It's funny how the passage of time colors our perception of old games and distorts our expectations of new games. I was reminded about that as I had recently picked up the two Mortal Kombat games for PS3 recently now that the cheap bin is littered with them. This post will mostly pertain to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe came out in 2008 - I blogged about the character lineup a few months before the game was released but never ended up purchasing the game. I didn't have a PS3 when it came out, and then when I did get a PS3 it didn't seem like I needed to get it. I recently picked up a copy for under $10. I had not played a Mortal Kombat game since 2006 when the PS2 version of MK:Armageddon came out. I had been annoyed with the fighting part of the last few MK games (Deadly Alliance, Deception, Armageddon) but I had continued to play them because the storylines were interesting. They were like a bad soap opera that I couldn't stop watching. The storyline of MK vs DC isn't part of the overall Mortal Kombat story, and DC treated it like an Elseworlds scenario also, so nothing that happens in the story of the game affects any of the other games or comics. Now that I have played it, it seems a little like a rough draft of a game. Surprisingly it sold well, and it was a great swan song for Midway Games before they went bankrupt and sold off the rights to Mortal Kombat and a few other Midway properties to Warner Brothers.
The first part of the experiment: put two storylines together in a way that helps boost the visibility of both franchises. They did a good job with this by getting comic book writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray involved. The story has some cornball features to it, but nothing any more so than any of the previous Mortal Kombat games.
The second part of the experiment: get a fighting game to run in 1080p. If you're fuzzy on what '1080p' means, review my post "Is it really HD?" In an effort to maintain fast frame rates, most fighting games run in 720p so they don't have to push the extra pixels and the game can stay fast, since a little bit of slowdown here in there in the visuals will be enough for some hardcore fighting enthusiasts to throw a controller across the room. (Thankfully, the really hardcore fighting enthusiasts only use corded controllers and often they're the big arcade joystick style so while they may do a lot of damage, at least they won't go very far.) Midway opted to use the Unreal engine with some modification to make it simpler for them to have good looking models and not have to build everything from scratch. The Batman:Arkham series games use the Unreal engine, as does the new Devil May Cry game "DmC". First person shooter fans had already seen this game engine for the "Gears of War" series and a bunch of the "Tom Clancy" series games, just to name a very few. (If you're inclined, check out a much bigger list here.) Other than the eyes on some of the characters and some of the facial expressions, the character textures look pretty good. The more complicated outfits (Scorpion, Batman) seem to look a lot better than the characters with a lot of skin showing (Liu Kang, Wonder Woman). But, it's not a deal-breaker, and overall the game looks good in still shots. There are parts of the animation that seem a little uneven, but I'm not sure that that's the fault of the game engine they chose - sometimes they have to keyframe a few things that are impossible to do with motion capture, and you can tell somewhat which things were taken from motion capture and which things were taken from pure animation.
The third part of the experiment: Make some changes to the fighting system (again) so that it feels 'fresh'. (Stop thinking about the 'Summer's Eve' commercial.) I don't think that this part worked. They added elements where the fighting gets different when two players are up close, and another similar element where the characters pummel each other through the air as they are falling from one part of a stage to another. I'm never sure which side of the screen I need to pay attention to when they show contextual button presses for the closeup combat since my health bar stays one particular side but my character does not. It seems to be less confusing when they do the same thing falling though the air, but it seems like it just slows down the gameplay.
Part of the requirement of 'fresh' in the Mortal Kombat franchise is that it seems to need to change character's special moves on a regular basis. Since I have spent more time with the Street Fighter series, perhaps that's a product of my expectations. Since Street Fighter 2, Ryu's three signature special moves (fireball, dragon punch, and hurricane kick) have always been performed the same way. That's not to say that they haven't changed other parts of his fighting style for the sake of variation and to help the balance of the game, but they left his signature moves alone. So, even through the Alpha series games, the Street Fighter III series, the EX series, and up to the current Street Fighter IV games, anybody that's ever played Ryu has had a decent chance to grab a controller and get in the game without having to start from scratch. This is basically true for every character in the Street Fighter series except Chun Li, M. Bison, and Adon. (Since this is the internet, I'm sure that somebody will think of more.) For anyone that had played any of the previous versions of the characters, few people would have any trouble adjusting to their Street Fighter IV versions.
By comparison, Raiden, who appears in nearly all of the Mortal Kombat games, has had his three basic moves (lighting bolt, teleport, torpedo) change often in the last four games, so by the time you get to MK vs DC, none of them are the same. This is true of the majority of the Mortal Kombat characters over the last four or five games. The other part of this is that none of the characters in Mortal Kombat have overlapping movesets. In Street Fighter, if you play as Ryu, it's not much of a stretch to play as Ken, Sakura, Dan, Akuma, or even Sagat. Moves with similar properties are input in much the same way between characters in Street Fighter. In Mortal Kombat, everybody's projectile is performed with a different controller motion, which makes it that much tougher if they keep changing it every game. Maybe it's an important design decision to them, it's just not one that I like. Oddly, I don't seem to care if they change the Fatality inputs from game to game - it's not like it's actually part of the match and seems more like a surprise bonus feature (although a gory one.)
The one part of the fighting system that they didn't seem to change was that the game is still a 3D fighter (which Mortal Kombat has been since MK4) which can tend to nullify the effects of many of the character's projectiles since they can be easy to dodge once you're used to the 3D part of the controls.
So, to sum up, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe made big strides in improving the visuals, but the controls and the gameplay seem to be a repeat of their other efforts (Deadly Alliance/Deception/Armageddon) that were not always well-received. Luckily for gamers, Netherrealm Studios learned from a lot of these mistakes before they put out the 2011 reboot of the Mortal Kombat series, but I'll have to save that for next time.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Who are these people who need kiosks?
Coming out of a Saturday shift a little earlier than I expected to, I popped into a couple of stores on the way home. One of them was a music store, the other a big box electronics retailer. I didn't buy anything at either place - my intention in both cases was to merely get some eyeballs on what they had available at each store.
At the guitar store, I was greeted when I walked in and they asked about why I was there. I also saw that they had a fair number of people in the store in various locations, so if I had any subsequent questions I could ask them. They had a lot of new things in stock, everything was well-marked with prices and model numbers so it was very easy for me to see what was new from the last time that I was there. They've done a great job to make the store easy to navigate so people can find what they want.
There certainly are a lot of musical instrument retailers online, and there are lots of products that they sell that nobody would have any problems purchasing mail order. Effects units, cables, some keyboards, stands, and maybe the occasional microphone are probably bought online every day without issue. When it comes to guitars, basses, and drums, a lot of the time people want to try them out in person before they buy them, so music stores are still doing OK having physical stores although most of them are using a hybrid business model where they have a strong web presence in addition to the store.
At the big box electronics store, my intention was to put my eyeballs on Sony's new Playstation 4. They did have a PS4 kiosk set up. They also had a display next to it showing a constant stream of Sony commercials and promos. I had thought about actually touching the controller, but the only game that anybody was playing was a soccer game that I was unfamiliar with, so I didn't see the point of trying an unfamiliar controller in an unfamiliar context. Oddly, this was the only part of the store not swarming with salespeople. I had also noticed that they had changed the back middle section of the store where they sell computers to be more like an Apple store. White furniture, places to sit down and be interrogated by salespeople, and then a slew of terminals in the back that was sort of like a sales counter that caused me to walk around it instead of behind it even though it was the same width as the rest of the back aisle. As I was walking through the computer section I though I should see if they had a plain, simple, corded mouse. If they did, it was not apparent. I then started looking to see if they had any Wacom graphics tablet products only to realize that everything they're trying to sell is a touchscreen these days, so graphics tablets have turned into a super-niche product when they were just regular niche products before.
Looking around at the store layout, I now realize that they had converted more of their square footage to kiosks and help desks for their customers and had fewer shelves for actual products. As I walked out, there was an older man with a clipboard that asked me about my shopping experience. I presume that they didn't make him wear a store shirt in an attempt to get people to give truthful answers. At first, I said that it was OK, but that I didn't get anything. He told me that they also wanted to get impressions from people that were just browsing. So, I decided that I was going to have to tell him what I thought without editing, since I felt like I was asked a direct question. So then I said:
"Seriously? It looks like you guys have turned most of the square footage into kiosks. It's like walking around in a tank full of sharks."
I politely ran away at that point.
Driving home, I started to think about it. If electronics stores are losing market share to the internet, then the people left getting phones and computers at brick-and-mortar stores are more likely to be people that are less tech-savvy and less likely to have already researched what they want. So, the people that don't buy anything should be complaining that they don't like the store because the store wasn't designed for them.
I used to like going to this electronics store 15 years ago, but that was when the only kiosk was a cell phone kiosk, and we had the good sense to walk around it.
Strangely, I talked to the same number of people in each case. One. In the guitar store, I was greeted right away, and walked the main path of the store with no subsequent distraction even though there were salespeople nearby at every turn. In the big box retailer, I only talked to the guy with the clipboard at the end and had to make a small effort to avoid the kiosks. Since the context of the two conversations were wildly different, it made a giant change in the shopping experience for me.
As shoppers, maybe we all need to ask ourselves what kind of shopping experience we expect from a real store that we don't get from buying online, and what retailers provide those other experiences? Conversely, as providers of goods and services, perhaps we can think about how we can provide the best experience for our customers. Maybe it's a pretty showroom, or maybe it's an efficient store layout.
Good luck getting any help at the kiosks on Black Friday. I'll be home having a turkey sandwich.
With regard to the title, you'll have to pardon my poor Jerry Seinfeld impersonation. I'm starting to think that I'm really doing an impersonation of Gilbert Gottfried's impersonation of Seinfeld anyway.
At the guitar store, I was greeted when I walked in and they asked about why I was there. I also saw that they had a fair number of people in the store in various locations, so if I had any subsequent questions I could ask them. They had a lot of new things in stock, everything was well-marked with prices and model numbers so it was very easy for me to see what was new from the last time that I was there. They've done a great job to make the store easy to navigate so people can find what they want.
There certainly are a lot of musical instrument retailers online, and there are lots of products that they sell that nobody would have any problems purchasing mail order. Effects units, cables, some keyboards, stands, and maybe the occasional microphone are probably bought online every day without issue. When it comes to guitars, basses, and drums, a lot of the time people want to try them out in person before they buy them, so music stores are still doing OK having physical stores although most of them are using a hybrid business model where they have a strong web presence in addition to the store.
At the big box electronics store, my intention was to put my eyeballs on Sony's new Playstation 4. They did have a PS4 kiosk set up. They also had a display next to it showing a constant stream of Sony commercials and promos. I had thought about actually touching the controller, but the only game that anybody was playing was a soccer game that I was unfamiliar with, so I didn't see the point of trying an unfamiliar controller in an unfamiliar context. Oddly, this was the only part of the store not swarming with salespeople. I had also noticed that they had changed the back middle section of the store where they sell computers to be more like an Apple store. White furniture, places to sit down and be interrogated by salespeople, and then a slew of terminals in the back that was sort of like a sales counter that caused me to walk around it instead of behind it even though it was the same width as the rest of the back aisle. As I was walking through the computer section I though I should see if they had a plain, simple, corded mouse. If they did, it was not apparent. I then started looking to see if they had any Wacom graphics tablet products only to realize that everything they're trying to sell is a touchscreen these days, so graphics tablets have turned into a super-niche product when they were just regular niche products before.
Looking around at the store layout, I now realize that they had converted more of their square footage to kiosks and help desks for their customers and had fewer shelves for actual products. As I walked out, there was an older man with a clipboard that asked me about my shopping experience. I presume that they didn't make him wear a store shirt in an attempt to get people to give truthful answers. At first, I said that it was OK, but that I didn't get anything. He told me that they also wanted to get impressions from people that were just browsing. So, I decided that I was going to have to tell him what I thought without editing, since I felt like I was asked a direct question. So then I said:
"Seriously? It looks like you guys have turned most of the square footage into kiosks. It's like walking around in a tank full of sharks."
I politely ran away at that point.
Driving home, I started to think about it. If electronics stores are losing market share to the internet, then the people left getting phones and computers at brick-and-mortar stores are more likely to be people that are less tech-savvy and less likely to have already researched what they want. So, the people that don't buy anything should be complaining that they don't like the store because the store wasn't designed for them.
I used to like going to this electronics store 15 years ago, but that was when the only kiosk was a cell phone kiosk, and we had the good sense to walk around it.
Strangely, I talked to the same number of people in each case. One. In the guitar store, I was greeted right away, and walked the main path of the store with no subsequent distraction even though there were salespeople nearby at every turn. In the big box retailer, I only talked to the guy with the clipboard at the end and had to make a small effort to avoid the kiosks. Since the context of the two conversations were wildly different, it made a giant change in the shopping experience for me.
As shoppers, maybe we all need to ask ourselves what kind of shopping experience we expect from a real store that we don't get from buying online, and what retailers provide those other experiences? Conversely, as providers of goods and services, perhaps we can think about how we can provide the best experience for our customers. Maybe it's a pretty showroom, or maybe it's an efficient store layout.
Good luck getting any help at the kiosks on Black Friday. I'll be home having a turkey sandwich.
With regard to the title, you'll have to pardon my poor Jerry Seinfeld impersonation. I'm starting to think that I'm really doing an impersonation of Gilbert Gottfried's impersonation of Seinfeld anyway.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
A few recent months of cubing
So, having properly claimed that I have not fallen off the face of the earth, I try to catch up on cubing stuff, both personal and otherwise.
In a small group of people assembled by my sales manager for the express purpose of watching me solve a cube, I was able to do a 30-second solve with my black DaYan. I found it rather funny because five or six of the people had written times on a piece of paper to see who was going to be the closest, and right before I started the solve I spotted my operations manager and suggested to the group that he would be able to write my exact time down on the paper. He looked at the list, saw that the two closest times written were 25 seconds and 35 seconds, and quickly wrote '30' on the paper before I got started. I was a little amazed when I finished in 30 seconds as I felt that I had made a couple of mistakes, but I have been a few seconds faster on the DaYan than on my regular stock Rubik's cube lately. On a stock Rubik's cube, I average around 37 seconds or so but can occasionally get down towards 33 once in a while.
My older son reassembled a 4x4x4 for one of our friends while I made dinner the other night. Let me be clear on this - reassembled, not solved. I was still glad and more than a little bit proud of him. It had been dropped, and was brought to us in pieces in a Ziploc bag. His LEGO construction skills come in handy, and he still has good closeup vision and smaller fingers. I asked him to inspect all the pieces for damage, but this 4x4x4 appears to be a newer build than mine. My 4x4x4 is an Ideal Toy Company model, and the 'feet' that hold the center pieces in place are a little bit thinner than the one that was brought to me. As I recall, more than a few of my center pieces were glued back together with jeweler's glue and I still have to treat it like an antique. (But, it's a 30 year old plastic toy, so maybe it's almost an antique.) I like knowing that DaYan makes a stickerless 4x4x4.
Well, perhaps now that I feel a little more caught up, I can get back to writing more regularly.
In a small group of people assembled by my sales manager for the express purpose of watching me solve a cube, I was able to do a 30-second solve with my black DaYan. I found it rather funny because five or six of the people had written times on a piece of paper to see who was going to be the closest, and right before I started the solve I spotted my operations manager and suggested to the group that he would be able to write my exact time down on the paper. He looked at the list, saw that the two closest times written were 25 seconds and 35 seconds, and quickly wrote '30' on the paper before I got started. I was a little amazed when I finished in 30 seconds as I felt that I had made a couple of mistakes, but I have been a few seconds faster on the DaYan than on my regular stock Rubik's cube lately. On a stock Rubik's cube, I average around 37 seconds or so but can occasionally get down towards 33 once in a while.
My older son reassembled a 4x4x4 for one of our friends while I made dinner the other night. Let me be clear on this - reassembled, not solved. I was still glad and more than a little bit proud of him. It had been dropped, and was brought to us in pieces in a Ziploc bag. His LEGO construction skills come in handy, and he still has good closeup vision and smaller fingers. I asked him to inspect all the pieces for damage, but this 4x4x4 appears to be a newer build than mine. My 4x4x4 is an Ideal Toy Company model, and the 'feet' that hold the center pieces in place are a little bit thinner than the one that was brought to me. As I recall, more than a few of my center pieces were glued back together with jeweler's glue and I still have to treat it like an antique. (But, it's a 30 year old plastic toy, so maybe it's almost an antique.) I like knowing that DaYan makes a stickerless 4x4x4.
Well, perhaps now that I feel a little more caught up, I can get back to writing more regularly.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
No, I have not dropped off the face of the earth.
Not having written anything here for a couple of months, there is some difficulty in finding a place to begin. However, looking at my own blog title, it occurs to me that I should start with the 'Gaming' part. I will have to gloss over some details, perhaps, but I think I can come up with the big picture items, in some sort of chronological order.
1) Both of my kids have 100% completion in LEGO Batman 2. I can't play any of the LEGO games without nodding off.
2) I still can't find my Gamecube copy of Pikmin. I used to play it before bedtime a lot, particularly the 1-day challenge mode, because I found it relaxing. At some point I will have to just find the Wii Play Control version. (At least it should render correctly on widescreen if necessary.) My replacement small-dose game before bedtime has been Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition in Mercenaries Mode, which is not particularly relaxing for me.
3) I still don't have all the ending movies unlocked in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, partly because there are a lot of characters and partly because I'm not willing to set it to a difficulty easier than 'Normal' and there are a few characters that I can't seem to get the hang of. (Lili, I'm looking at you.) Yes, I know I could just team her with a character that I'm better at and still get her ending movie, but I'm trying to be well-rounded.
4) I picked up the 'Game of The Year' edition of Batman:Arkham City, which includes some Robin and Catwoman missions on top of the hours and hours of Batman missions. I liked it a lot, and there was a lot more of the things I liked in the game, but it didn't scare me or creep me out like the original Arkham Asylum did. There was more emphasis on action in Arkham City, and it seemed like you interacted with civilians a lot less. I have finished the main story on normal, but I have not finished all the side missions.
5) I picked up the rather old (or at least old by PS3 standards) Burnout Paradise hoping that my younger son would appreciate the open-world aspect of it. Since he had so much fun running around the hub in LEGO Batman 2, and found all kinds of fun things to do outside the dungeons in Zelda:Twilight Princess, I thought he might get some enjoyment out of driving around at random discovering things, maybe have some fun crashing cars or jumping ramps and learning the layout of the city. However, it turned out to be a total non-thing to him unless he's watching me play. There are a lot of things to buy in that game and few of them ever became free or available on a disc, even five years after the game came out originally. My initial surprise/amusement was that downloading updates for the game took hours and hours and I woke up SuperMonkeyWife when the game rebooted and she was treated to Axl Rose's voice somewhere around midnight. (Somehow I slept through it, but I'm more of a fan of Slash than Axl.)
6) I found out that there is a another version of Street Fighter IV coming out- not that I'm surprised or anything. The four Street Fighter characters (Poison, Hugo, and Rolento from Final Fight and Elena from Street Fighter III) that they made for Street Fighter X Tekken that weren't available in other games will be included, and a new fighter that has not been announced yet will also be added. I can either upgrade my copy of Arcade Edition, or buy the whole thing and finally get all the other costumes. Capcom hasn't exactly spelled out the pricing or release dates yet other than to say it will be available in 2014 for arcades.
7) I picked up a used copy of Darksiders for PS3 for less than $8. (I tried to type this three other times and kept typing 'Darkstalkers' instead.) I was told that it was rather Zelda-like in terms of level structure, and I have not been disappointed in that regard. I have been a little disappointed with the controls, but the games that I'm comparing it to don't have as many items and functions to deal with.
8) My younger child discovered Soul Calibur V and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He's not that good at the actual games yet, but he is endlessly entertained by the Character Creation/Costume Editor module in both games.
9) Both of my kids are playing the ever-loving daylights out of Minecraft. I have no idea what they are talking about a lot of the time.
10) Pokemon Y came out last weekend and caused my older child to try to adopt a position at dinner that involved having a fork in one hand and a stylus in the other hand. Even with this unorthodox approach, he defeated all of the Pokemon League by Wednesday. There are some side missions left, but I think he's already looking for a copy of Pokemon X.
I think that catches me up to now, gaming-wise. Next post: I know what cubes you did this summer.
1) Both of my kids have 100% completion in LEGO Batman 2. I can't play any of the LEGO games without nodding off.
2) I still can't find my Gamecube copy of Pikmin. I used to play it before bedtime a lot, particularly the 1-day challenge mode, because I found it relaxing. At some point I will have to just find the Wii Play Control version. (At least it should render correctly on widescreen if necessary.) My replacement small-dose game before bedtime has been Resident Evil 4:Wii Edition in Mercenaries Mode, which is not particularly relaxing for me.
3) I still don't have all the ending movies unlocked in Tekken Tag Tournament 2, partly because there are a lot of characters and partly because I'm not willing to set it to a difficulty easier than 'Normal' and there are a few characters that I can't seem to get the hang of. (Lili, I'm looking at you.) Yes, I know I could just team her with a character that I'm better at and still get her ending movie, but I'm trying to be well-rounded.
4) I picked up the 'Game of The Year' edition of Batman:Arkham City, which includes some Robin and Catwoman missions on top of the hours and hours of Batman missions. I liked it a lot, and there was a lot more of the things I liked in the game, but it didn't scare me or creep me out like the original Arkham Asylum did. There was more emphasis on action in Arkham City, and it seemed like you interacted with civilians a lot less. I have finished the main story on normal, but I have not finished all the side missions.
5) I picked up the rather old (or at least old by PS3 standards) Burnout Paradise hoping that my younger son would appreciate the open-world aspect of it. Since he had so much fun running around the hub in LEGO Batman 2, and found all kinds of fun things to do outside the dungeons in Zelda:Twilight Princess, I thought he might get some enjoyment out of driving around at random discovering things, maybe have some fun crashing cars or jumping ramps and learning the layout of the city. However, it turned out to be a total non-thing to him unless he's watching me play. There are a lot of things to buy in that game and few of them ever became free or available on a disc, even five years after the game came out originally. My initial surprise/amusement was that downloading updates for the game took hours and hours and I woke up SuperMonkeyWife when the game rebooted and she was treated to Axl Rose's voice somewhere around midnight. (Somehow I slept through it, but I'm more of a fan of Slash than Axl.)
6) I found out that there is a another version of Street Fighter IV coming out- not that I'm surprised or anything. The four Street Fighter characters (Poison, Hugo, and Rolento from Final Fight and Elena from Street Fighter III) that they made for Street Fighter X Tekken that weren't available in other games will be included, and a new fighter that has not been announced yet will also be added. I can either upgrade my copy of Arcade Edition, or buy the whole thing and finally get all the other costumes. Capcom hasn't exactly spelled out the pricing or release dates yet other than to say it will be available in 2014 for arcades.
7) I picked up a used copy of Darksiders for PS3 for less than $8. (I tried to type this three other times and kept typing 'Darkstalkers' instead.) I was told that it was rather Zelda-like in terms of level structure, and I have not been disappointed in that regard. I have been a little disappointed with the controls, but the games that I'm comparing it to don't have as many items and functions to deal with.
8) My younger child discovered Soul Calibur V and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He's not that good at the actual games yet, but he is endlessly entertained by the Character Creation/Costume Editor module in both games.
9) Both of my kids are playing the ever-loving daylights out of Minecraft. I have no idea what they are talking about a lot of the time.
10) Pokemon Y came out last weekend and caused my older child to try to adopt a position at dinner that involved having a fork in one hand and a stylus in the other hand. Even with this unorthodox approach, he defeated all of the Pokemon League by Wednesday. There are some side missions left, but I think he's already looking for a copy of Pokemon X.
I think that catches me up to now, gaming-wise. Next post: I know what cubes you did this summer.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
A little diversion
Just a little something for amusement, since I wanted to look at the words a little.
This was made using wordle.net with a hefty dose of Java.
As a side note to this - I always hear from my programmer friends that Java is incredibly dangerous. Is it dangerous because it's inherently and irreparably flawed or is it dangerous because it's a big target?
This was made using wordle.net with a hefty dose of Java.
As a side note to this - I always hear from my programmer friends that Java is incredibly dangerous. Is it dangerous because it's inherently and irreparably flawed or is it dangerous because it's a big target?
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Engineering is about tradeoffs.
Despite the derogatory implications that some might associate with this statement, I present this idea merely as a statement of fact: Most Americans don't fix as many things themselves any more.
I was presented with this idea quite some time ago, as one of the customers where I worked was complaining that replacing the starter on his standby generator seemed incredibly wasetful, since in his day starters were usually rebuilt. He used to work in the auto parts business. The inherent problem with what he was saying didn't even register with him. His maintenance was being done by an electrical contractor that happened to also do generator work. Should the electrical contractor have rebuilt a starter, having little experience doing so, nor having any of the equipment to do it? That's probably not cost effective. Should the contractor have subcontracted a rebuild out to someone who did specialize in rebuilding starters, at a substantial markup? That's probably not time effective or cost effective. On a thing like a backup generator, you just want it to work when you need it, and it doesn't really run that often. Was the guy going to notice if it didn't start on its exercise cycle? How mad would he have been at the contractor if it didn't start when it was supposed to? At a certain level, it comes down to the company that has to warranty the generator, and that's the generator manufacturer. Their recommendations end up outweighing all other concerns, since they're worried about both the reputation of their product and their responsibility to the product warranty. Their recommendation? Replace the starter with a new one that they've sent from the factory, and then the responsibility is back on them where it belongs.
This is somewhat typical to most troubleshooting these days - find the faulty module and replace it. This means that the technicians need to be most familiar with how the equipment is supposed to work normally, and following the path of operation through the system until the first failure is discovered. Once the failure is discovered and addressed, then the system can be re-assessed for proper operation.
Are we in any position, as laypeople, to accumulate this knowledge for every piece of equipment in our daily lives? Phones, computers, printers, cameras, cars, coffee makers, media players of all sorts, air conditioners, electrical equipment, radios, televisions, and the like?
I picked on radios and televisions last there because it wasn't that long ago that people took vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) to the drug store or the hardware store to check them and replace tubes themselves. You plugged the suspicious tube into one of 70 or 80 different sockets in the tester, and the machine told you if it failed on anything obvious, like if it had a short in it or something. Those testers probably could check several thousand different vacuum tubes. With vacuum tubes having been replaced by transistors, I can't imagine how large the tester at the drugstore would have to be to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of different devices, nor can I figure out how most people could unsolder a single transistor to check it. So, to use our oversimplified examples - two of the big reasons that we don't fix as many things ourselves is 1) we can't easily amass enough knowledge to fix all of the things that we might need to fix and 2) the things themselves are more complex than they used to be, so individual components are harder to extract. There was a small resurgence of fixing things ourselves when PC's hit the market, mostly due to the modular nature of the PC itself. Individual cards, having failed, are relatively simple to remove and replace. Certainly, nobody is going to be rebuilding modems these days.
I had a problem with one of my bass guitars that I put up with for a long time. A couple of the bridge saddles would collapse down to the face of the instrument periodically, allowing the string to whack against the pickup covers where it's not supposed to be. I was daunted by the idea of replacing the bridge, especially when I couldn't find an identical replacement. I put up with its failure for a long time, and eventually stopped taking the instrument in question to gigs. Just recently, I had the horrible "The disc cannot be read" failure on my Wii game console for what I think is the third time. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands on both accounts. I figured that if my Wii didn't work after I tried to fix it, I would be no worse off than I was. I felt the same way about the bass I wasn't using. After a few minutes looking around on the internet, I discovered that the laser module in the Wii's optical drive was the usual thing that failed, and if I recall correctly it was one of the things that Nintendo had previously fixed for me under warranty. The only thing that I would need besides a replacement laser module was something called a tri-wing screwdriver. On the bass side, I was able to find a different bass bridge than the stock one for my bass that had the same string spacing. The height might have changed, but at least it wouldn't be too low. If I didn't manage to get it to work, I could just put the old bridge back on.
The new bridge arrived first, and it took me a while to round up the right tools and courage to get it installed. My biggest concern was putting it on crooked and not being able to ensure good intonation, but I got it lined up correctly on the second try and everything went just fine. It would have gone fine the first time, but one of the holes I drilled was a little problematic because of how the bit walked around on the finish. I actually think that the intonation is better now that it was, even though the strings are a teeny bit higher.
The advantage I had on replacing the laser on the Wii over working on my bass is that there are plenty of tutorial videos on youtube for getting the Wii apart and changing the laser. The one thing I couldn't really understand was what the point was in making me purchase a tri-wing screwdriver. It was pretty easy to find replacement laser modules and tri-wing screwdrivers on Amazon, and the screwdriver was less than $3. It did take a really long time to get here, but that wasn't much of a deterrent either. Is it illegal for me to own a tri-wing screwdriver? Is it some sort of obscure DMCA violation?
I guess the question I really want to ask has to do with our title - "Engineering is about tradeoffs". With the bass bridge, it's a job that not everyone is willing to do, and many times will get contracted out to luthiers because they have the correct skill set for the job. All the hardware on the bass bridge is either Philips head or some size of hex key (and the new bridge even came with the two required hex keys). With the Wii, you needed two different sizes of Philips in addition to the tri-wing screwdriver to get the case open and replace components. In my mind, using a non-standard fastener comes with a significant extra cost, but maybe it's only a few cents per console. But even at a few cents per console, the Wii has sold over 100 million units. What, if anything, was gained by using a non-standard screw to secure the case of the console? Even if piracy was the concern, the most famous modification for the Wii allowing non-approved software to run doesn't require you to take your system apart, as hackers were able to discover a method via software. If the Wii had all standard screws - how many more people would have taken them apart? I'm guessing not many - especially in light of what we were talking about above - since not that many people are fixing their own stuff these days. Imagine what Nintendo could have done if those resources were spent on making a more secure and stable OS (not that the Wii OS is bad, just pointing out that it was hacked) or developing a few more games.
If any of you really do want to take your Wii apart and the screwdriver was stopping you, here's the link for buying one on Amazon.
I was presented with this idea quite some time ago, as one of the customers where I worked was complaining that replacing the starter on his standby generator seemed incredibly wasetful, since in his day starters were usually rebuilt. He used to work in the auto parts business. The inherent problem with what he was saying didn't even register with him. His maintenance was being done by an electrical contractor that happened to also do generator work. Should the electrical contractor have rebuilt a starter, having little experience doing so, nor having any of the equipment to do it? That's probably not cost effective. Should the contractor have subcontracted a rebuild out to someone who did specialize in rebuilding starters, at a substantial markup? That's probably not time effective or cost effective. On a thing like a backup generator, you just want it to work when you need it, and it doesn't really run that often. Was the guy going to notice if it didn't start on its exercise cycle? How mad would he have been at the contractor if it didn't start when it was supposed to? At a certain level, it comes down to the company that has to warranty the generator, and that's the generator manufacturer. Their recommendations end up outweighing all other concerns, since they're worried about both the reputation of their product and their responsibility to the product warranty. Their recommendation? Replace the starter with a new one that they've sent from the factory, and then the responsibility is back on them where it belongs.
This is somewhat typical to most troubleshooting these days - find the faulty module and replace it. This means that the technicians need to be most familiar with how the equipment is supposed to work normally, and following the path of operation through the system until the first failure is discovered. Once the failure is discovered and addressed, then the system can be re-assessed for proper operation.
Are we in any position, as laypeople, to accumulate this knowledge for every piece of equipment in our daily lives? Phones, computers, printers, cameras, cars, coffee makers, media players of all sorts, air conditioners, electrical equipment, radios, televisions, and the like?
I picked on radios and televisions last there because it wasn't that long ago that people took vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) to the drug store or the hardware store to check them and replace tubes themselves. You plugged the suspicious tube into one of 70 or 80 different sockets in the tester, and the machine told you if it failed on anything obvious, like if it had a short in it or something. Those testers probably could check several thousand different vacuum tubes. With vacuum tubes having been replaced by transistors, I can't imagine how large the tester at the drugstore would have to be to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of different devices, nor can I figure out how most people could unsolder a single transistor to check it. So, to use our oversimplified examples - two of the big reasons that we don't fix as many things ourselves is 1) we can't easily amass enough knowledge to fix all of the things that we might need to fix and 2) the things themselves are more complex than they used to be, so individual components are harder to extract. There was a small resurgence of fixing things ourselves when PC's hit the market, mostly due to the modular nature of the PC itself. Individual cards, having failed, are relatively simple to remove and replace. Certainly, nobody is going to be rebuilding modems these days.
I had a problem with one of my bass guitars that I put up with for a long time. A couple of the bridge saddles would collapse down to the face of the instrument periodically, allowing the string to whack against the pickup covers where it's not supposed to be. I was daunted by the idea of replacing the bridge, especially when I couldn't find an identical replacement. I put up with its failure for a long time, and eventually stopped taking the instrument in question to gigs. Just recently, I had the horrible "The disc cannot be read" failure on my Wii game console for what I think is the third time. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands on both accounts. I figured that if my Wii didn't work after I tried to fix it, I would be no worse off than I was. I felt the same way about the bass I wasn't using. After a few minutes looking around on the internet, I discovered that the laser module in the Wii's optical drive was the usual thing that failed, and if I recall correctly it was one of the things that Nintendo had previously fixed for me under warranty. The only thing that I would need besides a replacement laser module was something called a tri-wing screwdriver. On the bass side, I was able to find a different bass bridge than the stock one for my bass that had the same string spacing. The height might have changed, but at least it wouldn't be too low. If I didn't manage to get it to work, I could just put the old bridge back on.
The new bridge arrived first, and it took me a while to round up the right tools and courage to get it installed. My biggest concern was putting it on crooked and not being able to ensure good intonation, but I got it lined up correctly on the second try and everything went just fine. It would have gone fine the first time, but one of the holes I drilled was a little problematic because of how the bit walked around on the finish. I actually think that the intonation is better now that it was, even though the strings are a teeny bit higher.
The advantage I had on replacing the laser on the Wii over working on my bass is that there are plenty of tutorial videos on youtube for getting the Wii apart and changing the laser. The one thing I couldn't really understand was what the point was in making me purchase a tri-wing screwdriver. It was pretty easy to find replacement laser modules and tri-wing screwdrivers on Amazon, and the screwdriver was less than $3. It did take a really long time to get here, but that wasn't much of a deterrent either. Is it illegal for me to own a tri-wing screwdriver? Is it some sort of obscure DMCA violation?
I guess the question I really want to ask has to do with our title - "Engineering is about tradeoffs". With the bass bridge, it's a job that not everyone is willing to do, and many times will get contracted out to luthiers because they have the correct skill set for the job. All the hardware on the bass bridge is either Philips head or some size of hex key (and the new bridge even came with the two required hex keys). With the Wii, you needed two different sizes of Philips in addition to the tri-wing screwdriver to get the case open and replace components. In my mind, using a non-standard fastener comes with a significant extra cost, but maybe it's only a few cents per console. But even at a few cents per console, the Wii has sold over 100 million units. What, if anything, was gained by using a non-standard screw to secure the case of the console? Even if piracy was the concern, the most famous modification for the Wii allowing non-approved software to run doesn't require you to take your system apart, as hackers were able to discover a method via software. If the Wii had all standard screws - how many more people would have taken them apart? I'm guessing not many - especially in light of what we were talking about above - since not that many people are fixing their own stuff these days. Imagine what Nintendo could have done if those resources were spent on making a more secure and stable OS (not that the Wii OS is bad, just pointing out that it was hacked) or developing a few more games.
If any of you really do want to take your Wii apart and the screwdriver was stopping you, here's the link for buying one on Amazon.
Monday, August 5, 2013
It's never too soon to talk to your kids about microtransations.
When I started playing Candy Crush on facebook, I was an anomaly. If you play into the stereotypes, it's a cutesy girl's game that looks like you ate too much stuff at Sloan's and daintily regurgitated it into gel-filled ice cube trays. I tried it because it was a lot like Bejeweled Blitz in function, but it's not on a timer so I can use the regular mouse instead of having to play lefty with a stylus to keep up with my right-handed and touchscreen-playing friends. At first, I was the only guy amongst dozens of girls. I presume that this is a microcosm of the rest of the groups playing the game, although perhaps my age plays into this somewhat. Since I can only see scores of people on my friends list, I can only see how the demographic that I'm in changes, but there are now a reasonable number of guys playing the game now as compared to before. I did find it funny a couple of times at work talking to tradespeople where they were evasive about a game that they were playing on their smartphone but I was still able to guess when they were talking about Candy Crush. Part of the reason they even mentioned it was frustration over some of the levels, and since I don't hide my affection for games in conversation, certainly they can feel like I am a person to ask about a thing like that.
The biggest frustration that I have seen is that some of the levels appear to be rather difficult without buying extra moves, but I haven't bought any extra moves yet and don't plan to anytime soon. This would appear to be a great plan on King's part (King is the company that makes Candy Crush) since typically most people tend not to buy stuff in free games. The last statistic that I had heard (and quite a number of years ago, prior to the big surge of facebook games) was that typically less that 10% of the players were responsible for over 90% of the in-game purchases in a free-to-play game. With the space a little more cutthroat and competitive, I doubt we would have access to those figures now, but I now hear about more people buying extra lives and moves in Candy Crush that I used to hear about people buying premium features in free-to-play games before. Sure, there were a few reports of kids racking up wagonloads of Smurfberries a couple of years ago, but we can't count the under-12 crowd as a real demographic for making informed purchases.
So, how are we supposed to feel as gamers about this sort of stuff? Let's look at Candy Crush and see how it stacks up to other games.
Arcade shooters, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Smash TV, fighting games, brawlers, and arcade sports games - $0.25 to play, $0.25 to continue, but buy the home version and never have to worry about quarters again. The arcade versions of Gauntlet and Gauntlet II had 4-player cabinets and ever-decreasing health. Playing through with a group of friends could cost $20 without too much trouble, and was probably a lot more than that. I picked $20 as a reference since you can pick up the console version for PS3 or XBox for that much and it includes dozens of other Midway classics. The X-Men brawler had a 6-player cabinet with a double sized display and could suck down quarters even faster. I don't recall that there was ever a good home version of the X-Men brawler on consoles but apparently you can get it for your iPhone for $2.99 now. (5 friends not included.)
Current generation console action and fighting games - $20 to $60 to play (not counting the original console purchase), add-on characters, maps, and levels cost anywhere from free (extra Portal 2 Co-Op levels) to $5 (MvC3 Jill or Shuma Gorath, each - unless you preordered the premium version) to $9 (DmC add-on Vergil levels unless you pre-ordered the original game) to $20 (Street Fighter X Tekken 12-character pack, regardless of preorder status) to $30 (Borderlands Add-On Pack). I didn't even count costumes - the character costume packs don't affect gameplay, but they can be rather expensive. Separately, there are over $40 in costumes available for Street Fighter IV, although there's a pack on Steam for the PC version that's only $14.99 for all of them.
Candy Crush - Free to play, facebook. Free to play the first batch of levels, iPad version. Can't buy the whole game at all. Five extra moves, $1. (Fine, $0.99, whatever.) Extra lives if you don't want to wait 30 minutes for one to regenerate, $0.99. Three lollipop hammers, $1.99.
Honestly, this would be like if you could buy three potions or keys in Gauntlet for $0.50 - which no one at the time would have done. They would have just slogged away at the enemies like normal. So I am going to just take my time and chip away at the game bit by bit like I'm doing. Maybe I'll call it Candy Chisel now.
The biggest frustration that I have seen is that some of the levels appear to be rather difficult without buying extra moves, but I haven't bought any extra moves yet and don't plan to anytime soon. This would appear to be a great plan on King's part (King is the company that makes Candy Crush) since typically most people tend not to buy stuff in free games. The last statistic that I had heard (and quite a number of years ago, prior to the big surge of facebook games) was that typically less that 10% of the players were responsible for over 90% of the in-game purchases in a free-to-play game. With the space a little more cutthroat and competitive, I doubt we would have access to those figures now, but I now hear about more people buying extra lives and moves in Candy Crush that I used to hear about people buying premium features in free-to-play games before. Sure, there were a few reports of kids racking up wagonloads of Smurfberries a couple of years ago, but we can't count the under-12 crowd as a real demographic for making informed purchases.
So, how are we supposed to feel as gamers about this sort of stuff? Let's look at Candy Crush and see how it stacks up to other games.
Arcade shooters, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Smash TV, fighting games, brawlers, and arcade sports games - $0.25 to play, $0.25 to continue, but buy the home version and never have to worry about quarters again. The arcade versions of Gauntlet and Gauntlet II had 4-player cabinets and ever-decreasing health. Playing through with a group of friends could cost $20 without too much trouble, and was probably a lot more than that. I picked $20 as a reference since you can pick up the console version for PS3 or XBox for that much and it includes dozens of other Midway classics. The X-Men brawler had a 6-player cabinet with a double sized display and could suck down quarters even faster. I don't recall that there was ever a good home version of the X-Men brawler on consoles but apparently you can get it for your iPhone for $2.99 now. (5 friends not included.)
Current generation console action and fighting games - $20 to $60 to play (not counting the original console purchase), add-on characters, maps, and levels cost anywhere from free (extra Portal 2 Co-Op levels) to $5 (MvC3 Jill or Shuma Gorath, each - unless you preordered the premium version) to $9 (DmC add-on Vergil levels unless you pre-ordered the original game) to $20 (Street Fighter X Tekken 12-character pack, regardless of preorder status) to $30 (Borderlands Add-On Pack). I didn't even count costumes - the character costume packs don't affect gameplay, but they can be rather expensive. Separately, there are over $40 in costumes available for Street Fighter IV, although there's a pack on Steam for the PC version that's only $14.99 for all of them.
Candy Crush - Free to play, facebook. Free to play the first batch of levels, iPad version. Can't buy the whole game at all. Five extra moves, $1. (Fine, $0.99, whatever.) Extra lives if you don't want to wait 30 minutes for one to regenerate, $0.99. Three lollipop hammers, $1.99.
Honestly, this would be like if you could buy three potions or keys in Gauntlet for $0.50 - which no one at the time would have done. They would have just slogged away at the enemies like normal. So I am going to just take my time and chip away at the game bit by bit like I'm doing. Maybe I'll call it Candy Chisel now.
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