying to add depth to gameplay, many of the additional weapons are just crappier versions of other weapons. The M16A4 is superior in every way to the Famas, so why is the Famas even in the game? It certainly doesn't fulfill any unique role.
On the other hand, if you look at the game from a cosmetic standpoint, the variety of weapons does add a bit of variety. Every weapon has different iron sights, has a unique sound effect, and looks different. Additionally, the low survivability of players in Modern Warfare 2 helps compensate for the crappiness of some of the weapons. If you hit someone with 4-5 rounds, it's pretty much a kill with any weapon in the game.
There are some functional differences between weapons of the same class as well. For instance, the M104 semi-auto shotgun is great for really close range combat, as you can quickly pump out 4 shells to take out anyone, but it doesn't work well beyond that very limited range. The SPAS-12 pump action shotgun, although much slower firing, can kill players at a much greater range in one hit. The AA-12 is a fully automatic shotgun that can spray out a bunch of rounds to take out almost anyone in a close range firefight, but you run out of ammo extremely quickly. The other shotguns have some different pros and cons as well.
However, does this actually add depth to competition? I don't think so. Halo has certainly been a massive competitive success with a much more limited weapon selection. The first Call of Duty only had 3-6 weapons per side and still worked fine for multiplayer. It would probably be easier to balance the game with a limited selection of weapons that have their role more clearly delineated. After all, given a massive selection of choices, anyone serious about competition will rapidly find whichever option gives the best chance of victory. It's the same issue posed by Magic: The Gathering, there are a lot of cards available, but many are worthless and no competitive player will put them in their deck. The only purpose those cards serve is to screw over players who don't know what else is available to them. The same happens with Call of Duty, some of the weapons are marginally to significantly better than the other choices, so they are used in competition while amateurs try and win with weapons that they don't know are inferior. The ranking system also means that players at the maximum rank have access to better goods than those at the bottom as well.
It may be popular to add a bunch of options that add little to gameplay, but if you're trying to create a competitive game, it's inappropriate. You can get more bang for your development dollar if you focus on a more limited selection of weapons or choices that actually add to depth, as opposed to visual variety.
"For a shooter, you should have no more than 1 weapon per role. If you add weapons that satisfy the same role but are different, you’re simply adding complexity and NOT depth."
If you look at any weapon class in Modern Warfare 2, from handguns to assault rifles, you'll find that there are many weapons with similar roles. For instance, there are two 3 round burst fire assault rifles, the Famas and M16A4, three semi-auto sniper rifles, and somewhere around 5-7 fully automatic assault rifles. Worse, from the perspective of one trying to add depth to gameplay, many of the additional weapons are just crappier versions of other weapons. The M16A4 is superior in every way to the Famas, so why is the Famas even in the game? It certainly doesn't fulfill any unique role.
On the other hand, if you look at the game from a cosmetic standpoint, the variety of weapons does add a bit of variety. Every weapon has different iron sights, has a unique sound effect, and looks different. Additionally, the low survivability of players in Modern Warfare 2 helps compensate for the crappiness of some of the weapons. If you hit someone with 4-5 rounds, it's pretty much a kill with any weapon in the game.
There are some functional differences between weapons of the same class as well. For instance, the M104 semi-auto shotgun is great for really close range combat, as you can quickly pump out 4 shells to take out anyone, but it doesn't work well beyond that very limited range. The SPAS-12 pump action shotgun, although much slower firing, can kill players at a much greater range in one hit. The AA-12 is a fully automatic shotgun that can spray out a bunch of rounds to take out almost anyone in a close range firefight, but you run out of ammo extremely quickly. The other shotguns have some different pros and cons as well.
However, does this actually add depth to competition? I don't think so. Halo has certainly been a massive competitive success with a much more limited weapon selection. The first Call of Duty only had 3-6 weapons per side and still worked fine for multiplayer. It would probably be easier to balance the game with a limited selection of weapons that have their role more clearly delineated. After all, given a massive selection of choices, anyone serious about competition will rapidly find whichever option gives the best chance of victory. It's the same issue posed by Magic: The Gathering, there are a lot of cards available, but many are worthless and no competitive player will put them in their deck. The only purpose those cards serve is to screw over players who don't know what else is available to them. The same happens with Call of Duty, some of the weapons are marginally to significantly better than the other choices, so they are used in competition while amateurs try and win with weapons that they don't know are inferior. The ranking system also means that players at the maximum rank have access to better goods than those at the bottom as well.
It may be popular to add a bunch of options that add little to gameplay, but if you're trying to create a competitive game, it's inappropriate. You can get more bang for your development dollar if you focus on a more limited selection of weapons or choices that actually add to depth, as opposed to visual variety.
Right to Bear Arms & NRA Facebook Page
I firmly believe that the second amendment allows all Americans to bear arms. It would be a bit hypocritical not to, since I own a 9mm Smith & Wesson M&P (incidentally a very nice semi-auto pistol). However, I can easily see why many other Americans feel that this right should be restricted. A brief glance at the National Rifle Association's Facebook wall would certainly give anyone who isn't already pro-gun quite a few good reasons to feel that this right should be restricted.
What sort of wall postings do we see? Some are legitimate, concerning bills up for votes in states that may restrict firearms use. However, most insult liberals and advocating for a resurgence of the Republican party in the 2010 midterms. After all, we're now the "Socialist States of America" according to people who have no idea what socialism even means. A few other post ridiculous links suggesting that the Barack Obama, who obviously can make the United States follow his every whim, will let the United Nations come in and take away everyone's personal firearms. A couple more advocate violence against government officials.
I mean no offense to the NRA, as they do a great job of defending gun rights. But is it any surprise that some politicians want to restrict access to firearms when this is the picture they get of gun owners? If you want to keep a right that you have, it seems more logical to be civilized in your discussion instead of throwing around insults, conspiracy theories, and threatening violence.
It makes no sense for NRA members to be so heavily biased against liberal members. They are basically a one issue organization, the right to bear arms, so throwing out half the country is a little counterproductive for their purposes. Tone down the anti-liberal language and maybe it would be a lot easier to maintain gun rights.
What sort of wall postings do we see? Some are legitimate, concerning bills up for votes in states that may restrict firearms use. However, most insult liberals and advocating for a resurgence of the Republican party in the 2010 midterms. After all, we're now the "Socialist States of America" according to people who have no idea what socialism even means. A few other post ridiculous links suggesting that the Barack Obama, who obviously can make the United States follow his every whim, will let the United Nations come in and take away everyone's personal firearms. A couple more advocate violence against government officials.
I mean no offense to the NRA, as they do a great job of defending gun rights. But is it any surprise that some politicians want to restrict access to firearms when this is the picture they get of gun owners? If you want to keep a right that you have, it seems more logical to be civilized in your discussion instead of throwing around insults, conspiracy theories, and threatening violence.
It makes no sense for NRA members to be so heavily biased against liberal members. They are basically a one issue organization, the right to bear arms, so throwing out half the country is a little counterproductive for their purposes. Tone down the anti-liberal language and maybe it would be a lot easier to maintain gun rights.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
First Post
I've long been an internet forum poster on Gamereplays.org and read through quite a few other websites, but haven't started a blog until now. I am not writing because I think I have something unique to add to the slew of blogs already out there, but for my own needs. I've enjoyed writing for most of my life and have occasionally had aspirations to write a novel. Alas, that's quite a lot of work so the most I've managed is to write a short story for Blizzard Entertainment's creative writing contest. Which I didn't win. Either way, a blog certainly provides some additional experience with putting thoughts into writing, so why not give it a go.
My interests are fairly diverse. I enjoy discussing history, healthcare (though I'll avoid talking about healthcare reform), politics, videogames, and almost any topic you can think of. If anyone else enjoys reading this, great.
As for the name of the blog, I couldn't think of one so I used it from a youtube video. Board James is awesome.
My interests are fairly diverse. I enjoy discussing history, healthcare (though I'll avoid talking about healthcare reform), politics, videogames, and almost any topic you can think of. If anyone else enjoys reading this, great.
As for the name of the blog, I couldn't think of one so I used it from a youtube video. Board James is awesome.
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