T w e n t y S i d e d
This week I talk about the odd anxiety that arises from time-based services like MMO games, long distance telephone, and prostitutes.
(Okay, I have no idea on the prostitutes one.)
Stolen Pixels #126: To the Bat-Shrink!
Batman gets some much-needed therapy.
Yes, I went after the low-hanging fruit with this one. Sue me.
Heroes of Champions Online
Um. So…
Today’s lack of substantive posting is brought to you by Champions Online. I have about a dozen posts in the queue. (In this context “The Queue” is located between my ears.) But if I don’t type them I can’t post them. I think next we’ll be talking about FUEL.
In the meantime, here are a few snapshots of other heroes I’ve spotted in the game:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Heroes of Champions Online”
The Path: Rose
Her bio from the website:
Rose is mature for her age. But there is a certain air of innocence about her that is charming and disconcerting at the same time. Barely a teenager -Rose is eleven-, she is discovering the world around her with fresh eyes. And all is beautiful! The wind in the trees, the birds in the air, the flowers along the path. Rose is taking it in voraciously. So much so that she will defend even nature’s smallest creatures against anyone who might wish them harm. But who will protect sweet Rose herself, when she is lured off the path? With a promise of unearthly bliss, of light in abundance where no sun will ever shine? You’re just a little girl, Rose! Just a fragile little girl…
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| Hey. A bathtub. In the middle of the woods. This is the most labor-intensive form of littering I’ve ever seen. |
Rose has her encounter at a small lake. She finds a boat, gets in, and drifts along without visible means of propulsion. Her boat passes between two trees, and an apparition floats down from above. It’s a man, wreathed in clouds. He hovers above her boat. She flies up to meet him. Fade to black.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Path: Rose”
Stolen Pixels #125: Sith in the House
We have quite a few running series in Stolen Pixels now. Breen, Travis, “Stock photo PR people”. Some people prefer some series over others (and some people don’t like the running series at all) but I like this variety. Of course, it’s nothing compared to some people, but if I had enough imagination to write seven strips a week I wouldn’t be working on Stolen Pixels at all. I’d be too busy ruling the lot of you from my flying doom fortress high above the surface of the earth.
From the feedback I’m getting, it seems like Breen is the favorite right now.
Super Cache
I’m using a WordPress plugin called “super cache”. Every few months I’ll get a link from a big site and the resulting crush of traffic that will flatten the site. Instead of me getting new readers, everyone – existing readers and visitors – is left out. Everyone loses. I eventually determined that it was (probably) a CPU problem, not a bandwidth one. (I can post some huge image that will increase my bandwidth usage for the day by a factor of three with no ill effects. But triple traffic can bring the cite to a crawl.) PHP pages like the one you’re reading now are generated on the fly. It’s cool like that. Except, it can take time to produce. WordPress eats a good bit of CPU, and then my dice rollers and sidebar shuffler add to that.
Super Cache will pre-generate all pages for the site. Since installing it, I’ve absorbed a few decent hits from larger sites without going down. It works. Now, if you leave a comment anywhere on the site you’ll be exempt from Super Cache because your page must be generated: Note how the comments form remembers your name and such. In order to have it do that, the page you’re viewing must be generated just for you.
But for everyone who hasn’t commented, they all view a single common page. Problem: My theme selector. Whoever views a page first will set the page for everyone else. If they’re using the evil theme, then all non-commenting visitors will see the page in black for a while. This explains why I often see comments from people:
Hey, your theme switcher isn’t working.
EDIT: Oops. Looks like it’s working now.
Of course, it’s “working” because they left a comment.
Now, I can tun off super cache and have things work right. I normally don’t need it. But if I get hit, I do need it. And usually I don’t know about the problem until I’m already locked out by the mob and I can’t get in to turn it on. Still, it seems to make more sense to design the site to work properly in most cases, instead of designing it to malfunction all the time so that it can stay up in a rush. Hmm. Anyway, that’s why things are sometimes wonky, in case you’ve ever wondered.
Aside: Ever notice how WordPress blogs always say “Twenty Sided is proudly powered by WordPress” or “World of Wombats is proudly powered by WordPress”, etc. It makes it seem like WordPress doesn’t have any standards. It would be much better if it could say, “World of White Supremacy is shamefully and begrudgingly powered by WordPress”.
The Path: Ruby
Her bio from the website:
The other girls call her “goth”… It’s one way of killing people: stereotyping them, putting them in a box and throwing it away. But there’s more to Ruby than meets the eye. A young lady by now, 15 years of age. Life has opened up to her as a rotting flower of corruption. She can see through it all but remains an enigma herself. When asked about her leg brace, Ruby says she’s in pain. But doesn’t specify where it hurts. Ruby does not long for death. She takes a perverse pleasure in observing the extreme decay of adult society. But what will happen when she ceases to be a witness and becomes a participant instead?
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Some of the girls – Ginger in Particular – have tales that defy logical explanation and challenge the player to dig deep for meaning. Others can be explained just fine as literal stories, leaving the player to wonder if they’re supposed to do so. Ruby is the latter kind.
Ruby wanders around the woods making sardonic or nihilistic observations until she comes to the abandoned playground. As she arrives, we see a cutscene of a young guy pulling… something. Something bodybag-esque.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Path: Ruby”
From The Archives:
Overused Words in Game Titles
I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.
Crash Dot Com
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
PC Gaming Golden Age
It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
A Lack of Vision and Leadership
People fault EA for being greedy, but their real sin is just how terrible they are at it.
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
The Best of 2014
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2014.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
What is this silly word, why did some people get so irritated by it, and why did it fall out of use?