Supreme Commander
Chris Taylor is an evil genius. That's a term of admiration and jealousy I use to describe people who do things that make me slap my head and say "Why hasn't someone else thought of this?" Other members of the league of evil genius' are: Joss Whedon, Gene Roddenberry, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
After playing the release version just a couple of nights now, I can say that it has impressed me a great deal. I won't go into all the details of the game, as you can read reviews of it just about everywhere.
One of the features I really like about GPGNet (the multiplayer service for the game) is that it provides a mechanism for downloading and viewing game replays from other people. I always liked the original Tribes and Myth for this feature. Nothing can improve your game strategy like watching how better players win games. These replays are very small to download, and can be quite a kick to watch.
A replay gave me one of the most chilling experiences I've had in a video game. I was watching a 2vs2 game with four very good players. It was a very long game as everyone was going for the highest tech before fully committing to any battles. I watched from the big picture view and tried to follow what was going on, but there was just too much to see everything that was being built. The action was just beginning to heat up with some Tech 3 weapons struggling to gain the upper hand in the middle of the map.
All of the sudden the game kind of goes silent, and a female voice comes up very calmly and says "Strategic launch detected."
I literally felt the hair on my neck stand up. I quickly scrolled the view back out to the strategic view and sure enough, there was a nuclear missile already coming up through the upper atmosphere. In fact, the top of the arc was so high it wasn't possible to keep it in view from the highest view angle. After a bit the missile started to drop towards the enemy rear area, and there was another eerie silence as it made its final descent. The results were spectacular. A portion of one players base was wiped out in a spectacular fireball.
However, due to the number of units and size of the map, the nuke didn't end the game. I could feel the tempo of the game shift, however, as the opposing side went into a frenzy of activity. The big thing they did was begin building strategic missile defense systems. For the next few minutes it was an arms race, as the one player sent first single, then double, and finally triple salvos of missiles towards the opposing bases. However, the opposite player had built his defenses quickly, and the game moved back to the ground war, and bigger and nastier weapons were built. In the end, the game was won by the guy who didn't build nukes, but it was clear that the wrong defense would have lost the war very quickly.
I highly recommend trying out the demo. The game is nothing short of spectacular.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Monday, February 05, 2007
NVidia no work on Vista?
Just a quick followup to my previous post on why power gamers should not be upgrading to Windows Vista. It seems that a set of disgruntled NVidia customers are considering a lawsuit against NVidia, claiming that the video card manufacturer has misrepresented the current drivers. Bottom line, it sounds like if you have an NVidia graphics card you had best hold off on upgrading to Vista until this gets sorted.
Just a quick followup to my previous post on why power gamers should not be upgrading to Windows Vista. It seems that a set of disgruntled NVidia customers are considering a lawsuit against NVidia, claiming that the video card manufacturer has misrepresented the current drivers. Bottom line, it sounds like if you have an NVidia graphics card you had best hold off on upgrading to Vista until this gets sorted.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse
I was recently experiencing considerable problems with my current wireless mouse. I have to admit that on my main gaming rig I have for years used a fairly inexpensive wireless keyboard and mouse combination. I know wireless can be laggy, but I just can't accommodate any more cables on my desktop. However, the problem was getting worse, with constant mouse freezes and buttons being pressed and never registering when I let go. I had replaced the batteries and done a number of tweaks to improve things, but it was obvious that the mouse just wasn't up to it any more.
My original plan was to purchase another keyboard/mouse combo when I read somewhere that this may in fact be the issue. Due to the fact that both keyboard and mouse are sharing the same USB connection, there can be odd behavior similar to what I was seeing during heavy activity in modern games.
So I decided to take a look at the options for good quality wireless mice that could be run separately from the keyboard. It had been several years since my last purchase, so I was surprised by the number of innovations that had come out; laser precision, high DPI, and in at lease one case, a high powered 2.4 GHz transmitter. That is in the new Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse mouse. The technology allows a very high rate of tracking even over fairly large wireless distances. I really liked this feature, as I have often found myself pulling my wireless transmitter closer to my mouse pad to eliminate interference.
The mouse is based on the same Laser engine as the Logitech G5 wired mouse. This mouse provides adjustable resolution up to 2000 Dots Per Inch (DPI) with 3 settings by default (400 DPI, 800 DPI and 2000 DPI) which can be adjusted on the fly with a pair of buttons below the mouse wheel. This means you can have very fast response when needed, and slow down the response when greater precision is needed, for instance during sniping in an FPS game.
Of course all of this means the mouse is a big drain on batteries, even the lithium-ion batteries provided by Logitech. The specs state that the mouse can be used for 7 hours of continuous usage in games. So what do you do when you hit the limit in the middle of a game? Just change the battery and keep playing. Fortunately Logitech has provided the G7 with two batteries right in the packaging. While you are playing with one, the other is charging in a charging base that gets its power from your computers USB port. When it is time to change, the battery is quickly ejected with a small but easy to use eject button in both the mouse and the base charger.
The same base also has a USB port for the transmitter dongle. You can use it there, or plug it into any other available USB port you have handy. One thing to keep in mind is that if the charger is plugged directly into your computers USB ports or a powered USB hub, it can pull more power. This means that the charger can be used in a higher charging mode Logitech refers to as "Boost" for faster charges of the battery. In the normal mode, the batteries take up to 10 hours to charge, in "Boost" mode, they charge in 2 hours. However, "Boost" mode can play havoc with other USB devices on the same port, so keep that in mind if you find you are having unexplained problems with other USB devices while charging with this unit.
In practice, I have found that a single battery lasts an entire day of heavy usage for me. This is because the mouse goes into an idle low power state when you aren't using it for a few minutes, and can also be powered off entirely by means of a power button on the bottom of the mouse.
As to the the operation of the mouse, I find it is a very nice piece of technology. The weight, including the batteries, is sufficient to give a very positive feel to the mouse when I move it. The mouse has six buttons, although two of these are used by default to adjust the DPI as mentioned before. They can be reprogrammed with Logitech's SetPoint software if you choose to do so. You can also change the specfic DPI of each setting, or change the number of DPI settings settable (from 2 to 5.) I prefer the settings as they are, so have not used the additional software. Besides the standard two buttons and mouse wheel with button, there is also a thumb button placed close enough to be useful, but high enough that it doesn't get pressed by accident in practice.
The mouse has a small thumb rest which keeps the thumb from dragging on the mouse pad in use. This isn't as pronounced as the thumb rest on the Logitech MX-Revolution, but it fits my hand quite well. The mouse "feet" are high tech non-skid surfaces, not the cheap plastic things that you usually find on most mice. My G7 glides across the mouse pad effortlessly, and there are no more stuck buttons or jerking reactions in any of my games.
The mouse also has a set of LED's to display useful information. During standard operation, a number of LED "bars" show the current DPI setting (low, medium or high) and when idle for a short time the LED's show battery charge remaining. When completely idle, the LED's turn off to save power. There is also a separate power LED on the bottom of the mouse next to the power button, to show that the mouse has been powered on or off. This is useful because the Laser does not provide light that can be seen like the standard red LED on most optical mice.
The big downside (you knew it was coming) is the price. Get ready to lose a cool $100 ($99.99 retail) unless you can find it discounted. So the G7 is strictly for the serious gamer who wants wired mouse stability without the wires. I give it a big thumbs up if you have a need for a mouse without wires, and are serious enough about gaming to spend some extra money. Given what you payed for that top end gaming rig, how can you scrimp on the most important input device?
I was recently experiencing considerable problems with my current wireless mouse. I have to admit that on my main gaming rig I have for years used a fairly inexpensive wireless keyboard and mouse combination. I know wireless can be laggy, but I just can't accommodate any more cables on my desktop. However, the problem was getting worse, with constant mouse freezes and buttons being pressed and never registering when I let go. I had replaced the batteries and done a number of tweaks to improve things, but it was obvious that the mouse just wasn't up to it any more.
My original plan was to purchase another keyboard/mouse combo when I read somewhere that this may in fact be the issue. Due to the fact that both keyboard and mouse are sharing the same USB connection, there can be odd behavior similar to what I was seeing during heavy activity in modern games.
So I decided to take a look at the options for good quality wireless mice that could be run separately from the keyboard. It had been several years since my last purchase, so I was surprised by the number of innovations that had come out; laser precision, high DPI, and in at lease one case, a high powered 2.4 GHz transmitter. That is in the new Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse mouse. The technology allows a very high rate of tracking even over fairly large wireless distances. I really liked this feature, as I have often found myself pulling my wireless transmitter closer to my mouse pad to eliminate interference.
The mouse is based on the same Laser engine as the Logitech G5 wired mouse. This mouse provides adjustable resolution up to 2000 Dots Per Inch (DPI) with 3 settings by default (400 DPI, 800 DPI and 2000 DPI) which can be adjusted on the fly with a pair of buttons below the mouse wheel. This means you can have very fast response when needed, and slow down the response when greater precision is needed, for instance during sniping in an FPS game.
Of course all of this means the mouse is a big drain on batteries, even the lithium-ion batteries provided by Logitech. The specs state that the mouse can be used for 7 hours of continuous usage in games. So what do you do when you hit the limit in the middle of a game? Just change the battery and keep playing. Fortunately Logitech has provided the G7 with two batteries right in the packaging. While you are playing with one, the other is charging in a charging base that gets its power from your computers USB port. When it is time to change, the battery is quickly ejected with a small but easy to use eject button in both the mouse and the base charger.
The same base also has a USB port for the transmitter dongle. You can use it there, or plug it into any other available USB port you have handy. One thing to keep in mind is that if the charger is plugged directly into your computers USB ports or a powered USB hub, it can pull more power. This means that the charger can be used in a higher charging mode Logitech refers to as "Boost" for faster charges of the battery. In the normal mode, the batteries take up to 10 hours to charge, in "Boost" mode, they charge in 2 hours. However, "Boost" mode can play havoc with other USB devices on the same port, so keep that in mind if you find you are having unexplained problems with other USB devices while charging with this unit.
In practice, I have found that a single battery lasts an entire day of heavy usage for me. This is because the mouse goes into an idle low power state when you aren't using it for a few minutes, and can also be powered off entirely by means of a power button on the bottom of the mouse.
As to the the operation of the mouse, I find it is a very nice piece of technology. The weight, including the batteries, is sufficient to give a very positive feel to the mouse when I move it. The mouse has six buttons, although two of these are used by default to adjust the DPI as mentioned before. They can be reprogrammed with Logitech's SetPoint software if you choose to do so. You can also change the specfic DPI of each setting, or change the number of DPI settings settable (from 2 to 5.) I prefer the settings as they are, so have not used the additional software. Besides the standard two buttons and mouse wheel with button, there is also a thumb button placed close enough to be useful, but high enough that it doesn't get pressed by accident in practice.
The mouse has a small thumb rest which keeps the thumb from dragging on the mouse pad in use. This isn't as pronounced as the thumb rest on the Logitech MX-Revolution, but it fits my hand quite well. The mouse "feet" are high tech non-skid surfaces, not the cheap plastic things that you usually find on most mice. My G7 glides across the mouse pad effortlessly, and there are no more stuck buttons or jerking reactions in any of my games.
The mouse also has a set of LED's to display useful information. During standard operation, a number of LED "bars" show the current DPI setting (low, medium or high) and when idle for a short time the LED's show battery charge remaining. When completely idle, the LED's turn off to save power. There is also a separate power LED on the bottom of the mouse next to the power button, to show that the mouse has been powered on or off. This is useful because the Laser does not provide light that can be seen like the standard red LED on most optical mice.
The big downside (you knew it was coming) is the price. Get ready to lose a cool $100 ($99.99 retail) unless you can find it discounted. So the G7 is strictly for the serious gamer who wants wired mouse stability without the wires. I give it a big thumbs up if you have a need for a mouse without wires, and are serious enough about gaming to spend some extra money. Given what you payed for that top end gaming rig, how can you scrimp on the most important input device?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Why you won't be upgrading to Vista anytime soon
Windows Vista launched earlier this week for consumers, and by the looks of things, most people ignored it. After doing some searching around, I can say that's probably the wise thing to do.
First of all let me say that I tested Vista during the Release Candidate phase, and was unimpressed by the features I saw. Nothing about the new OS from Microsoft gives us a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. More importantly, Vista is just plain bad for gamers. Here's why:
Performance
Benchmarks around the Web are showing that upgrading to Vista will cause most games to run slower. In some instance as much as 30% slower! Most power gamers that I know will spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their system to get a few percent more performance. Spending hundreds of dollars for on OS upgrade that downgrades system performance isn't going to sell well.
More information can be found over at Tom's Hardware Guide, as well as many other professional hardware sites.
Lots of people are speculating on why this is, but it appears to me that the big problem is all of the extra processes that Vista runs for security reasons. Good for security? I don't know, but Vista is bad for games.
Sound Support
I was astonished when I tried a late Release Candidate and it did not support my Creative Labs Audigy 2 sound card. I was even more surprised to find out that the week that Vista released Creative still didn't have supported drivers for Vista for their sound cards. Creative does have Beta drivers for Vista, but they are currently estimating March 2007 for certified drivers. Many people are reporting sound problems in games with Vista. A big reason for this is that Microsoft, again in it's wisdom, dropped DirectSound and DirectInput from Vista. They instead went with a new driver abstraction layer ported from XBox 360. Ok, porting games is one thing, but porting console drivers? I don't even know where to start.
Did we mention Security?
Another problem that early adapters are reporting is that Vista security is causing numerous problems with online games. In particular many of the MMO games are having problems because Vista doesn't want to give these games access to the Internet. That seems like it should be easy to fix, but I have heard of cases where the work around was to actually run some games in Windows 95 compatibility, not Windows XP compatibility, but Win95/Me! Go figure. In some cases the games have to be run with elevated administrative rights. So much for security.
Price
Assuming you can decide on a version of Vista that will suit your needs, you will be paying anything from US$199 to US$399 to upgrade to Vista. If you can wait until you need a new PC, that price can be hidden, but it won't disappear. As for myself, I don't expect to need a new PC for a couple of years.
So lets sum up, for a few hundred dollars you can purchase a new Operating System that makes your games play slower, reduces or completely eliminates your sound and can make it hard or even impossible to play online games.
I think I'll pass.
Does that mean I won't ever get Vista? Of course not. Unfortunately Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop software Operating System space makes that impossible. At some point the games I want to play are going to require DirectX 10, and that means we have to use Vista. Is that extortion? Of course it is, but that's par for the course with Microsoft.
In the meantime, I may even purchase a new copy of XP Professional, just to give me a backup plan if one of my computers completely fails.
For now, just say No to Vista.
Windows Vista launched earlier this week for consumers, and by the looks of things, most people ignored it. After doing some searching around, I can say that's probably the wise thing to do.
First of all let me say that I tested Vista during the Release Candidate phase, and was unimpressed by the features I saw. Nothing about the new OS from Microsoft gives us a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. More importantly, Vista is just plain bad for gamers. Here's why:
Performance
Benchmarks around the Web are showing that upgrading to Vista will cause most games to run slower. In some instance as much as 30% slower! Most power gamers that I know will spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their system to get a few percent more performance. Spending hundreds of dollars for on OS upgrade that downgrades system performance isn't going to sell well.
More information can be found over at Tom's Hardware Guide, as well as many other professional hardware sites.
Lots of people are speculating on why this is, but it appears to me that the big problem is all of the extra processes that Vista runs for security reasons. Good for security? I don't know, but Vista is bad for games.
Sound Support
I was astonished when I tried a late Release Candidate and it did not support my Creative Labs Audigy 2 sound card. I was even more surprised to find out that the week that Vista released Creative still didn't have supported drivers for Vista for their sound cards. Creative does have Beta drivers for Vista, but they are currently estimating March 2007 for certified drivers. Many people are reporting sound problems in games with Vista. A big reason for this is that Microsoft, again in it's wisdom, dropped DirectSound and DirectInput from Vista. They instead went with a new driver abstraction layer ported from XBox 360. Ok, porting games is one thing, but porting console drivers? I don't even know where to start.
Did we mention Security?
Another problem that early adapters are reporting is that Vista security is causing numerous problems with online games. In particular many of the MMO games are having problems because Vista doesn't want to give these games access to the Internet. That seems like it should be easy to fix, but I have heard of cases where the work around was to actually run some games in Windows 95 compatibility, not Windows XP compatibility, but Win95/Me! Go figure. In some cases the games have to be run with elevated administrative rights. So much for security.
Price
Assuming you can decide on a version of Vista that will suit your needs, you will be paying anything from US$199 to US$399 to upgrade to Vista. If you can wait until you need a new PC, that price can be hidden, but it won't disappear. As for myself, I don't expect to need a new PC for a couple of years.
So lets sum up, for a few hundred dollars you can purchase a new Operating System that makes your games play slower, reduces or completely eliminates your sound and can make it hard or even impossible to play online games.
I think I'll pass.
Does that mean I won't ever get Vista? Of course not. Unfortunately Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop software Operating System space makes that impossible. At some point the games I want to play are going to require DirectX 10, and that means we have to use Vista. Is that extortion? Of course it is, but that's par for the course with Microsoft.
In the meantime, I may even purchase a new copy of XP Professional, just to give me a backup plan if one of my computers completely fails.
For now, just say No to Vista.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Eve Online
I started the new year off with a set of carry over vacation days, which it turns out at my current job is required to be used by March 31. As a result, I spent a week off at the end of February, when the beautiful Mrs. Wrecklass wasn't able to take time off from the School.
As is often the case, the extra free time led me to looking around for a game to try out. I've just about run the gamut of stuff I was interested in doing in World of Warcraft, and to be honest, MMOG's are the only thing that really hold my attention for long these days.
I wasn't aware of any new games coming out that were of much interest. I tried Dungeons&Dragons Online in the Closed and Open Beta, and found the game was a rolled up version of Guild Wars, with a monthly subscription. I might play it with a friend, but the game taken by itself wasn't that much fun. I find I prefer games that I can play solo, with interaction with other players done as a social, rather than game play component.
So it was a surprise when I read about a game that has been around for over two years now, that was getting good reviews. Perhaps more important, they recently announced that they had crossed over 100,000 paid subscribers, which is a milestone for MMO games. When I found that Eve-Online was offering 14 day free trial accounts, I decided to give it a look. Not really expecting to find the game to my liking.
To describe what Eve is, it may be easier to describe how it differs from other MMOG's on the market. Eve Online is probably unlike any other game you've played before. I should also say right off, that it won't be for most people.
Let me give the quick summary for those of you who won't be interested in reading the full account:
1) Eve has a single game world. Unlike EQ or other games like it, there is only one 'shard' in Eve. That means that when 24,000 people are playing Eve at the same time, they are all on the same 'server.'
2) Eve uses a skill based system, rather than levels. Lots of games use Skill systems, but Eve does things very differently. For instance, you gain skill points over time. Grinding out experience points just doesn't happen. You set a new skill to train, you see how many hours, days or even weeks it will take, and go about your business. When the skill has finished training, you get a message. The big difference is, skills train even when you are logged out of the game. So people who grind for hours every day have no essential benefit over people who can only log in for a couple of hours a week. However, you are limited to only one skill training at a time, and you cannot 'queue' skills to have one train immediately after another finishes. So there is some reason to log in for setting skills to train. There are no limitations to the number of skills a character can obtain. The limitation is simply time.
3) Your equipment is your ship and the items you use on your ship (weapons, scanners, armor, etc.) In Eve there isn't much in the way of "Plus 3 sword of vampire slaying." Everyone can make and/or purchase virtually any piece of equipment. You are constantly upgrading ships and equipment, and never should feel attached to anything. This leads to:
4) "Never fly anything you can't afford to lose" mentality. Death works in a couple of ways in Eve. During combat your ship can be destroyed. When this happens (not IF, but WHEN) you will need to purchase and equip a new ship. If you are playing against other players (PvP) you may also be killed after your ship is destroyed. While there are ways of dealing with 'death' you will mostly lose cash and time. You can insure your ship and your body (through clones) to avoid any real loss. However, the time it takes to reconfigure a ship is a big reason to try to avoid getting killed. However, PvP becomes much less 'personal' in Eve, because losing your entire ship is just something you learn to deal with. It can happen in PvE as well as PvP combat.
5) Eve space is controlled by the players. The central galaxy is patrolled by NPC guards known as "Concord" and they will protect players being attacked by other players. However, as you journey outward from the central core, the security levels of systems gets less and less secure, and Concord is completely absent in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. In these regions Eve player guilds (called Corporations) control space. Players can build their own Stations where corp. members can re-equip, and take refuge when needed. There are maps of the current Eve galaxy which show which corporate alliances maintain control in which regions. It is this aspect of Eve that perhaps sets it apart from any other game out there.
6) Eve's economy is vastly complex, and essentially player controlled. To summarize how the economy of Eve works:
A) Players with mining skills go to the moons and asteroids to mine ores
B) Players with freighters haul the ore to Stations
C) Ores are refined into basic building materials
D) Players with Science skills create blueprints
E) Manufacturing players combine materials and blueprints into equipment
F) Players sell equipment.
That's the 30,000 foot level short version. Large corporations have players who do all of these things. Some corporations specialize, Mining corps who spend time getting ore, freight corporations who haul items from one system to another for a fee, etc.
When purchasing a piece of equipment, you can see how much it is selling for in nearby systems, and there are even graphs generated by the game which shows you the price history for the item, along with moving averages for the past day, week and month. There are people who make money simply by purchasing equipment made cheaply in one system, and hauling it to another system where they can sell it for much more.
Of course, all of this within an essentially hostile environment. A freigher will want to have friends in combat ships to escort them, lest they lose their cargo to pirates. Yes, there are also pirate corporations which make a living off of the hard work of others, and anti-pirate corporatons who try to keep the pirates at bay.
The complexity of the Eve economic system gave rise to a singularly unique event in the Eve game world last year. In October 2005 a large player corporation of mostly dedicated PvE players decided to create a safe haven for players in a war torn corner of the Eve galaxy. To that end they decided to build an independent space station open to players who agreed to not use the station for agressive purposes. To finance the station (which are very expensive) the corporation sold stocks based on in game money. 3600 shares where sold to about 1200 players of the corporation.
The station was built during a player get together (like an Everquest Fan Fest) during which so many players were gone the station could be built in relative secrecy. The station collects money from players who come in for things like repairs and purchasing or selling items at the station. The station was seen as being so valuable to neighboring corporations, that nobody challenged it. In fact, the corporation that started the idea found it so lucrative, that they have used the profits to start other stations in player controlled space.
All of this because the Eve system gives players the ability to conduct business in a way that is very nearly as free wheeling as the real world.
So after all of that, I still haven't really talked about how one 'plays' Eve.
Eve is a Space sim style game. The 'world' of Eve is in fact a galaxy far far away, but not that galaxy. You play the game from the inside of a space craft, which you fly around doing various missions, exploring the vastness, and occasionally getting shot at by NPC's and other players.
As I mentioned earlier, Eve has only one 'live' server. Although in fact the Eve universe is hosted on 70 IBM blade dual core dual processor servers. Interestingly enough the Eve cluster was recently upgraded, and currently qualifies as one of the top 500 super computers in the world. All that for just one game. On any given evening there can be as many as 20,000 people online and, they have gotten as many as 24,000, all in the same game 'world'.
But it isnt just he hardware and number of concurrent players that has given the folks at CCP (who created Eve) the right to declare Eve the "Largest online gaming world." The Galaxy of Eve is made up of nearly 5,0000 separate solar systems, each containing multiple planets, moons and asteroid belts. Although players cannot disembark onto a planet, the sheer scope of Eve is very literaly mind boggling. The size of Eve gives one the feeling of infinite space to explore. To better understand this, let me talk about how one travels in Eve.
There are three forms of movement within the Eve universe. All of which can be done using the space ship your character occupies. The first and slowest would be the equivalent of Star Trek 'impulse engines.' Allowing the ship to travel at speeds approaching 1000 meters/second, this is the basic method one uses to approach a station for docking, or perform combat in Eve. It is the 'tactical' method of maneuvering.
The next form of transportation in Eve is what is called the "Warp drive" system. With it you can move quickly between planets, moons and other bodies in a single Eve Solar System. These systems are each huge, typically being as much as 50 Astronomical Units(AU) from one end to the other. Some of you may recall from high-school science that an Atronomical Unit is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, or about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers.) With warp drive you can travel to a planet 10 AU's away in about 20 seconds.
The final form of transportation in Eve are the large Star gates, also called Jump gates. You use these to instaneously move your ship to nearby Solar systems. The game revolves around jumping between systems to deliver cargo, find new equipment for your ship, and interact with other players.
The jump gates essentially form the 'zone lines' within the Eve world system. It's entirely possible that the entire system is 'zone free,' but it would be impossible to determine. The only way to travel outside of a system is by he Jump gates. I considered what it would take to simply use Impulse power to find out if there are in fact zone boundaries, but the math is against it:
Consider, at 1000 m/s, given that an AU is 150,000,000 kilometers (150 billion meters) it would take a player nearly FIVE YEARS in real time to travel one AU. So traveling several light years (1 ly is about 24,000 AU) the matter of whether or not you can move freely to a different solar system without the jump drives is completely meaningless. And remember that I said there are nearly 5000 solar systems in the current game. Endless exploration is an understatement.
The amount of travel you do in Eve, and the time it takes to move from system to system is oddly one of the things that attracts many players. Rather than the mad dash games of instant gratification, Eve has a much slower pace to it. One can actually carry on conversations with other players, and yet it doesn't have the same feel as downtime in other games. Whether you are mining or going on a series of 'jumps' to complete a mission, you have the feeling you are accompling something in the game.
There is also the 'looking over your shoulder' aspect of the game that makes travel just a bit more interesting. Since the game is PvP, and other players could attack you at any time, you have to be 'on the alert.' This is especially true in lower security systems.
Even combat is at a slower pace in Eve. Combat feels as much like an RTS game as it does anything else. For instance, on missions, you may enter a "deadspace region" where NPC pirates are reported to be at. Once you spot the pirates you will want to evaluate their numbers and strength. In order to attack someone/thing you must move within the range of your ships weapons, and perform 'target lock-ons' to those threats you have decided are most immediate.
You may also deploy drones, if you have acquired such skills and have the drones aboard your ship. Drones are a kind of 'pet' that you can order into combat with you. However, drones come in different speed, size and power combinations, each having slightly different capabilities.
While combat is fairly slow in it's pacing, you are required to do a fair amount of multi-tasking during a battle. You must monitor the health of your ships systems, acquire and allocate targets for both your ships weapons and drones, and decide when to use other support systems. A ship has only so much energy available, so you must decide how many of your resources to put to work. It can be daunting at first. The first time I lost a ship in combat was because I simply hadn't been paying attention to my ships health, and found myself puttering along in an escape pod without warning.
As complex as the game is, you can imagine that the interface is equally complex. While that is true, the interface is very well thought out, and you can open and close windows to customize the information you have at your disposal during various different tasks.
While Eve is like a space sim, it isn't a flight sim, and you don't generally have to worry about flying your ship. You can set out a course and hit the autopilot to get between systems. During combat you can select to approach an enemy ship, or to keep it at a specied distance, or to orbit it at a set distance to keep your ship moving. All of this is done by simply clicking on buttons on your primary display.
Explorers will find Eve to be a fascinating play ground. Every system has it's own atmosphere, with suns of various sizes and colors from blue dwarfs to red giants. There are typically nebulous 'clouds' nearby, which add to the feeling of vastness in each system.
Planets come in a variety of types as well. I've watched dust storms moving across the surface of a planet very much like Mars, skimmed the rings of large gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, and seen the lights of major cities on earth like planets. One of my more interesting discoveries came when I noticed a faint flash on a planet I was orbiting, and on closer inspection I could see lightening storms moving across the planets atmosphere. Eve is a cornucopia of things to see for the amateur astronomers out there. While you cannot visit the planet surfaces (in fact you cannot leave your space craft even at space stations) there isn't any obvious limitation to the types of systems you might explore. If you find time.
Well, after all of that you are probably thinking "Thanks Wreck, but I guess I don't need to play Eve now after that exhaustive description." However, I will, of course, rejoin with "But I haven't even scratched the surface." Which would be quite true. I haven't described the myriad ship types and classifications. Or the fact that after 2 years of play, even the oldest Eve player corporations have not accumulated the resources needed to build the largest class of ships, called appropriately "Titans." While I mentioned skills, I didn't yet mention that there are 15 different skill categories, each having as many as two dozen specific skills. Which adds up to hundreds of different skills that a character can learn. Thus making the liklihood that two pilots have the exact same skills extremely unlikely. While your character appearance is only a small aspect of the game, and rarely considered, the amount of player customization in skill sets is, pardon the pun, astronomical.
Finally, I dont' expect to see many of you in the Eve Universe. As I said before, the game is really not for everyone. It is highly complex and can bore those with a desire for fast action. However, if you decide to play, please remember that I'm on the Tranquility server.
Of course, that's the only live server in Eve Online.
I started the new year off with a set of carry over vacation days, which it turns out at my current job is required to be used by March 31. As a result, I spent a week off at the end of February, when the beautiful Mrs. Wrecklass wasn't able to take time off from the School.
As is often the case, the extra free time led me to looking around for a game to try out. I've just about run the gamut of stuff I was interested in doing in World of Warcraft, and to be honest, MMOG's are the only thing that really hold my attention for long these days.
I wasn't aware of any new games coming out that were of much interest. I tried Dungeons&Dragons Online in the Closed and Open Beta, and found the game was a rolled up version of Guild Wars, with a monthly subscription. I might play it with a friend, but the game taken by itself wasn't that much fun. I find I prefer games that I can play solo, with interaction with other players done as a social, rather than game play component.
So it was a surprise when I read about a game that has been around for over two years now, that was getting good reviews. Perhaps more important, they recently announced that they had crossed over 100,000 paid subscribers, which is a milestone for MMO games. When I found that Eve-Online was offering 14 day free trial accounts, I decided to give it a look. Not really expecting to find the game to my liking.
To describe what Eve is, it may be easier to describe how it differs from other MMOG's on the market. Eve Online is probably unlike any other game you've played before. I should also say right off, that it won't be for most people.
Let me give the quick summary for those of you who won't be interested in reading the full account:
1) Eve has a single game world. Unlike EQ or other games like it, there is only one 'shard' in Eve. That means that when 24,000 people are playing Eve at the same time, they are all on the same 'server.'
2) Eve uses a skill based system, rather than levels. Lots of games use Skill systems, but Eve does things very differently. For instance, you gain skill points over time. Grinding out experience points just doesn't happen. You set a new skill to train, you see how many hours, days or even weeks it will take, and go about your business. When the skill has finished training, you get a message. The big difference is, skills train even when you are logged out of the game. So people who grind for hours every day have no essential benefit over people who can only log in for a couple of hours a week. However, you are limited to only one skill training at a time, and you cannot 'queue' skills to have one train immediately after another finishes. So there is some reason to log in for setting skills to train. There are no limitations to the number of skills a character can obtain. The limitation is simply time.
3) Your equipment is your ship and the items you use on your ship (weapons, scanners, armor, etc.) In Eve there isn't much in the way of "Plus 3 sword of vampire slaying." Everyone can make and/or purchase virtually any piece of equipment. You are constantly upgrading ships and equipment, and never should feel attached to anything. This leads to:
4) "Never fly anything you can't afford to lose" mentality. Death works in a couple of ways in Eve. During combat your ship can be destroyed. When this happens (not IF, but WHEN) you will need to purchase and equip a new ship. If you are playing against other players (PvP) you may also be killed after your ship is destroyed. While there are ways of dealing with 'death' you will mostly lose cash and time. You can insure your ship and your body (through clones) to avoid any real loss. However, the time it takes to reconfigure a ship is a big reason to try to avoid getting killed. However, PvP becomes much less 'personal' in Eve, because losing your entire ship is just something you learn to deal with. It can happen in PvE as well as PvP combat.
5) Eve space is controlled by the players. The central galaxy is patrolled by NPC guards known as "Concord" and they will protect players being attacked by other players. However, as you journey outward from the central core, the security levels of systems gets less and less secure, and Concord is completely absent in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. In these regions Eve player guilds (called Corporations) control space. Players can build their own Stations where corp. members can re-equip, and take refuge when needed. There are maps of the current Eve galaxy which show which corporate alliances maintain control in which regions. It is this aspect of Eve that perhaps sets it apart from any other game out there.
6) Eve's economy is vastly complex, and essentially player controlled. To summarize how the economy of Eve works:
A) Players with mining skills go to the moons and asteroids to mine ores
B) Players with freighters haul the ore to Stations
C) Ores are refined into basic building materials
D) Players with Science skills create blueprints
E) Manufacturing players combine materials and blueprints into equipment
F) Players sell equipment.
That's the 30,000 foot level short version. Large corporations have players who do all of these things. Some corporations specialize, Mining corps who spend time getting ore, freight corporations who haul items from one system to another for a fee, etc.
When purchasing a piece of equipment, you can see how much it is selling for in nearby systems, and there are even graphs generated by the game which shows you the price history for the item, along with moving averages for the past day, week and month. There are people who make money simply by purchasing equipment made cheaply in one system, and hauling it to another system where they can sell it for much more.
Of course, all of this within an essentially hostile environment. A freigher will want to have friends in combat ships to escort them, lest they lose their cargo to pirates. Yes, there are also pirate corporations which make a living off of the hard work of others, and anti-pirate corporatons who try to keep the pirates at bay.
The complexity of the Eve economic system gave rise to a singularly unique event in the Eve game world last year. In October 2005 a large player corporation of mostly dedicated PvE players decided to create a safe haven for players in a war torn corner of the Eve galaxy. To that end they decided to build an independent space station open to players who agreed to not use the station for agressive purposes. To finance the station (which are very expensive) the corporation sold stocks based on in game money. 3600 shares where sold to about 1200 players of the corporation.
The station was built during a player get together (like an Everquest Fan Fest) during which so many players were gone the station could be built in relative secrecy. The station collects money from players who come in for things like repairs and purchasing or selling items at the station. The station was seen as being so valuable to neighboring corporations, that nobody challenged it. In fact, the corporation that started the idea found it so lucrative, that they have used the profits to start other stations in player controlled space.
All of this because the Eve system gives players the ability to conduct business in a way that is very nearly as free wheeling as the real world.
So after all of that, I still haven't really talked about how one 'plays' Eve.
Eve is a Space sim style game. The 'world' of Eve is in fact a galaxy far far away, but not that galaxy. You play the game from the inside of a space craft, which you fly around doing various missions, exploring the vastness, and occasionally getting shot at by NPC's and other players.
As I mentioned earlier, Eve has only one 'live' server. Although in fact the Eve universe is hosted on 70 IBM blade dual core dual processor servers. Interestingly enough the Eve cluster was recently upgraded, and currently qualifies as one of the top 500 super computers in the world. All that for just one game. On any given evening there can be as many as 20,000 people online and, they have gotten as many as 24,000, all in the same game 'world'.
But it isnt just he hardware and number of concurrent players that has given the folks at CCP (who created Eve) the right to declare Eve the "Largest online gaming world." The Galaxy of Eve is made up of nearly 5,0000 separate solar systems, each containing multiple planets, moons and asteroid belts. Although players cannot disembark onto a planet, the sheer scope of Eve is very literaly mind boggling. The size of Eve gives one the feeling of infinite space to explore. To better understand this, let me talk about how one travels in Eve.
There are three forms of movement within the Eve universe. All of which can be done using the space ship your character occupies. The first and slowest would be the equivalent of Star Trek 'impulse engines.' Allowing the ship to travel at speeds approaching 1000 meters/second, this is the basic method one uses to approach a station for docking, or perform combat in Eve. It is the 'tactical' method of maneuvering.
The next form of transportation in Eve is what is called the "Warp drive" system. With it you can move quickly between planets, moons and other bodies in a single Eve Solar System. These systems are each huge, typically being as much as 50 Astronomical Units(AU) from one end to the other. Some of you may recall from high-school science that an Atronomical Unit is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, or about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers.) With warp drive you can travel to a planet 10 AU's away in about 20 seconds.
The final form of transportation in Eve are the large Star gates, also called Jump gates. You use these to instaneously move your ship to nearby Solar systems. The game revolves around jumping between systems to deliver cargo, find new equipment for your ship, and interact with other players.
The jump gates essentially form the 'zone lines' within the Eve world system. It's entirely possible that the entire system is 'zone free,' but it would be impossible to determine. The only way to travel outside of a system is by he Jump gates. I considered what it would take to simply use Impulse power to find out if there are in fact zone boundaries, but the math is against it:
Consider, at 1000 m/s, given that an AU is 150,000,000 kilometers (150 billion meters) it would take a player nearly FIVE YEARS in real time to travel one AU. So traveling several light years (1 ly is about 24,000 AU) the matter of whether or not you can move freely to a different solar system without the jump drives is completely meaningless. And remember that I said there are nearly 5000 solar systems in the current game. Endless exploration is an understatement.
The amount of travel you do in Eve, and the time it takes to move from system to system is oddly one of the things that attracts many players. Rather than the mad dash games of instant gratification, Eve has a much slower pace to it. One can actually carry on conversations with other players, and yet it doesn't have the same feel as downtime in other games. Whether you are mining or going on a series of 'jumps' to complete a mission, you have the feeling you are accompling something in the game.
There is also the 'looking over your shoulder' aspect of the game that makes travel just a bit more interesting. Since the game is PvP, and other players could attack you at any time, you have to be 'on the alert.' This is especially true in lower security systems.
Even combat is at a slower pace in Eve. Combat feels as much like an RTS game as it does anything else. For instance, on missions, you may enter a "deadspace region" where NPC pirates are reported to be at. Once you spot the pirates you will want to evaluate their numbers and strength. In order to attack someone/thing you must move within the range of your ships weapons, and perform 'target lock-ons' to those threats you have decided are most immediate.
You may also deploy drones, if you have acquired such skills and have the drones aboard your ship. Drones are a kind of 'pet' that you can order into combat with you. However, drones come in different speed, size and power combinations, each having slightly different capabilities.
While combat is fairly slow in it's pacing, you are required to do a fair amount of multi-tasking during a battle. You must monitor the health of your ships systems, acquire and allocate targets for both your ships weapons and drones, and decide when to use other support systems. A ship has only so much energy available, so you must decide how many of your resources to put to work. It can be daunting at first. The first time I lost a ship in combat was because I simply hadn't been paying attention to my ships health, and found myself puttering along in an escape pod without warning.
As complex as the game is, you can imagine that the interface is equally complex. While that is true, the interface is very well thought out, and you can open and close windows to customize the information you have at your disposal during various different tasks.
While Eve is like a space sim, it isn't a flight sim, and you don't generally have to worry about flying your ship. You can set out a course and hit the autopilot to get between systems. During combat you can select to approach an enemy ship, or to keep it at a specied distance, or to orbit it at a set distance to keep your ship moving. All of this is done by simply clicking on buttons on your primary display.
Explorers will find Eve to be a fascinating play ground. Every system has it's own atmosphere, with suns of various sizes and colors from blue dwarfs to red giants. There are typically nebulous 'clouds' nearby, which add to the feeling of vastness in each system.
Planets come in a variety of types as well. I've watched dust storms moving across the surface of a planet very much like Mars, skimmed the rings of large gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, and seen the lights of major cities on earth like planets. One of my more interesting discoveries came when I noticed a faint flash on a planet I was orbiting, and on closer inspection I could see lightening storms moving across the planets atmosphere. Eve is a cornucopia of things to see for the amateur astronomers out there. While you cannot visit the planet surfaces (in fact you cannot leave your space craft even at space stations) there isn't any obvious limitation to the types of systems you might explore. If you find time.
Well, after all of that you are probably thinking "Thanks Wreck, but I guess I don't need to play Eve now after that exhaustive description." However, I will, of course, rejoin with "But I haven't even scratched the surface." Which would be quite true. I haven't described the myriad ship types and classifications. Or the fact that after 2 years of play, even the oldest Eve player corporations have not accumulated the resources needed to build the largest class of ships, called appropriately "Titans." While I mentioned skills, I didn't yet mention that there are 15 different skill categories, each having as many as two dozen specific skills. Which adds up to hundreds of different skills that a character can learn. Thus making the liklihood that two pilots have the exact same skills extremely unlikely. While your character appearance is only a small aspect of the game, and rarely considered, the amount of player customization in skill sets is, pardon the pun, astronomical.
Finally, I dont' expect to see many of you in the Eve Universe. As I said before, the game is really not for everyone. It is highly complex and can bore those with a desire for fast action. However, if you decide to play, please remember that I'm on the Tranquility server.
Of course, that's the only live server in Eve Online.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Java Gaming
I'm a professional Java software engineer, and I've been looking into the impressive amount of games that have become available using Java technology. In fact I have started some work on a game of my own, but more on that later.
In the mean time, you may want to cruise over to Java Gaming or Gamasutra to check out the game development arena yourself.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
To AA or not to AA
I recently upgraded my computer to an AMD XP 2800+ with 1GB of RAM and a Radeon 9700 PRO. Good enough to ask whether or not I could run Anti-Aliased in games. So I ran some benchmarks.
It isn't worth using AA at very high Resolution the performance drop is still just too big. There are three factors in the decision: 1) Video quality, 2) Performance and 3) Gameplay issues.
Video quality, I find that 4x4 Antialiasing does in fact look slightly better at 1024x768 than no antialiasing at 1600x1200. One point for AA
Performance is a wash. Benchmarks I have run show that 1024x768 with AA is nearly identical framerate as 1600x1200 without. Tie
Gameplay, this is a biggy. Most games have text displays and other information that appears on the screen along with the 3D game world. HUD displays in flight and FPS games, chat areas in MMOG's. The lower the resolution, the more of your screeen gets covered with these items. In my book this is important.
Therefore, for now, it appears the choice is this: If your monitor will not support higher resolutions, but you have a fast system, then AA can make things look a lot better for you. IF you have a system that can handle 1280x1024 or higher without problem, then going to these levels without AA is your best bet.
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