Friday, February 24, 2012
Magestorm Redux
I've been kind of awol from life the last week and a half or so, tucked away playing magestorm again. Last weekend I played in a guild match for the first time in 4 or 5 years with the guild. We were facing the team made up of the top players in the game, 8v8, the max level is 30, they had 8 30s, we had 7, I was the non-30 at level 24. We won the first match, they had a lot of butthurt and challenged us again, we tied the second match. The important part was that I was freaking awesome though. I had the second most kills in the match, only surpassed by one of my teammates who didn't have to spend half his time biasing a pool. Anyway, following that the MS bug bit me really hard and I power leveled to 30. That kind of breaks me out of my straight up addiction though because it was my main character, favorite class, favorite pick style and the main one I wanted to get to 30. The cleric will be easy to do and the 3rd slot, mentalist is only going to 15 and he's 10 already. That means lots of work on DFC and other responsibilities!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Forced Pledge of Allegiance
Recently a Senator in the Nebraska Unicameral proposed that the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance be a required event at the beginning of each day in public schools. Apparently, foreseeing the potential unconstitutionality, the writer left provisions in for both students and teachers to opt out. It would probably be career suicide for a teacher to opt out and nearly all students do not have the mental wherewithal to understand what they are actually saying nor the significance of what the Pledge means.
Anyone who went to public school here in the U.S.A. surely did it at least once while growing up. If there are people who don't know it, I do find it a little disappointing. That being said, I have a HUGE problem with this proposed law. The history of the Pledge doesn't really go as far back as most people think. It was not related at all to our founding fathers and in fact wasn't even written until 1892 and even then was not officially adopted until 1942. Here is the original, in its glorious entirety, designed to take no longer than 15 seconds.:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Here it is in it's current incarnation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
It shouldn't be too hard to spot why I don't like this and believe that it is unconstitutional, but for those who aren't very good at reading between the lines, it is the "under God" part.
One, it steps on all those who do not have a Western style religiosity as it presumes that there is a singular entity at the head of all religious views a la the Abrahamic Religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism. For those who are not aware of it, Eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are all much more complex and oddly enough can sometimes be taken on concurrently with other Eastern Religions. Their deistic makeup is far from singular, in some cases having many deities, in others having no deities and in even others, having both multiple and none (Side note: Go research Eastern Religion, it's incredibly fascinating no matter what religion you are). Most importantly, to me, is that it presumes that all people believe in a god. The fact that I would be required to pledge to a deity, despite my own personal beliefs that there is none, strikes me as about as anti-liberty as you can get, well, until you read my next reason. But that is not all. If you look at the official wording you should notice that it does not say "god" but rather it says "God." That is not a placeholder for all religions, that is a specific reference to a specific deity, namely the Christian deity. I could go on and on about why the pledge is unconstitutional, why it was changed, why it should be changed back, etc etc etc, but then this post would never end. Suffice to say, my point has been made.
Two, and most importantly, I have a GIGANTIC issue with anyone, be they a single person, a private organization or the government forcing me to pledge my allegiance, namely, every fiber of my being to them, unconditionally and unquestionably. This is not to say that I will never recite it and mean it, or that I don't like it. It is all about my right as a human being to keep the government out of my personal decisions. It is at this point where I have found many people who proudly proclaim themselves members of the TEA party who rally against government intruding upon their lives in any fashion, somehow lose their conviction and agree that it be required. Many such comments could be found all over the comment sections of various news outlets here in Omaha. In one instance someone insisted rather boldly that patriotism should be taught in schools. I would really like to see a lesson plan for that topic. The other mind boggling post, which was much more numerous, was that "If you don't like it then you can get out of the country!" If you consider how many people would have a problem with the "get out of the country" argument when applied to pretty much any argument, I would hate to see the homogenous state of the country afterwards. I can't imagine the average IQ would be terribly high.
My Pledge:
"I pledge allegiance to truth, liberty and justice."
A little Superman mixed with the original Pledge. :)
Anyone who went to public school here in the U.S.A. surely did it at least once while growing up. If there are people who don't know it, I do find it a little disappointing. That being said, I have a HUGE problem with this proposed law. The history of the Pledge doesn't really go as far back as most people think. It was not related at all to our founding fathers and in fact wasn't even written until 1892 and even then was not officially adopted until 1942. Here is the original, in its glorious entirety, designed to take no longer than 15 seconds.:
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Here it is in it's current incarnation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
It shouldn't be too hard to spot why I don't like this and believe that it is unconstitutional, but for those who aren't very good at reading between the lines, it is the "under God" part.
One, it steps on all those who do not have a Western style religiosity as it presumes that there is a singular entity at the head of all religious views a la the Abrahamic Religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism. For those who are not aware of it, Eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are all much more complex and oddly enough can sometimes be taken on concurrently with other Eastern Religions. Their deistic makeup is far from singular, in some cases having many deities, in others having no deities and in even others, having both multiple and none (Side note: Go research Eastern Religion, it's incredibly fascinating no matter what religion you are). Most importantly, to me, is that it presumes that all people believe in a god. The fact that I would be required to pledge to a deity, despite my own personal beliefs that there is none, strikes me as about as anti-liberty as you can get, well, until you read my next reason. But that is not all. If you look at the official wording you should notice that it does not say "god" but rather it says "God." That is not a placeholder for all religions, that is a specific reference to a specific deity, namely the Christian deity. I could go on and on about why the pledge is unconstitutional, why it was changed, why it should be changed back, etc etc etc, but then this post would never end. Suffice to say, my point has been made.
Two, and most importantly, I have a GIGANTIC issue with anyone, be they a single person, a private organization or the government forcing me to pledge my allegiance, namely, every fiber of my being to them, unconditionally and unquestionably. This is not to say that I will never recite it and mean it, or that I don't like it. It is all about my right as a human being to keep the government out of my personal decisions. It is at this point where I have found many people who proudly proclaim themselves members of the TEA party who rally against government intruding upon their lives in any fashion, somehow lose their conviction and agree that it be required. Many such comments could be found all over the comment sections of various news outlets here in Omaha. In one instance someone insisted rather boldly that patriotism should be taught in schools. I would really like to see a lesson plan for that topic. The other mind boggling post, which was much more numerous, was that "If you don't like it then you can get out of the country!" If you consider how many people would have a problem with the "get out of the country" argument when applied to pretty much any argument, I would hate to see the homogenous state of the country afterwards. I can't imagine the average IQ would be terribly high.
My Pledge:
"I pledge allegiance to truth, liberty and justice."
A little Superman mixed with the original Pledge. :)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Forced Government Sexual Assault and Foreclosures and Forced Government Sexual Assault
Things that happened in politics today that are irritating me:
Virginia's bill that is about to be signed that says women have to have an invasive, medically unnecessary procedure involving forced penetration with a probe that cannot be opted out of if they want to have an abortion.
Scott Walker's $143 million budget shortfall that he is fixing using the $140 million award that is supposed to go to Wisconsin homeowners who were illegally foreclosed on.
Virginia's bill that is about to be signed that says women have to have an invasive, medically unnecessary procedure involving forced penetration with a probe that cannot be opted out of if they want to have an abortion.
Scott Walker's $143 million budget shortfall that he is fixing using the $140 million award that is supposed to go to Wisconsin homeowners who were illegally foreclosed on.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
MySQL and Darkness Falls: The Crusade and MySQL
Today was the first big step in the remake of Darkness Falls: The Crusade in terms of development. I've basically got all the mechanics worked out, ie the interaction between players and monsters, and I took the next step, setting up the database. I've done some database work before, some basic web stuff for software engineering class (A) and more in-depth senior level class in database management (A-) that both used MySQL so I've gone ahead and chosen that for this project. I spent much of the day organizing the tables for what I would need. As it is right now I'm at about 27 tables, some of which are going to have thousands of entries, which should be interesting since, when it comes to rooms, many will be input manually unless I make an area generation program or something. It was too late to fire it up yet, so that is on tomorrow's agenda. The next step after that is to setup a server side and client side and heck, I'm almost to a bare bones system.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Obama's 2012 Budget
From a specifics standpoint, however, I like the budget. It tackles job growth and the deficit in a vastly better manner than any GOP proposal. The Obama budget is very much softer on middle-income earners and below while the GOP wants to shift the burden downward which would tighten up their ability to spend and stifle job creation, throwing us back into a recession. The budget is heavy into encouraging job growth and consumer confidence while at the same time setting up for long term budget deficit cutting without suddenly throwing countless government employees out into the street. There are numerous spending freezes in many areas, cuts in others, decreases in projected growth and increases in revenue as well. A fairly balanced and reasonable approach. Deficit spending and debt for governments are not an inherently bad thing. People like to compare the federal budget to household budgets and such comparisons are not correct in any sense at all. It is more about the trend. When a household budget is overspending cuts have to be made, usually immediately, sometimes drastically. When a government is overspending, this cannot be done. Doing so means people losing jobs and flooding the job market with more job seekers for the same amount of openings making it harder for everyone to find work. Even if you assume the cuts create a surplus and allow for a decrease in taxes, this extra revenue won't be reflected in the private sector immediately the way the job seekers will appear, instead it will take place over a much longer period while consumer spending will drop due to the increase in unemployment. Cutting government spending, ie public sector jobs, requires a scalpel and a gradual trend that spares the economy from aforementioned harsh twists and turns. As the economy improves, unemployment decreases and people are again earning money, revenue improves and thus helps shrink the deficit or turn it into a surplus without actually raising rates at all.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Catholic Insurance Hypocrisy
There has been a lot in the news recently about the Obama administration's decision to require religious institutions to cover birth control in their insurance plans, except that is not what is happening. There is no real controversy here, it is all being manufactured by the bishops and religious right as an attention grab. There are already exemptions built into the law that cover places of worship. The part that everyone is upset about is that charities, hospitals, schools and other faith based organizations are being required to cover birth control. At first glance, this seems like a huge over reach by the government into religion, something that has never happened before, except it has. It has been going on in 28 states for some time now to various degrees. The Catholic church has apparently had no problem violating its principles all these years in all these places. I'm not sure what is different about now, but I would like to know.
There are other complexities at work here as well. The conscience clause, where an organization is exempted from a practice because of its views, is still very well intact. This means that a Catholic hospital can refuse to administer an abortion since it violates their beliefs. However, since it is an employer, it has a duty to its employees who are not necessarily catholic themselves, just like when it comes to minimum wage laws and other labor regulations. This is where the Church can't get around the issue.
98% of Catholic women use birth control, despite the church's decrees. Most catholic women are on the side of the Obama administration. The republican party at large is already hurting when it comes to women voters. Birth control is very popular, I don't think this is an issue where the Catholic church, religious right and republicans really know what they're getting into.
Addendum: Interestingly enough, this is sort of forcing the church to recognize that birth control treatments are also used to treat other things such as Endometriosis. I have a friend who has been diagnosed with it. On some days it leaves her with some rather crippling pain and she has had to have surgery to deal with it in the past. The problem is her family's health insurance is through her mother's employer, a catholic institution, and refuses to prescribe the medication. The result is my friend having to pay out of pocket for a rather expensive treatment every 3 months so she can continue living a normal life.
There are other complexities at work here as well. The conscience clause, where an organization is exempted from a practice because of its views, is still very well intact. This means that a Catholic hospital can refuse to administer an abortion since it violates their beliefs. However, since it is an employer, it has a duty to its employees who are not necessarily catholic themselves, just like when it comes to minimum wage laws and other labor regulations. This is where the Church can't get around the issue.
98% of Catholic women use birth control, despite the church's decrees. Most catholic women are on the side of the Obama administration. The republican party at large is already hurting when it comes to women voters. Birth control is very popular, I don't think this is an issue where the Catholic church, religious right and republicans really know what they're getting into.
Addendum: Interestingly enough, this is sort of forcing the church to recognize that birth control treatments are also used to treat other things such as Endometriosis. I have a friend who has been diagnosed with it. On some days it leaves her with some rather crippling pain and she has had to have surgery to deal with it in the past. The problem is her family's health insurance is through her mother's employer, a catholic institution, and refuses to prescribe the medication. The result is my friend having to pay out of pocket for a rather expensive treatment every 3 months so she can continue living a normal life.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Planned Parenthood v. Susan B. Komen Foundation
A friend of mine who lives overseas sent out a public request on facebook for help explaining what happened recently with Planned Parenthood and The Susan B. Komen Foundation. This was my explanation, it was fairly lengthy so I thought it would make a good post here. The bulk of it, that is, the large factual explanation portion as opposed to my response is what I sent him. I did not want to give opinion when he wanted facts. Here, however, I have added in a bit of opinion....
The Susan B Komen foundation is the group behind stuff like "Race for the cure" and is monetarily GIGANTIC, or was, prior to last week. Other groups would apply for grants from Komen for various cancer projects, in this case, Planned Parenthood would provide cancer screening services to low income women on a sliding scale based on how much they made. This was supported through, either partially or fully, I am not sure, via the previously mentioned Komen funding. Swapping views a bit here...Komen recently hired a new vice president of some department, I can't remember exactly what it was, but the woman they hired had is a known pro-life crusader and had recently ran for governor of Georgia and lost, making her pro-life stance a big part of her campaign. When she arrived at Komen she gathered a few other like minded people and they attempted to figure out a way to prevent this money from going to planned parenthood...Swapping views again....After the influx of tea party congressmen in 2010 there was a massive push against women's choice that spilled over into women's health care. As the law is written now, no federal funding can go to fund abortions. One of the more visible organizations that provides abortions in the country is Planned Parenthood, but they also do many many other things besides abortions. One senator actually claimed that well over 90% of what PP does is abortions. Even a cursory look at PP reveals this is a horrific lie as only about 3% of what PP does is abortions and in actuality a huge focus of the organization is preventing the situations in which abortion would even come up. The relevant part of this push though is that a congressman with a chip on his shoulder over PP has made an accusation that because they perform abortions that PP cannot receive any federal funding for other services it performs because he thinks there is no way to monetarily seperate the money PP takes in from what it is spent on...Switching views back to Komen...The Pro-life vice president along with a few others maneuvered the charity's policy so that all grants in the process of being awarded as well as new applications would automatically be denied if the organization applying was being investigated by congress/fbi/police etc. Via this policy, Komen came out with a press release stating they would no longer provide money to PP for the cancer screenings. This news got out to the world and the world was REALLY pissed off that Komen, a previously highly respected charity, would put women's health at risk in such a manner. In 3 days donations came into PP totally over $3 million directly related to this incident. That is 4.4 times the total amount PP received from Komen for ALL of 2011. Needless to say, Komen spent every waking minute trying to repair its image. For awhile Komen defended the decision but it was shown that there are other grant receivers with serious investigations as opposed to accusations who were still receiving grant money. Eventually they gave in and reversed their decision. The end result is their untarnished name is now mud to the people who didn't like the original defunding and since they gave in and are again funding it, their name is now also mud to the people who hate planned parenthood. Komen isn't destroyed but if it survives, I don't see it being the organization it once was.
Following all of this, and the research put into outing the previously mentioned pro-life vp, the VP was forced to "resign" though it is one of those resignations where it is pretty clear she was no longer welcome. She went on various conservative shows today to talk about how it was a wrong decision to go back to funding PP etc etc.
So, that is what happened between Komen and PP. A whole lot of bull crap that accomplished nothing except for destroying a charity that did good things like cancer research and prevention.
The Susan B Komen foundation is the group behind stuff like "Race for the cure" and is monetarily GIGANTIC, or was, prior to last week. Other groups would apply for grants from Komen for various cancer projects, in this case, Planned Parenthood would provide cancer screening services to low income women on a sliding scale based on how much they made. This was supported through, either partially or fully, I am not sure, via the previously mentioned Komen funding. Swapping views a bit here...Komen recently hired a new vice president of some department, I can't remember exactly what it was, but the woman they hired had is a known pro-life crusader and had recently ran for governor of Georgia and lost, making her pro-life stance a big part of her campaign. When she arrived at Komen she gathered a few other like minded people and they attempted to figure out a way to prevent this money from going to planned parenthood...Swapping views again....After the influx of tea party congressmen in 2010 there was a massive push against women's choice that spilled over into women's health care. As the law is written now, no federal funding can go to fund abortions. One of the more visible organizations that provides abortions in the country is Planned Parenthood, but they also do many many other things besides abortions. One senator actually claimed that well over 90% of what PP does is abortions. Even a cursory look at PP reveals this is a horrific lie as only about 3% of what PP does is abortions and in actuality a huge focus of the organization is preventing the situations in which abortion would even come up. The relevant part of this push though is that a congressman with a chip on his shoulder over PP has made an accusation that because they perform abortions that PP cannot receive any federal funding for other services it performs because he thinks there is no way to monetarily seperate the money PP takes in from what it is spent on...Switching views back to Komen...The Pro-life vice president along with a few others maneuvered the charity's policy so that all grants in the process of being awarded as well as new applications would automatically be denied if the organization applying was being investigated by congress/fbi/police etc. Via this policy, Komen came out with a press release stating they would no longer provide money to PP for the cancer screenings. This news got out to the world and the world was REALLY pissed off that Komen, a previously highly respected charity, would put women's health at risk in such a manner. In 3 days donations came into PP totally over $3 million directly related to this incident. That is 4.4 times the total amount PP received from Komen for ALL of 2011. Needless to say, Komen spent every waking minute trying to repair its image. For awhile Komen defended the decision but it was shown that there are other grant receivers with serious investigations as opposed to accusations who were still receiving grant money. Eventually they gave in and reversed their decision. The end result is their untarnished name is now mud to the people who didn't like the original defunding and since they gave in and are again funding it, their name is now also mud to the people who hate planned parenthood. Komen isn't destroyed but if it survives, I don't see it being the organization it once was.
Following all of this, and the research put into outing the previously mentioned pro-life vp, the VP was forced to "resign" though it is one of those resignations where it is pretty clear she was no longer welcome. She went on various conservative shows today to talk about how it was a wrong decision to go back to funding PP etc etc.
So, that is what happened between Komen and PP. A whole lot of bull crap that accomplished nothing except for destroying a charity that did good things like cancer research and prevention.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Darkness Falls: The Crusade
Despite the very boring and predictable Florida primary today in which the first real power flex of Super PACs was shown, I'm going to dive head first into another nerd post as I don't do nearly enough of them.
To start things off, I should probably describe what a "MUD" is, it stands for "Multi-User Dungeon" which probably doesn't help most people reading this post. It is best to think of it as the middle ground between Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft. The player opens up the game, logs in and is basically playing a text version of World of Warcraft with whoever else is also connected at the time. The player-base can range between heavy role-players that never leave character and hardcore gamers that just play for the games sake as opposed to their character. MUDs have been around for decades and are still around, in most cases allowing players to play for free, but some do charge. There are fantasy style dungeons and dragons types but also ones that mimic other things like Pokemon, Star Wars, etc. Tonight I am going to talk about the MUD I lost many hours of my life to in High School. It was incredibly addictive, the community was great and the only reason I stopped playing was because all of the work it would have taken me to get to the next level would have equaled something like 3 months of all of my free time, which is beyond absurd. Also, please forgive some of the inaccuracies related to Darkness Falls (DF) as I only played it briefly, as opposed to DFC.
In the beginning, there was Darkness Falls. The Evil lord Arnak's minions had stormed upon the world, rampaging through the city of Tamia. The inhabitants fled to another continent while Arnak's minions took over the city. In DF, the player chose between the various classes, Vampire, Demon, Skeleton, Zombie, Necromancer, Imp and Werewolf. DF was a free for all style game where Player vs Player was mixed with Player vs Environment. The goal was to reach level 50 and become an elder in the army. Some classes were strictly fighters or casters and others were more utility classes that would hire out their services to other players in the form of healing and repairing. The game was fairly successful, being hosted on AOL's gaming center as well as GameStorm's service. As I mentioned before, I only played this briefly, partially because AOL charged $ .99 an hour to play and partially because it was just too PVP centered for my tastes in that there was no way to separate PVP from PVE.
Then there was Darkness Falls: The Crusade. This game was much more popular and offered up a unique experience as the "successor" to the original game. In the era of DFC the inhabitants of Tamia, having been driven out of their city and fled by sea, have reached the far off land of Karimere and rebuilt their civilization. This would later be more commonly known as the "Good" realm as the Gods were all of that alignment. The good realm was made up of Gnomes, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves and Humans as well as a second sub-race of Humans known as the Kilanese who had already inhabited the area. The races could choose from various classes, Paladin, Monk, Wizard, Craftsman, Priest, Rogue and Ranger. The primary God of the Good realm was Niord, an Odin-like figure. The realm of Chaos, worshiping the God "Ra'Kur" was made up of Ogres, Trolls, Lizardmen, Kobolds, Goblins and Orcs. Back in Tamia, now known as the "Evil" realm, the human necromancers were gone and replaced by "Bael-Elves" a race of fallen Elves but for the most part the races and classes stayed the same.
I started playing DFC in 1999, using it as my primary source of entertainment until about 2002 when I finally got reached the point of diminishing entertainment compared to effort. The game remained up until 2006, during this time I had switched to another game known as "Magestorm" which was also being offered on the "Mythic-realms" gaming service alongside DFC. During those 4 years I would play here and there, usually only pvp but sometimes getting a few more levels on other characters, but my primary, a level 61 monk, was pretty set in stone. There were 75 levels possible and every five levels the total experience needed for the previous level doubled. That meant to go from 61 to 62 I would have had to have gotten 50 million experience. At a rate of 3k a kill every 6 seconds, it is pointless. During those 4 years I only raised him one more level.
What make DFC unique among MUDs was this inter-realm style of play. Within your own realm, everyone is your ally, you cannot attack each other so PVE is relatively safe. You won't have people killing you for your gear that you worked hard to get. The PVP component of the game came in when realms would gather together and travel to one of the other realms to attack. This was the only time it was dangerous to be out and about in your own realm, but usually someone would broadcast a warning of an invasion or would notice "Blank was killed by Blank" which would also be broadcast automatically. These invasions could be strictly for PVP and fun or they could also be missions to steal away the other realms Idols of Power, Knowledge and Strength. Each realm earned bonuses to their abilities based on how many of the idols they had in their own realms shrines, thus the primary motivation for PVP.
Interestingly, DFC was the primary basis for the game Dark Age of Camelot which was created by the people who owned Mythic-realms. If you had played DFC then you would have loved DAoC.
Sadly the Mythic-realms gaming center went down in 2006 and with it both DFC and Magestorm. At the time, Magestorm was starting to die off, with fewer and fewer regular players, DFC had experienced a slight decrease itself, but was still going pretty strong. The abrupt shutdown of both created a sense of longing in both communities that would seemingly never be met again. More than once people had said they would try to remake DFC themselves, but 6 years later, it is still not done. There was one attempt, Cyra, but it has seemingly stalled with no communication from the developer. Magestorm was much more lucky. In the time that the game had been unavailable, one of the players had become a software engineer and had come into possession of an old client and began basically, reverse engineering the back end of the program. About a month ago, the game went live, for free, supported by donations of the players. There is regularly 90+ people playing, which is more than enough to say the game is active. The game is more or less the same as it was when it went down except for some minor changes in balance.
Here is where everything comes full circle and is FREAKING AWESOME. I am a computer science student, that is, a computer programmer. However, I, in general, lack self confidence and I haven't really had a way to prove my skills to myself as the University of Nebraska at Omaha program leaves a lot to be desired in that sense. Over Christmas break this year I saw what was happening with Magestorm, as it was in Beta and I had played a bit in that time for nostalgia, and realized something. One of my great weaknesses in programming is I've never really programmed a user interface. Almost all of my experience is with console programming, and if you don't know what that is, it doesn't particularly matter so don't worry. At this point I began talking to a friend of mine, David, who also used to play and we began reminiscing about the old days like we do just about every week. At this point it suddenly clicked, I can remake this game myself. I have the programming knowledge to do all the engine logic, I have database experience, though not on this scale and I can figure out pretty easily how to do the client<-> server communication as well as the limited GUI I would have to build to support it. Most importantly, I know the software engineering process. You don't just dive straight into programming, you have to meticulously plan out how things will be laid out, what fields are needed in the database etc etc etc. So over a 3 day period, with very little break for anything else, I reverse engineered nearly the entire mechanics of the game using only my memory and the input of my friends David and "Masterpuppet."
For those reading this who used to play DFC, that means I figured out how stats were asigned various bonuses based on race and how those bonuses translated over into skills. There were points where I had to wing-it though. While it was easy to figure out how the bonuses affected skills in general, ie what percent added on to it, a lot of guesswork had to go into deciding which stat went to what skill. I also theorized on the workings of many of the skills while simultaneously making touchups to areas that I thought were unbalanced or broken. Each realm now has a shapeshifter to match the werewolves (Gnolls/Monks), though Werewolves are still the most prominent in this area. Each realm also now has wards instead of only Chaos, though Chaos is also the most advanced in that area. The old issues with light vs dark have been taken care of. Each realm now has a "bless" type buff. Zombies now have a bite attack that will do debuffs. I have made it so that chainmail is now actually useful. Weapons and Armors are now a single skill for all realms and there are no armor restrictions but are replaced with proficiency in a certain type. Wearing above that incurs penalties. Certain types of weapons go better with certain skills. Before many skills were deemed unnecessary to train like double, melee etc. I have made it so that training these skills actually benefits the player. While there is only a single weapon skill to train, under the hood there are still Crushing, Slashing, and Thrusting weapons. Stats contribute different to each so some classes are better with them than others. Imps/Rogues/Kobolds will have better bonuses in thrusting whereas Dwarves will have better bonuses in crushing. Skill points will be made available so that important things to classes are all trainable but not so much that you can train everything available at your whim. I have spent the last week working on a program that tests the algorithms I have come up with. Things look pretty good so far, I am quite proud of my ability to break down my memory into the formulas that go into it.
So for anybody looking for their DFC hookup, it is coming. Also, any logs you may have kept around would be extremely handy.
DFC Names:
-Deathscythe (Monk)
-Intel (Wizard)
-Khabarakh (Paladin)
-Ultimatemoo (Werewolf)
Magestorm Names:
SF_Cow
SF_DethZyth
SF_MoOoOoOo
To start things off, I should probably describe what a "MUD" is, it stands for "Multi-User Dungeon" which probably doesn't help most people reading this post. It is best to think of it as the middle ground between Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft. The player opens up the game, logs in and is basically playing a text version of World of Warcraft with whoever else is also connected at the time. The player-base can range between heavy role-players that never leave character and hardcore gamers that just play for the games sake as opposed to their character. MUDs have been around for decades and are still around, in most cases allowing players to play for free, but some do charge. There are fantasy style dungeons and dragons types but also ones that mimic other things like Pokemon, Star Wars, etc. Tonight I am going to talk about the MUD I lost many hours of my life to in High School. It was incredibly addictive, the community was great and the only reason I stopped playing was because all of the work it would have taken me to get to the next level would have equaled something like 3 months of all of my free time, which is beyond absurd. Also, please forgive some of the inaccuracies related to Darkness Falls (DF) as I only played it briefly, as opposed to DFC.
In the beginning, there was Darkness Falls. The Evil lord Arnak's minions had stormed upon the world, rampaging through the city of Tamia. The inhabitants fled to another continent while Arnak's minions took over the city. In DF, the player chose between the various classes, Vampire, Demon, Skeleton, Zombie, Necromancer, Imp and Werewolf. DF was a free for all style game where Player vs Player was mixed with Player vs Environment. The goal was to reach level 50 and become an elder in the army. Some classes were strictly fighters or casters and others were more utility classes that would hire out their services to other players in the form of healing and repairing. The game was fairly successful, being hosted on AOL's gaming center as well as GameStorm's service. As I mentioned before, I only played this briefly, partially because AOL charged $ .99 an hour to play and partially because it was just too PVP centered for my tastes in that there was no way to separate PVP from PVE.
Then there was Darkness Falls: The Crusade. This game was much more popular and offered up a unique experience as the "successor" to the original game. In the era of DFC the inhabitants of Tamia, having been driven out of their city and fled by sea, have reached the far off land of Karimere and rebuilt their civilization. This would later be more commonly known as the "Good" realm as the Gods were all of that alignment. The good realm was made up of Gnomes, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves and Humans as well as a second sub-race of Humans known as the Kilanese who had already inhabited the area. The races could choose from various classes, Paladin, Monk, Wizard, Craftsman, Priest, Rogue and Ranger. The primary God of the Good realm was Niord, an Odin-like figure. The realm of Chaos, worshiping the God "Ra'Kur" was made up of Ogres, Trolls, Lizardmen, Kobolds, Goblins and Orcs. Back in Tamia, now known as the "Evil" realm, the human necromancers were gone and replaced by "Bael-Elves" a race of fallen Elves but for the most part the races and classes stayed the same.
I started playing DFC in 1999, using it as my primary source of entertainment until about 2002 when I finally got reached the point of diminishing entertainment compared to effort. The game remained up until 2006, during this time I had switched to another game known as "Magestorm" which was also being offered on the "Mythic-realms" gaming service alongside DFC. During those 4 years I would play here and there, usually only pvp but sometimes getting a few more levels on other characters, but my primary, a level 61 monk, was pretty set in stone. There were 75 levels possible and every five levels the total experience needed for the previous level doubled. That meant to go from 61 to 62 I would have had to have gotten 50 million experience. At a rate of 3k a kill every 6 seconds, it is pointless. During those 4 years I only raised him one more level.
What make DFC unique among MUDs was this inter-realm style of play. Within your own realm, everyone is your ally, you cannot attack each other so PVE is relatively safe. You won't have people killing you for your gear that you worked hard to get. The PVP component of the game came in when realms would gather together and travel to one of the other realms to attack. This was the only time it was dangerous to be out and about in your own realm, but usually someone would broadcast a warning of an invasion or would notice "Blank was killed by Blank" which would also be broadcast automatically. These invasions could be strictly for PVP and fun or they could also be missions to steal away the other realms Idols of Power, Knowledge and Strength. Each realm earned bonuses to their abilities based on how many of the idols they had in their own realms shrines, thus the primary motivation for PVP.
Interestingly, DFC was the primary basis for the game Dark Age of Camelot which was created by the people who owned Mythic-realms. If you had played DFC then you would have loved DAoC.
Sadly the Mythic-realms gaming center went down in 2006 and with it both DFC and Magestorm. At the time, Magestorm was starting to die off, with fewer and fewer regular players, DFC had experienced a slight decrease itself, but was still going pretty strong. The abrupt shutdown of both created a sense of longing in both communities that would seemingly never be met again. More than once people had said they would try to remake DFC themselves, but 6 years later, it is still not done. There was one attempt, Cyra, but it has seemingly stalled with no communication from the developer. Magestorm was much more lucky. In the time that the game had been unavailable, one of the players had become a software engineer and had come into possession of an old client and began basically, reverse engineering the back end of the program. About a month ago, the game went live, for free, supported by donations of the players. There is regularly 90+ people playing, which is more than enough to say the game is active. The game is more or less the same as it was when it went down except for some minor changes in balance.
Here is where everything comes full circle and is FREAKING AWESOME. I am a computer science student, that is, a computer programmer. However, I, in general, lack self confidence and I haven't really had a way to prove my skills to myself as the University of Nebraska at Omaha program leaves a lot to be desired in that sense. Over Christmas break this year I saw what was happening with Magestorm, as it was in Beta and I had played a bit in that time for nostalgia, and realized something. One of my great weaknesses in programming is I've never really programmed a user interface. Almost all of my experience is with console programming, and if you don't know what that is, it doesn't particularly matter so don't worry. At this point I began talking to a friend of mine, David, who also used to play and we began reminiscing about the old days like we do just about every week. At this point it suddenly clicked, I can remake this game myself. I have the programming knowledge to do all the engine logic, I have database experience, though not on this scale and I can figure out pretty easily how to do the client<-> server communication as well as the limited GUI I would have to build to support it. Most importantly, I know the software engineering process. You don't just dive straight into programming, you have to meticulously plan out how things will be laid out, what fields are needed in the database etc etc etc. So over a 3 day period, with very little break for anything else, I reverse engineered nearly the entire mechanics of the game using only my memory and the input of my friends David and "Masterpuppet."
For those reading this who used to play DFC, that means I figured out how stats were asigned various bonuses based on race and how those bonuses translated over into skills. There were points where I had to wing-it though. While it was easy to figure out how the bonuses affected skills in general, ie what percent added on to it, a lot of guesswork had to go into deciding which stat went to what skill. I also theorized on the workings of many of the skills while simultaneously making touchups to areas that I thought were unbalanced or broken. Each realm now has a shapeshifter to match the werewolves (Gnolls/Monks), though Werewolves are still the most prominent in this area. Each realm also now has wards instead of only Chaos, though Chaos is also the most advanced in that area. The old issues with light vs dark have been taken care of. Each realm now has a "bless" type buff. Zombies now have a bite attack that will do debuffs. I have made it so that chainmail is now actually useful. Weapons and Armors are now a single skill for all realms and there are no armor restrictions but are replaced with proficiency in a certain type. Wearing above that incurs penalties. Certain types of weapons go better with certain skills. Before many skills were deemed unnecessary to train like double, melee etc. I have made it so that training these skills actually benefits the player. While there is only a single weapon skill to train, under the hood there are still Crushing, Slashing, and Thrusting weapons. Stats contribute different to each so some classes are better with them than others. Imps/Rogues/Kobolds will have better bonuses in thrusting whereas Dwarves will have better bonuses in crushing. Skill points will be made available so that important things to classes are all trainable but not so much that you can train everything available at your whim. I have spent the last week working on a program that tests the algorithms I have come up with. Things look pretty good so far, I am quite proud of my ability to break down my memory into the formulas that go into it.
So for anybody looking for their DFC hookup, it is coming. Also, any logs you may have kept around would be extremely handy.
DFC Names:
-Deathscythe (Monk)
-Intel (Wizard)
-Khabarakh (Paladin)
-Ultimatemoo (Werewolf)
Magestorm Names:
SF_Cow
SF_DethZyth
SF_MoOoOoOo
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