The Secret World - Creative Writing

The Secret World is a game that... at this point I don't even know if it is coming out or not; but is a great concept for an MMO based on modern day, using factions like the Templar, Illuminati, and Dragon. These are secret societies in the past, but the game grants these factions special powers, in a world that has gone to hell.

This is a character I wrote in the forum. It is incomplete because I dropped the project, but it's still a good read I think:


Templar Log:

Log of: Rumor, a Reason for my madness

I am an information specialist, who goes only by the name "Rumor". A gun is quick, and if the user wishes: painless. In an instant, a person can simply cease to exist, but with them being extinguished, so too does all they can do for me. It is when an individual is backed into a corner that you can reap every ounce of who they are, and what they know. Their knowledge, is my power. Their wisdom, my weapon. It's when one thinks they know too much that I find out how much they have to contribute to the cause; they become interesting. You may question me... you may say that I believe that I know too much. This is a fallacy . I know so little, that I yearn to know what you know; know what they know. The fun is the path taken for you to spill your soul out for me. Crazy? No. It is my specialty to simply know, and those above me wish to learn as well. But now you know the why, I aim to reveal the how.

It wasn't until my first encounter with a fellow Perfectibilist leaking information of my cabal that I learned I had an inherent gift to make people talk. Of course it didn't matter what he was leaking.. it mattered to who. The cabal insisted on killing him and worrying about the rest for his insolence, but in less than 15 minutes, A meet had been set up with his contact and as the door shut behind me, he took his own life. Fucking coward. Now up to this point it may sound like guns are never the answer, and to that, I have to whole heartedly disagree. It wasn't until I discovered his contact was a member of the Templars that my job became a lot more real. Had this person been un-affiliated with any faction, I would have been happy to leave it at that. But it wasn't just one rich kid looking to learn our secrets, it was a whole faction, and a faction that we have had countless squabbles with. Personally I find the faction wars (it makes it ring true when i say it that way) to be beneath all of us, but there is always something pulling at me that all those chaos lovers and do-gooders need to leave well enough alone. Call it pride if you will, and if you did, you'd probably be right. But we need to take a step back to just why the Templars have a special place at the receiving end of my gun.

I began my operations as an "Information Broker", trading and selling secrets to the highest bidder, just inside Rome, Italy. I wasn't part of any faction at the time, and therefore eluded the petty squabble the major factions were caught up in. It didn't take them long to find me though. I'd call them "scouters", looking to recruit me into their ranks. The first were the Dragon, but their rabble was a bit much for a man looking for nothing but to be the one pulling the strings behind the curtain. They seemed to have a very hands on way of dealing with things, that I felt lacked a certain finesse. No, this isn't one of those stories where the final faction came and swept me off my feet, and I was hooked for life. The illuminati came second with the famous quote "We need a man with your expertise". Their greed pissed me off. Money, power being on top of their so called "new world"? All bullshit. I didn't have time to create a new world. I just wanted to live in the world we had, and make a healthy living doing what felt natural. Then along came the Templars, as one would expect. They loved tradition, purpose, a true warriors faction... warmongers, every last one of them. We need more time to talk about the Templars.

At first, I felt being a Templar would grant me protection from those who felt my practices wrong, unethical. Like somehow killing in cold blood was any better. It didn't take long to figure out that somehow, through a blunder or an act of fate, that I had joined a zealot agent group hell bent (oh the irony) on destroying the evil in the world. Noble as that may be, I wanted no part in it. The so called "evil", which I disagreed on why they were evil, were often my loyal paying customers. If I would have known the hell i'd have to go through, I would have taken longer to choose, or deny all of them, and live as a simple man. I defected only months after being labeled a Templar, and was forced to flee my country... my continent in order to hide from the bastards who were now out for my blood. I know, a foolish idea, but I don't regret it. In New York, it took my current cabal days to find me, and re-initiated the offer which I accepted immediately. I became Illuminati. Call me sentimental, but I still wear my cross necklace. Can't seem to take the damn thing off.

Never leave a faction with their secrets. They’ll haunt you forever. They’ll make sure you never feel safe… make sure you sleep without one eye open. But if there’s one thing you should do, it’d be to join a faction of people who would probably kill for you, for Klondike bar. ‘The Cabal’ as I’ll only refer to it as, often made use of their Cleaners to get rid of these nuisances. Maybe this is why I dislike the Templars… but it’s not like it’s my fault for making me hate them. They only wanted to remove my clients from the world; something about them being the reason for the gross corruption in the world, and how they wanted to purge the evil from our society. I want to believe this zealous nature was part of the particular cabal that I joined, but something tells me they’re all the same. For that I feel like I exist to oppose them. A devil’s advocate for sure, but killing my clients and ruining my intelligence trails is personal.

That’s all fine and dandy, but it undoubtedly begs the question: “Why do you hate them so much if that’s all they’ve done to you?” They’ve turned him against me. My younger brother, who I always protected and cared about first, now brainwashed into trying to claiming me as a heretic; a non-believer. I never thought I’d be face to face with him as the man who would try to take my life. He would have succeeded too. I was a finger twitch away from death, from meeting the greater power who made me (according to my x-Templar brethrens), such a terrible person. All I can say is, I got lucky.

I had closed my eyes, and pulled his gun closer to my heart, begging him to take me out of this world if he believed that it was my time to go. I encouraged him, asked him if he was going to be the man to end the madness. Maybe I knew too much, and the knowledge finally caught up with me. Maybe that higher power, whatever it may be, decided I tore too much information from peoples bleeding minds for me to be allowed to leave. I had no grand plan but to live in happiness and wealth, doing what I do best. Is that so wrong? So wrong that this man, my brother, was told to end my life, knowing that he’d be the only man I’d let in close enough to be able to pull the trigger? I thought I knew my brother well enough to be able to call his bluff. As I closed my eyes, the resounding gunshot rang out. I looked down, feeling the blood oozing out of the fresh hole in my chest .The room was spinning, the man who held the gun, my brother, standing above me now kneeling; the victor. I died that night, or at least that’s what they thought.

The muffled sounds.. voices perhaps. I couldn't tell, it was too hazy. My eyes were too heavy to open. Was this heaven... hell? The voices began to sharpen, clarifying.

"No damnit! this is your mess! This is what you get for allowing allowing him to go off alone!"

More muffled voices.. My head was pounding, fading in an out of consciousness.

"No you don't get it! It's gone, they have it now" ...
"He's here. If he's not dead, he damn well should be. There's..." ...
"Fine. but you owe me. This doesn't come..."

The conversation was sketchy at best. I could only fit pieces together to string any form of sentences. Either the man was talking to himself, or he was on the phone. I was inclined to believe the ladder. My eyes opened, as a new born's would, the light burning them as if they'd never see it before. I tossed my arm up, cords unbinding themselves, sliding out from under my skin. More voices, but this time they were directed at me. I didn't hesitate. Sliding off the tabletop, i began to knock over anything i could in a feeble attempt to distance myself from the man. A wall... My back hit cold stone; smooth and unwelcoming.

"Rumor.. It's.... calm down. stop...."

My eyes focused only for a second... then darkness.

Happy Turkey Day!

I'm sure by now you're at least stuffed beyond belief, and like us troopers, have probably gone for a night time leftovers snack! My family shared thanksgiving at my Aunt Kathy's house this year, as our house is still in shambles from our October flood. There is something about turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans smothered in turkey gravy that I just can't get enough of! So after the easily 2000 calorie dinner we consumed, we kicked back in front of the fire with a nice glass of wine, some backgammon, and great company (And an adorable new kitten!) for several hours. By the time we left, at approximately 11:00PM, it was snowing outside! Ugggh.

I think it's funny that people regard Thanksgiving as "Day before Black Friday", which is the day people actually care about. The day where I enjoy watching thousands of people crowd into stores and stand in 300 person deep lines to save $5 on their favorite $500 item. Personally, online shopping is the way to go, but I still like to go out and be in the crowds. There's something about Black Friday that's fun, but only if you're not looking to spend hours in lines.

I've started work on the Week 4 color and took some photos I'm pretty fond of, so look for those tomorrow!

Week 3 - 52 Week Challenge

Onto the third color chosen for this challenge: Goldenrod. I didn't know much about this color except that it's yellow, so I decided to do some research. Apparently when you search goldenrod through search engines, it brings up a bunch of flowers. With that inspiration, I went on to create this next piece.



Before you ask... yes, the gray/white blocks are intentional. I got that inspiration from a blue wallpaper with some text on it not too long ago that I discovered. In terms of people who use photoshop, you'll definitely recognize the pattern.

Like I said in the previous post for Week 2, I encourage you to check out our Flikr page for this challenge [Here]. Join us in creating a bunch of color inspired art and wishes!

Week 2 - 52 Week Challenge

The [52 Week Challenge]'s second color was blue. Initially I thought of water and the sky, which makes sense. But upon failing to come up with something I actually liked, I came up with a great idea. What season is coming up? WINTER! (ugh) So I scratched my whole concept page and started on one that'd match the season a bit better.



This is what I came up with. Hope you like it!

By the way, if you want to participate, use the link above to join the Flikr group, or you can post comments on my blog with what you've come with! It's highly encouraged!

52 Weeks of Color?

So [a friend] pointed out that there is someone doing a '52 weeks of color' event for Second Life. The way it works, is that each week for one year, [Luna Jubilee] Will post one color, and will then create an outfit for her Avatar in SL and post the image. Said [friend] decided to have a [spinoff event of this on Flikr], and thought it'd be cool to not limit it to SL, but to expand the ways you can submit images. Photography, SL, Photoshop; whatever your fancy, you can post!

Each week, when the color is announced, I'll do my best to make a wallpaper (1680x1050 Probably?) using the specified color. I'll try to figure out what that color means to me in some way and use imagery and other styles to represent it.

....So I'm about 3 weeks behind apparently, So in the next couple days I'll be posting all 3 of the one's I've missed, as well as the current one.


Week 1
The first week was chosen to be the color Gray. When I thought of what best represents gray, I imagined something to do with photography, and black and white. That being said, I don't like people in my photoshop wallpapers, so I believe this alternative method turned out quite nicely!




The image size is actually smaller because Flikr enjoys making me cry and reduces the file size on their site. SAD.

More creative writing!

Like the previous post, this was written to be part of the Shadowrun world.

ScryGen - Hacker Circle
It wasn't enough to possess the ability to bend the world of technology to their will. ScryGen came into fruition as an answer to the cries of the shadows as an information source for any and every illegal document a runner could want. This often involved entering the world of the Megacorps and delving into their databases, but not at a low cost. You wanted it, they'd get it for you. But this was only a front; a way two seemingly genius hackers created in search of a steady flow of Nuyen. We'll come back to this.

ScryGen was an odd name for a group of hackers who sold information to the highest bidder. To scry meant to be able to see the future, yet no one who worked with them cared what they were named as long as they did the job they were paid for. Two seemingly mastermind hackers, Fallar Onecek, codename "Fallone" and Mesa Ervine Young, aka "Meservy" handled several jobs during their lives in the shadows, including destroying a plex's surveillance for their team to extract a Johnson, and various other forms of cybercombat. Once they realized the talent they possessed, they shifted their course from being runners, to being the go-to hackers other runners would bid top dollar for. This netted the two a serious influx of Nuyen; almost too much. They began to look for further ventures to spend their money on.

Eventually a crisis struck them, as Johnsons became perturbed at the idea of unknown faceless hackers delving into files they deemed critical, believing they were in a position to create an information network and go 'white' to nab up all the defector Johnsons, and their associates. Runners began to avoid their direct assistance, demanding instead a program they called "The Phase" to be bought and transported on a secure storage medium, that would handle micro jobs for other runners without their own hackers. This was yet another lie. The program was simply a backdoor by which Mesa created so either he or Fallar could still perform the "Job" for the runners. They were paid just as healthily as before and through this method, were able to keep the money coming in. They would have loved to create a program that could do what they said "The Phase" could do. It was a seemingly impossible piece of code that could do the job of a hacker... Or was it impossible? The sought a hacker tool that could almost 'predict' what their opponents next move would be.

ScryGen took on members of specific origins, but always people who specialized in some important aspects. Fallar focused on numeric value decryption, where Mesa's specialties were focused in Network infiltration and spoofing. Their goal was more than that. They needed people who specialized in what they called "Social Hacking"; the ability to know how people interact with each other, and almost being able to read someone's mind by expression and response. They began a slow acceptance of standard hackers, and these 'social hackers', but only growing to a small team of 8 hackers; 6 computer based, 2 social based. They all had one goal: the completion of the program they called the "Phase". They would complete their goal in record time.

With Fallar pouring his mind into mutating math based decryption, Mesa and other members became heavily entrenched in the heavily lifting the Phase would involve. Social Hackers worked with the other hackers in focusing on making this code pretend it was human: giving it a fuzzy logic that allowed it to interact with other runners using millions of responses to their demands on the operator-less code in a lifelike manor. They succeeded. To some, catastrophically succeeded. To them, it was a momentous success. They created the Zero Phase.

During production, ScryGen fell into darkness, focusing all their resources and time on the Phase. Two years later, the group resurfaced with their newest member. Their member called itself Zero; The Zero Phase. Back in full force, the Phase completed what a normal human interface could not: It was the master of the digital world. With ScryGen back on the map, they began raking in the NuYen, setting up an incredibly powerful server, and internal network to store all the data... and Zero.

The Phase project had evolved into something so much more than any of them could have imagined. They created an AI from all their work, an Artificial Intelligence that could crack any systems security in a matter of seconds. Decryption and net hacking were trivial tasks, no system could prevent it from entering. When it finally 'awoke' from their struggles, it named itself: the Zero Phase. As any good hacker or programmer knows, code always starts at 0, and not 1. It was the first, and only AI they would create, they simply didn't need to try again. However lucky they got, they don't know how they achieved this creation of digital life.

Today, the Zero Phase calls ScryGen's main server its home, which they maintain so long as Zero keeps bringing in money to pay for the upkeep. It was a small tradeoff for the benefits of the safety of its home node. ScryGen still exists as a team, although reduced to only four members; the other four brain fried when the code extrapolated. It seemed Zero ripped their human minds from their fleshy bodies, often referring to memories of a past when they were in the initial production phases of the code when discussing strategies to employ when dealing with mega corporations networks'.

Shadowrun character idea

If you're not familiar with Shadowrun, it is a pencil and paper base role-playing game placed in 2072, where the world has gone to hell, and countries have been split into zones. Fantasy races have emerged along with the release of magic, and technology is running rampant.

In the Shadowrun setting megacorporations control the lives of not only their employees, but command entire armies. Technology is highly advanced and Cybernetically enhanced body parts or augmented parts grown in a vat then implanted in place of natural organs are common. Now when conflicts arise, the corporations, governments, even wealthy individuals, and organized crime subcontract their dirty work to specialists, those who then perform "shadowruns", or missions undertaken by deniable assets without identities or those that wish to remain unknown. The most skilled of these specialists, called shadowrunners, have earned a reputation for getting the job done. They have developed a knack for staying alive, and prospering, in the world of Shadowrun.


CHARACTER CONCEPT: ROACH

Name: Roach AKA Loki
Race: Human
Gender: Male

SINless for as long as he can remember, Roach surfaced on the streets as the trainee of a street doctor. His past before then was completely unknown. With no family or friends to speak of he learned the way of the shadows through shady deals and quick operations in the back of large vans and burned out buildings. This line of work, however, quickly became boring for him, and he began seeking other avenues to sooth is desire to learn. Leaving the shadows to peruse a more scientific knowledge, Roach grew quickly in the corporate world under the name Loki Gands. ‘Loki’ was in and out of scientific communities of the corporations, jumping between companies as new salary offers and promises that he be able to continue his work.

Human testing is never something people took kindly to. The reason Roach got his name is actually very simple. Because test subjects weren’t readily available, he began testing specific chemical compounds on roaches. A cockroach’s ability survive nuclear radiation and other toxic chemicals allowed him to attempt to create incredibly powerful toxins that even his insects could not survive. This infatuation with poisons and toxins gained him positions within many companies; companies that would allow him to work in secret to create and test whatever he would wish with more scientific efficiency. This too would prove inadequate in his eyes.

Dropping his old name and reverting to his old name, Roach hit the ground running. His research in how the human nervous system functioned couldn’t be tested without using real human subjects. Many called his methods crazy, and maybe they were right. Without a doubt, something wasn’t right in his head. Humans were nothing but living test tubes for his research, and because of this, Roach created many toxic compounds of both lethal and nonlethal potency. Roach took assassination runs on a frequent basis. Runners on his team seldom didn’t return if they “Didn’t pull their weight on the mission” for seemingly unknown reasons. Using his smooth, persuasive nature, he conned his way into many facilities and groups to pull off the runs. To get test subjects, these targets proved useful. They would die, and his research would be furthered by it.

Insanity eventually caught up with Roach. His research was never documented either digitally or on paper. Everything he learned; everything he did to people, he simply memorized. Even though he stopped his research, Roach can’t help but see other people as expendable. Life is seemingly worthless; except to learn from, and with. Several months into his renewed shadow running career, his research was completely dropped and he vanished off the radar. No one knows where he went, or for what reason. Perhaps his mind slipped, and he simply wandered off into the darkness. All we know is that recently he came back.

A renewed man on the surface, Roach was calm and smooth. The shadows proved to be a suiting home for him still, but this time as a Face, instead of a cold killer. Some say the insanity is still there. Fellow runners admit to his couth nature, yet sadistic undertone. To this day, Roach has yet to meet a team that didn’t ‘accidentally lose a member’ during the run. Indeed, he is still a man of great mystery.

You Torrent... but do you know how it works?

BitTorrent transferring, also known as just 'torrenting' has become a huge amount of bandwidth across the world. BitTorrent is one of the most common ways to transfer large files, and it has been estimated that it accounted for roughly 27% to 55% of all Internet traffic as of February 2009. If you think about how many people use the internet and for how long each day, you'll realize how much that is. But let's go to the basics here.


Torrenting, as I previously mentioned, is primarily used to distribute large files without bogging down a single network for all the transfer. If you've ever downloaded a fairly large file from a web server, you've probably noticed that, at times, it can become extremely slow based on the amount of users also downloading the file. Where torrenting comes in, is its unique ability to distribute the data usage across several hosts that can even include old computers.

First, a user creates a file and sends it via website, email, or other medium to a bunch of people who want his data. That user then activates it through a torrent program and starts sending it to the people who are waiting for that file. As the file is sent successfully to the other users, they become what are known as seeders, or users who are also sending the files data to other people. Each person receives segments, or pieces of the file, and then proceed to distribute their pieces to the other downloaders until everyone has every piece, and therefore the whole file. Over time, the original person who created the file may not even be sending it out anymore. Instead, everyone who ever downloaded that file has the option to do it for him. The more people seeding, the better your chances are for higher download speeds.

You'll be able to download the pieces of the file from several users at speeds a single home user could never match even if he wanted to. You see the advantage here? You create networks of people sending more people the file. Now it can be distributed to thousands of people with great ease. Where it'd take you months to send a truly large file to a ton of people, it can be accomplished in hours with the power of torrenting.



If you've never torrented before, or were wondering how to do it, it's actually quite simple. To start, you'll need a program. There are well over 50 different torrent programs, including uTorrent and BitComet among others. You'll need to find yourself a torrent website and start searching for things you want to download. All you have to do is search google for torrent sites.

BitTorrent in-it-of-it-self is not illegal. What's illegal (if it gets there), is the content you download. there are plenty of sites who distribute using torrenting legally. Blizzard had a torrent for a while to distribute patches and updates to their games, for example. Use it how you want to, but at least know what you're doing.

/techie.post

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Don't play without the lights on.

I played Amnesia with a friend last night, and within about 15 minutes of playing with the lights off, we couldn't take it, and bolted for the lights. Unsurprisingly, that only helped a little bit. But let's look at this game a bit first before we get into my experience.

You play as the young strapping lad from London, named Daniel. You awaken in a dark castle like place, with no memory about where you are, or why. All you know is your name, and that you are being hunted.Throughout the game, The story and who you are is revealed via many several-paged diary pages that are scattered throughout the castle. If the ambiance wasn't enough, at regular intervals, you'll go through flashbacks, which typically involved women and children screaming, or scholarly men discussing what this hunter is. Shortly after waking, Daniel finds a note written by himself that explains how he purposely made himself forget his past, for reasons yet unknown. The note urges Daniel to descend into the castle's Inner Sanctum and murder a man named Alexander, the baron of the castle.

At about half way through the game, you still have absolutely zero clue what is going on, except that you have an objective to kill some guy. You don't know why or how you left behind these notes to yourself, and you don't really know who Alexander is, except that he is a guy you flashback talking to several times, even in the beginning. This game is creepy as hell. There were several times we had to trade who was playing and take breaks to keep our own sanity levels normal.

There is decidedly very few enemies, but the knowledge that one could jump out from a pitch black corner, or rend you when your light goes out is enough to make you go mad. If that wasn't enough, the longer you are in the dark, or without your light, your guy starts to hallucinate. The screen starts to shake and wobble, your heart rate picks up and adds to the fact that you don't want to open the door you just went through because you have no idea what's behind it the moment it closes. After a while we couldn't take going on any further, and quit for what may or may not be a second try. While the storyline isn't very long, the fact that you're extremely cautious and reserved, coupled with terror, you're probably going to take 3 times longer completing simple tasks.



The fact that I don't really like horror games or movies didn't deter me from trying this game. It is easily the best Horror game I've ever played in terms of fear factor and how a horror game should feel. You can tell a good game by the fact that the collective 9 - 12 enemies throughout the whole game are enough to make you second guess every step you take. (I don't know if there are that few, it just felt like it, apparently they spawn randomly.) I'd say give this game a try if you haven't already. It's only $20.00, and it seems to have the ability to have add on stories to the original game. While it doesn't really have replay value, sometimes these kind of games need some love. If you're interested, watch the video, and visit their [Homepage]

Just do it, you won't regret it.

The 4k Experience.

So as you may or may not have noticed, there is quite a large photo slide below this text. This is the best way I could come up with to show you the difference between standard resolutions of video you'll find online. If you're unfamiliar with the resolutions, here is how it works:

• 240p: The popular term for a display or video with 320×240 display resolution. 240p is used most often used in mobile phones, PDAs, and some handheld game consoles. This was used during the Play Station 1 era of console gaming. Known as QVG
• 320p: For screens have 480x320 pixels. This format is used by a variety of PDA devices in 2002, as is an outdated format for video. Known as HVGA.
• 480p: This is known as "Enhanced Definition", at the resolution I'm sure you've heard of: 640x480. You'll find this as the default setting when watching Youtube videos.
• 720p: Typically used at 1280x720, This resolution you'll find on many smaller or older TVs, as well as portable class laptops. This is the first resolution considered "High Definition". If you watch HDTV through your cable company, it's most likely at this resolution.
• 1080p: Used most often for wide screen, high end monitors for laptops and desktops, as well as LCD TVs. Blu-ray is in this format (1920x1080), as well as high end performance laptops. Very few video outputs are in this format, as the files are extremely large. Youtube up until recently, had 1080p as their highest format.
• 4k: Not the best resolution out there, but the best you'll find streaming over the internet. Youtube recently introduced this format as their new "top of the line" format. Known as HSXGA (Hex Super Extended Graphics Array). This is approximated 10x larger than 1080p. That's a huge file! But in return for the file size, Colors are pristine, and there is absolutely zero pixelation (If you have the monitor to take advantage of it!

So now that you have at least a brief idea of where these resolutions come from, you can now see the difference in what they are. There are very few videos in the 4k (called "Original" by youtube) available, as most people don't have cameras or recording methods that support this resolution. Check out the difference on your favorite streaming video, it's worth the extra buffering time for the quality!

240P to 4k. Press next to see the higher resolution!

Start Over

Photoshop, not just an art program.

It's a passion. If you ask anyone who does a lot with Photoshop, they'll all tell you a very similar thing. A cousin of mine made me think of this a while back when he posted on a picture on Facebook saying: "Photoshop = LIFE". Really, if you think about it, Art is a huge form of expression. If you can't say or sing what you're thinking, Art is yet another avenue to fulfill that for you.


There are very few things better than sitting down and creating a design while listening to many of my favorite songs. It's what I do many nights, even if I don't come up with a finished product that I like. The possibilities of Photoshopping are endless. You can use one of the many tools given to you, or include outside images and brushes to jazz up your image. And since I can't draw pencil and paper whatsoever, Photoshop has allowed me to use alternative means to express through art.

Not too long ago I had a 5 minute presentation for a Business Communications course I am in, and for 5 minutes I talked about Photoshop; what it is to me, what you can do with it, and how you can create something from just a white canvas. I like to focus on Abstract manipulations, and photo manipulations. For some reason, they are my favorite style of art to work on. Although the presentation was only 5 minutes long, I felt like I could go on for hours. It's simply something I love to do.


For those who aren't really familiar with Photoshop (although I assume by now almost everybody has at least heard of it), It is a program developed by Adobe for professonal level photo editing, creation, and manipulating. The current version, CS5 Extended, would run a non student $1,000 for a non upgrade copy. It's a no joke program with more tools and functionality than I have room available to talk about it on this blog. There are also a ton of peripherals(hardware add-ons)like drawing pads from [Wacom] which range anwhere from $100, to more than $2,000. there's an entire profession around using and mastering Photoshop. Graphic design is literally everywhere you look. Advertising to website logos, there's someone who most likely is using Photoshop or similar programs to create them.

All you need is a little creativity or find some motivation, and the possibilities are endless. Friend requests for a design or simply music are more than enough for me.

Starcraft 2 ZERG build order simulator

So apparently trial and error was insufficient for a team of programmers (more like BROgrammers) who posted not too long ago on the [Team Liquid] forum. They have created a Java based program that, when you give it a final output and a time limit, will try its best to get your output in the allotted time. What does this mean exactly? It means they've created a bot that can test build orders so you no longer have to! If you want to download it, you can either visit the above link, or get it right from [Here].

Like anything, however, it's not perfect. It's an approximation, and while it may get very close to what the timing is, it's not exact. According to the post:

It is also naive. It uses averages and numbers, it doesn't actually run a drone to the mineral line, or think about how long it takes to run a drone to build a spawning pool. It is a simulator, and is not subject to gas steals, scouting, or anything of that sort.

But let me tell you, this thing is capable of testing a build order for me roughly, so I don't have to do it myself. Here is my example of the 7 Minute - 10 Hydra build:


Click to enlarge.


It works, and now with what it has outputted, I can go into Sc2 and load up a build order testing game to try it! It really is amazing how sophisticated Starcraft 2 is, that people have had to come up with this tester to maximize builds with Zerg. Terran and Protoss to come at a later date

Think this program is useless? To give you an idea, it took this program 1,772,000 games played to perfect the build. Sure, a human may do it in less games, but it took the program all of 5 minutes to give me the complete build order. Pretty cool if you ask me!

Flash games you SHOULD try.

I know plenty of you are often bored at home or wherever, and find yourself turning to flash games for a quick relief. Often times, even when faced with my repertoire of games, will find myself enjoying games on my favorite site: Kongregate.com. That being said, here are a few flash games you should be playing.

1: [Bloons TD4 - Ninjakiwi]
This game is massively addicting. You build towers, like monkeys, tack shooters, or cannons in an attempt to pop all the balloons that are heading along the track before they reach the end. It's great tower defense game, where some balloons may be inside other balloons, requiring you to kill multiple levels of these balloons. Different colors travel at different speeds, and some balloons are made of materials like metal that require explosives to pop before your tack or dart towers can start popping the smaller ones!

2: [Infectonator: World Dominator - TogeProductions]
A great time killer, and a relatively low involvement, allowing you to save and pick up where you left off at a later time. There are plenty of levels in this game to keep you playing till you've infected the whole world! You are the creator of a virus that turns people into Zombies, in an attempt to kill everyone in all the cities you have access to, and clear continents and countries as quickly as possible. During your attempts (and subsequent failures), you are collecting money by virtue of killing people and picking up the money they drop while playing. This money is spent on upgrading your virus to spread quicker, or faster. This will make your zombies do more damage, run faster, and last longer. Along the way, you'll encounter some hero units you can kill and turn into zombies at your disposal.

3: [GemCraft: chapter 0 - GameInABottle]
This game takes some time to complete, and will have you playing for a very long time, which is good. You'll want to keep playing this game because of the investment in time you've spent building up your Gem towers. Similar to Bloons TD 4 (loosely), creatures with certain health points travel along a path to your tower. Your objective is to kill all of them before they reach the end and kill you. Gems of various color (and powers) help you along on your goal to defeat all the baddies. There are tons of levels, and each level has several completion objectives, which make the levels harder, but reward you better. You can level up your towers and research different benefits using your experience pool. The save function WILL be used if you intend to see this game to the end, as like I said, it is very long and time consuming. You'll be farming levels for more experience, as often times higher levels are extremely difficult compared to the previous level.

4: [Epic War 3 - Rudy Sudarto]
While this isn't the latest version of Epic War, it is the one I've played the most. Here, you pick a hero, which has a certain unit composition at the start, and try to dominate the other players on the map with your armies. Each hero starts, and ends with a specific subset of the total amount of units possible. The game is a 2-dimensional side-scroller, where your units spawn at regular intervals, and can be controlled to attack the enemies units and castle when you feel you have a chance. The game can be back and fourth, but timing is key, and the battles are epic (See what I did there?). This game is great to play over and over, and the bonus levels (which is where the fun begins) are extremely difficult, and require precision if you even want to have a chance. If you want to play the most recent version, it is [Here].

I'm looking to expand this page! If you know of any other games, post me a comment with the game, a brief description maybe (not required), and a link so i can take a look and share it with others!