/**************************************
Post Name: Whargarbl
Date: 07/18/10
Purpose: stuff
Return: Null
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I dunno if I mentioned this before, but my company was planning to send me and some of the engineers to Reno for training. Well, that's happened: I'm in Reno right now. I've actually been here for almost a week, but things have been pretty hectic for teh past two. I had to find a place to store my stuff because my lease is up in August and I won't be in Jersey again until September. So I moved all my crap last weekend, and boy I'm going to hate unpacking: I just threw stuff into whatever box it fit in. I started to sort stuff but by the end I was just trying to get stuff out. When I get back, I'll be moving in with a coworker who happens to live 5 minutes away from work, so that'll be a nice upgrade.

Projects AoS2 and ARPG have hit a bit of a slowdown due to the past two weeks of "omg". Hopefully this coming week will usher in some normalcy and motivation to get stuff done. Last night I made a mental note to delve more into the Naveengine, but for the past two days or so the AC hasn't been working correctly, so it's been uncomfortably warm in the corporate apartment. I called the front desk and they'll send someone in tomorrow morning to take a look at it, so hopefully by the time I get off work it'll be nice and cool. Speaking of desks, the room I'm in doesn't have one. I've been using my nightstand (which is awkward when the bed is just as tall) or just laying on the bed, but it's not very conducive to productivity. So I also asked the front desk if they could bring us up some folding tables to use as desks, which they agreed to. I could use the small dinner table in the common area, but I dunno. Now that I'll be getting a desk there's no point in thinking about that anymore.

Also , Abyssea is awesome. Did a few alliance exp runs and got PUP and WHM to 76 as well as purchasing two pieces of the awesome (but pink) gear for my PUP. I also failed to mention that I was on PFA's live episode (211) as a caller. That was pretty fun. Anywho, that's enough for now. I'll update in another month and a day.

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Post Name: Stuff
Date: 06/17/10
Purpose: stuff
Return: Null
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Obligatory apology for length of time between posts here.

So the big thing that happened on 6/4 was me being a guest on episode 53 of Limit Break Radio! I wasn't sure if I could announce beforehand that I was invited, so I played it safe and stayed vague. It was a lot of fun, although I didn't talk all that much. Aniero pronounced my character name wrong ("Thay-o-dus" instead of "Thee-o-dus"), but dude: I was ON THE SHOW, so it doesn't matter. I would have given individual shout outs, but I guess due to the live nature of the show and due to the fact that it was already over three hours long, Aniero didn't open up the floor. Luckily I gave a shout-out to my linkshell RTVtwo, so they are now immortalized in .mp3 format.

The next day I mention in my last post was the following day in which Mike and I finished another of our original songs. It has indeed been finished and it's called Math Class. Download it, listen to it, love it, hate it. It's about math, but is more about how hectic and frustrating math class can be. Ironically neither of us particularly hated math class although we didn't love it either.

Then I mention D&D, and that was fun. But on to Ace of Space 2! Last week on Dragon Ball Z, I mention planning on revamping the objective system. While in the process of doing so, I realized that our event system needed some MAJOR refactoring. So for the past few days I've been cleaning up and optimizing our dispatcher. There's still a little bit of work before it's all nice and pretty, at which point I'll rewrite some key functionality such as direct object-to-object event sending. Although I will admit that while cleaning up the event system, I left in some of our more endearing typos like EXPLIOSION.

Also in the realm of programming, I've had the incredible good fortune of being friends with Naveen, who was generous enough to give me an up-to-date version of his super Naveengine that we used for the Game Jam. I'm going to give XNA another shot and see if I can jump into the meaty game stuff of ARPG this way. The reason I keep jumping around with languages and codebases is that I get stuck writing the behind-the-scenes engine stuff. Every day I have new ideas for how I want a particular ability or component of the game to feel, but I can't act on it because I haven't worked the kinks out of my input system, or my renderer, or something else I don't feel like writing. Hopefully I can find time between AoS2 and FFXI to delve through his glorious construct and begin toying around with it.

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Post Name: Busy Weekend
Date: 06/3/10
Purpose: Inform readers of stuff
Return: Null
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So this coming weekend will be quite a busy one for me. I've got something going on tomorrow night, so I will have my phone off. I won't be reachable after 8:00 PM and that's about all I can say about that. Then Saturday, Mike's gonna come over so we can wrap up one of our songs. We only need some vocals at this point. Then on Sunday I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons at a co-worker's house with Mike and a few other people from work. Yeah I know, "lol D&D," but whatever. This will be the first real time I've ever played the game with people who weren't just making things up to be funny. I'm looking at you Patrick with your "I throw the universe at you."

Anywho, progress is being made on Ace of Space 2. Anthony has jumped in keyboard blazing and has gotten some stuff done, where I keep meaning to rewrite the objective system but haven't actually gotten around to it yet. It's that damn work I do during the day: it drains me and keeps me thoroughly unmotivated to do anything to the point where when I get home I just feel like playing FFXI, watching Youtube, or doing nothing. But yeah: I've got an idea for how I want the objective system to work in AoS2. My first task is a rather simple one - replacing my plain text level scripts with XML, because XML is super special awesome. So we'll see how long that takes me .........

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Post Name: AoS2, ARPG
Date: 05/23/10
Purpose: Inform readers of stuff
Return: Null
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As you will see on Mike Belotti's page, we have indeed started Project Ace of Space 2 with our good friend Anthony Nicholas. There's not much to say that Mike hasn't already: we were talking about side projects and began thinking about our old Final Project. Then when I spoke to Anthony, he brought the subject up on his own: "I want to work on an Ace of Space 2." So we all got Skype, set up some documents and are in the early design phases. Yes, we are using our original AOS1 codebase which I personally wouldn't have chosen at first, but in reality it's FAR better than starting over, which was an idea we were all tossing around. After only a few conference calls and a few lunches with Mike, we have enough ideas to exponentially expand the scope of the original game in terms of gameplay elements.

Of course, every post on my site has to include some news about ARPG, whether it's "I'm taking a break" or "I'm switching to X because it's better". Well, I am switching code bases again, but it's back to an earlier version I had written. In fact, it's one that I have put the most work into: it has a map system, menu system, and an animation system all working. I had abandoned that particular project because of two bugs that I only recently figured out (although they'd be obvious to someone like Mike or Naveen).

"Why do some frames of an animation flicker at an old position?"
"Because you're feeding your position down to that frame and it's not being reset."
"Why is everything being scaled more than it should when I resize the window?"
"Because you update your camera's dimensions when you shouldn't: it's in worldspace. Also you were setting width to height and height to width, so the camera wasn't centered."

So now that I've figured that out, I'm in the process of cleaning up the code. In order to fully fix the animation issue, I need to rewrite my render system. Currently I'm passing the player's position through to the frame, but I'm sure I can figure out a better way. There's also an issue with my tile system's source rectangles as well as a jitter when the camera moves. I have VSync on but it's not enough. I also wanna make my input event driven, as in I want to remove the m_vParty[0] references from my Interface class. Accessing it that way is just messy. In addition I still have a few more lua dependencies to replace with XML.

Hopefully this week I can make some progress on these bugs. We also have another AoS2 meeting scheduled over Skype, so here's to progress on that front as well!

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Post Name: Happy Birthday Naveen!
Date: 05/09/10
Purpose: Inform readers of awesome weekend
Return: Null
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One of my good friends Naveen had a birthday this past Friday and a few of his friends threw him a party yesterday. Naveen invited us a few weeks ago, and Mike and I started thinking: what could we get Naveen, the man that has it all? "Well," I said, "Naveen really likes our music. Maybe we should write a song about him!" And thus Bubble Gum Yogurt was born. Those of you in our Full Sail class will recognize this little tidbit, as it's a joke that we forever remind Naveen of ever since he brought it up in class. We knew one of two things would happen once we showed it to him: he'd either be incredibly embarrassed but still appreciate the gift, or he'd get a kick out of it. Apparently option B won out, but FAR exceeded our expectations. Naveen, we are truly enthused that you enjoyed our song so much! We had a blast making it, and we want you to know we love ya.

Speaking of music, the song I mentioned in my last post was put on hold to make Bubble Gum Yogurt. Now that that time-sensitive project is complete, I can focus on finishing the solo. Then Mike'll do his vocal magic and it shall be released. As for what's next after that, some things are in the works. Now that I've got Cakewalk 4 (CW5 can die in 16 fires) I plan on finally writing down the 10 or more songs in my head that I've somehow kept up there for 6 months or more. Seriously, any longer and I might forget them, and they're pretty epic.

In other news, ARPG. I know, it's like a broken record. "Hay guise i'm liek, workin on stuf lolz. keep ur eyez peeld!~1 o wait i stoped :(" I recently thought to use existing code from an old school project (Full Sail Tactics) for ARPG. There are quite a few structural similarities between FST and ARPG: units with stats, tiled map system, level select, etc. Now it stands to be said that A FREAKING LOT of FST code will need to be either re-written or flat-out thrown away, but I think using it is better than starting from scratch. Heck, my most recent restart was so that I could try using the DirectX wrappers we happened to use in FST. Might as well use FST as a basis.



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Post Name: Too Long; Did Not Read
Date: 04/14/10
Purpose: General update + epic PUP rant
Return: Null
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I'll briefly go over what I've been up to (or at least what's been on my mind) for the last week or...three. Mike and I got some recording done on a new song: all the guitar minus the solo is done. I'll need to write and record that by this weekend. Cakwalk Music Maker 5 is absolutely terrible: it's a DOWNGRADE from 4. I have no idea how you can make a program that horrible and user-unfriendly. I've also been looking at my old networking labs from Full Sail, thinking about making ARPG networked. We'll see where that goes. And a 4th Ed D&D thing is in the works. I've made a dwarven invoker that I'm really proud of.

Now for the main event. Yes, it's FFXI related. I just need to vent about this. It's an issue with my most recent level 75 job and currently my favorite: Puppetmaster. If you're familiar with FFXI at all, you'll know that PUPs have had a hard time finding a place in the community. There's a lot of debate going on about various things: whether PUP's a great melee DD, magical DD, healer, or some lesser combination of those. Now being a PUP myself, of course I want to see people fight for my job and argue its pros against some of the more "normal" DDs like SAM, WAR, MNK, etc., and I've even parsed every party I've been in as PUP and done remarkably well in a majority of them. HOWEVER! I have to say I'm not 100% agreeing with people trying to argue that PUP is an amazing DD. There are those that say PUP's main focus is DD, or that it is a DD first and foremost, and I don't quite agree with that. Sure, it is a DD, but that's not its focus. I might even say it's a majority of the job since out of the three commonly used frames (I'm not counting Harlequin until we find out what was adjusted in that last update), two of them are physical DDs and the other can be set to various mage types.

But the focus of PUP is not "to deal tons of damage." PUP is a "can do just about anything" job. And many of the people against PUP argue that "versatility" is a dumb argument, that it's unnecessary since other jobs can do X, Y, or Z task even better than PUP. Well, yeah. Of course they can. PUP is not meant to be all roles in one, perfect and better than all other choices. But... Gah, I don't even want to say that PUP can "fill in" for other roles because that sounds like "oh, we found a SAM, let's kick the PUP now." PUP can perform well - not "top notch" or "better than all else", but well, meaning it can perform its responsibilities effectively - in a variety of roles. PUP can DD quite well. PUP can deal magic damage and nuke effectively. PUP can sometimes main heal a party. I've even heard reports and experiments with Valoredge tanking, which I'd like to try myself. People are knocking the job because it doesn't excel at any of those things. Sure, each role it can fill it does with a few tricks of its own: Valoredge can attack while moving making PUP good for kite fights, Spiritreaver can reach 3.00 MAB and make hate a non-issue, and all mages have essentially limitless MP. The puppet's attachments give it a variety of buffs that rival or even surpass bard and corsair buffs (negating the level difference penalty for attack and accuracy, hello!?).

I guess my point is that those who argue that PUP can be a top-notch melee DD should pull back a bit. It can do well, don't get me wrong. And I'll continue to build a Stringing Pummel set and work on my TP set and be the best melee PUP I can be, and I'll also continue to work on my INT build so I can spam Ice Maneuvers for Spiritreaver nuking. But I will not aspire to outdo Amanomurakumo SAMs or Spharai MNKs or pimped out BLMs. PUP will never beat melee-focused jobs at melee. PUP will also not beat BLM at nuking, or WHM at curing. But PUP has the ability to perform all of those roles well. I've had parties where I was THE top DD, but when healing became an issue I switched my puppet out for the Soulsoother and helped heal, tossing out Cure IVs and Vs. Can SAM drop its great katana and whip out a light staff to help cure? I know MNK has Formless Strikes, but can they provide spike nuke damage and instantly shed all that hate? If there's a RDM in the party doing a phenomenal job hasting and curing, can the WHM whip out a club and join the fray? (Note: that's a completely separate debate :P). The answer to all of the above is "no," because those jobs are designed to have a particular focus, whether it be damage or healing.

PUP's focus is to be unfocused. It's like BLU, COR, and DNC in that it's spread out to encompass a broad range of abilities. Unfortunately all of these jobs have difficulty being accepted for one reason or another, though COR is better off with its buffs. And I blame the player base - primarily the hardcore oldschool players - for labeling these jobs as they have. With recent updates, Square-Enix has made and continues to make Final Fantasy XI a casual-friendly MMO. The new add-on scenarios and upcoming level cap increase are being introduced to make it possible to do more with less people. So in Abyssea you won't have an alliance of 18 consisting of a tank party, the BLM party, etc. You'll just have six. And the broader each member's skills are, the more they'll be able to accomplish and the more roles they can fill.

So for my PUP brothers and sisters out there: keep fighting the good fight, but I would suggest changing your angle. By no means am I suggesting to stop DDing! I'm just saying, don't get all riled up on DD or trying to convince "normal" DDs to respect us. Just play your job to the best of your - and its - ability. Embrace PUP's versatility even while others reject and ridicule it. Knowing the job and knowing how to squeeze as much as you can out of it is what really matters. Those hardcore players who look down on PUP and have this ironshod mindset of how the game should be played are the same people who are looking to jump ship as soon as FFXVI comes out. And I say "good riddance." It's time for a new generation of players.

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Post Name: Twenty-Twenty-Twenty... Days Ago... I Updated My Website
Date: 03/30/10
Purpose: Things.
Return: quaternion&
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I'll open this one up with FF news...even though I'm sure no one reading this cares. The update hit and it was pretty cool. They didn't give PUPs an A in Hand-to-Hand though: they dropped it to a B+, which is still a very considerable increase. However they buffed the Auto-Repair Kit, Armor Plate and Mana Tank attachments. The armor plate buff keeps my puppet alive longer, which is always a plus, and the ARKs/MTs give more regen/refresh per maneuver! Outside of PUP, they introduced the initial Trial of the Magians quests. I'm a little disappointed with the monotony of it, but I'm sure that additions will be made throughout the year. Also Voidwalker NMs, but I haven't tried those yet.

Now, outside of FF, I've had ARPG on the mind. Currently I'm attempting to replace my OpenGL code with the DirectX wrappers we were given at Full Sail. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the animation flickering error, plus the wrappers were just easier to use. I keep getting stuck on the low level stuff to the point where I don't wanna work on the project anymore. Hopefully the wrappers will expedite things. I was considering moving to XNA, but XNA only supports Xbox joysticks and I may also want to make ARPG networked (XNA networking license or whatever costs money).

Music wise, Mike and I are still working on a new song. I recently realized that when I recorded my guitar portion, I was recording to a faster version of the song, so I may have to re-record some tracks. I don't know why, but I have yet to discover anything good about Cakewalk's Music Creator 5. Mike has MC4 and he loves it. Cakewalk's jump to 5 changed a TON of stuff, almost to the point where Mike can't help me when I run into a problem.

Oh, and I bought FFXIII. It's pretty cool, but I'm kinda upset that they stole my chain daze idea! Their Chain Guage and related mechanics are very similar to my Elemental Wheel and Chain Daze idea. Although now that I think about it, I shouldn't be upset. Often I've wondered how my game would play with the constantly increasing damage multiplier, and while FFXIII is not EXACTLY how my game will play, it gives me a decent idea of the flow of battle.

So...that's it. Update over.

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Post Name: Oops, I Did It Again
Date: 03/10/10
Purpose: Where did February go? I know it's a short month, but...
Return: null
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I'm getting worse with these updates. It's mainly because I have to open up the .html file and copy and paste a section, then start typing, then make sure any links or pictures are working properly, then I have to upload it to the FTP. It's not a lot of work necessarily, but if I don't have anything major to talk about then it doesn't seem worth the effort. Maybe I should pick up my blog again. Or figure out what Twitter is and how to use it. I dunno.

So...wow. What's happened since the end of January? Well, I'm taking another break from ARPG. I know, I know! Shush already. I take too many breaks from that game. You wouldn't be the first person to tell me to stop playing FFXI and open up Visual Studio again. But I can't quit now. Quite possibly the biggest most unexpected change is coming to FFXI. After about seven years - seven years of adding endgame content and uber equipment for players at level 75 - they're raising the level cap. Not to 80. Not to 90. To 99.

This is huge. This is monstrous. But this isn't all Square-Enix is doing in the coming months! They have a ginormous amount of content to be added throughout 2010. Job adjustments, new add ons, new NMs, HNMs, Wings of the Goddess missions, and a new augment system aimed specifically at people at 75. Basically, the game that has been keeping me from progressing on ARPG just got a lot cooler, a lot funner, and a lot more demanding of my time. Now the first level cap increase (and a big chunk of the new add ons) doesn't come until June, but there's a March update that features two incredible things, among others:

1) Our damned avatars that we've been waiting on for TWO YEARS
2) Puppetmasters' Hand-to-Hand skill is being raised from a measley C to a freaking A

So I'll be deep in FFXI for a looong time. It sucks that I have such limited time to myself after work. I bought the new Miles Edgeworth DS game but haven't had the time to play it. I also want to pick up FFXIII but again: when am I gonna have time for two RPGs? The weekends is when I get my chores done, which admittedly doesn't take up much time, but it's still time I could have spent on something else.

I really miss Full Sail. Back there, I was playing FFXI until well AFTER the sun rose, AND I was programming. But not anymore. Now it's slot machines for 8 hours a day. I think I'm actually starting to lose my ability to program. Every time I go back and open up VS I forget something simple like a semicolon or that you have to call .c_str() on strings. I also don't like the "engine" that I wrote/am writing. I'd much rather learn an existing system and make something out of that. But that's just me being lazy...

Ok, enough whining. I'm sure no one wants to hear that - least of all me. I guess just sit tight for a while. I dunno when I'll be motivated to work on ARPG. Maybe I should visit Naveen and co. again...that always got me pumped for game development.

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Post Name: Global Game Jam
Date: 01/31/10
Purpose: Inform readers of 48-hour game making event I took part in
Return: null
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So Mike and I took part in the Global Game Jam. A couple college friends - Naveen Nattam and Grant Shonkwiler and some of their co-workers as well as other local developers - gathered together at Independents Hall (yes, I'm sure it's spelled that way: they had stickers on the wall with this spelling) in Philadelphia and made a game in 48 hours. We were given a theme to work with and then left to our own devices to design and code our game. We came up with a lot of great ideas but we ended up settling on making a collaborative game that featured many classic games but with a twist. Overall it was an amazing experience to meet these awesome people and work with them on a project more or less for fun. I don't believe there are any awards or other accolades for this, and I honestly don't care. Just getting away from slot machines for a weekend to be with people who do what I dream of doing but can only do on my own time was reward enough. Click here to check out our game!

So now after being cooped up in the same building with ten other programmers and staring at code for 48 hours, you'd think I'd want a break from it. YOU'D BE DECEIVED! I am super-mega-awesomely PSYCHED to work on ARPG. I still can't tell you to expect anything playable just yet, but hang in there: stuff is happening.

And to cap off this Extraordinary Weekend of Win, I managed to win a Rank 3 and Rank 4 prize from the Mog Bonanza which netted me about 1.8 mil, the most money I've ever had! So I turned right around and bought an Economizer for my puppet and will soon be purchasing a Tranquilizer. I'm still going to put ARPG first above anything else, however, so don't be upset at my mentioning of FFXI. I'm not quiting FFXI, but I will not be playing it religiously like I have been recently.

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Post Name: It's been a while, but I've been working!
Date: 01/24/10
Purpose: No, really. I've been working! Honest!
Return: truth &, so you know you get the real deal!
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Let's see; since my last post, I said I was going to start working on ARPG, and indeed I have! No, don't roll your eyes, I'm serious this time!

Instead of starting over, I rolled my sleeves up and started reformatting an old build that had quite a bit already done for me. I dunno why I keep wanting to start over when I've got technology that works, and works with other classes inside of a stable build! Anywho, I'm currently gutting the Lua dependencies and replacing them with XML, because XML is SO much easier to set up and use with the help of tinyxml. I've already gotten my menu system converted over and just finished the Default Profile loading (when you click New Game, it starts you with a default character, etc. This will change once I implement creatable characters).

One super mega awesome HUGE thing that happened recently is that Mike and I got to hang out with Naveen!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!! I haven't seen him since graduation, and man was it a blast. Last weekend Naveen hastily put together a hang out sorta thing with some buddies from work and shot an e-mail off to Mike asking if we wanted to come along. Those guys are just great, and we all had a blast: especially after half of them got drunk and decided to keep getting me killed in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I actually got a chance to briefly discuss ARPG with Naveen and get some feedback, which I plan to implement 100%. It was amazing to hang with those guys and I can't wait until we set up another time!

I also said last post that I was playing FFXII (or wanted to: I finally found a 2-pack of memory cards for $25 at Best Buy, the same price GameStop wanted to charge for one), but that kinda dwindled away into nothing after getting my much-needed ARPG motivation kickstart. I'm at the part right after the two Demon Walls. That first one is freaking rediculous: I REALLY want the sword he drops, but it's impossible at level 13 or wherever I left off. As far as the other FF I play a ton, I have actually played it here and there, but I've been doing well at staying away from it. Usually I'd log in in the morning or before bed and see if Belladonna is up. I've gotten claim on it four times, but no drop yet. I only have TH1 with a level 15 THF subjob, so I don't really expect to get it immediately. It just sucks having to wait for the darn thing to spawn, then hope to claim it over the 1 to 4 other people there who probably have bots or something.

But what I want you to leave with is this: work on ARPG is being conducted, for cereal!! I can't promise a playable build yet or even give a date when one will be available, but it will come. I don't plan on releasing anything until it's playable. Right now all you can do is navigate a menu and move a guy around. When I've got actual gameplay (attacking, taking damage, dying, winning, and maybe some effects) I'll put it up and ask for feedback.

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Post Name: I Update Almost As Often As LimitBreakRadio
Date: 01/01/10
Purpose: Inform reader of current status
Return: null
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So yeah, once a month updates. Great... anyway, the update: I saw Sherlock Holmes and it was awesome. I'm continuing to flesh out ideas for ARPG. I should be in a position where I can begin coding soon: just a starter app that has simple shapes for rendering and some basic input. I bought and beat Zelda: Spirit Tracks in the span of about two weeks (a little disappointed, but still a good game). I got my PS2 controller finally, but can't find my memory card >< so FFXII is going to have to wait a bit more. Can you believe that PS2 memory cards are STILL $25!? I might try a Gamestop and see if their GS-brand ones are any cheaper.

I got my name (well, my FFXI character name anyway) spoken on Pet Food Alpha's 184th episode. PFA is a FFXI podcast (and so is LimitBreakRadio, since I'm sure all of you went "what the crap is that?") in which the hosts talk about various news about Square-Enix, the game itself, or whatever. Sometimes it's about specific jobs or in-game events and others it's about community sites and news. Anyway, both PFA and LBR are awesome.

Other than that, just working on music and *ugh* still playing FFXI. Though I've also picked up Wind Waker again. I don't know how far I'll get into it before I realize I should be spending my time on other things, but we'll see.

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Post Name: One at a time
Date: 12/6/09
Purpose: Inform reader of ARPG status
Return: null
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I've hit a bit of a slow spot in terms of playing Final Fantasy XI. Not to say I'm not playing, just not feeling like I need to as much. I'm in the horrible 65-70 range on my Puppetmaster, AND I've got Dancer to finish for my subjob...it's starting to feel like a chore. My new group has a regular thing on Sundays, but some people couldn't make it today so it was canceled. But ENOUGH about that: on to what I plan on spending my not-FFXI time on.

So about two post ago (which was a month ago; jeez, I should update more) I said I was working a little more on my ARPG project. You know, I should really give it a name. Anyway, I had Mike come over Friday after work and I bounced some ideas off him. My goal was to have someone else examine what I had designed up to that point and provide constructive criticism. And that's what I got, but I also realized that a lot of the stuff I thought I had fleshed out was hardly even outlined. Since I had to explain everything from the ground up, I was basically teaching myself as much as Mike. I would explain how I envisioned something working, he'd ask questions and suggest alternatives, and after he left it seemed my idea was significantly different from when we started. Not only did my existing ideas get tweaked, but new ideas were formed and added. I now know more or less how combat is going to work. The exact algorithms and variables don't exist yet, but I know what actions each unit can take.

And a few hours ago, another friend Franklin called me up and gave me some advice on how to proceed with development. He told me to take my project and break it into smaller more manageable chunks, which I always plan on doing but end up going "but I need this before that, oh but this should come first, and if I want the game to do this I should have that..." I'm actually going to take Franklin's advice this time. I was already planning on having combat completely ironed out before coding anything: meaning I was planning on playing out the rules on paper or something. Franklin said I should make a console program that just ran the numbers for me. Things like monster enmity/aggro/hate/what have you wouldn't be in there yet. Its main purpose would be to test the algorithms for damage and such. I'll have the program display the results, and from there I can tweak the formulae.

Then once I'm happy with how that works, I can focus on the aggro/hate portion of my AI. I'll have the enemy choose who to attack based on a variety of factors. Once THAT'S to my liking, I'll bring things into life with the render engine. At first it'll just be a graphical version of the console program: the player and enemy will animate and such. I might even add movement AI for the enemy, say for fleeing if he's losing. After that I'll work on input and at that point it'll be playable.

I'm not promising anything as far as time goes. We all know how well I manage time. >_> And we know how easily I lose steam. But for the moment interest in FFXI has hit a lull, so I should take advantage of it.

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/**************************************
Post Name: The Final Fantasy
Date: 11/14/09
Purpose: Farewell, Caitsith
Return: null
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I jumped servers on Final Fantasy XI today. All my friends on my old server were either no longer playing or no longer my friends, so I figured if I wanted to get anything done I should move. I've only spend a day on my new home but I'm already liking it. And these people use Vent! Granted they don't talk much, but it's nice to have the option. I'm sure my new friendships won't have as many communication roadblocks my old ones had. Everyone seems pretty cool so far, except one guy who lol'd my PUP. But he just hasn't seen a good one yet, so I'm gonna work towards changing his mind. Other than that, things have been good. Got PUP63 in a party with my new linkshell and am close to 64. At 65 I can equip my Shiva's Claws which will help out a nice bit. Then my next good set of gear doesn't come until 68. THEN I need to work on gathering the items for my O.hat...lots to do. But fortunately it seems as if my move was a smart one. The people in my party were impressed with my PUP, so that made me happy.

Dude, I was healing better than the SCH was. Who uses Cure I past the dunes!? And then he refused to use Regen because he thought it only lasted 15 seconds. But he was replaced after a while, and I got to actually DD. Check it out (names were changed to protect the innocent):



My damage consists of the PUP and Puppet. We did a combined total of 14845 points of damage. That puts us as the #2 DD behind the DRG and his wyvern, and more than twice the damage of any other DD in the party. I just wish I could put this in my search comment. Then again, my new LS is more than happy to party with me, so I might not have to seek. But when I have to...oh man, it'd be nice. I know there's a PUP on another server whose reputation is so awesome that he gets merit party invites when he's not seeking. I want that. So far I've seen a few 60+ PUPs on my new home, so maybe I won't be alone. Hopefully the majority of them knows what they're doing.

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Post Name: At least I'm consistent! ...Consistently late. >_>
Date: 11/09/09
Purpose: I don't even remember
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So, real quick: NEW SONG! Vacation! Lyrics by Mike Belotti, guitar by MEEEE (all except for an accoustic arpeggio)!

In other news, ideas are being thrown around for ARPG. Sci-fi theme or fantasy? FFXII-like gambit system for party member AI? Networked multiplayer? (probably not) Damage algorithms, attack combinations, stats, items, levels, enemies, maps, WOOO. It sure sounds like a lot, but it's mostly "hey, this one particular random idea would be good for an item/enemy/attack. *no new ideas for a week*". I do, however, plan on NOT starting all over. I am going to be recycling and updating existing technology I've written like my tile system (still renders inefficiently, but still several hundred FPS so bite me!) and animation system.

Progress might be slow since I'm playing FFXI more heavily now. PUP62 woot! I was in an awesome party Sunday night where I outparsed the DRK AND the WAR! Of course I'm including my puppet's damage in that calculation, but I'm supposed to: we're two halves of one cohesive unit. There was an update today with an addition to SMNs, which is okay, but I rarely party on my SMN anyway. And they BROKE CARBUNCLE MITTS! >:( Now Carby isn't free anymore. I REALLY hope they fix this soon, otherwise that ridiculous NM we fought (two years ago but still) would be all for nothing. It better have been an accident and not a nerf, otherwise I and about five thousand other SMNs will be extremely pissed off.

So that's pretty much it. Kbai.

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Post Name: So liek
Date: 10/21/09
Purpose: Blog
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Ok, update. Puzzle Game progress has pretty much stopped. The reason I chose to make a puzzle game was because it was a project I figured I could actually finish (as opposed to my many restarts of ARPG). However it seems I have underestimated the scope of the idea, as well as gotten bored with it. I mean, after I finish it...what? I don't really play that many puzzle games. And mine's not gonna be cool or innovative enough to get me to play it.

So no puzzle game. I have been playing a lot... A LOT ...of Final Fantasy XI lately. Perhaps too much, but I CAN'T STOP! T_T I finally got one of my subjobs to 37 and am working on another, but before that I need to level Ninja else I won't get parties...THEN I can finally continue Puppetmaster. Often times it feels more like work than a game, but I can't convince myself to quit. Fortunately I still like creating music, so hopefully that will gradually eat up more time and balance me out.

My copy of Music Creator 5 came in the mail today. Gonna open it after I'm done typing this up. Mike has MC4 and showed me a bit about it. Looks pretty cool, and it's got lots more features than the free Audacity I've been using (though Audacity is amazing for a free program). MC5 has a few more bells and whistles (mostly patches/instruments/voices/etc) than 4 does. So yeah, I'll play around with that in a bit.

And the last significant thing that happened to me is that I slammed my finger in the door of a slot machine on Monday. My fingernail is slightly bruised, but it's not hurting as much. Only when I put pressure on it. Obviously more pressure than typing requires.

So yeah. I'll update again in another month. >_>

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Post Name: Obligatory Apology Plus Subsequent Long Post
Date: 10/1/09
Purpose: It's a blog. Figure it out.
Return: Nothing. What, this isn't a function!
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I haven't touched Puzzle Game in a while. I did make some additions since my last post, such as making selections with the mouse. I'm currently working on the swap mechanic: I don't want the pieces to swap instantly like my last iteration did. I'd either like them to be gradual linear interpolations or a circular swap, as in the two pieces rotate their positions about the midpoint of the line between them. But yeah, mostly I've been doing other things, some less productive than others...

But one of my more productive (or what may lead to more productive) activities is researching the Torque game engine. It's pretty popular; in fact my company is working on a Torque-powered slot machine engine. So not only would this work from a "Theo wants to learn about industry-accepted game engines," it's also great for the "Theo's knowledge of Torque might work in his favor at H5G" approach. From what I've heard, I'm not sure I'd like to be an engineer if I have to work with our client's current engine, but if we moved to Torque...maybe.

However I'm having a bit of issues with the demo I downloaded from GarageGames' website. It's basically just a rollercoaster ride through an example game level, stopping at key points to show you a certain cool thing they do. However this demo actually includes what they call their Mission Editor, which is a WYSIWYG graphical editor that allows you to place objects, manipulate the world and write scripts. Though so far I'm having a horrible time understanding where to find anything. I haven't looked at the scripts yet, but I am more than a little upset at how the editor doesn't freeze time. For example, the player is on top of some floating satellite thing at the beginning of the demo, but if you start to move him somewhere else, he falls. Yes, gravity is in effect while in edit mode. I dunno who thought that was a good idea, but I guess it could just be me: I'm sure there's an option somewhere to turn it off, maybe in a script that, again, I haven't looked at yet. I'll have to play with it some more.

I could complain more about things I don't like about it, but that time could be better spent trying to figure the thing out. If I like (or can at least tolerate) the engine, I'll probably buy a license. It's $295, which is cheap considering what most engines go for, and I get a good bit of stuff. So we'll see.

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