Android V IOs - the battle to date.

Another news article inspired post Im afraid! A post at GamesIndustry provided some information relating to current IOs and Android numbers. (Go take a peek, Ill wait. I'm not reiterating the numbers :p )

The claims are nothing new - Android's figures seem to peaking whilst Apple's climbs at a relatively linear rate, this has been fairly consistent for the last few months. What is interesting is the upcoming Iphone release... I posted about it a week or two back, and I must say it looks tasty. It looks like they are foraying into the grounds of new screen sizes and phone designs. Im sure it will hold the usual Apple quality but with a bigger screen, and hopefully, a bumper so the screens stop smashing so easily. If these things are true, I could see myself converting - or at least giving apple a shot down the line.

I have only used Iphones in a work environment, testing games before release and playing around with them. They have worked well but i have not been that keen on the look and feel. I am not ashamed to say I have leaned more towards Android over the last few years, but I am getting a bit fed up with how quickly the phones go buggy.

Anyway, I ramble. New Iphone due out - potentially breaking the mould and if its making me think of converting, it will do for others too... I wonder how things will go from here... On the contrary. BusunessInsider has posted >this<... same phone... if thats the case, I think they may be correct in their claim...

Stay tuned! :-)

-V

Update: Creating custom google maps tutorial.

Post was getting a little dated, but still gets a lot of hits - so I updated it::

http://landogeekery.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/google-maps-playtime-creating-custom.html

Zynga. What is going on?? Some thoughts and info.

Yoinked from Penny Arcade (credit: Dabe Alan)

So, more controversy has arisen regarding the activities of Zynga and their share price crashes as of late.

computerandvideogames.com have posted an article relating to an Investigation that is under way due to suspicious activity with share sales before the crash.

Kotaku seems to be the source post about this and has some interesting info.

Zynga have had a long string of successes in quick-fix-gaming using the Facebook social website as a delivery platform for these games. The games include the likes of Words with Friends, FarmVille, The Sims Social, Bubble Safari, the recent 'The Ville' and more. Their games have always been pretty big hits with the facebook community and I have played many of them over the last 3 years. I would gripe however, that their freemium pay model is highly flawed. I wonder if this is in fact something to do with their problems. Sure numbers are declining, but they still see in excess of 50 Million users every day across their games... There are companies with much smaller numbers that are flourishing.

And now I shall go into a rant about the Freemium system that Zynga implements...

One observation to make - look at the recently released Dragon City. It is a game that you can play with no pressure of spending money - it is addictive, fun, and for my wife and I, keeps us coming back for more. We have been tempted to get some in game currency, and for the cost of it, and its uses - it would not feel like a waste of money. Zynga's games however... You can spend a buttload of money for in game cash, which in turn gives very little return and is also inconsistent.

One example that shows this inconsistency is the game: Bubble Safari. One cash costs 10-15p depending on how much you buy, and you can spend as much as £70.00 in a single transaction. (seriously, thats twice the price of a newly released game!) This cash is then spent on boosts and power ups. The player can also buy gold (at about 10p for 100G) Gold is easy to earn in game, and cash comes in in dribs and drabs, or can be pried through friend-share, but takes time. So what now. We start a game! You are offered a selection of powerups for gold coin (cash equivalent for 6 extra bubbles? £2!! - and those bubbles are unlikely to push you to clearing the board or having enough bubbles left to get your score into the 1* region if you are struggling...) Next, as you are playng you can buy 5 bubbles for 2 cash. k... so lets do that... oh wait, I dont have enough cash, I need to pay real money. £1.48. What?! Thats the same price as nearly 15 cash... So... you fail the level and get to buy 10 bubbles to continue. this costs 4 cash, or again, £1.48. Completely inconsistent. I understand that it is a good point to try to milk the user of money - especially if they can see the end is in sight - but at the point you can buy 5 bubbles, you can also click 'buy cash' and bypass the charge window and use 20p worth of cash. I cant help but wonder if there is even a designer or tester on board for this :/

Its these levels of extortion that personally have stopped me playing their games. I wish I had access to the analytics info for the company. There are people out there with the disposable income to pay for these boosts at these levels, and if they have fun and dont mind paying, then why not? The value of money is only what we apply to it.

Perhaps I get a bit hot under the collar as I work for a company that looks up to Zynga as a role model and I want to develop a better freemium system, that does not suck the fun for a game, or forces the designers to create the game around eventually forcing the player to pay to continue - it should be that the players with the expendible income can use that disposable cash to improve the quality of their game. The normal user can struggle a bit, and invest time to advance instead.

Just my 2c. I think this is a huge factor in their collapse. They will get back on their feet, Im sure of it. The games are still being played, the money is still coming in - they just need to sell off assets or cut their outgoings (Which unfortunately means MORE job losses)

Feel free to add your own in the comments :-)

-V

YouTube wanting to switch to real names in comments?

Article from CNN - I am very interested to see how this ill go down. The jist of it is, YouTube wants to tie in You Tube accounts with Google + accounts and have people that use/comment there to have their real names be displayed. This is believed to make people act less troll-like as they are not quite as anonymous.

Blizzard tried to do the same on the World of Warcraft forums to try to cut down on the level of trolling there. There was such a community out-roar they had to adress the issue and decided not to go ahead.

Blizzard's community however is pay to play... You Tubes community is free. Will YouTube get the the same lashback that Blizzard got? Im very interested to see.

Personally I am all for it, as I really am not fussed because it does not hinder me in any way. In fact, it took me a few days of using you tube to change my G+ details to an alias rather than using my full name as it seemed normal.

Feel free to post your comments or feedback, im curious :-)

-V

Blacklight Retribution: My review!

Blacklight Retribution has been out for about 3 weeks now, and I must say - I am impressed.

I have been doing the periodic Let's plays of  this game (Although the performance reduction in video recording makes for me doing poorly when recording... honest!) amidst my play sessions. I have sunk 10 hours into this game in the last couple of weeks playing around with it and I have thoroughly enjoyed every play session I have partaken in.

So, I shall now give my review - but before I do this I want to stress a point:
'Pay to win' is a bit of a fallacy. 90% of my games see me end in the top 3 on my team, half that time being in first place. I have not spent a penny. I have spent a lot of my time growing up playing first person shooters (counter-strike taking up many many years of my life :p) so I have fairly natural reflexes in this kind of game, and am quite a good shot - or am able to implement tactics / psychological methods to take out or outwit enemies. This basically means that I am able to hold my own against whatever the enemy brings to the front. My point is: Skill Matters more than equipment. I have seen people leading teams wielding nothing but a pistol. (and thoroughly kicking my butt)

Graphics: 5/5
The graphics in this game are pretty good. They are not the best out there, but they did not scrimp when making it. I would put them on par with Deus Ex Human Revolution. I would not notice if  they were any higher I don't think.

Sound: 4/5
There is nothing special about the sound. I have not encountered any bugs and there is no music, but it all works well.

Gameplay: 5/5
Team matches with different objectives (Take and hold/capture the flag and death match) work well to keep players working together.

Community: 5/5
I have not seen any trolling in this game. At all. I have seen a couple of questions being shot down, but I have always made sure that I provide the answer - and have seen others doing the same more often than not :-)

Ease of use: 3/5
The only area that I find this game is lacking, is its complexity. In counterstrike, you have a few menus at the start of the game to select what equipment you want. After a few games, you can usually purchase your items in a few button presses that you program into your head. CP is spent IN GAME - you need to expose your back and use a terminal to buy the equipment, and if your caught before it is used - someone else can run off with it. This is not a bad thing, in fact it makes it more dynamic. You cover your friends when they are getting  a hard suit, etc.
GP is earned by completing maps. The better your /your teams performance - the more you get to spend. These are used to buy temporary upgrades (usually 24 hours) - although these upgrades are quite cheap. They are typically weapons, weapon mods, armour, etc. this system is a bit compliated to get to grips with, and if you dont do it before joining a server, you have a minute between maps to identify what you want and buy it - I have made a few poor purchase choices thanks to this system, though now I understand it I really like it. Go figure, its a learning curve and the only complaint I have.
One thing to note: When you log in - you need to pick a server. I spent the first week of the game playing on the US servers with pings between 300 and 500 before I realised there were EU servers, and now im <100 ping.

Overall: Nearly perfect. A learning curve exists, and if you are new to online FPS games, you might be deterred by that and the need for some skill - but it only comes from playing so: Get your asses out there and murder some reds!

Additional: I have not yet tried to play along RL friends, I have always used the 'quick game' option to join games... I get the feeling it may be tricky or time consuming arranging a play session with a mate and then getting on the same server :( I will update when I find out more.

Iphone 5. The first I-anything that may have piqued my interest...

So, I have never really been into the range of Apple IPhones. Maybe it was because they were seen as the snobby choice, maybe its cos Im not keen on carrying the thick brick in my pocket - maybe its just cos everyone I know that has ever owned one has managed to smash the screen by dropping it.

Anyway. I caught a facebook post today about the IPhone 5 - so I went googling... It is looking Fine!


I like the style, I like the size (assuming they go with the larger screen and dont keep it the same for their previous reasons of not wanting to create an Iphone heirarchy although that exists anyway surely with memory sizes and versions.... anyway I digress!), and as long as it does its job I have never really cared about the manufacturer or the internal workings. Here are some links to check out what news I found :)

Techradar - release date, news and rumours.

T3 - more of the same

I guess the only thing concerning me now - is the price tag!

Apple V Samsung. Samsung did not sleep with their designers guv!

Interesting articles from Hexus.net and DailyMail. Apple was ruled to state on its website and in newspapers that Samsung did not copy the design of the IPad when making their tab. As a fun twist, the judge ruled that the tablets have a different feel and that the IPad is basically a superior device.

Interesting :D

Im not an apple fan by a long shot, but it will be interesting to see where this leads ^.^ Or how it affects both companies :o

Holy crap... 10 years since FireFly?!

Courtesy of IO9.com (aka, YOINK!)

http://io9.com/5926419/watch-the-entire-firefly-10-year-reunion-panel-and-try-not-to-cry

Watch it! Waaatch iiiiit!!!

and holy crap. 10 years...

Windows 8 and browser blocking ??

Stumbled across this article on C-Net. 

If it is true that Microsoft are attempting to block other browsers to work on this OS... Wow... What can I say. Firstly Internet Explorer is the worst browser I know of. No HTML5, it requires web-pages to have specific code written for many functions on the Styling Sheets and if I remember correctly, its a bit bulky (a memory hog) and runs Java programs much slower than the competition.

Whilst I am sure it would only be a matter of time before someone finds a proper way around this, (lookit! Chrome for Apple machines!) I think this would be a bad move from Microsoft. Ok, they would have a monopoly for a little while, but I think it would stop many people from getting Windows 8 for as long as they could hold out.

On the flip side - I have not research IE10 - perhaps they will release a version of Internet Explorer that meets the standards laid out by the rivals. Personally I prefer Chrome(41% of market), and then Firefox (34% of market) - and I design my websites to work with these browsers first as they hold the monopoly of the market. (16% for IE) >Linky to browser stats<

...

Time will tell, but for sure it has my attention! (Perhaps this is what they wanted :p )

-V

Ultramarine V's Tyranids, 6th Edition Battle - preamble.

Dawn.

The Ultramarine forces touch down on the planet Pablos I, an abandoned industrial mining world. Intel informs command of two artifacts that must not fall into enemy hands in the area... An old contruction crane that sits atop a deep vein mining shaft, and an unusual Tomb, likely of Xenos origin.

There has been rumours that some Tyranid spore pods were seen entering the atmosphere recently, so the marines stalk in on foot, opting to take in vehicles with support weaponry and speeders in the hopes of gunning down any aliens that they come across in short order. Two librarians and two units of sternguard bolster the core of the army as they advance towards the old construction crane - with an abundance of Hellfire rounds, they feel confident in their abilities, and the troops selected to come with them.

Just as day is about to break, the Librarians feel a change in the flow of the Warp... Strange shapes can be seen sillhoueted in the distance, near a strangly glowing skull and pillar tomb. Shrouded by the low light numerous building sized creatures hone into sight, heading directly towards the construction site the marines now hold.

++ CONTACT! ++

Librarian Endradus: 'Ultramarines, ADVANCE! No quarter, we kill every gribbly that moves! They do not take these objectives while we draw breath. FOR THE EMPEROR!'

... To be continued.