Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (online)

Ok.  I was never going to try it but the other day an old WoW friend of mine gave me the low down on the current Warhammer online experience.  The Electronic Arts attempt to cash in on disgruntled WoW players turned fail is now offering the online experience for free - up until level 11.  So I downloaded the on-line client from the Warhammer site Saturday while I hosted my Pub Club Meet-Up and when I was pretty much ready to go once my self-induced euphoria of pumpkin beers wore off.  I hastily fumbled through the 2 faction, 6 race character creation interface and made my Greenskin (Orcs and Goblins) shaman.

So what can you do with 11 levels?  Much.  Yesterday I spent my whole afternoon levelling my Greenskin shaman and manage to get up to level 5 on my own.  For an experienced WoW player there are many similarities between the interfaces - the actionbars, mini-map, 3D third-person perspectives, and paper doll interfaces are all there (which should be standard in 2010 for all following in Blizzard's path to success).  The graphics were slightly choppy in certain points but at least for now did not cramp the experience - although I was overhearing on my guild's vent constant complaints about lag.

In any case in my 5 level window of game play I got to experience the rather easy orientation of the game mechanics.  My general comment about this game is this game is what PVP WoW should have been.  This game is about PVP or what their version is referred to as Realm vs Realm (RVR) from the start of the game.  The starter areas are tame enough to get you use to the UI with out getting pwned by some rabid pack of killer bunnies.  As you progress along with running some simple experience building quests you start realizing that everything you do contributes to the progression of your faction.  You do not have to join a group but when you do participate in a realm quest everyone rolls for a substantial piece of loot once the event is successfully completed.  There are of course other solo quests to be done but these as well contribute to your faction's influence on an area.  As you progress past the noobness you can (even unto and nearing level 11) participate in actual PVP which also contributes in someway to your character's experience gain.

I also did manage to try out their crafting system (since I was just a big crafting nerd in WoW) and I actually liked its simpler but more integrated system.  Crafting and secondary skill are based on gathering and assembling recipes and on trial and error.  I chose the butchering/alchemy route.  Butchering is very much like skinning in WoW but instead of furs you gather all kinds of interesting reagents from creatures you have killed.  The reagents are classed as different grades of components in a typical alchemy formula.  In alchemy you start with a container (test tube) and a main ingredient.  The main ingredient determines what the over all effect of the potion is (i.e. immobilization, healing, curing).  To complete the concoction you have 3 slots which you can put  more support reagents to the mixture.  Since every mixture has a chance of failing you can add reagents to assure the stability of the mixture.  Likewise there are other support reagents that can enhance the potency of the formula but during the early levels of your alchemy you pretty much have to rely on stabilizing reagents to assure your success.  This system is slightly like the alchemy system in another game I still have yet to finish, The Witcher (which is probably why I find myself wanting to run around the woods killing creatures instead of participating in RVR).

I admit I have not really seen the total experience in Warhammer and I am still missing the true RVR battle experience the game specializes in.  I can, however, say that for anyone wanting a full fun try at the MMO experience that will not eat up your life or get you jones-ing for constant "IGL" hits give Warhammer: Age of Reckoning a try.  The game is available for on-line download for both Windows and Mac from www.warhammeronline.com .

MAMP - Mac Development Webserver in a box

I was looking into getting a developer account to prototype my development on the web.  There are many relatively cheap packages out there but my idea setup costs $60 USD (which I'm trying to save).  I have used WAMP - essentially a web-server-in-a-box solution that sets you up with a PHP-MYSQL server that you can install your latest PHP-web development project and can be browsed locally with any browser you have installed on a windows machine.  MAMP is the Mac equivalent.

I was quite impressed with the easy installation.  With a simple drag and drop to my application folder I had a webserver ready to go on PHP5.3 and MYSQL5.  I immediately installed a Modx 1.0.4 instance and it was running with in 5 minutes. 

I had a little trouble with installing a Modx gallery module.  It turned out I required a slight php.ini edit to turn off 'magic quotes' which I might add was even easier than editing my work development server's php.ini since the config file was easily found in the MAMP's application config folder.

MAMP comes with a configuration interface that allows you to change where the resource files are accessed and the 'big switch' that shuts down or starts up your MAMP server instance.  MAMP has two release versions - one free and one 'professional' version which allows users to setup simultaneous multiple MAMP instances.  For most of my development needs, however, I can deal with one server.  Both versions also come with a local web interface that give you easy access to the phpinfo page (that reports the status of your php server) and a phpmyadmin instance to monitor and edit your MAMP server mysql installation.  For more information and the downloads go to http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html.

Personal device enhancements - makeownringtone.com

I have recently become a Blackberry user and am quite liking the added connections to the internet on my person.  I was quite happy with my cell phone\iTouch combo but like the fact the essentials, Facebook, messengers, and phone are all one device in my pocket (though I'm told I should get a holster).

It's been a quite satisfying 2 weeks with the new personal device and yesterday I decided to add a custom ringtone to my Blackberry.  I was not quite sure how this was done but I suspected that emailing myself the audio file probably had something to do with it.  After a bit of reading and much playing around with the settings I figured how to set the profiles and attach a ringtone to an event or a number.  All that was left was to figure how to send my phone the custom audio files.

After a little bit of searching I found http://www.makeownringtone.com/ .  An app site that you can upload an audio file and with a few options set to your post processing preferences the site displays a URL that you have to browse with your personal device's browser to download the generated file.  The app offers some basic post processing to add some finishing touches to your ring tone.  The best thing about the site (other than being free) is that the send to your cell option doesn't have you add your cell number where they can put you on a phone list texting scam.

The Wire - Requiem

I finally got around to finishing The Wire.  Season 5 is it - the end.  I have been avoiding it like the plague because no one likes seeing things pass and I have been privy to some of the plot thanks to Wikipedia.  The last season had debut in 2008 so many of you are probably thinking "old news".  In any case I did enjoy the season and liked how Season 5 actually had a fitting denouement.

Season 5 continued with the Major Crimes Unit of Baltimore investigation of a drug gang headed by the cold and vicious street thug, Marlowe Stanfield.  With all leads gone cold in the middle of a city wide deficit the unit is disbanded and reassigned leaving the Stanfield crew free reign to over throw the established drug trade.

In the meanwhile obsessed with not losing on the work he has put into the investigation, Jimmy McNulty decides to do the unthinkable.  He tampers with evidence while investigating a homeless who had apparently died of natural causes to make it seem like the homeless man was killed.  He then proceeds to string together a bunch of old and new homeless deaths to make the whole city think that a serial killer is killing homeless men.  After much posturing in a troubled mayor office on how to turn a news worthy event into a positive spin on Mayor Carcetti's run for governor, Jimmy is given "carte blanche" to allocate an emergency fund to find his fictitious serial killer.

Jimmy instead allocates most of resources into completing the investigation on Marlowe Stanfield's crew and doles out the rest to investigations that baldy needed funding to close.  Though he is somewhat successful into ending Marlowe's current reign on the streets the effort does not put Marlowe him self behind bars and only manages to temporarily cripple the drug trade in Baltimore.  Furthermore, he and Lestor Freamon are quietly released from ever doing any more police work due to the conspiracy they propagated.

I found the end very believable and did a good job resolving the fates of our favorite characters on both sides of the law through out the series.  I even was quite satisfied on how they end off Jimmy McNulty's character in the series and was quite touched with the retirement "wake" they hold for Jimmy and Lester.

As for the series it self,  I still contend that The Wire is one of the best police series I have ever watched.  It is definitely a no holds barred look at how even in the modern American city the old problems of greed and apathy is core to the problems of the western society.  As depressing a realization as this maybe brought with each of The Wire's five seasons they still do make a point of saying that change is not impossible but requires tireless work that rarely goes rewarded for an individual but eventually does for a society.

Lord of Ultima

Lord of Ultima is a free on-line real time strategy (RTS) game produced by Electronic Arts.  It's remotely related to the Ultima RPG series which EA had produced through its sister company Origin back in the day but really only shares the logo and some references to places in the Ultima RPG universe.

By going through a quick sign-up and email confirmation  your are thrown into a quick and dirty tutorial to the resource management game most RTS's are known for.  You are given a kingdom fenced in by two enclosing walls and a governing building which provides basic resource production and storage facilities.  Your domain is randomly located on a vast world map also shared by other real players in various stages of their own domain's development.

As mentioned before the game is about resource management and resource development.  There are 4 raw materials you must manage: wood, stone, iron, and wheat.  Each resource has a use in the propagation of your kingdom.  Wood serves as a basic building material and fuel and is pretty much required in every development you do in the game.  Stone is merely a building resource for buildings and walls.  Iron is required for more advanced buildings but is mainly required for weaponry used by your armies.  Wheat is required to feed your armies and determine the size of the armies you can safely support.

When you start your "town hall" provides you a basic production of wood.  To progress from this state of noobness you will have to build more buildings that will enhance the productivity of your kingdom.  Some buildings process one of the main game resources from its surroundings.  The player can enhance the production of these buildings if they build them close to certain geographical entities that respectively represent the raw resources.  Other buildings increase your city's storage facilities so that surpluses aren't loss into the void.  Eventually the buildings you will want to build are the ones that produce armies which you can send to pillage and plunder randomly generated dungeons or other player owned cities.  Of course not all the building plans are available when you start and can only be unlocked by upgrading your town hall which usually comes at a high cost of resources.

The game as previously mentioned is on-line so you will have to deal with other players who may pose as an ally, or as a trading partner, or as a raiding enemy.  Players can make formal friendships called alliances which adds more direct lines of communication between players.  Alliances usually also means that any player moving in on your territories will have to deal with you and your friends.  Alternatively, once you build market places you can generate gold which then can be traded for resources from neighbouring kingdoms with surplus on the market.

EA offers regular play for free but of course they have other means of making money.  A shop of virtual goodies to enhance your kingdoms is available.  To purchase such enhancements you will have to trade cold hard credit for their virtual currency, diamonds.  With diamonds in hand you can either purchase artifacts that can be used to instantly replenish resources, speed up production, or enhance the probability of success that one of your armies will come back with returns and minimal losses.  Players can also buy 'advisors' who will look after your kingdom while you are indisposed of IRL.

I don't normally go out of my way to play RTS's but I will confess to an hour or so every night of Lord of Ultima for the past week.  You can check it out yourself at www.lordofultima.com, but be prepared to be somewhat distracted for a couple of upcoming nights.

Modx: Evolution

I have seen this CMS on the market for a couple of years now and was intrigued with its methods of providing users with a CMS that allowed people to designate different templates on different pages.  With previous CMS I have used most packages come with predefined sections designated where certain functionalities have to be accessed.  It can be quite frustrating when your clients want to be different than at least your other clients.

I have undertaken a new web project recently and decided to finally choose Modx as a back end platform.  Granted that I myself had to do a 10 part tutorial to understand what Modx has to offer and don't expect my clients to follow suite to manage their site.  Fortunately to simply add content I can break it down to my client in a 1 hour session.  As for designing web sites with a PHP backend Modx is a complete solution for developers looking for solutions for clients who want to do a periodical website with varying layouts.  Since Modx allows users to designate a template for a page that he is posting I can implement a selection of layouts for my client and allow my client to choose which lay out is appropriate for the particular content he wants to post.

Theme management is only the tip of the iceberg.  Modx is also into reusing code.  Users can create and store reused portions of HTML and PHP and easily designate an appropriate placeholder for them to be called from a template.  Modx furthers its flexibility by allowing designers to designate template specific variables so their clients can fill out fields when posting content to specify a parameter for a template.

Modx is also expandable.  The Modx support site posts a large selection of extension and plugins to add reusable code to implement everything from breadcrumb menus to gallery management to captcha form protecting.  People can find everything they need to get started from their site at http://modxcms.com/ .  They have a growing community with all kinds of helpful tutorials that can be found through their forums.  Oh, and yes, it is free.

Rotting Apples

Apple has just recently released it's new IOS 4.0 for their i-phone line to coincide the release of the new i-phone.  With all I have been hearing on the whole bumper fiasco and how the new IOS releases are slowing down the performance of the older i-phones I have been thinking on and off on whether I should support Apple as a company.

I have a few Apple devices myself.  I still maintain that the Macbook White has been the best computer I have ever owned.  As for my i-pod touch, I have no complaints on its capabilities as a personal media player though I find myself thinking about jail breaking it to expand upon its use beyond that.  I have used my i-touch to check email and browse some social web sites and I have tried using it as a personal note taker and event planner but the virtual keyboard has made interacting with it in this function not as convenient as it should be.  I find myself entering data on my laptop and using the i-touch to review items of reference. 

The Apple devices I own are overall quality devices and should be since I have spent quite a bit of money to own them.  I find it, however, quite disturbing when I hear that these devices have planned obsolescence in their design.  Apparently after 2-3 year of use Apple expects me to toss a perfectly functioning device over for their new line of devices with minimal improvement in enhancing my experience.

When I bought these devices I had no problems investing money in a quality product but some how this is all moot when the device is suppose to be outdated in a couple of years.  When I spend $500+ on a gadget I expect it to use it for a little more than 2-3 years.  Doing less in my opinion would be no different than the mentality which started the trend of disposable consumerism that produces the products that line all our dollar stores, the only difference being that Steve Jobs makes a butt load of money doing it.  How about Apple be true to its eco-friendly claim and start a recycle program for older phones.  And how about Mac fan boys stop supporting Apple and make good use of your money by keeping that i-phone for another couple of years.