biorod's Blog - 2old2play

Chicago LAN

I flew back from Chicago Sunday morning, and boy, are my arms still tired (I know, that joke's way overused). Anyway, the LAN was awesome! It was good fun to finally meet some folks I've gamed with for a while and also to meet some people that I haven't really spoken to before but know their gamertags or read their blog. I truly had a blast. When the LAN details were first announced, I wasn't sure if I would go or if I wanted to go, but now I'm so glad I went. Here's how my weekend went (some of the pics were taken with my camera phone and so the quality's not good):

Thursday, August 9, 2007

I arrived at O'Hare at almost 10 PM and waited in the cab line right outside of the terminal. I'm no fan of cabbies, but fortunately the one I talked to pointed me to the hotel shuttle waiting area that was just across the street. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I was on my way to the Wyndham. I got to the hotel just before 11 pm, checked in, called Soup, and headed down to the bar to join everyone. I didn't know too many people by site and walked right by the group before Drost grabbed me and bought me a beer. We shot the shit for a while - I met LBSutke, SoupNazzi, SpeedBump, Drost, Sys Chaos, OldManRiver, Dark Knight, Beldar, and Smoke (if I'm missing anyone, I apologize...I'm writing this all from memory, which isn't too good these days and it's worse because I spent a lot of the weekend drinking, damn you alcohol!). So we were drinking and talking, and Drost was waiving around this long, black spank-me-daddy-rough-love studded leather thing that had "Suck It" written on it with metal studs. Some middle-aged woman that none of us knew took it upon herself to get the paddle and start spanking us. I ran like a bitch but she got me anyway. Everyone was laughing as she beat our asses but it wasn't funny, it was weird. She even followed us to the pool table and spanked Drost again. That dirty tramp!

Here she is in all her freaky, stalking glory:

I turned in a bit early but apparently the party went on in the bar...something about Drost dancing on the pool table. You'd have to ask him, though.

Friday, August 10, 2007

My morning started off by joining Soup, Sys, and Stridog (my roommate) for an $18 breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We decided that'd be the last time we ate there since, although it was good, it wasn't $18 good. Drost came down and told us that, in about 10 minutes, a shuttle was taking a bunch of us to the Wizard World Con downtown. So I ran up to my room, got ready, and got to the lobby in time to join them.

The Wizard Wizard Con was like a Nerd Mecca. Since I used to collect comics and have seen more than my share of comic collectors and owners, though, this was no surprise. I should point out that I'm not a nerd. Well, not much of one.....okay, maybe I am. Shut up. The cool factor was helped by the presence of a porn star (see Soup's blog for the pic) as well as appearances by Tricia Helfer (BSG, Number Six) and some guy that's written a lot of books or something. There was a long line to talk to him, so he must've been cool. Unfortunately for us, all of the major appearances weren't on the day we visited. Buggar.

Phreak had arranged for the Wyndham shuttle to transport us to the Wizard World Con and back. When our pick up time rolled around, however, the shuttle was no where to be seen. We grumbled for a while, chatted, met Her Highness Princess Leah (hawtness), saw a ninja with tennis shoes, and eventually Waterborn had to lay the smack down on the hotel manager's candy ass. I think they finally picked us up an hour after they said they would.

Once we returned to the hotel, we headed down to the main room and helped set up stations and drink alcohol. People started getting their PCs and 360s out and pretty soon it was time for gaming! I confess that I played H2 almost exclusively. I did try GH2 (until some douche laughed at me for not knowing what I was doing even though it was my first time even touching the guitar, insisted on showing me how, and continued to play without saying anything else to me....yes sir, you're a douche), and I tried to get GoW set up but I didn't have the updates. Even so, at best, I would've been the sole reason my team lost every match. There were some serious GoW matches going!

H2 on LAN is awesome. The game is so much more pleasant, things happen that are supposed to happen (well, more so than on XBL), and you can hit people with BR fire across the map even on the largest ones. Either all that's true, or in my inebriated state I was enjoying it more than I would sober. Take your pick. Besides random games and more drinking, not much happened that night. Laud and LadiesLuvMe tried to set up a 2v2 H2 tournament but it was not to be. For dinner, we headed out for Mexican. I had an absolutely huge burrito and chips. I turned in at about 2 am but didn't go to sleep until about 3 am...too much drinking? I think so.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

For some unholy reason I woke up at 8 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got out of bed about 9 am, got ready, and went down to the lobby looking for coffee. There I ran into UnwashedMass, Waterborn, and OldManRiver and we decided to head across the street to the Pot Belly for some breakfast. I think everyone had plenty to drink the night before. We just chatted a bit, ate our food, and headed back. Someone puked in the grass on the way back. I won't say who it was, but it wasn't me. You know who you are! LOL!

This day consisted pretty much of more H2 all day. The H2 crowd managed to organize a 4v4 MLG ladder, which was fun. There were a few epic battles between, and I forget some of the names, but No Cocks and Taxi's team. Profanity (with Bump in place of Malice) barely beat Vulgarity 50-49 in a Warlock slayer game. I think they led like 48-47 right before the end, and Laud's cries of anguish sounded like Mozart to my ears. We still had to play the winners of the losers bracket but when it got to 12:30 am or so and there were still two matches remaining to determine our opponent, I left for bed. I wasn't drunk but likely dehydrated from, I don't know, like six Gin and Tonics, six beers or so, three cups of coffee to only two bottles of water for the day. My head was pounding, my eyes blood shot from staring at a monitor all day, I had, at best, five hours of sleep the night before, and at that point I was debating if I would rather continue playing or die there on the spot. That's when you gotta turn in.

The night got better, though. Our AC stopped working and I woke up around 1:30 am or something in a sweat and it was so goddamned humid in the room I found it slightly hard to breathe. I called the front desk and they said that one-half of the hotel lost AC completely and they were working to fix it. So I tried to go to sleep and think I managed to before 2 am.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Sunday all I did really was wake up and go to the airport. However, something good did happen. I complained during checkout that our AC went out and it was uncomfortably warm in the room so they took 50% off of mine and Stridog's bill. $139 including taxes and everything for three nights ain't bad at all.

It turned out that Stridog had to leave early also and was flying the same airline as me. So we took the shuttle to the airport together, grabbed some breakfast, and talked about all the douche bags we met at the LAN. Anyway, Stridog's a pretty cool cat.

And now, some pics....

Dark Knight, LB, Soup, Drost, Phreak, Bump, Waterborn, et al leaving for Wizard Con:

In the Wyndham shuttle. Phreak asked Drost how big he was "down there." His response said it all:

Bioshock display:

Me and bloody Bioshock girl...they're always sexier when they're bloody:

Inside the Bioshock booth - there were about six or so stations but I only took this pic because the girl was hot:

Blood on the floor in the Bioshock booth...this actually wasn't for affect. Some guy pissed Phreak off and he got wrecked:

Drost's main reason for going to Chicago last weekend was to attend the Stitches Expos 2007:

Soup shows off his flare at Wizard Con - Laud (right) obviously doesn't have enough flare:

Walking around the Con, I found the Joker and Wonder Woman, of all people. I think the Joker was happy to see me:

Souporine:

Me and Her Highness, Princess Leah. Wow. I had to pretend to go to the bathroom just to get away from her. She was all over me. I'm married you hottie...I mean, lady! Actually, her name was Christine and she was extremely nice to have posed with me and the other guys (below). If I wasn't married, I would have shamelessly begged her to let me chain her up. Man, we'd have some pale white kids, too!

Oh, and these losers had their pic taken with her, too:

Sidewalk artist outside the doors of the Wizard World Con:

Profanity let's you know what you can do with yourself via large banner in the corner of the room:

Someone's frackin' awesome PC (PM me and I'll credit the owner):

Nice display by the WoW dorks:

Drost playing GH2, part deux:

Almost the entire room. That's Waterborn on the bottom right, Absolute Tara in the white shirt between the guys in the red and orange shirts, BC Kinetic standing near the center in the green shirt holding a drink:

[4 Comments]

Last Day

So today's my last day at my current job. I've worked for the University of North Carolina in one capacity or another since moving to North Carolina in 1998. I've been a temporary employee, a part-time employee, an undergraduate, a medical and dental patient, a volunteer - basically, you name it, I've done it here (except for teach). My wife earned her Ph.D. here and my son was born at the hospital that I can see out of my window. I earned my BS in computer science and spent an unholy amount of time writing code, papers, and doing all sorts of unpleasant mathematics in a building up the street. I confess that it's much harder to leave than I thought it'd be. I've done so much here - everything from freezing in line outside the Smith Center countless Saturday mornings for basketball tickets to picketing for employee benefits in front of South Building. Often times I've felt that being a state employee is a thankless existence, and it usually is, however, the people and the atmosphere are irreplaceable.

That's the mood I'm in. I don't start my new job until the Monday after the Chi-LAN and I'll be at the beach from tomorrow until Wednesday. So I've got a couple of crazy weeks coming with one of the worst moments near the end - when my son starts his new daycare on August 20th. My wife's already sobbing and I'm uneasy at best.

Anyway, good bye Carolina! I'll miss you.

[3 Comments]

Searching for a New Daycare Center

My wife accepted a job offer this week and so we have to find a new care center for my son. If he were to remain at his current daycare center, it'd take my wife or me over an hour to drop him off and get to work and vice versa. This blows since we absolutely love his current daycare center as well as the people there. So we spent some time last week and today looking at new centers near our future work locations (I'm starting a new job August 13 and my wife will likely start hers on September 5, and, oddly enough, we'll be working within 2 miles of each other...her building is currently across the street from mine.). The place we saw today is not a place I'd put my son. Granted, it's a five-star center, as rated by the State of NC, but what we saw when we visited the toddler room was total chaos. I saw the children running around uncontrolled, some clothed, some not, I saw one boy hit another boy with a plastic container and the second boy retaliated by hitting him in the head with a percussion triangle. One kid was in the corner crying. The teacher barely said anything, took the triangle away, and sent the boy to the other instructor, who was changing another child's diaper. Also, the teachers hardly said anything when we visited, didn't greet us, and seemed to be in emergency management the entire time. We left the room to continue the tour, spoke with the center director for about 20 minutes, and when she asked me if I had any questions, I asked to see the toddler room again thinking that perhaps we just caught them at a bad time. Nope. Same chaos, totally unstructured! I'd sooner leave my son at home alone all day than take him to that place. He'd learn just about as much! (BTW, I wouldn't leave my son at home alone).

Oh, I hate to say this, but it did enter my mind - one of the care givers was obese. I'd guess that she was in her early 50s and about 300 lbs. Some days when I watch my son by myself, he tires me out, and I'm a healthy young guy that only has to watch one boy. I can't imagine that she isn't exhausted by lunch time from their activities, chasing the kids, playing with them, changing them, picking them up, etc. That has to take a toll on a person day after day, which, I would assume, eventually affects their work ethic. Oh yeah, their teacher to child ratio is 9:1. The state mandates a 10:1 ratio, so they're under that. But imagine being 300 lbs and having to watch nine toddlers. Sounds like some special sort of hell.

There were two places we would put him, but they don't currently have any openings. I'm hoping that we find some place soon and don't have to spend two hours everyday traveling to his current daycare center because we don't have any reasonable alternatives. Also, anywhere we're looking is at least $100 more a month than his current location, and the one I really want him in is over $200 more a month than that. I don't mind that so much since our household income is increasing significantly with our new jobs and I want what's best for my boy, but still, that sucks.

[5 Comments]

Same Color Illusion

Are blocks 'A' and 'B' the same color? Scroll down for the answer.

Yes, they are the same color. To convince you, I copied and pasted block 'B' and placed it in between 'A' and 'B'. You can see that they are the same. I found this on NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" page. They used this as an example to show that "purely human observations in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate." Pretty neat.

[4 Comments]

Starting New Job Soon

I haven't blogged in a while. As goofy as this sounds, I really only decided to blog when I saw V10L3N7_JAY's blog with the Decepticon image and thought it'd be funny to have my Autobot image next to it.

Anyway, yesterday I got a job offer and I'm very excited about it. I'll be a software engineer working on benefits applications. My office will be about 10 minutes from my house and I'll actually get to park next to the building instead of parking in a satellite lot and taking a bus to campus! My salary will also jump by over 13k, so I'm excited about that, too!

Because they're hiring so many people here so quickly, there are some space concerns. They wanted me to start July 30th, when they begin populating a "new" building, but since I've got the following week planned for the beach and the Chi-LAN, we agreed that I should start August 13th. I guess I can't get too trashed Saturday night at the LAN. Oh well, I'll make up for it on Friday night!

[7 Comments]

Break and Gameplay

I meant to blog this earlier but didn't. I had a nice holiday break. My family and I went up to my wife's parents' home in PA for Christmas for the week. It was great to be able to relax a bit, eat good food, and have some extra hands to help out with Noah. Plus, while we were up there, I made the drive out to NJ to hang out with Bioslayer and his brothers, Biodrunk and Bioblaze.

Yes, we drank plenty of beer and played a bit of Halo, which might surprise some. Probably the best part of the night was toward the end. We were sitting around sort of bored with Halo by that point and had 8-10 beers in each of us. Biodrunk started playing rumble training. He also has his wireless headset sitting on the table, and we can hear this one guy running his mouth. We were all just yelling in the room and being obnoxious. Then Bioblaze got out his wireless phone. For some reason, he had this .wav file of the most god-awful cat meow you've ever heard. It sounds like a cat taking crack while in heat. The thing lasts about 30 seconds. So he took the wireless headset and starts playing this file for everyone to hear in the room. We're all dying, I'm hung over the couch LMFAO, and the guys in the rumble game were yelling all sorts of shit from "STFU!" to another guy that was making cat noises of his own. Ah, drunken fun. This continued for about 8 games or so until it was no longer novel. But oh man, that's great stuff.

After I got back to PA, I got the sinus cold from hell and am just now past the worst of it. To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't miss a day of work this week. Tuesday and Wednesday, I thought either an eye or a tooth was going to pop out from the pressure.

Noah got entirely too many toys over Christmas. Off the top of my head, he got a toy piano, a Radio Flyer, a Little People's castle, a Little People's pirate ship, about 10 books, 3 puzzles with like animals, trucks, and vegatables that you put in and out of a wood piece, clothes til summer, a rocking pony, some car thing, a rotating zebra thing that he can sit on and ride, etc. That's crazy. So now all this shit's in my living room and he's still dragging around a shirt that I used to sleep in like it's his blanket and he's Linus. Kids.

A good number of folks from the site have gamed with Onslaught and probably know that he's a very skilled player. He doesn't use combos or glitches much, he just shoots people. I think I mentioned this before, but back in the day he LAN'd Halo CE with Rippon, Stew, Canada, Trainee, DirT, Naka, Nataku, and other Utah gamers. So he's been a Halo guy from the start and is just a natural at FPS. Anyway, this game is a 3v3 on Ivory Tower. It's a good vid to see how to whore the OS and move around on your onesy. Enjoy.

BTW, sorry about the interlacing. He just started capping and this one of his first.

Jared

[4 Comments]

Christmas Party

Tonight's one of the nights I dread all year long - party at my wife's boss's house. As much as I threaten to introduce myself as "Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger" or fake illness or drink myself into a coma, my wife still insists that I have to go. I don't like the people in her lab. They're the kind of people that you can have a conversation with and yet, when it's over, you never really felt like you were acknowledged in any way whatsoever. There are a couple that are nice, but they're actually friends of ours, so it's unnecessary to attend a lame party to hang out with them. That's the good news, I suppose. My buddy Adam will be there and I should be able to throw down enough beers to render everyone else tolerable. At least I'm off work tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to...that, and the party ending.

We're leaving for PA on Friday night. Usually we break up our drive by stopping at my wife's aunt's home north of Balitmore and spending the night there. However, I'm thinking about heading up VA-17 to I-81, making the entire trip all at once, and avoiding DC. I figure that since Christmas is Monday, the world will be on I-95 on Friday night. Thanksgiving was an absolute nightmare traffic-wise the Tuesday before turkey day, so I'd prefer to not experience that unpleasantness again. Of course, Amy's worried that this will upset her aunt, but I'm sorry. Oh yeah, I'm taking my XBox 360 up there. Amy asked me if I was taking it, which, strategically, is a mistake since posing the question implies permission.

Oh yeah, yesterday we're driving to Southern Season and about a mile or so from my house we see a crime scene unit, several police officers, and law enforcement vehicles outside of this house. Apparently, four men posed as police officers, invaded the house, handcuffed the occupants, put plastic bags over their heads, and got to stealing stuff. The word is that it was drug related and the perpetrators knew the occupants of the home, but I'm still waiting to find out. I'm glad they caught the guys because I'm always nervous when someone knocks on my door. The world's not a safe place and I don't have an eye hole in my door. Usually I just yell "who is it?". If police come to my door, I might just call 911 to find out if it's really the authorities.

Had some fun customs last night with Shawntomitall, Bioslayer, Rebirth, Torn, Psybertech (Bioslayer's brother), MrWhite, and Stridog. I think we did a good job to keep the teams well-balanced. I'm happy to see my assists per game is rising. I think VoD has really helped out with showing me how to keep active, not chase, and establish strategic positions on the map. I was hoping to upload a CTF Midship game that I unfortunately had to end early because Mr White dropped out. The game went almost 9.5 minutes and I had 13 kills, 12 deaths, and 16 assists. After every game, I look at assists, shots fired, and shots hit. I've consistently been in the top of THC and custom games with shots fired and hit. I'd like to get my hit % up a little, but that's hard to judge since I'll often fire off multiple bursts in the hopes of landing just one of them. Oh well.

Here's an oddball game on Lockout we played last night. Sort of a messy game but it was fun and a close one. Enjoy.

Jared

[1 Comments]

Home With the Boy Next Week

My son's daycare closes for two weeks this month. The good news is that we only paid 1/2 of the normal month's fee this month. The bad news is that we don't have anyone to watch him. So I'll be home Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday with the boy and my wife will be home Monday and Wednesday. It'll be nice to hang out with him those days as long as he's done teething! His mouth has been swollen this week in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th quadrants so he's been a bit of a nightmare at times. If that continues to next week, well, dad's gonna give him some tylenol and it'll be nap time.

He normally naps about 3-4 hours a day, so I'll be able to get presents wrapped, clean up a bit, and of course, play some Halo! So if you see me on those days, shoot me a message.

Jared

[1 Comments]

The Dresser Night

Last night was fun. My wife has been dying to order the chest of drawers that matches my son's crib and changing station. It was normally $300-something but went on sale at Sears for like $140. So we ordered it and had it shipped to a nearby store to avoid paying the shipping. Of course, it had to be picked up last night. We went over the weekend but the box was too big for the back of our Ford Escape. We asked our friends to borrow their truck, which they said was fine, but my friend Adam was working until 9:30. I didn't want him to work late only to have to help me pick up furniture after he got off, so we agreed that I'd meet him at work, take the truck, pick up the dresser, take it home, take the truck back, and drive my Escape home. That took about 2 hours. As I'm driving home, my wife calls me and asks if I can go by the grocery store and pick up a few things so she can make meatballs for a picnic they're having at daycare today. I've never been in and out of the grocery store so fast...I didn't want to be late for the FFA. How sad is that?

I finally got home, gave my wife the groceries, and started heading upstairs when I heard, "Aren't you going to help me make meatballs?" "Um, no." Then I got this rather unpleasant look but I kept heading upstairs. "I'm the defending champion, I have to go!" "Don't you feel the least bit guilty not helping me?", she asked. "Yeah, but baby, you know how it is!"

That's right. That's how it works in my house!

All in all, I spent from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM getting the dresser and groceries. Then right before the FFA starts, she was having problems with the printer. Jeeebus! Long story short, I'm fixing that tonight.

The FFAs were pretty good though I finished 5th in the final game. That was a rough game and I never really had anything going. The best I did in the three games was 2nd place in the 2nd game of the first round. I apologize in advance for always seeming to find sys in there. I wasn't looking for her, honest, FFAs just go that way.

Afterwards, Bioslayer, MGK, Onslaught, and I did some THCs, which we won save for a game against a modder that claimed to be DSing us like crazy. We also did an oddball Lockout game against Profanity, which I've also uploaded. That game was decided by 2 seconds, and let me say, I'm glad the clock expired when it did. So GG to them. I didn't do very well in the game, but since it was fun and very close, I uploaded it.

Jared

[2 Comments]

"Play to Win" Article

I found this article a while on this site or another, I forget where, and I read it from time to time. Anytime I hear someone complain about shotgun, noob combo, sword, nades, whatever, I think of it and I smile:

Playing to win is the most important and most widely misunderstood concept in all of competitive games. The sad irony is that those who do not already understand the implications I’m about to spell out will probably not believe them to be true at all. In fact, if I were to send this article back in time to my earlier self, even I would not believe it. Apparently, these concepts are something one must come to learn through experience, though I hope at least some of you will take my word for it.

Introducing...the Scrub

In the world of Street Fighter competition, we have a word for players who aren’t good: “scrub.” Now, everyone begins as a scrub—it takes time to learn the game to get to a point where you know what you’re doing. There is the mistaken notion, though, that by merely continuing to play or “learn” the game, that one can become a top player. In reality, the “scrub” has many more mental obstacles to overcome than anything actually going on during the game. The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He’s lost the game before he’s chosen his character. He’s lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.

The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever truly competing. These made up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. In Street Fighter, for example, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” So-called “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield which will protect him indefinitely. Why? Exploring the reasoning is futile since the notion is ridiculous from the start.

You’re not going to see a classic scrub throw his opponent 5 times in a row. But why not? What if doing so is strategically the sequence of moves that optimize his chances of winning? Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you, that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you sit in block for 50 seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap. Nearly anything you do that ends up making you win is a prime candidate for being called cheap.

Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move? The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of “honor” or of “cheapness.” The game only knows winning and losing.

A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play “for fun” and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they’ll be forced to find counters to those tactics. The vast majority of tactics that at first appear unbeatable end up having counters, though they are often quite esoteric and difficult to discover. The counter tactic prevents the first player from doing the tactic, but the first player can then use a counter to the counter. The second player is now afraid to use his counter and he’s again vulnerable to the original overpowering tactic.

Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the “cheap stuff” and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair. Often in fighting games, one character will have something so good it’s unfair. Fine, let him have that. As time goes on, it will be discovered that other characters have even more powerful and unfair tactics. Each player will attempt to steer the game in the direction of his own advantages, much how grandmaster chess players attempt to steer opponents into situations in which their opponents are weak.

Let’s return to the group of scrubs. They don’t know the first thing about all the depth I’ve been talking about. Their argument is basically that ignorantly mashing buttons with little regard to actual strategy is more “fun.” Superficially, their argument does at least look true, since often their games will be more “wet and wild” than games between the experts, which are usually more controlled and refined. But any close examination will reveal that the experts are having a great deal of fun on a higher level than the scrub can even imagine. Throwing together some circus act of a win isn’t nearly as satisfying as reading your opponent’s mind to such a degree that you can counter his every move, even his every counter.

Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they’ve either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter. This is because the scrubs have not been playing the same game. The experts were playing the actual game while the scrubs were playing their own homemade variant with restricting, unwritten rules.

The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal about “skill” and how he has skill whereas other players—very much including the ones who beat him flat out—do not have skill. The confusion here is what “skill” actually is. In Street Fighter, scrubs often cling to combos as a measure of skill. A combo is sequence of moves that are unblockable if the first move hits. Combos can be very elaborate and very difficult to pull off. But single moves can also take “skill,” according to the scrub. The “dragon punch” or “uppercut” in Street Fighter is performed by holding the joystick toward the opponent, then down, then diagonally down and toward as the player presses a punch button. This movement must be completed within a fraction of a second, and though there is leeway, it must be executed fairly accurately. Ask any scrub and they will tell you that a dragon punch is a “skill move.” Just last week I played a scrub who was actually quite good. That is, he knew the rules of the game well, he knew the character matchups well, and he knew what to do in most situations. But his web of mental rules kept him from truly playing to win. He cried cheap as I beat him with “no skill moves” while he performed many difficult dragon punches. He cried cheap when I threw him 5 times in a row asking, “is that all you know how to do? throw?” I gave him the best advice he could ever hear. I told him, “Play to win, not to do ‘difficult moves.’” This was a big moment in that scrub’s life. He could either write his losses off and continue living in his mental prison, or analyze why he lost, shed his rules, and reach the next level of play.

I’ve never been to a tournament where there was a prize for the winner and another prize for the player who did many difficult moves. I’ve also never seen a prize for a player who played “in an innovative way.” Many scrubs have strong ties to “innovation.” They say “that guy didn’t do anything new, so he is no good.” Or “person x invented that technique and person y just stole it.” Well, person y might be 100 times better than person x, but that doesn’t seem to matter. When person y wins the tournament and person x is a forgotten footnote, what will the scrub say? That person y has “no skill” of course.

Depth in Games

I’ve talked about how the expert player is not bound by rules of “honor” or “cheapness” and simply plays to maximize his chances of winning. When he plays against other such players, “game theory” emerges. If the game is a good one, it will become deeper and deeper and more strategic. Poorly designed games will become shallower and shallower. This is the difference between an arcade game that lasts years in an arcade versus one that lasts 4 months. This is the difference between a PC game that lasts years on the shelves (Starcraft) versus one that quickly becomes boring (I won’t name any names). The point is that if a game becomes “no fun” at high levels of play, then it’s the game’s fault, not the player’s. Unfortunately, a game becoming less fun because it’s poorly designed and you just losing because you’re a scrub kind of look alike. You’ll have to play some top players and do some soul searching to decide which is which. But if it really is the game’s fault, there are plenty of other games that are excellent at a high level of play. For games that truly aren’t good at a high level, the only winning move is not to play.

Boundaries of Playing to Win

There is a gray area here I feel I should point out. If an expert does anything he can to win, then does he exploit bugs in the game? The answer is a resounding yes, but not all bugs. There is a large class of bugs in video games that players don’t even view as bugs. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, for example, Iceman can launch his opponent into the air, follow him, do a few hits, then combo into his super move. During the super move he falls down below his opponent, so only about half of his super will connect. The Iceman player can use a trick, though. Just before doing the super, he can do another move, an icebeam, and cancel that move into the super. There’s a bug here which causes iceman to fall, during his super, at the much slower rate of his icebeam. The player actually cancels the icebeam as soon as possible—optimally as soon as 1/60th of a second after it begins. The whole point is to make iceman fall slower during his super so he gets more hits. Is it a bug? I’m sure it is. It looks like a programming oversight to me. Would an expert player use this? Of course.

The iceman example is relatively tame. In Street Fighter Alpha2, there’s a bug in which you can land the most powerful move in the game (a Custom Combo or “CC”) on the opponent, even when he should be able to block it. A bug? Yes. Does it help you win? Yes. This technique became the dominant tactic of the game. The gameplay evolved around this, play went on, new strategies were developed. Those who cried cheap were simply left behind to play their own homemade version of the game with made-up rules. The one we all played had unblockable CCs, and it went on to be a great game.

But there is a limit. There is a point when the bug becomes too much. In tournaments, bugs that turn the game off, or freeze it indefinitely, or remove one of the characters from the playfield permanently are banned. Bugs so extreme that they stop gameplay are considered unfair even by non-scrubs. As are techniques that can only be performed on, say, the one player side of the game. There are a few esoteric tricks in various fighting games that are side dependant—that can’t be performed on the 2nd player side, for example.

Here’s an example of the grayest area of all. Many versions of Street Fighter have “secret characters” that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good, sometimes they’re not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game, as in Marvel vs. Capcom. Big deal. That’s the way that game is. Live with it. But the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character was Super Turbo Street Fighter with its untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don’t mean it’s a tough match—I mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is “broken” in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn’t designed to handle. He’s miles above the other characters, and is therefore banned in all tournaments. But every game has a “best character” and those characters are never banned. They’re just part of the game…except in Super Turbo. It’s extreme examples like this that even amongst the top players, and even something that isn’t a bug, but was put in on purpose by the game designers, the community as a whole has unanimously decided to make the rule: “don’t play Akuma in serious matches.”

In the end, playing to win ends up accomplishing much more than just winning. Playing to win is how one improves. Continuous self-improvement is what all of this is really about, anyway. I submit that ultimate goal of the “playing to win” mindset is ironically not just to win, but to improve. So practice, improve, play with discipline, and play to win.

[7 Comments]

Christmas Preparations and FFA

I haven't blogged in almost a week. Since then, my wife and I have done a lot to get our house ready for Christmas. We bought a 7' tree that's in our living room now and will decorate it tonight. My wife loves Christmas and goes the distance to create a jolly atmosphere. Lights in the windows that face the street, the wreath goes on the door, baskets appear in corners and contain Christmas balls, some snowmen appear on the entertainment center, and more. I make fun of her, but it's really nice around the house at Christmas time. I should post some pics when it's done.

My son didn't know what to make of the tree. He just stood in front of it, pointed to the top, hit a couple of the branches, and then went about his business. Last year he was too small to do much, so this year it'll be neat to see him play with wrapping paper and open his presents.

Most of our shopping's done, so I'm happy. I love how easy it is to take care of gifts online. I absolutely loathe going to the mall or suburban shopping centers and would honestly consider throwing myself down a flight of stairs to avoid it, so it's great to just log into Best Buy or Buy.com or whatever and get a gift or 3.

The 360 is great. I'm fully converted to Halo 2 on it. I can deal with the smaller controller and the head set now, plus whenever I want a break, I can play Hexic or download demos. That's one of the most awesome features I've seen on a console and wish I had that option long ago. I'm quickly becoming a Hexic junkie. My wife and I play it a few nights a week, which is fun. I've also ordered BFME2 and that should be here today or tomorrow. So if you see me playing that online, I'm playing with my wife and don't say anything about the irony of me chastising Bioslayer for playing GoW while I then I leave Halo 2 for BFME. Just suck it.

I was very pleased at the results of Lithium's FFA last night, obviously. I decided that I was going to play completely different from how I've been playing FFAs and it paid off. Although in my first two games, I didn't fire nearly as many rounds as I had hoped and chased more than what's productive. In the final game, I shot almost 1200 rounds and did a lot more searching for targets than I've done in the past. I capped the games but unfortunately I messed something up and didn't get the sound. I added some music to it, but if watching gameplays without game sound bothers you, then don't DL it. If not, the music is "Downfall" by Trust Company (courtesy of Bioslayer), Godsmack's "Awake", Godsmack's "Whatever", and "Smooth Criminal" by Alien Ant Farm, although that one isn't the full version because of time constraints. Enjoy.

Week 1, Lithium's FFA, Final Round (~200 MB)

Jared

[7 Comments]

2v2 Match vs. Team Suck

So OMG Its the Bios played its first 2v2 ladder game last night and lost to Team Suck. It wouldn't be so bad if their name wasn't 'Team Suck' because that implies all sorts of embarassing things about my team. Anyway, the games were CTF on Midship, oddball on Warlock, and slayer Ivory Tower.

We lost 5-2 on Midship but I don't feel as though the score is any indication of how the game went. We had 12 flag grabs to their 11 and we died a few times right before we scored it, as is typical fashion for me in CTF games. We also outslayed them by a few kills yet weren't able to move the flag very well. There were also some strange spawns like one time I was moving their flag out of their base toward pink and midnighter literally spawned right in front of me as I tossed it and he returned it. However, they did a great job of doubling up on us, using their nades, and moving the flag when both Bioslayer and I were waiting to respawn.

We won oddball on Warlock by 3:00 to 1:29. This game consisted of me running for my life while holding the ball as Bioslayer held them off, which he did very well. I can't say I liked the spawn times and locations on this map and game type. Seems as though we'd get them both down and then barely have grabbed the ball when a nade landed at our feet. It felt like oddball on Sanctuary on the double team playlist where the other team just kept spawning in the rocks when you just killed them at base. Oh well.

I felt pretty good going into the Ivory Tower game. We got rocks early and went up fast to an 8-1 lead or something. But alas, it wasn't to be. Bioslayer tried to drag me kicking and screaming to victory, but as much as I tried to hide, seemed as though everywhere I went midnighter was in front of me with OS and rockets. Add that to repeatedly being assassinated by emminent and it wasn't a pleasant game and ended 38-33. They did an excellent job of controlling OS and the RL, which is basically all Ivory Tower is and the reason I hate it so much for, well, any and all gametypes.

I'm trying to get a single place for all the 2v2 rules. When we first started CTF Midship, midnighter had it set to default weapons on the map and it was supposed to be human weapons only. Before that, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be 5 caps or 3. Same with oddball - 3 minutes or 5? And now I'm thinking that there ought not be OS and cammo allowed in 2v2 games. I posted something in the Tournaments/Ladders forums so hopefully we can get a single post in there with all the settings for every map and playlist combination. I just saw today where Eksessiv said that it's supposed to be default weapons on Turf so there aren't two rocket launchers. Seems a bit much to scour the various threads for all the rules.

I'll try to render the oddball game sometime soon and perhaps the Midship game. The Ivory Tower game was deleted - no one wants to see me getting rocketed and assassinated for 15 minutes.

Jared

[3 Comments]

If Men Wrote Advice Columns

Q: My husband wants to have a threesome with me and my best friend.

A: Obviously your husband cannot get enough of you! Knowing that there is only one of you he can only settle for the next best thing your best friend. Far from being an issue, this can bring you closer together. Why not get some of your old college roommates involved too? If you are still apprehensive, maybe you should let him be with your friends without you. If you're still not sure then just perform oral sex on him and cook him a nice meal while you think about it.

Q: My husband continually asks me to perform oral sex on him.

A: Do it. Semen can help you lose weight and gives a great glow to your skin. Interestingly, men know this. His offer to allow you to perform oral sex on him is totally selfless. This shows he loves you. The best thing to do is to thank him by performing it twice a day; then cook him a nice meal.

Q: My husband has too many nights out with the boys

A: This is perfectly natural behavior and it should be encouraged. The Man is a hunter and he needs to prove his prowess with other men. A night out chasing young single girls is a great stress relief and can foster a more peaceful and relaxing home. Remember, nothing can rekindle your relationship better than the man being away for a day or two (it's a great time to clean the house, too)! Just look at how emotional and happy he is when he returns to his stable home. The best thing to do when he gets home is for you and your best friend to perform oral sex on him. Then cook him a nice meal.

Q: My husband doesn't know where my clitoris is.

A: Your clitoris is of no concern to your husband. If you must mess with it, do it in your own time or ask your best friend to help. You may wish to videotape yourself while doing this, and present it to your husband as a birthday gift. To ease your selfish guilt, perform oral sex on him and cook him a delicious meal.

Q: My husband is uninterested in foreplay.

A: You are a bad person for bringing it up and should seek sensitivity training. Foreplay to a man is very stressful and time consuming. Sex should be available to your husband on demand with no pesky requests for foreplay. What this means is that you do not love your man as much as you should; He should never have to work to get you in the mood. Stop being so selfish! Perhaps you can make it up to him by performing oral sex and cooking him a nice meal.

Q: My husband always has an orgasm then rolls over and goes to sleep without giving me one.

A: I'm not sure I understand the problem. Perhaps you've forgotten to cook him a nice meal.

[2 Comments]

I'm a 360 Owner

Last Tuesday, my family and I left Durham at 2:30 PM and made it to the Micro Center in Fairfax, VA within 10 minutes of it closing. It took almost 6.5 hrs to make a 4 hr 20 min trip. Man, I hate Thanksgiving traffic. I tried to get in and out quickly, but that was ruined. I accidentally paid for my 360 with the wrong card, and just after swiping it, asked the cashier if I could pay with my other card. Nope, "You have to go to customer service to fix that."

After a quick glance over to customer service, I noticed that no customers were being serviced and thought it wouldn't take long to do the exchange thing. Wrong. Bobby the 12 year old customer service rep was there to help me out. I guess I really have myself to blame for using the wrong card, but seeing the bars lower over the windows of the store nearly 20 minutes before your exchange is done isn't pleasant.

Over Thanksgiving I hooked my 360 up to my in-laws' 40" Sony LCD HDTV and OMG was it sweet! I just stared at Lockout for a while because I felt like I've been living in the dark ages for two years now. I had no idea that the graphics could look that good. Now all I need is an HDTV. Must....convince......wife.

Like everyone told me, the headset for the 360 is shit (my wire already has a short in it). I'm still getting used to the controller. I've switched sensitivity several times from 3 -> 4 -> 5 and am continuing trying to find a compromise. At 5 I could turn like I wanted but couldn't shoot worth a damn but at 3 I could aim well but suffered up close. I will say that the bumpers are quite convenient. There have still been many moments where I've hesitated in game to think of which bumper switches nades and which one is team talk, but it's getting better. It's easier to DS on the 360 controller, IMO, but what good is that when you can't aim? The first game I played last night was a custom on Ivory Tower and I felt like I was playing a new game again. Just felt unnatural. Oh well, I'll get used to it since I'm going to have to play on the 360 when the new maps are released.

Jared

[6 Comments]

I had a nice weekend. My Tar Heels just destroyed Gardner Webb - yeah, yeah, they're a real basketball powerhouse, but last year, we won on a last second trey because our team was mainly freshman - by a final score of 103-50. Ouch. And although I wanted Michigan to beat OSU, I'm happy knowing that Troy Smith is probably a lock for the Heisman and Brady Quinn won't get it. I'm so sick of hearing about Notre Dame. They're the biggest freakin' joke team in the top 10. During the OSU game, they were comparing Troy Smith's stats in the Michigan game to Brady Quinn's stats against Army. Army! Yeah, um, I'm sure they faced equally difficult defenses....

If all goes right, I'm getting my 360 tomorrow! We're stopping by Fairfax, VA and getting it from the Microcenter there because of the $100 rebate. I have to leave work a little early so we can get there before they close at 9 PM. I'm also glad we're leaving early because I hate driving to Baltimore (where my wife's aunt and uncle are) and arriving at almost 1 am. Anyway, I'll take my Halo disc just in case I'm able to find some time to hop on live. I just have to figure out how to get my XBL account on my 360. If not, I won't be on XBL again until Tuesday, Nov 28th.

Anyway, I uploaded two more gamplays, both custom doubles games. One is from last week and it's MGK and me vs. Onslaught and ShotokanDeity, MGK's friend, on Midship. That game's very close and I don't do well but we have good team firing in it in the second half of it or so. The other is from last night. It's a Lockout game of Mr White and me vs. Bioslayer and Ebin, my friend. That game's not so close and I might feel bad posting it if I didn't know that I'm going to be making several appearances in Bioslayer's next montage. ;) Anyway, there are some nice no scopes, sticks, and a DS kill in that one. Both are about 200 MB.

Midship 2v2
Lockout 2v2

Enjoy.

Jared

[1 Comments]