Name: Evan  

Level: VIP

Re: R18+ Legislation (1 year ago)

Here's the history of EveryonePlays (courtesy of the Wayback machine given it seems to have been edited out):

http://web.archive.org/web/20090324003232/http://everyoneplays.org.au/blog

Re: Know Your Roots: Portal (3 years ago)

It's been a while, but the book's now available as a free LRF download. It's easily converted using Calibre to your eBook format of choice.

http://67.205.70.12/forums/showthread.php?t=37197

Well worth a read, especially if you're not keen on playing through what's now a fairly clunky game.

Re: EveryonePlays: Violent Games and Aggressive Behaviour - Part (3 years ago)

Appreciate that you had to simplify, but this is incorrect:

Significance tests look to reject the null hypothesis which will vary by test. They never confirm an effect, they only set an arbitrary level to reject what we would consider "normal" behaviour (an arbitrary definition that will be different for each test).

It's an arbitrary probabilistic measure, not a confirmation. Given a sufficiently large dataset on which repeated sampling with or without replacement could occur, one could reasonably expect a significance test given a p value of .01 to produce a positive result 1 time out of a hundred, even if no such effect actually existed.

The way I would probably put it is:

When a statistical study talks about significance, it represents an arbitrary comfort level set by the researcher that the thing they're looking for, mathematically speaking, more likely than not exists. While it can't ever confirm that the effect is real, it can give the researcher confidence that what they're seeing isn't happening by chance.

Otherwise, good work given the level of effort involved in writing something like this up!

Re: The Palcast - 23/01/10 (3 years ago)

Heh - Ultima V had some of the worst balancing issues ever. The number of combatants you'd face scaled with your party size. So, if you wanted an easy walk through the final dungeon, you just made sure not to recruit anyone. Do it right and you'd be significantly overpowered compared to every other creature in the game and yet only ever face one or two enemies per battle.

Far better than Ultima IV on the Apple where they wouldn't let you save in the final dungeon ...

Re: The Palcast - 23/01/10 (3 years ago)

There's a few - there's also Quest for Glory, and a number of games in the Wizardry series did as well. So did Ultima Ultima VI, for example, also let you import your characters from Ultima V. I'm pretty sure The Bard's Tale had an import function as well.

It fell out of favour mainly for balancing issues; while the characters could come across, they couldn't be as powerful as they were in the previous games. And, given the budgets of the time, they simply didn't have the ability to track your previous decisions like Mass Effect 2 does.

Re: Life bans for pirates (3 years ago)

Well, technically it shows that games, like everything else, have a price elasticity curve where dropping the price increases the number of sales. Other indie developers would do well to take note; for anything other than a triple-A game with significant drawing power (such as Halo or Call of Duty 4), they're probably better off going with a fashion retailing price model where prices are fairly rapidly discounted on a relatively set schedule.

The games market is a prime candidate for discriminatory pricing; as the World of Goo has pretty clearly shown, there's a lot of people out there who are very price sensitive. There are also quite a few people out there who "have" to play the game on release. The best pricing model is one that takes advantage of that and discounts heavily over a significant enough time to week out everyone who simply can't wait any longer to play the game.

Re: The PALGN Podcast, Episode 67 (3 years ago)

Sorry Jeremy, I'll have to disagree with you - there's plenty of good, interesting, and memorable music out there, you just haven't been aware of it until now. Many of the Ultimas, Chrono Trigger, Shadow of the Colossus, Leisure Suit Larry, Wing Commander, the Metal Gear Solid series, Mega Man II, many of the Zeldas, and so on ...

Also, way too much silence elimination and / or attack (and probably not enough release) on the compression, guys - it feels like you're all shouting at each other! I feel tired after listening to it!

Re: Cameras [56k unfriendly] (3 years ago)

I'm impressed that the Kookaburra hung around that close when you were shooting with a camera phone!

Re: Cameras [56k unfriendly] (3 years ago)

It's a little known fact, but dogs actually have their own deployable off-gravity generator (DOGG). The thing is though, they really want to keep it under wraps and so use it very sparingly and, even then, only for a few seconds at a time.

Cameras, for some unknown reason, seem to involuntarily trigger the activation of their DOGG, which is probably why you've seen so many hoverdogs.

And now you know.

BTW, latest photos are up in the Eminence article.

Re: RECANCELLED - 21/11 Sydney Meat!!! - SIN CAN LAUGH AGAIN! (3 years ago)

At home now, busily copying files.

Re: Cameras [56k unfriendly] (3 years ago)

SLR cameras use a mirror / crystal system to reflect the light coming through the lens through the viewfinder. So, what you see through the viewfinder is exactly what you'll see when you take the photo. When you press the shutter release button, the mirror flips up, the shutter slides across to expose on the sensor, and you get a photo.

With your typical P&S, the sensor remains 'live' the entire time, taking the image from the lens and displaying it on the LCD on the back.

Generally speaking, SLRs have far larger sensors than P&S cameras and are far more responsive. Here's a comparison of their relative sizes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sensor_sizes_overlaid_inside.svg

The bigger the sensor, the more 'information' per pixel and, generally speaking, the better the end result. More pixels isn't necessarily a good thing. That's also why you can't take photos in the dark - the sensor is small, limiting the maximum amount of light that can fall on it.

SLRs are also a lot heavier, a lot more expensive, and take a much deeper understanding of how they work at a technical level to get the most out of them. They tend to be quite inconvenient compared to a standard P&S.

Your camera's probably blurry when you zoom fully in because it's using a small sensor with (relatively) poor glass in the lens. That's just the reality of most P&S cameras; they're not very good cameras. As a photographer, you get what you pay for.

Ob personal photos:

Re: Any Tweeters? (4 years ago)

You should check out TweetDeck - you can segregate him to his own feed and free up the clutter ...

Re: Any Tweeters? (4 years ago)

Yup ...

Re: The PALGN Podcast, Episode 53 (4 years ago)

Glad to see it's back. :)

Looking forward to seeing where it'll go from here!

Re: Perception of Time II (4 years ago)

Yeah, it happens. Yeah, it gets worse. A week to me feels like a day used to. And, I still remember how long an afternoon felt when I was a kid.

On the bright side, I'm a whole order of magnitude more productive than I used to be, and that's in a good sense - I get a lot more meaning out of my life, even if I'm exhausted most of the time.

Re: Readers Questions for PALGN Staff (4 years ago)

Unfortunately, the podcast is on indefinite hiatus at the moment. A bunch of things have happened over the last few months that have pretty much killed the time we had available to get it done. In retrospect, it's almost been like an episode of Days of Our Lives - there's been new lives, deaths, new businesses, graduations, separations, family re-unions, and heaps of other stuff.

With absolutely no hyperbole, when I look back I'm actually blown away at how much has happened over the last few months!

We recorded a 'final' episode, but it got so maudlin that when we listened to it afterwards, we decided that it just sounded too sad to dump on people so close to Christmas.

It may be back at some stage, but there's no concrete plans at the moment. I know there's still strong interest in keeping it going, but we need to work out a new approach.

Re: Readers Questions for PALGN Staff (4 years ago)

Unfortunately not - our time's been significantly eaten up with some other stuff that should start appearing soon.

Re: eGames 08 Expo Preview (4 years ago)

Saw the photos Exc355um, as well as your name against the petition. Good stuff.

Re: eGames 08: Day One Report (4 years ago)

@Shadow Wave: Unfortunately not - the signatures are going as part of a submission to the Attorneys General once they call for public consultation later this year. As such, physical evidence (along with some degree of contact details to validate identity) is extremely important. Online surveys don't allow for that physicality or perceived legitimacy.

However, all's not lost; we're going to be making some announcements fairly soon about this, among other things. Watch this space.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Dark (4 years ago)

The PALGN Podcast, Episode 51 (4 years ago)

Re: The PALGN Podcast, Episode 50 (4 years ago)

Yeah, it's nice when I'm not arguing on my own in front of a raving crowd with pitchforks ... ;)

1 hour is a bit longer than we aim for, but we try to average at around 45 minutes. Unfortunately, that also means that sometimes we're as short as 30.

Re: Readers Questions for PALGN Staff (4 years ago)

On that note ...

http://palgn.com.au/article.php?id=13035

Re: PALGN at eGames (4 years ago)

No, it's the one in Melbourne in roughly two weeks ...

PALGN at eGames (4 years ago)

Re: I need $20 000, Anyone know any options here? (4 years ago)

HECS doesn't cover the course? If it does, HECS and a bank / credit union loan for the car is probably your best bet. You'll need some form of a job to cover the loan repayments though.

Otherwise, HECS + a bicycle and bus / train pass?

The PALGN Podcast, Episode 50 (4 years ago)

Re: The PALGN Podcast, Episode 49 (4 years ago)

Sorry for the late responses - have been horrendously sick for the last week.

@fly: I think you're on the same side as Daniel. :)

My argument is that while a gaming culture exists by definition, it's not a creative culture, it's purely a consumptive culture. Developers keep drawing from other fields, but no-one else is really drawing from games. Not in any substantive sense, anyway. There are plenty of counter-examples that support this; graphic novels, movies, literature, even performance art. All of these influence other 'cultures' and developments. Games don't.

It's a very self-absorbed culture.

@AllSchoolGamer: Interesting idea - in today's consumerist society, maybe influence in popular culture is best measured by commercial investment. It's a sad thought, but it's an interesting one. On the other hand, maybe it's always been that way; Shakespear was popularist at the time, as crazy as that may sound. His plays were written to make money, not be influential, and yet look at where he's at now ...

@Macka: Jeremy's been preoccupied elsewhere for the last few weeks - if he ever gets the chance, I'm sure he'll be back. :)

Thanks for the feedback; I'm actually thinking we'll do one along those lines sometime over the next month. Just need to figure out which franchise to do, now ...

I know exactly what you mean about commenting (obviously!); I'm shocking at commenting about other people's podcasts. I think I've only ever managed to do it once, despite listening to many regularly and feeling pretty strongly about what they say. That's also why we appreciate the comments so much - we know how hard it can be to comment.

Re: Know Your Roots: HHGTTG (4 years ago)

@Bunnie: If you like the books, give it a go with the walkthrough - a significant portion was written by Douglas Adams himself, so if you *don't* play it, you're missing on something else he created in The Guide's universe. :)

@Aftershock: How'd it go? Tried it yet? :)

@3mt: Weeeelll, I guess it's a ripoff of Colossal Cave if you assume BioShock is too ... ;)

@Sin Ogaris: I know exactly what you mean - that's how I learned to type! My dad and I used to play all the old Infocom and Sierra games together ...

Know Your Roots: HHGTTG (4 years ago)