These Circuits Run on Booze

E3 2010 is already more than a month behind us, but one thing in particular about this year’s E3 particularly bothered me, and I figured now is as good a time as any to pipe up on it.

This year, both Microsoft and Sony unveiled their versions of motion control: Kinect and Playstation Move, what some may call their “answer” to the incredibly surprising success of the Wii. The response has been a lot less than what I’m sure Sony and MS were hoping for, with many journalists and everyday gamers alike dismissing it as simply a gimmick, meant to appeal to mass-market consumers who can’t tell a good game from Barbie’s Horse Adventure.

While that is certainly the case with the Wii, with the majority of it’s game catalog made up of crap I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot waggle-stick, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some real winners out there, too. Discounting the in-house Nintendo games which for the most part are pretty great, we still got things like No More Heroes and Trauma Centre which break the mold of lackluster 3rd party titles. And as far as I can tell, the amount of terrible games on the Wii hasn’t stopped the makers of consistent quality titles such as Atlus from doing their thing.

Sure, controllers have served us well, and frankly, even with the “waggle war” in full swing, I don’t see them going anywhere for a long time. Genres that generally cater to the “hardcore gamer” crowd, such as RPGs and FPSs, still need a controller’s full complement of buttons in order to function. Heck, they don’t have enough buttons as it is – how else do you explain all the button sensitive controls and quick-time events?

But if I am trying to introduce my dad to the world of videogames, I’d probably start out with something a lot simpler, like a hack-and-slash adventure or a sports game. And if I told my dad that in order for him to take down the monster he is facing, he would need to press ‘x’ to take a swing, ‘a’ to dodge the monster attack, and the left trigger to put up his shield, all I would get is a blank stare and the controller handed back to me. But if I told him to swing his right arm to attack, move to the side to dodge, and raise his left arm to block, I think he’d get into the groove of things pretty quickly.

Hell, how many times was the DS called a gimmick? And now it is one of the best selling gaming systems of all time, second only to the PS2. The good developers have managed to take DS from beyond a simple gimmick to actual improved controls, and the great developers have created downright innovative gameplay. And this is the future I imagine for motion controls as well. All it takes is for one creative designer to create a game that will utterly “wow” everyone, and that will open the floodgates to even more awesome, inspired games.

Already, I am itching to get my hands (and feet) on Dance Central. I can’t wait to bust some funky moves and impress all the ladies with my mad dancing skillz.

I’ll post videos.

UPDATE 09/07/2010: Unsurprisingly, Blizzard has retracted their plans to use real names on the forums, but it sounds like they will still have some kind of unique identifier for their posters (something about a character code?) The post announcing the decision can be found here.

Blizzard announced 2 days ago that, as a part of their new RealID program, all posts on the official Blizzard boards (that includes the World of Warcraft boards, Starcraft boards, etc.) will have the poster’s real name attached to them.

Ever since, the Internet has been thrown into a torrent of rage. People left and right are complaining about Blizzards decision, calling them irresponsible, short-sighted, and claiming that they are doing their fans a huge disservice.

As proof of their point, people have dug up the information on one of the “blues” (a Blizzard employee) who had posted the announcement of the new change. And began citing stories of people who were hurt or murdered because of beef they had with someone in-game.

And people wonder why it’s still not cool to call yourself a gamer.

Probably because we all look like this guy, right?

Regardless of whether you think RealID is a good idea or not, what did digging up personal information on that Blizzard employee prove? Well, mostly, that WoW is populated by a bunch of dicks (though that should come as no surprise to anyone that has played the game). What did that employee do to you that you had to retaliate by posting their information that they may or may not have wanted shared?

But I digress. The point of this post today is not to expose the true nature of these players, as they have made that point extremely clear by themselves. The point is to examine whether of not this new forum change is as big a deal as people are making it out to be.

On the one hand, with the Battle.net merger, and now the RealID, it’s pretty clear that Blizzard wants to position Battle.net as a social network for its players. And really, if you think of it this way, it’s not a big deal at all.

I’d wager that many WoW players already have Facebook accounts, which already takes it one step further and includes a picture as well as their name, gender, hometown, etc. Do people regularly knock down your door and do terrible things to you because you had listed on Facebook that you’re LGBT, or because you’re a different race, because you posted something that was in support of a particular politician, or because you’re a girl? I’d like to imagine that as being highly unlikely. If, because of this change, you’re getting unsolicited, unprovoked visits from your fellow WoW players, then what does that say about the WoW community, which only has a measly ~11 million people compared to Facebook’s ~500 million?

On the other hand, it just may provoke silly behaviour that a minority of the Internet have proved prone to. Shunning, name-calling, teasing, and other such childish antics typically found on the playground of an elementary school. While none of these things are particularly dangerous, it can be just downright annoying. However, it may also give rise to the infinitely more harmful act of stalking, which has happened before, but this change coupled with the fact that many people are downright irresponsible with their personal information on the Internet may just make those predators’ jobs easier.

Probably one of the biggest reasons why RealID was introduced was to reduce the amount of griefing between players and trolling on the forums, and that is completely understandable, but will ultimately prove to be laughably ineffective. Exposing their names will not make those trolls explode into polite, friendly and civil banter. While there may now be an added risk to being a giant douche on the WoW forums, most people just don’t care enough to stop. But I do want to say this: if you are going to be an asshole, be it in the game, or in the forums, you are giving people a reason to hate you, to dig up information on you and use it against you. The old adage “You reap what you sow”.” holds very true here. If your are nice and civil, the probability of people looking up your address and leaving a bloody Murloc’s head in your bed goes dramatically down.

That being said, maybe Blizzard can compromise with the players and perhaps display the player’s first name only or a first name with a last initial could suffice. It still accomplishes the task of uniquely identifying posters, it makes it that much more difficult to find more personal information about said poster.

The bottom line, however, is this: Blizzard doesn’t owe its players anything. The players pay for a service, and Blizzard provides that service. If something changes in that service that you don’t like, speak with your wallet and quit. Blizzard has no responsibility to protect your first and last names, much like how Facebook, Google, and Twitter has no responsibility to remove things you may not want seen. If enough people did this, maybe Blizzard will listen, If they don’t listen, then at the very least you’ve protected yourself.

I have to admit that I have some really, um… peculiar choices in my music. I’d like to think of it as being “open-minded” about music, but really I’m just a sucker for a good beat, a catchy tune, and anything with T-Pain in it. Unfortunately, all that music does to tend to build up, and being the pack-rat that I am, it’s hard for me to let go of something I’ve already downloaded, hence the entire N*Sync discography sitting on my old laptop before it met it’s untimely end. What’s a geek to do when he really has a hankering to listen to some pre-crazy Britney Spears?Naturally, I looked to the web for solutions. I had been a Last.FM user for years, but I never found the “radio” feature particularly useful and since you can’t stream most music at your will, it didn’t particularly fit my needs. I had heard great things about Pandora, but of course, like anything cool it’s not available in Canada.

After dropping many not-so-subtle hints to my parents and relatives for months, I’m happy to report I am the proud owner of a brand spankin’ new laptop. Though I will certainly miss my old Compaq’s dual-functionality as a heater once I move back to Montreal, it is kind of nice to have a computer than can run programs without nearing detonation.

But now I’m just being reminded how much of a pain it is to remember all the software I should install on my shiny new computer, so I’m making this list of essential software to help myself and those of you who were lucky and received a new PC this holiday.

All of these software are free, some have “pro” versions for a fee if you need them. And if you have any software you can’t live without that not on this list, be sure to drop me a note! (Note the list is PC only, I’ve never used a Mac before and I’m definitely not yet savvy enough to get into Linux)

• Utilities:
  • Defraggler: Fastest, most reliable disk defragment-er I’ve ever used, hands down. [Free]
  • CCleaner: It cleans all the crap (unused registry keys, temp files, browsing history etc.) you don’t need from your computer. [Free]
  • Revo Uninstaller: This will be a HUGE help in getting rid of all the bloatware your computer no doubt came with, especially now that many computer no longer come with Windows reinstall CDs. [Free and Pro]
  • Microsoft Security Essentials: Some swear by AVG for free antivirus software, but I find this one is much faster. [Free]
  • 7-Zip: The only free and non-nagware unzipping program that does it all that I know of. [Free]
• Internet and Communication:
  • Google Chrome: Yeah, I’ve entirely given up on both IE and FF. I recommend the beta since it now has extension and bookmark syncing support [Free]
  • TweetDeck/DestroyTwitter: TweetDeck has more features, but DestroyTwitter is much less resource heavy. Both are fantastic. [Free]
  • Skype: Skype is the absolute best for… skyping. [Free]
  • uTorrent: It’s small and it has the most features, other BitTorrent clients just can’t compare. [Free]
• Multimedia:
  • VLC: It plays every kind of video you’d ever want to play. [Free]
  • iTunes/Songbird: If you have an iPod/iPhone, you should stick to iTunes, if not, Songbird all the way. [Free]
• Productivity/Organization:
  • Evernote: It syncs your notes across every platform imaginable, and it’s free. Do a search for Evernote uses, you’d be surprised how much you’ll find. UPDATE: I wrote about how you can become a better gift shopper with Evernotehere.[Free]
  • Dropbox: Like Evernote, but for your files. It’s an absolutely fantastic service that I can no longer live without.[Free]

I know this list is far from comprehensive, I’ve yet to find a free, non-nagware disk burning app that I like, and I don’t do much multimedia editing so I know very little about those (though I hear good things about GIMP [Pictures] and Audacity [Audio]). If you have something to recommend for either of these categories or anything else, please leave me a comment!

Not a bad way to kick off a new blog, I say! Please follow me on Twitter if you liked this post!