New Job, and New Updates.

You all haven’t seen me for a while, because I grew bored waiting on SL for the lindens to finally gift me with the ability to kick again, so I took a sabbatical. Work, also, has been running me ragged, working 12 hour days, for long periods of time. I just finished working 6 days straight, hoooray, OT.

This is not to say that I dislike my work schedule, or that it is, normally, unfair. The reason I worked so many days straight is that my coworkers variously all had family emergencies, children, etc, leaving me the only able bodied and in town person capable of working every day since last thursday.

But they’re back now, and I get my much deserved, and much needed, days off.

Which means, You may see me spar, and I will doubtless continue to lose, but, at least I’ll be losing at the same system I learned, rather than struggling to learn a new, unbalanced one.

EA

Reflexes in SL, Source Thoughts

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I have a few things to say about C:SI and other skill based games, in the realm of SL.

Second Life is a wonderful platform for builders and programmers to produce a game such as C:SI. It’s got a robust scripting language, a persistent environment, and a wide userbase.

However, It also has problems. It’s physics engine is buggy, its script speed is fairly slow, the servers are less than stable, and all in all, it’s amazing that it functions as well as it does.

Reflex based games rely on relative lag being somewhat similar, which due to distance from server, and any number of black magic factors, is hardly ever the case, leading to lag frustration.

Also, the high video cost of SL as an environment means that few people can run the game without FPS issues, even if the server is behaving. I know I can’t, and I have a fairly decent video card. It even runs Bioshock on medium graphics. But I’ve got my SL sliders flatlined, and Av impostors off to save me from the laggyness, and I still have about 25-30 fps STANDING STILL and watching a fight. When I move, this can vary anywhere from 25-15, depending on my oppoents dress and hairstyle.
You won’t ever catch me bitching after a fight though, because these things are fairly constant. Everyone has the same sort of problems with SL, and even if they didn’t….

I choose to play the game.

That’s right. I, knowingly, and willingly, subject myself to glitchy servers, random FPS flatlines, physics engine bugs, and ugggggly graphics, because I like this game. I like C:SI as a system.

Thinking about this for a while, and looking over Robby’s blog, I’ve decided to try to look at Source (valve) as a moddable platform, with the intent to see if I can figure out enough to make it into a valid swordfighting engine.

Probably nothing will come of it.

But it’s an interesting side project.

Anyone who has any insight into the mod process, or knows anything about Source, animations, or anything else that I’ll need for this project, please, feel free to drop me a comment.

I don’t intend to abandon SL. But I thought, you know, if I could make a stable, server based swordfighting game, I might as well try it.

Don’t get too excited. I start projects like this all the time. I’ve never finished a whole lot.

EA

Weapons

Robby’s blog, Kasumi’s quitting, and Esprite fixing the ninjaken all have me thinking about weapons, and balance.

I guess we all had a chance to read Kasumi’s treatise on balance, and it was good.. so I’m not going to spend a lot of time enumerating on what it is that makes balance so important to the C:SI structure in general. For those of you who haven’t read it, I’ll just sum up.

Balance makes C:SI unique. Balance is what sets us apart from DCS, CCS, FCS, YMCS (Yo Momma’s Combat System). It makes the system unique in SL, in that balance is considered and built in to All weapons. Having a balanced weapon builds skills that leaning on unbalanced, easy weapons, does not.

That said, there are some terribly skilled people using unbalanced weapons. Not as many as there could be, but the Nagi’s long range kick, the BD’s excessive speed, if you put these in the hands of a skilled fighter who can bring them out, without exposing themselves, the result is devastation. And it’s demoralizing, but not just to beginners, but to experienced players, who find themselves suddenly struggling against their peers, because of either moral or financial objection to new weapons.

What is Balance?

Balance is Equality over Time. That is to say, if you put any two weapons in C:SI in the hands of equally skilled user, once everyone involved knows the weapons timing, quirks, and glitches, there should be a FIFTEY PERCENT life/death rate.

That is to say, if you take two people who are equally skilled, and they kill each other 50% of the time with a sword, that rate SHOULD NOT CHANGE based on the weapon they use, be it Ninjaken, BD, Nagi, or Duals.

Obviously, there’s some difficulties in these measurements. Some weapons lend themselves to styles that some people have a harder time countering. For instance, even if you cut the kick range, the Nagi’s long swing would give me night terrors. I’m just terrible at dealing with it. But that is a personal failure. The weapon imbalance comes from having a kick range the length of its swing, and a Normal kick speed.

The ninjaken will beat you, hands down, in a combo race? Why? It can complete two combos to the price of your one. you know the solution though. We all do. BLOCK, Sukka!. This is not imbalance, because the solution is to simply play well, with a style that counters the ninjaken. Now that the kick is fixed, I feel that the ninjaken is balanced.

But people have been calling the Taketori unbalanced which I find odd, because A) The entire grid is fubarred, it’s impossible to get an accurate behavioural picture when you can’t kick properly, and B) You’re just not USED to it. People have been fighting against, and with, the take for all of what, two weeks now, and that’s just not enough time to learn, fully, its strengths and weaknesses. Unless you’re Masmako, and all your opponents used the Take.

It takes time to adjust and learn a weapon. The Take is fast, yes. The take is smooth from block and back, in part, I think, PRECISELY because it does not have auto comboing, it allows you to break anywhere to slide back into block easily, without breaking up an animation chain.

But is it faster out of block than say, the Musashi? I don’t believe it is. I think people are just unused to the weapon. I think it will take a while for the whole world to adjust, and that time is needed before calling anything unbalanced. Unless you’re Masmako, and fight a billion spars a week. Let’s see, her count today is… 790. I don’t think she sleeps. She probably knows every timing quirk, every slow second kick, fast third slash, every bit of the weapons she fights against. Because she’s put in a LOT of time on the matter.

Weapons selection, and weapons skill, depend on the style of fighter, and the skill level. Beginners will find a rough time of it using a Musashi sword, simply because the timing is different, and jump slashing, which becomes terribly important at an intermediate level, is tough with the musashi. But can it be worth it for a beginner who favours a defensive style to stick with it? Sure. Definitely. The weapon should be chosen based on the comfort of the user, whatever weapon garners you the best results for your style. That said, one should avoid leaning on an unbalanced weapon, because the results you get there are unfair, and there is no honour in that. One day, I have faith that all unbalanced weapons will be fixed and balanced. And in that time, many people will be forced to relearn a weapon where they leaned heavily on a broken system.

I’ve always tried to avoid using just one weapon. For a long time, I’d used the Ashes primarily, but not First. The first time I spar someone, I’d use the dynasty, or an archatek, when I had one, because I was trying to learn the swords. If I only used Ashes, which I knew fairly well, then I’d be losing out. I’d only be learning one sword’s strengths, and it would make me a weaker, more patterned fighter. Much like leaning on the strengths of an unbalanced weapon will build in you habits of fighting that depend on that unfair advantage, the use of a single weapon builds habits around the fair advantages of the sword. If you focus too much on a single weapon, you think too narrowly, and your style suffers.

Days like today, I wish the grid weren’t broken. I’d really like to be sparring, to try to regain the skills I’ve lost, but sadly, I’m too frustrated with the broken kick. Here’s waiting for the next server update.
EA

It’s official

I have a new job.

Like, a serious, 40 hour a week, 35k a year, 2 weeks of vacation, 401k, life health and dental insurance, sign on the dotted line, and be an adult job.

I have no idea how this could have happened. I keep waiting for someone to catch me, and tell me that I’m A) not grown up enough, or B) just not cool enough to actually get anywhere. Does that say something bad about my psychological state?

I start on Monday. Orientation. Since it’s a production facility, (I’m going to maintain equipment that Grows Semiconductors. Whee!) I’ll be working 12 hour shifts, in a funky 2/!2/3/!2/2/!3 schedule over the course of two weeks. Sounds odd, huh? Let me break it down. Out of a two week period, I will be dead to the world about 7 days of it. Luckily, this schedule gives me 7 days of free time in two weeks.

Why on earth am I writing all this in a C:SI blog?

First, I just got the confirmation that it’s real and happening, which, in spite of signing the offer letter, I had been dancing up and down with nerves about. I feel so elated right now, I could scream. Thus the need to vent, obviously, is high on the list of reasons for posting this.

Second, I’ll be around half as much, so I won’t be sparring as much. Especially at first, since I have the suspicion that 12 hour shifts are going to treat me poorly for the first month or so.

Luckily, I’ll be swapping over to my natural sleep schedule as soon as I get trained. (I love the night shift. Who in the hell decided that up and at work at 6 am was a good idea? I’d rather be sleeping. The only way to approach 6 am is from being up since 6 pm.) Once I swap, it means you’ll see much much more of me since I’ll be better able to function, at least.. Until I start school. But that’s another pointless rant without a single connection to C:SI.

EA

Block Animations and other Random Things

My thoughts were wandering as I watched Hero (Jet Li) and I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be kinda neat if blocking were an animation, rather than a static pose? Wouldn’t it be really neat if blocking were only so ‘long’ and you had to time your blocks to the other person’s slashes?

Of course, this would completely break C:SI. Destroy it completely. Much like changing the way the kick functions, changing the way block functions would change the entire balance of the game. But I think it would be much more interesting if block had a length of time that it was active, but could be ‘chained’ together like kicks. Visually, it would be much more appropriate than just squatting with your sword in front of you, and becoming Invincible.

So, probably, I’d never ask for C:SI to do it…
but it would be neat if Some combat system were developed where the swords did it.

I hear (over on Robby’s Blog..) the Lindens might be fixing the KICK soon, so I may go back to sparring again soon.

I took a break after my frustration level peaked last weekend.

I’ve been struggling with a lot of things in my life lately, and the emotional stress has started to bleed into many of my passtimes. Go, C:SI, Even MMOs and CounterStrike become swiftly frustrating, and my performance suffers.

I’ve been trying to figure out a new balance, of spirituality, and physicality, after four long years of having very little spiritual balance, and very little emotional balance, I’m now struggling to figure out my new place in my own mind.

I don’t think I really have any answers right now. I need to take up meditation again. I need to get back into shape. I need to calm myself more often. But often I feel as if all this is beyond me.

I guess the answer is to set up a new daily schedule that sets aside time for all these things.

Anyway. I’m rambling. I’m going to close this post before I start talking about my love life.

EA