This is my second time writing this, due to a computer loss (see previous post). It was long and thoughtful, but the second time around, I’ll just cut to the chase.

This game rocks. Here’s why you’ll want to try it, if you’re looking for a new MMO.

Immersive, personal, purposeful.

Now, I owe my love for the MMORPG genre to World of Warcraft. City of Heroes came first, but I never got into it with the gusto that I did with WoW. It’s a great game, even after aging a few years. Looking at a game like TR, the thought of not being able to choose a fancy race for your character in an MMO, seemed like a negative to me. However, it’s the same aspect of the WoW world, that keeps you a bit detatched.

There’s only a certain amount that you can relate to a knome that shoots fireballs.

In TR, you’re just a human refugee that’s dropped off in the middle of a war, fighting for survival. They toss you a pistol, give you a few pointers, and shove you off towards the front lines. You’re here to help a squad fend off the Bane (they annihilated Earth) as they’re invading the small camp where you’ve landed. You’re not magically a warlock or druid capable of amazing talents…. you’re relatively helpless it seems, and people around you are yelling and shooting. It’s chaotic, and in an ammusing way, not a frustrating one. But unlike that knome, you’re armed with a purpose - survival.

Muscle of an FPS

Right away, the battle mechanics are a nice change from the whack-a-mole, turn-based casting of pretty much all MMO games out there. In most games like WoW (I’m using it as an example as it’s the game most will relative to), attacks are basically simple die rolls, where the player capable of inflicting the most damage over time, wins the confrontation. In Tabula Rasa, there’s no “casting bar”… you attack as quickly as you can pull the trigger, stopping only to duck behind a sand bag and reload.

Why duck behind a sand bag? Because it actually matters where you’re fighting.

For all it matters in battle, games like WoW might as well be a lifeless flat plane. In Tabula Rasa, your tactical position (pressed agaist a tree, behind a sandbag, moving around) actually effects the damage you take. Similarly, your accuracy when you crouch and aim is much better than when you run and jump around while shooting. The enemy is aware of this, as well, and doesn’t just sit there and take your fire… they’ll work to find tactically sound footing, or try to storm you out of yours. It’s amazing how you’ll approach a battleground when you’re scanning for defensible positions. The attacks are still technically die rolls… just ones with more interesting game play variables.

Finally, an MMO that uses the skills I’ve aquired from Unreal Tournament. :)

Heart of an MMO

Tabula Rasa, despite the action-focused encounter mechanics, it definitely an MMO at it’s core. TR introduces a new concept called ethical parables to the mix - immersive storylines introducing problems that don’t appear to have any clear right or wrong answer… and have significant, long-reaching consequences for your character.

The first time I realized this would be different, was a little mission I was given as a level 4 recruit. I was asked to capture a fellow soldier that had gone AWOL from my base. When I confronted him as he was about to board a ship off the planet, he told me he was escaping to try to find a peaceful means to end the war. So I had to decided… do I hold true to my mission, and capture him, and bring him back to my captain? Or do I disobey orders, appear a traitor to the struggling survivors of the human race, support his peaceful attempt and let him flee?

The decision you make in situations like this, play into who will trust you, help you, or confront you later in the game. And like in the real world, not everybody is in agreement of what is “the right thing to do.” The “good guys” have a varying range of how they feel the war should be fought. I thought highlighting these sort of conflicts was an amazing move for TR.

A living world - with our without you.

Not only do I love the art design of this game.. the unique part about TR, is that the world exists when you’re not playing. The NPCs (non-player characters) don’t all stand waiting for you to (possibly) talk to them. You’re on the front lines of a war, and the boundaries of safe zones and total chaos, are fluid. I was helping to defend a base from attack, and ran deep inside (protected by our force field gates) such that I could take a break and make some peanut butter toast. Coming back to my machine, I had seen The Bane had taken over, and the only option was retreat. Toast hanging from my mouth, I scurried out of there, as this place was no longer a town where I could call safe. That is, until we managed to get a force together to reclaim it.

NPCs - good and bad - all have AI with established objectives far beyond the normal “attack enemies within x distance of me.” In fact, if nobody was logged in to the game, and the population was all NPCs… the world would still be alive with war on the front lines, bases being attacked, squads dispatched, and so on. You’re just a part of the big picture. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell who is a real player, and who is an NPC.

—————

So, maybe the rewrite of this post wasn’t so brief after all. The point is, if you’re looking for a new MMO, you really should give Tabula Rasa a try… if not for the unique gameplay elements I spoke of above, for the simple fact that you get to shoot aliens with a *pew! pew! pew!* sound. My buddy Zane has also posted this thoughts regarding his time with the game, and you should give his post a read - we’ve written about TR from different angles.

And, we’re both rallying for starting “the” Gay Clan. So if you’re in the beta, or plan on playing once the game goes retail (Oct. 16 for preorders, Oct. 19 otherwise), definitely leave a comment or drop me an email.

*pew! pew!*

I should be posting an entry that I had previously typed out, about my experiences so far playing Tabula Rasa. However, the current shitstorm of complications swarming around our move, has managed to find it’s way to my little shuttle pc, my shoebox-sized wonders that has served as my travel computer.

It is dead.

And while I’d be fine with it dying a week from now - when we’ve moved in and I have my desktop computer to work from - it died while I was depending on it. But it’s ok. No thanks to the security checkpoint lady woman at the Ottawa airport that bowled it down the bag conveyor.

So when I arrived in Chicago for the most hectic two days of work I’ve ever traveled for, my machine failed to show any sign of life.

But no fretting. It treated me very well for over 3 years - far longer than I expect to actively use a computer.

And I have a new travel companion.

- Filmed on a Nokia N93i video camera phone -

I swear we’re not really as shallow as this video makes us out to be  :)  Not that drunken shenanigans can really look otherwise.  Just know it’s all in good fun.  You don’t see the heartfelt goodbyes that happened off-camera… just a lot of not-so-flattering close ups.  And a fair deal of Emit.

Our last night in Vancouver, we stayed at the Opus Hotel (amazing boutique hotel, managed by a our friend Dan).  Even though we saw lots of our friends at Pride, and scheduled as many dinners/lunches to hang with our buddies before leaving, we decided to have one last shindig before catching our flight in the morning.

We had everyone over to the Opus for drinks, and then we went out… of course.  Mark and I were both hurting as we caught a cab to the airport in the morning to fly to Ottawa.  The video ends with our temporary digs in Carleton Place, Ontario… an hour outside Ottawa.  We’re there until we move into our new place in the city.

I miss these kids.  But we’ll be back.

… right?

- Andy

I had an opportunity to be a part of the launch event where these devices were announced, but it was on the *day* that I was moving.. so I couldn’t watch the live webcast.  A little late (by the standards I go by in my nerdy phone world) but here we go.

Nokia N81 - 8GB

Even though this isn’t a photography focused handset - sporting only a basic 2 MP camera module - I really think this is a brilliant device.  This is nokia’s new gaming & music handset, and if you wanna do both of those things on your mobile phone, it should be taken pretty damn seriously. 

8GB of hard drive storage is great for music (and , and it supports subscription WMAs for services like Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music, and Napster.  And in my experience to date, Nokia devices actually sync and manage *better* with Rhapsody, than the couple of mp3s players I bought (and returned, because they’d either crash the application or have some other lame error on the device).  Topping off great music software is - taaa daaah! - a 3.5mm standard headphone jack, which says this device is meant to *actually* be used for audio playback, and isn’t just dicking you around with marketing. 

I really love the design of this handset.  It’s no basic slider.  It has to accomplish a lot, really… it needs to have usable controls for music playback, as well as a span gaming buttons on *both sides* of the screen, so you can use two hands to play, like any gaming handheld.  The button functionality is crazy dense on this thing - yet it still has a reasonably slick look.  Had it better more subtle iconography, I think this thing could have been downright sexy.

Nokia N95 - 8GB

Nokia’s current all-in-one handset gets a significant and rather quick update.  Most notably, a 25% increase in battery life, a larger, crisper screen (2.6″ to 2.8″), 8GB internal flash memory (no external memory slot now, and twice as much internal RAM to aid in multitasking.  They’ve made all the external keys a little easier to press by raising them - even the reverse-slider keys.

Sadly, they’ve removed the plastic retractable lense cover on the back, as the mechanism in it was sacrificed to make more room for the larger battery.  And while this is a somewhat flattery photo of the new black housing, the device still comes across as a bit unfinished to me.  Why they didn’t put black keys on this sucker is beyond me.

And while I was a bit burned with my last N95 experience, I’m hoping that other hardware fixes were tackled, beyond what’s immediately visible… that means the faulty slider that cursed my N95 enough to make me not want it, is no longer a production issue.  Time will tell how that issue, and the improvements in camera firmware, have progressed.

Now… where is the N82, the handset that will catch Nokia up to SE with it’s bitchin’ shutter speed and Xenon flash?  And don’t leave off the 3.5mm headphone jack.  I’ll go ape if you do.  Seriously.  I’ll scratch your eyes out.

- Andy

We’re currently living out in Carleton Place, Ontario.. about an hour away from Ottawa. Setting up shop here has proven to be a bit trying on our patience… finding a place (which we have, but aren’t in yet), finding a new ‘V’ (late october til it’s here) and working on a temporary machine during some massive, late-night work demands… Mark starting an entirely new job, too. Needless to say, all of this was starting to wear on me - both of us - even though we’ve avoided any major distaster.

I saw this video today, and it turned my feelings around. Silly, huh. Sometimes you gotta step back out of a funk, and have a look-see. I got it pretty fucking good. I just forget it on occasion.

Even though Kanye thinks he’s pretty hot shit, I can’t say I disagree. The video is fun, though it’s not as impressive creatively, trailing the amazing D.A.N.C.E. video.

It was only a matter of time.

Gizmodo posted this file and verified that it works to unlock your iPhone. That’s right, no $99 fee like some companies are trying to charge… but free. Instructions for it aren’t available yet Download the instructions and iUnlock file below.

Be warned… I don’t have an iPhone to try this out, so I can’t guarantee it’ll work.. but Gizmodo seems pretty confident - so if I did have one, I’d give it a try.

Let me know how it works for ya!

UPDATE:  If you take one look at these instructions and don’t feel comfortable… don’t try it.  A free package installer is on the way, that will be much more consumer friendly.  Details to come.

iUnlock Instructions
Download iUnlock

With the change to Wordpress and Flickr, there’s certainly been some bumps… but also some fun new features, too. Like…

Photo Journal - Browse by Tags!
LOVE this. Below every photo, you’ll see a set of tags.. by person, event, or recurring theme. Click that to see every associated photo I’ve taken of you / it over the years… with friendly URLs. Aside from being able to pull up photos of a specific person quickly, tags like Showing Some Skin, Elevating, Holy Vanity! and Andy is a nerd make for a fun way to navigate a photo journal spanning years. It was a lot of work to go through each photo and do this, but going forward… totally worth it.

Ajax Live Search
You’ll see the search in the sidebar… just type a word like “nokia” or something, and watch it narrow the lists of entries without having to refresh the page. Sweet!

Faster Downloads
Got my own host, and it’s serving up mixes as fast as you can handle ‘em.

Ajax Commenting
Add comments to an entry without refreshing or the “type the text you see in the image” verification.

Now, I’m sure not everything is working perfectly… if you do find anything that’s not working how it should be, please feel free to drop a comment.

Disturbing and immensely funny at the same time.

A month or two ago, I signed in to my Textamerica control panel to see if I could figure out why my new posts weren’t going live on my photo journal. Sometimes their system needs a little pop-wiggle-wiggle to get it to work. TA had been running on a skeleton crew for over a year now (thanks to their “Phase 1: Steal Underpants, Phase 3: Profit! -style business model), and I wanted to be understanding.

Why bother? Well… there’s a bit of a history.

I was one of the first to sign up and run with Textamerica. Hell… long before I was even into blogs, sharing mixes, or any of that, I started my photo journal from my tiny Sony Ericsson T610… or was it the Panasonic GU87? Man, that was a while ago.

And I loved the community. I met people from all over, learning about them and their interests, and relating to them… all through the lens of a device they were carrying with them in their daily life. Sometimes exciting, sometimes painfully mundane… but always personal.

So when Textamerica said “no free moblogs”… users fled and gave them the finger. Extamerica was born.  I was fine paying the monthly fees (I had been for a while, so I could customize my template, which I had a lot of fun doing). When they erased TONS of my real friends moblogs (which they started because they saw how much I liked mine) without so much as an email for warning… I was pissed, but I stayed. Even though their once thriving, news-worthy community was pretty much dead.

But as I said.. a couple months ago, I logged in.

They said they’re going to delete all moblogs (even the premium ones) unless they went commercial… which is a heft increase in cost - from $8.99/ month to $400/month.

Yeah… no.

So I had to find a new home. Big deal, right?

With no means to automagically save the images out, embed titles and descriptions and such, and move to somewhere else… was cause for slight panic. As I didn’t have time to do all this mess manually, and move across Canada, and deal with an increasingly demanding work schedule.

After MUCH searching online, I knew I had to move to Flickr. To do what I wanted - embed images in a timeline fashion, on my own blog - I had to also switch my *other* blog. Ugh. I had been wanting to move to switch to Wordpress - a much more flexible bloggin engine -  but I didn’t want to spend all the time and effort.  Not right now.

But in the end, TA going even more belly-up was the shove I needed. I’m on Wordpress now, and the photostream is now under MY domain (no longer on textamerica’s domain). I made it! My blog is now Wordpress, using Flickr and the photos-flickr Wordpress plugin.

A special thanks to Tony Hayden for his kick in the pants “you gotta figure out a solution!” encouragement and Mark Rushing’s help with temporary hosting and php errors. Another heaping of love to Michael Goff for his help, networking and uber-blogger mentorship, too. Eric, too, for his Flickr help. You guys all rock.

Details to come, but the short of it is that the blog is officially no longer Typepad + Textamerica… it’s Wordpress + Flickr now!

I’ve got a long list of things I wanna write about, as well as 6 weeks (!) of photos to update. My real-life move, my blog move, and a massive work deadline has really caught up with me. But it’s all downhill from here!

I’ve made sure all the posts with mixes are fuctioning, allowing you to stream and download… but some posts, you might notice, have missing images. I’ll be repairing them as I go, but the big stuff should be working.

More to come on this… and more interesting things.. promise!

Cheers!

- Andy