Just reading through a paper on game variants, and it reminded me of the many good times I had with my bro playing Halo 2. Particularly good memories: (1) finding the warthog with the plasma, and rocking out people for an entire game, or running them over with vehicles; (2) rocketball — a team oddball game where everyone had rocket launchers. Hahahhaa
Good times
Angus Reid responds to my request for a Spolumbo's recommendation.
This was so cool. He got back to me in less than 15 minutes! Unbelievably cool!
There is something really funny about being a(n apparent) snorer. On the one hand, it defines you, and is something intrinsically linked to who you are… yet, it is something you cannot really experience first hand. I liken it to the fact that, except under the most extreme circumstances, a person will never lay his own bare eyes on his back or his neck — our experiences of these body parts are always second-hand.
In my estimation, this is what makes being a(n apparent) snorer so frustrating. People complain about the racket one makes, and how disruptive it is, yet, upon waking, all one experiences is the quiet solitude of morning-time. There is no evidence of this so-called “beast” that, moments ago, was terrorizing the sonic airspace. It actually kind of feels like everyone else in the world is in on a conspiracy to tease and make fun — so much so that one feels unduly persecuted.
One recent episode at the 24hr volleyball tournament brought this to the fore:
K: “Damn, who was snoring it up?”
Me: “Dude, it was you. And J (my bro).”
B: “Actually, it was all three of you idiots.”
It is only after overwhelming evidence is presented that this possibility, however unlikely, could be the case. I have been given some evidence (a tape recording), but the problem is that it’s hard to judge how loud it really is. Apparently, I am a monster, but honestly, I find this really difficult to believe, because I’ve never experienced it first-hand. Until I’m given solid, undeniable evidence, I remain a skeptic.
Hey, I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in hearsay.
Still, to think that I have a snoring beast within… gotta love it.
I have been working on a theory for a while, trying to figure out why hockey-mad markets like Toronto and Vancouver have had such little success in the playoffs, and in particular, why neither team has won the ultimate prize for so long. In contrast, we’ve seen teams in non-traditional hockey markets (e.g. Anaheim, Carolina, and Tampa Bay) win the Stanley Cup in recent years. I’m not going to do any sort of deep analysis with evidence here, but instead, just toss out a theory. Roughly, the question I’ve been pondering is: why is that Canadian teams seem to be middling teams in general?
Let’s assume that on balance, teams are equally lucky: a bounce here, and a bounce there all even out in the long run.
Further, let’s assume that GMs are equally skilled in picking players (on average) during the draft. That is, let’s assume that for the first sixty or so picks (first two rounds), most GMs will have picked the same players in the same order.
The latter assumption, as most Canuck fans will tell you, is absurd: the Canucks have been simply awful in the draft for many years, even with their middling picks, and that has hurt them dearly in the long run.
It is, however, through the draft, that generally, great teams are made (perhaps a testable claim). And it is here that I think we can find the source of problems for Canadian teams—let’s call these the hockey mad markets (HMMs) more generally.My contention is that in HMMs, the belief is that the team is “almost there” almost every year—that is, they only need an extra piece or two to “make it to the top” during the playoffs. The GM feels pressured to make a trade near the trade deadline: often, these will involve trading away prospects or draft picks in order to acquire older veterans (generally not on long term deals). In almost every case (remember than only one team can win the Cup), these don’t work out; as a consequence, it leaves the team poorer in subsequent years: the older veteran player that was acquired generally walks, and the HMM team has now lost one or more prospects/draft picks for the coming years.
I suspect that the GM feels pressured on a lot of different fronts: from the fans, and from ownership. Ownership is probably (to some extent) swayed by public opinion—even more so, probably, when ownership /lives/ in said market. This is probably more so the case in HMMs than in other markets. Thus, enough “calling for the GM’s head” will actually result in ownership firing the GM. The public in HMMs get it both ways: if the GM of middling HMM team doesn’t make the trade, then the GM didn’t try hard enough; if the GM of a middling HMM makes the trade, but does poorly in the playoffs, then the GM picked up the wrong veterans. In either case, making the trade for the playoffs (i.e. near the trade deadline) is almost always a losing proposition—it only works out for one team in the short term (only one wins the cup), and in the long term, only helps the teams that traded for prospects and draft picks. But, in a HMM market, you understand why the GM’s hands are tied: you better do something if you’re close, and if you’re not close, you better do something so that you are close—for that year.
HMM teams are often left in subsequent years with a middling regular-season result, meaning that they get average-level picks in the draft—many of which would have been traded away in previous years. This means that HMM teams get weaker and weaker over time. I think this is what has happened with the Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs—draft picks for many years have been traded away, and you’re left with a bunch of older guys who just can’t get the job done.In contrast, a regular team in a non-HMM can go about its business, and allow the regular rules of the NHL draft to play itself out (all the while benefiting from trading its older veterans for even more draft picks or prospects). This means that such teams can go through a regular up-down cycle: if the team does poorly one season, it gets a high draft pick the next year as “compensation”; conversely, if it does well one season, it doesn’t need as good a draft pick in the next season. Non-HMM teams can do this because the public eye isn’t as focused on the team and its performance on a day-to-day basis, and so there is likely not the same kind of pressure on the GM to make ridiculous trades that hamper the team in the short-term.
This has interesting consequences in the way that we think about how markets work. In most businesses, if the business is making stupid decisions (e.g. imagine walking into Denny’s, and all the prices are +$10), you simply ignore them. Generally, this will make the company reverse its decision and/or it will go out of business entirely. Yet in an HMM, fans will continue to pay for the product, even if the product sucks (case in point: Toronto Maple Leafs).
I think it is for these reasons that teams like Tampa Bay, Carolina, Anaheim, Chicago, and Pittsburgh have won the cup in recent years: they were essentially allowed to stink it up for a few years, and therefore had some outstanding drafts. Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington are also great examples where a team has been allowed to reload its roster because of a few years of really stinking it up.In contrast, the Canadian teams like Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal—all of these teams are expected to do well every year, and so the pressure makes the GM make decisions for hopeful short-term gain (i.e. a gamble), which ends up tying their hands in the long term.
The salary cap also brings in interesting implications to the table. In the past, I think these bad decisions in HMMs could have been overcome by spending more money: you buy your way out of trouble by simply spending more. With the salary cap, it really keeps the GM’s hands tied: he can’t buy his way out of difficulty any more; instead, he needs to ride it out. I suspect this was what was/is going on in Calgary. One way to “buy” yourself out of this difficulty is investing heavily on your scouting. With more money put into scouting, you can actually figure out which prospects are actually better. The idea then is to unbalance the second assumption I made earlier about every GM having roughly the same skill/luck when it comes to picking prospects at the draft. The problem is that this plan generally falls on deaf ears: both for the fans, and probably for ownership (who are likely loathe to spend money where it doesn’t have more immediate, definite payback). There are two “recent” exceptions to my theory, though I think both actually support my theory. Vancouver, after the glory years of the West Coast Express, decided to reload with a brand new GM in Mike Gillis. This guy, I think, really changed the game for the Vancouver Canucks, and the way in which I think about how hockey works. I think he put a long-term plan in place, one that began and ended with two notions: (1) you need to build from the draft; (2) the ownership needs to listen to the GM, and not the fans (which, by the way, is short for fanatic, which is probably someone you don’t want to be making business plans for you). Gillis has generally steadfastly refused to make trades: I think this is because a trade, if you are a “buyer”, generally means that you will lose draft picks. I note that he has often traded prospects that weren’t looking that hot, but rarely given up a draft pick. He really seems to have the ear of ownership, which means that he gets to call the shots, but most importantly, to set the expectations for ownership: he gets to tell them that they will have a middling season, or an outstanding season—basically, that the Canucks needed to do a full upswing, right from the bottom.That all said, Gillis started with a pretty decent set of players (and put in place a bunch of other programs, but that’s beside the point for now), which helps. It is not like he started with essentially nothing.
In Edmonton, the team has been on a downturn for several years. They are at rock bottom right now, but as with all things, they can’t stay down there forever—particularly with the talent pool that they have in place. I think it is /because/ they have been allowed to be at rock bottom, this has allowed the team to rebuild from the draft, and they have had some outstanding picks. In a few years, they will be stocked with some outstanding talent. It seems likely that some of Gillis’ philosophy got passed to Tambellini.
The problem with middling HMM teams is that they will stay middling unless something comes in to upset the balance altogether. Burke can’t do anything in Toronto because his hands are tied: he has no draft picks, and no real prospects. These are because of some bad decisions in the past (both by him and previous management). This, I suspect, is why he asked for time. You can’t make anything happen without leverage. Lateral trades (what I think we saw yesterday) generally won’t make much of a difference. Right now, he’s just got to wait things out (i.e. until he starts getting draft picks again), and hope for the best (maybe the team just surprises everyone).I doubt much of this is revelation to most hockey fans—just something I needed to get off my chest. I doubt it is much of my idea, either. I suspect it is some of the wisdom of Mike Gillis that I’m just regurgitating. Right now, I’m totally drinking the cool-aid, and loving it.
I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on First Person Shooter games, and it has filled me with a strong sense of nostalgia. After all, I essentially grew up playing with these games. They were the games I enjoyed the most, and when multi-player finally became viable, they became the reason I was online. All told, I’ve been playing these for the better part of two decades now. That’s a long, long time.
Whenever I think about these games, it fills me with a sense of fondness, but also sadness. I had a blast playing these games, and I’m sure that picking them up today would be essentially as fun as it was back in the day. The problem is that the community surrounding each of these games is (for all intents and purposes) no longer around. Pretty much everyone that would have played back in the day has moved on to the newest, shiniest FPS—the only people left are the super hardcore guys (usually, not too fun to play with).
As a meta-commentary, this really seems like a shame to me. I feel like the video game industry often submarines video games based on the fact that the game is old, or when another game happens to be released. What’s really silly about this is that: (a) how fun the original game was hasn’t changed, and what’s worse, (b) sometimes, the new game really isn’t any better—particularly in terms of how fun it is. I marvel that a year or two after the release of a video game, you might find it in the bargain bin for a mere $5.99 (or less!). This seems ridiculous to me, given the number of person-hours that went into just the labour of putting together the game. It’s not like those person-hours that have already been invested disappear with time, you know?
As a tribute to the FPS games that I grew up with and loved, and to the people that put their efforts into making them, I thought I’d do a quick write-up about them.
Before Time: Maze-War
I actually got a chance to play a game called Maze-War at the University of Saskatchewan during one of their open houses when I was an elementary school kid. I don’t remember the year, nor what the purpose of the open house was, but I do remember having an absolute hoot, and never forgetting about it. We played on a Mac-based network, and at the time, it seemed unbelievable to be playing /with/ someone else in this virtual environment—everyone with a different view! I didn’t imagine that it would take another half dozen years or so before that technology would make it into our homes.
Wolfenstein 3-D
This was a game that I enjoyed, but frankly, didn’t play a lot of. I actually played the sequel, I think, “Spear of Destiny,” but the storyline was (and continues to be) completely lost on me. I remember thinking it was weird to imagine finding complete roasted chickens in a prison (or whever the character was), but then again, there was a lot of weird stuff in video games back then.
Doom
When I think back on this game, I remember playing this during my early to late high school days. I had a boatload of epic memories related to this game. I remember being absolutely terrified playing this game with the lights out and/or with the headset on. Every time one of those growls would come, I would literally jump in my seat, crapping my pants. I also remember spending lots and lots of time trying to get this game to work with my Gravis UltraSound soundcard (for some reason, we had one of these rather than far more common SoundBlaster 16).
This game came about right around the time that I was getting onto BBSs with some significant regularity (probably every day). I remember with fondness the day I got that 14.4k modem (a rockin’ upgrade from the 2400 baud modem)—ahhh… sweet video game downloads! I also got a Gravis Gamepad at some point, and using that on this game was a revelation, too.
The modem was pretty important, though. It meant that we’d be able to finally try to connect DooM up over modem and multiplayer for the first time! And so began some of the best times of my life. I remember setting this game up over modem (and failing) many many times. When the connection worked, it was like an absolute dream, and soooo much fun. I think in those early days, we mostly played co-op, though there were some times (in the later years of high school) where we would go in and play some deathmatch. We deathmatched plenty of hours away in grades 11 and 12, and these games got a real boost when we upgraded our modem to 28.8k and finally to 56k.
The increased reliability of the connection was a huge boon to the game, as it was very high speed, but could hiccup on anything from a slight hiss on the phoneline, or if someone called in, and the call-waiting went “boop.” In later years, the modem would fight through that and retain the connection. In the earlier days, it would give up at some point, and you’d end up with a phone call that would finally make it through (for the remote party) on the eighth or so ring.
When we moved to Vancouver, we also got an upgrade on the old 80386 machine, and we secured a Pentium-75 machine. This made DooM just FLY. The thing was that before I’d gotten the P75, I only knew the choppy framerates of my old 80386, so when the P75 came, I was DOMINATING out there. I spent a good amount of money and time learning about networks and stuff (probably off of CompuServe) to get the good times rolling at home. I remember buying a direct serial cable that would allow my brother and me to play at home over an ad hoc LAN. We ended up later buying a couple of network cards (old school coax) that would let us connect the machines together, too.
Somewhere in there, someone also built a tool that would combine the modem
connection and your local “network” (either running over the serial cable or over the network cards, I can’t remember) into a single game. My brother, Warren, and I spent a lot of hours playing in this environment. Effectively, those were my high school years. Daytime, I was at school, thinking about Doom. At night, E1M1 of Doom 2 was like my second home.
Quake & QuakeWorld
Quake ran like a dog on my P75, but it was still playable. I remember it being a very dirty looking game, and asking my friend what the big deal was about the whole “3D thing” (no one really ever gave me points for being a visionary). Things didn’t really click until I tried the online multiplayer deathmatch.
My memories of my first online Quake game are a bit mixed: it was on DM4—I remember the lava (and sliding into it) very, very vividly. I remember it being unbelievably fast—people zipping around completely unpredictably, and being very exciting. That said, I imagine it probably also ran like a slideshow—we had a modem-based connection, and so ping times were probably in the 400ms level, and my machine was a dog to start with. The first kill was probably a real thrill, but I don’t remember it.
I got a lot better at this game. The subculture of HPB (high ping bastards) and LPB (low ping bastards) was in full effect, and any time I managed to find a game with sub-300ms ping, I would stay on for as long as possible. I remember playing with tools like QSpy (later GameSpy) to connect, and visiting sites like Blues News and Redwood’s Quake News, and [Someone's] Shuga Shack (or something to that effect) on a daily basis. I became very good at dealing with the lag, and anticipating movements really well (both my own, and the enemy). I remember when rocket jumping became hip, and also playing epic deathmatch games with my friends. We had some epic games.
QuakeWorld was one of the first real hype machines I got on. It was a build with much-touted anti-lag technology built in. I remember vividly writing a phrase on my blog at the time: “apparently, HPBs will feel like they’re LPBs, and LPBs will feel like they’re connected on a LAN!” QuakeWorld was indeed an improvement, though not as much as many people would have liked. The prediction technology that was built in also caused some serious consternation in the community, but all of this stuff went away over time as more and more people jumped on the broadband bandwagon.
Some other things that happened during this time included some maps that I built, along with some mods that I built in QuakeC that (kind of) hit the big time in the Quake community. VictimBot was a bot that would run around the map in a white shirt yelling for help; qcCannon was a placeable turret that would shoot rockets (very very cool).
Quake was my entertainment through my undergraduate SFU years.
Interludes: Myth II, Thief
Somewhere toward the end of my time at SFU, I came across two games that happened to be in the bargain bin. Myth II is an awesome (and I mean ROCKING) tactical real-time strategy game that I love to this day. In comparison to the fluidity that many of the current games have (in terms of the interface), it is somewhat frustrating to go back to, but it entertained my brother and me endlessly. There were some things about the games that were just hilarious: your guys wouldn’t fight properly if they were facing the wrong way, for example, which caused endless numbers of deaths. Perhaps more hilarious was that sometimes, the dwarves (who tossed molotov cocktails) would sometimes toss duds that wouldn’t explode. For some reason, some of these dwarves would toss endless numbers of these duds, and so you’d leave a whole pile of them on the ground as you chased some other enemy down. Finally, if you happened to toss one that actually exploded, you might run into that explosion, or it might set off a chain reacti
on on all the other molotov cocktails and kill off the entire team. I can’t remember the number of times my brother and I laughed our heads off whenever that happened.
Thief was an absolute revelation. Whereas Quake and DooM were all about running around with speed, and relied a lot on reaction time, Thief was a tense, slow-paced game that relied more on wits, timing, and recognition of patterns. The game was the first I played that made extensive use of shadows and sound, and creeping around slowly was entirely counter-intuitive for me. I remember coming out of these gaming sessions feeling my neck completely tensed up. Great times.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
I returned to more traditional FPS roots when Return to Castle Wolfenstien’s demo came out. I played that one non-stop. the_beach was a brand new type of game for me: class-based system with different roles (Soldier, Lt, Medic, Engineer) was totally awesome. Running around as an engineer, planting dynamite; running upstairs as a medic healing myself or my teammates; running out of the spawn bunker, or getting camped; back capping the bunker spawn to make the allies spawn from the beach again; running out to the beach as an Axis to pot the Allies from behind; creeping through the tunnel downstairs, or scrambling upstairs to transmit the docs before the caught us! Oh man, that was great times.
The thing about the demo was that they put such a great map up for free that there almost seemed no need to purchase the actual game. I played that map for at least a half year to a year. I ultimately purchased a couple of copies of RtCW, but don’t remember much about it. I vaguely remember playing a snow-based map that had gondola, and running through a castle that happened to have transmission equipment inside… but not much else.
This is one game that I really felt didn’t get its due. It was a blast, but I didn’t play it to saturation.
Enemy Territory
The reason why RtCW got short shrift was that Enemy Territory got released. Enemy Territory was RtCW on steroids… excellent steroids. It featured the same sort of feel from RtCW, but an enhanced class system where you played a campaign of three-four maps. Over this campaign, you build up the attributes on each of the classes for enhanced capabilities. So, for example, if you were a medic, maybe you could gain the ability to heal more guys, or regain your “healing abilities” faster.
The new class that was introduced was Covert Ops, which let you disguise yourself with clothing from a dead enemy. What was hilarious was seeing all these guys wearing nothing but boxers and boots, and knowing that there was a covert op on the loose.
I played the Medic most of the time, as I really enjoyed the ability to heal fallen teammates, bringing back an entire squad from death to full attacking capacity in a few short seconds. I also really enjoyed playing Engineer, planting mines all over the place to trap enemies as they snooped up to try to get us. Other things I enjoyed doing included playing with the mortar guys, getting good placements and kills, as well as calling in good mortar strikes. The fun thing about this game was outplaying someone, or outsmarting them when you both know each other was there.
This was a game I really enjoyed through and through. I think I played this game through my entire MSc, and thoroughly enjoyed the class system, and all the mods. I remember a gold bars mod that was excellent, too. The map I remember the most right now was the Gold map, where you escorted a truck with gold around the map.
Of interest from that game, I was absolutely fascinated with the autochat system, which would allow you to issue voice communications using a menu system. Originally, this seemed overly clunky, but over time, it became second nature, and you never ended up having to consult the menu—it became muscle memory. ”Hello!” or “Bye!” or “Need a medic!” or “You’re welcome!” or “Yes!” or “No!”—I can still do these today.
I remember this game being as complete a game as there ever could be. Frankly, I still to this day have no idea why they gave it away for free. It seemed to have all the elements of a good game: multiple roles, multiple goals, etc., etc.
Halo & Halo 2
Somewhere along the way, Halo came along. This was, without a doubt, a less refined game in just about every way compared to PC games of the same generation—particularly FPS games. I think what made this game what it was for me was the ability to play with my brother on a split-screen. We played a lot of hours on this game, and really enjoyed it.
In many ways, it was like a “kid” FPS—the game was slower, and you seemed to float around as you moved. I still have this feeling whenever I break out one of the Halo games. Jumping feels like a moon jump.
What’s interesting is that we played many years of this game (probably something like four or five years), but I don’t really have many specific memories of it. I do have good memories playing with my brother, but the game itself wasn’t really something to write home about. It was unquestionably a pretty game, and I suppose the saving grace was that I didn’t have to upgrade my Xbox just to play this game (whereas to keep up with the latest generation FPSs, I would have needed to continue to upgrade my PC).
Left 4 Dead
My friend mentioned this game one time, then I watched a gameplay video on youtube, I was absolutely hooked on the idea—kind of a horror/survival game where people actually had to work together. This is a game that is supremely well thought out, and very nicely balanced. I really enjoyed two aspects of this game: (1) the extent to which it forced an element of team-play—in most of the games I’d played in the past, there was a sort of nominal teamplay element, but this one actually required it for any sort of meaningful level of success; (2) being the bad guys! The bad guys in this game were absolutely awesome! I loved the variety, the element of surprise, and the feeling that you just ruined someone’s day. I suppose maybe that last thing doesn’t make me look like that good of a guy, but -hey-, that’s the way it went.
Modern Warfare 2
This is the most recent game I got hooked on. It’s gritty, and a pretty good time. To me, it’s a real shame that Call of Duty: Black Ops has come out and taken over the scene. I really feel that it is an inferior game.