Perpetually Bored

It all made sense as to why the Collectors were going around planets and star systems kidnapping the human population the moment I saw this. In Terminator Salvation, Skynet went around harvesting humans in order to skin them for their T-800 terminators. The Collectors were simply doing it on a much larger scale, for their supersized terminator.

The Alliance and/or Cerberus better have a plan for the security of Shepard’s mom.

Despite my initial rants about controls of Mass Effect 2, I’ve been able to overlook it and have grown to like the game to the point of addiction. I started on a new character this week, rerolling just after the start of the suicide mission, which puts my first run at about 75% complete. I had messed up my chances of entering into a romantic relationship with Miranda (tip: always choose a pro-Cerberus option when talking to her, especially in the scene when both of you are sitting on the bed), and I wouldn’t have that. Not only do I fail at romances in real life, but even in a largely scripted video game, I didn’t stand a chance either. Sigh.

In traditional RPGs, the amount of influence your character exerts over the rest of the party is usually represented by a numerical score. Not in Mass Effect 2. There isn’t an obvious way to tell how much a particular member of your crew likes you, although some might argue that not representing a quantifiable figure for a relationship might be more in the realm of reality.

As I advance in Mass Effect 2, I begin to find that the game draws multiple parallels to various Sci-Fi universes. An especially obvious one for me was that of Stargate. The Collectors seem to imitate that of the Wraith. Even the layout of one of the Collector ships mimics that of the Wraith’s Hive ships with the layout of captive pods along the entire interior hull. Similarly, when embarking on Tali’s personal mission and listening to her explaining about the Geth their history with the Quarians, it seemed exactly like that of the Asgard and their creations, the replicators. Additionally, the Geth also resembled the replicators in that they’re about to rebuild from splintered parts.

I brought the similarities up merely as an observation, and not as a stance against Mass Effect 2. On the contrary, I enjoyed the melding of various elements of Sci-fi seamlessly into the Mass Effect universe. I hardly think of it as a rip-off at all because if it were considered as such, every other Sci-Fi and fantasy game would be equally guilty. As Joseph Campbell documented in his book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, every heroic and epic story follows more or less similar curves.

Back to Mass Effect 2.

The controls are abhorrent.

From the opening sequence of “press any key”, I knew I was in for disappointment. The game was largely designed for a console in mind, with the PC version was added on more as an afterthought,  made all too apparent by the menu all the way down to the movement and team interactions. I’ve great respect for BioWare and the quality games they have churned out over the years, but this feels like a slap in the face for an old time PC gamer such as myself when an excellent game title turns out pretty poorly on the PC.

The game lacks the free movement of elements which are staple to PC shooters such as crouching and peeking. Instead, it plays out more like an arcade game where you have to run up to a predetermined object and interact with it to duck behind and shoot. Instead of a having an enumerated list of dialog options accessible using the keyboard, the options are circled around a wheel for the usability of the D-pad or joystick on a controller. The simplistic commands that can be issued to AI teammates frequently have them running in the path of fire and to their doom too.

Although most games released on multiple platforms usually turn out pretty poorly on at least one of them, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3 did very well on both the PC and the console version. Perhaps there are points which BioWare can learn from Bethesda in the development of multi-platform games. As for team movement might I suggest a key that brings up map overlay and being able to path out simple waypoints?

Previously, I mentioned about ridding myself of clutter. Being a modern day geek, I’m also a digital packrat rather than physical one. I have a staggering amount of approximately 2 TB worth of data consisting of movies, application installers, pictures, music and a ton of other stuff. I dedicated most of this weekend to clearing up my digital storage, ditching a large number of TV episodes that I would never intend to re-watch, for example. The minimalistic approach to living doesn’t end at the realm of physical belongings.

The cost of storage is not what it seems, despite the plummeting cost of hard drives. Although US$50 will net you a 500 GB drive these days, which may seem to work out really cheaply at $0.10/GB, that cost only covers the basic storage of data, and does not take into calculation the maintenance and upkeep for that bit of data. The cost per gigabyte when the upkeep is taken into account is much higher.

What do I mean by maintenance of data? To insure data against loss either through human fault (e.g. accidental deletion) or mechanical fault (e.g. faulty hard drive) or natural disasters (e.g. fire breaking out at home), that bit of data needs to be backed up on various levels. For me, this is done through a combination of redundant storage technologies for the live data, local backups and offsite backups.

Assuming I have a file of 50 MB, the amount of space required to maintain that amount of data rapidly swells by at least a magnitude of 3 (one original, one local backup and one at the offsite backup location). Furthermore, at each location, versioning, that is to say, keeping multiple different copies of the file at different points in time, might need to take place if I frequently modify the file. This is to allow me to recover the original if I made changes to the file that I come to regret later. Even if I keep the copies through the use of an extremely efficient differentiation algorithm that only store the changed portion of the file rather than creating an entirely new file, that further adds on to size. My 50 MB file maybe taking up to 160 MB at this point, spreading across various storage platforms, some more expensive than others. Offsite backup through an online provide is notoriously expensive, for instance. At this point, the cost per gigabyte rapidly swells.

Despite the general mentality (largely propagated by storage providers themselves) that on modern day computer, there is no need reason to delete anything, that notion is detached from the truth.

If I were to appear as a messed up individual from the first day I arrived, that would be the expectation of me, and no one would bat an eyelid if I failed to deliver.

However, if I were to perform optimally since day one, but on one day, unable to deliver a particular piece of work, the wrath of the brass above me would be incurred and all their fiery anger and resulting consequences brought to bear upon on me.

Compared the first and second case. The former would be multiple failures with little or no consequences, whereas in the latter, it would be one tiny road hump, but with drastic consequences.

The conclusion drawn is that it would be far more beneficial for one’s well-being to fail consistently rather than occasionally.

Expectations are such a strange thing.

I made a new character in Dragon Age Origins today, starting on my second run through the game. Dragon Age has lost none of it’s charms, and the I was amazed and taken in as much as if it were my first. The experience of starting out as a mage apprentice under the rule of the Circle of Magi was nothing liked that of my previous character, a human warrior and noble of House Cousland.

Previously, when Calreth the human warrior visited the tower where the Circle was housed, it was already in ruins. Valreth the mage on the other hand, had the opportunity of experiencing the tower in its full glory. Its corridors were bathed in the warm glow of torches and its halls were filled throngs of students. Valreth even managed to blush when he overheard two girls whispering in admiration about how he was the quickest mage to complete the trial of Harrowing. First Enchanter Irving was especially proud. Valreth seemed well-poised for a quick ascend up the hierarchy  of the Circle.

It was not obvious to anyone, but deep within, Valreth harbored a secret discontent for the life in the Circle. He despised how the leadership bowed down to whims of Templars. Although Valreth was firm believer in Andraste’s words that, "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him”, he felt that the Templars’ fear and mistrust led to him, and his fellow mages, being shackled by the fact that they had magic in them, living under the threat of annulment each day, rather than being able to utilize that magic to serve man.

When friend and fellow student, Jowan, approached Valreth for help to escape The Circle and live a life of freedom with his forbidden lover, Lily, who was an initiate of the Chantry, Valreth felt that it was a noble cause. As with any plan remotely resembling one of a military operation, it went horribly wrong. They were all arrested, and Jowan was forced to use blood magic, a highly forbidden art, in order to escape. Lily was disgusted, and chose the Aeonar, a former proving ground of the Tevinter Imperium turned prison, over her love for Jowan.

As for Valreth, branded a criminal and with no alternative in sight, he turn the French Foreign Legion of Ferelden, the Grey Wardens. He would live out the reminder of his life fighting for the Grey Wardens from today on.

I don’t really have a list of things I want to accomplish in this year, nor even a few rough bullet points. This year is turning out to be one of those whereby I’ve to make a number of major decisions regarding my life, but I don’t feel quite ready for it yet. However, one of the directions I’ve been meaning to steer towards is to lead a minimalistic lifestyle.

Previously, I’ve touched a little on topic through my post regarding my varying levels of connectivity. This time, I’m getting rid of things which are more tangible, and physical.

I was greatly inspired by two articles, the first about a family who lives in a Yurt out in the Alaskan wilds, and another, a challenge to declutter by getting rid of non-essentials, leaving only 100 items. I currently already don’t leave too much a footprint, with the most space consuming items being my computers and collection of books at home. Weekdays I spend living on a military base, with only a set of uniform, a towel, a few changes of underwear, toiletries and my ipod. Essentially, that is the baseline of what is the absolute minimum. Everything else is just clutter, and optional.

That being said, I do have a number of ‘leftovers’, such as clothes that I no longer wear, stationary that are no longer relevant (like the rulers that lets you draw all kinds of funny shapes), lots of electronic and computer components that I saved because I imagined that they might come in handy (which didn’t), etcetera, etcetera. Time to nuke all that crap, and what better place to start clearing fluff than with fluff itself?

Goodbye, my collection of random stuffed animals from childhood. May the The Salvation Army find you new homes.

Although not immediately obvious, Aion does actually offer a trial through its ‘Refer a Friend’ program. It is extremely limited however, and you’re given either 5 hours of playtime, or a level 7 character, whichever comes first. In my case, I was booted out of game promptly after dinging level 7.

My initial impression was that despite the quests, it felt grindy. Then again, it is an NCSoft game, and given their history of Lineage and Lineage 2, it didn’t come as much of a surprise. The game is beautiful, with detailed atmospheric and flora effects, largely thanks to the CryTek engine that it uses. I didn’t run into any performance issues during my solo play, but I wonder how it would handle during PvP and raids.

I’m quite tempted to play further, mostly because it gives me a chance to play with members from my Lineage 2 guild of Uprising.

“They spent $7 million on this stupid sidewalk,” he said, “and it’s tilted so that when it rains, the water comes into the stores. With such people in government, we will have the same circumstances forever.”

via In Heart of Iraq, a Plan to Revive the Pulse of a Central Artery – NYTimes.com.

Reading about the reconstruction project in Iraq, I can’t help but think of the developments of certain employer that I am compelled to work for. Regardless of the amount of effort and resources that goes into research and development, on the ground, nothing seems to have been improved. On the contrary, some apparatchik rushing to implement his latest new idea, probably thought of while taking a dump early Sunday morning, seems to drown the system further deeper in mud. The direction of this employer’s latest buzzword filled attempt at edging towards the next ‘third generation’ development echoes hauntingly similar to the CIA’s misadventures in Latin America during the Cold War era.  Ultimately, larger and larger pool of resources are expended, but the life the commoner, or in my case, employee reminds the same.

It’s as if the web has been engulfed by a blanket of silence. For the past few days that I’m home, there hardly has been any activity. Instead of the 50 over new articles that my RSS reader picks up per day, it has been a trickle of two or three max. It would seem that the activities of the holiday season was successful in uprooting people from their seats.

The extended weekend has been unremarkable for me, even borderlining on absolute boredom. I did manage to play a couple hours of EQ2, which is quite remarkable considering I hardly find any reason to do so these days. Station Market has a really neat 44 slot backpack, the Sinister Frostfell Backpack, complete with a Frostfell-theme appearance. At $20, it was pricey, but I gave in, though more so for the number of slots than it’s appearance.

At the same time, Steam is having a major discount on a number of games, and Christmas capitalism was having an effect on me, resulting in me buying a number of games for $10 and under. A number of them, despite their ratings and associated hype, felt rather mediocre to me. The campaign in Red Alert 3 seemed to be progressing at too fast a pace compared to it’s predecessors. A few missions in and I already had the full tech tree unlocked and was driving the enemy back into, uh, wherever they came from. Contrast that to the campaigns of before, where one side usually had a solid 12 – 15 missions. FarCry 2’s gameplay was unimpressive either. The majority of time involved traveling and the firefights were sporadic.

My spending didn’t stop there. While reading an article entitled Faux Friendship about the changes in the way friendship is characterized and defined in relation to the proliferation of social networking sites, I stumbled across an amazing TV series, ‘In Treatment’.

In Treatment is drama revolving a psychotherapist and five patients of his, with five episodes each week, and each episode being a session with a patient. After watching an episode on Google Video, I was completely hooked, and bought the whole season on DVD. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s phenomenal. I’m trying to not blow through the entire season at once, but there’s hardly anything else to do.