Face Me And Scream

Written by: Michael Enger

Man, am I tired of looking at this…The MMO market has exploded since Ultima Online first paved the way for commercially-feasible persistent worlds. From the simpler days where text-based MUDs were the closest you could get to an online rpg, we have now moved on to complicated internet societies with their own self-reliant economies and where the digital avatars have become true representatives of the personalities that drive them. Whereas Second Life allows people to live out their fantasies online and Eve Online allows for complete control of your interstellar empire, it is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, with its seemingly tired setting, that is leading the way and setting an example for all MMO games to follow.

The World of Warcraft was released in 2004, straight into the hands of the screaming crowd of Warcraft fans. Even I was eager to venture into Azeroth and the collectors edition, bought when the game was only a few days old, still sits on my shelf like a giant amongst ants, clearly dwarfing the other games in my collection. I remember playing for hours on end with a friend, whether it be at home or sitting in a café with my laptop, slowly but surely working myself towards the coveted 60th level. I never made it, though. Now, three years later, my highest character is only level 30, far away from the level cap (which has been raised to 70). The reason for this is that my interest in the game dissipated as the hours I poured into the game increased and I slowly but surely began to realize that the rewards was not worth the endeavor.

Click to enlargeI still love this effect!In conventional games, like Doom³, you are driven through a storyline which gives you a reason to divert many hours of your precious life on precisely that game. A lot of time is spent in purely moving forward in the game, but you are tested every step of the way. Hordes of monsters are trying to kill you and it is only by combining quick reflexes, finger dexterity and heaps of luck that you get to the end of the game and can proudly say that you stared Satan in the face and then shot him. World of Warcraft works a little differently in the sense that it does not reward your skill as a player, it simply rewards the amount of time you are willing to waste on the monotonous motions needed to play the game. It doesn’t force you to react quickly, solve puzzles or even strategize your movements, it simply requires that you are willing to do the same thing for hours on end for diminishing amounts of experience points.

Now, I am still a fan of World of Warcraft; I play it now and then with some friends of mine, but the concept of the massive task that getting to level 70 is has killed any aspiration to ever complete it. Other games, if you can surpass the insane amount of force against you, reward your time and effort with story progression and the feeling of self-satisfaction that you get from completing a difficult task, whereas World of Warcraft’s only means of keeping you playing is the promise of more skills/spells and harder creatures, creatures that you defeat by doing the exact same thing you have been doing for hours on end.

I have tried a lot of MMO games and none have fit as well as World of Warcraft, which is something I cannot explain. You are a meaningless peon in a world of clones, your actions have no consequences and reap no true rewards and even if you get to the end and reach the highest level possible you aren’t even given a pat on the back; the game just expects you to keep going. Too bad I can’t stop playing.

Written by: Michael Enger

What is this? I didn’t ask for this!I recently reinstalled my operating system (giving Windows Vista another try as linux is beyond my abilities) and as such had to re-download and install a lot of programs that I use, something I love to do as it gives me ample opportunity to try out new things and avoid unnecessary things that I have learned to live without. One of the programs I installed was Adobe Photoshop CS3, as I have an almost sexual need to attach my head onto the bodies of ugly women, and I was surprised to see that the installation process took almost an hour. 90% of the time was taken up with installing “shared” aspects of the program and taking a look at my start menu revealed that I had gotten more than I paid for.

Let’s take a look at what I got:
Adobe Bridge: Organizer for media files.
Adobe Device Central: Program that integrates parts of the creative suite for development for mobile devices (whatever that means).
Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2: Not sure what this does… not even google can tell me. It’s probably for making extensions or something.
Adobe Photoshop: Used for manipulating photographs and creating simple drawings.
Adobe Stock Photos: An image database for stock photographs.

Click to enlargeI can’t even uninstall the unwanted components…So I got 5 separate programs of which I wanted, and will only use, one of them. Sure, I can understand that the rest can be useful for people (I have a friend who used Adobe Bridge to publish photographs to flickr), but I don’t want it and I can’t seem to find a way to remove it. During the installation I was asked where I wanted them to install the program and then it went off to do what it wanted without me. This process is very subversive and devious, making me doubt if their intentions are good in offering me all these other programs.

I experienced the same problem when I installed iTunes. Because of some fluke with the updater when I was running XP (after updating it refused to run) I had stopped using iTunes and had opted for the firefox-based Songbird instead. I thought that now that I had a different OS, perhaps iTunes wouldn’t fuck up as much so I gave it another try. Many months had gone by and I had slowly gotten used to Songbird’s interface so now iTunes seemed sluggish and confusing, despite their similar appearances, so I ended up uninstalling it. Then I noticed that it had installed 4 other components onto my computer which I wasn’t even aware of. After doing my best to rid myself of all the unnecessary garbage I was still left with an untouchable folder called “Bonjour” on my hard disk that I, the system administrator and only user of this computer, wasn’t allowed to delete.

Click to enlargeI CONSUME ALLAll of this is reminding me of another program that I had the misfortune of seeing in my younger internet days: Bonzi Buddy. It was bundled with other software so you weren’t always aware that you were installing it, it was there to “improve” your computer experience somehow and it was hard to get rid off. The term “bloatware” has been thrown around concerning both iTunes and Photoshop and I am starting to understand what they mean. I appreciate that developers take the time to bundle software together when their uses intertwine and it would be beneficial for me as an end-user to at least be aware of these programs and their applications, but when I don’t get a choice to install them or even a notice telling me that they are going to be installed then I start having a problem.

There is a trend that is settling on the computer world, driven hard into the minds of computer users by the likes of Apple. The idea that you should remove as much of the background information as you can to streamline a user’s computer experience. Installation programs simply say “installing” rather than letting you know what its doing, a bouncing icon or splash screen has replaced the loading bar and you are given less and less choices on where to install your programs and what features you want. Even the options menu for certain programs are hidden away so that you have you actively search for them to be able to change anything. This is presenting the idea that programs shouldn’t be customizable which in turn will fuel a general disinterest for customization which will inevitably end with programs provided with one standard setup and no chance of any changes (the evil “i don’t care, leave me alone” cycle).

Alright, I admit that it might have been a little dramatic to say so, but it’s disturbing to see this trend gain strength when it does nothing to help consumers. When I experimented with Linux I was amazed at the amount of things you could do to change and personalize, from the visual appearance of some programs to the viscosity of Compiz’s wobbly windows. Even Windows had a great degree of customization at one time, but now you have to employ certain hacks and manipulate system variables using the registry just to do simple things like auto-start a program; you’re not supposed to want to change anything.

Well, I do and I doubt that, when given the choice, people would prefer to leave it out of their hands. However, since I don’t have the knowledge or courage to attempt to run Linux again I just have to make to with what is provided for me, simply deleting the shortcuts to Adobe’s myriad of pointless components so they don’t clutter up my start menu. That damned “Bonjour” folder is annoying the hell out of me, though… perhaps I should just format my hard disk and start over, this time avoiding iTunes like an unwanted pregnancy.

Written by: Michael Enger

He probably hates you as much as I do.If you have even encountered the website you’re the man now dog! then you probably know what this is going to be about. It is a fad site (much like YouTube) where people can upload their lovely creations and get rated/commented. This, like 4chan, has become one of those special places on the Internet where fads are born and funny/disgusting things are shared for the whole world to see. I hate them so much.

Their about page references wikipedia so I’m just going to do that:
“YTMND, an acronym for “You’re The Man Now, Dog!”, is a web site community that centers around the creation of YTMNDs, which are pages featuring a juxtaposition of a single image, optionally animated or tiled, along with large zooming text and a looping sound file. YTMND is also the general term used to describe any such site.”
Again, if you have ever seen a YTMND page then you would know what this is all about. The page also claims that it is there “for the purpose of furthering the creativity of its users” by allowing them to add some stupid text and a looping scream to their picture of a dead cat.

Every time I enter YTMND one of two things happen:
Firefox crashes.
My head crashes.
Everything I see here is the same as I see everywhere else that people are allowed to add whatever they want and get it graded (see Newgrounds for more info). This place is just completely void of creativity and skill. Sure, it takes a good Photoshopper to juxtapose that picture of Angeline Jolie onto a fish body, but where is the “grand creativity” in adding “lol” and some obscure song that nobody likes?

YTMND is a place for shitty people to do shitty things and I don’t understand why everyone loves it so god damn much. At least in Newgrounds you have to have real skill and originality to compete with the masses of users that add things every day (I discovered that the hard way). If you don’t believe me then check out the top rated YTMND page. It fucking sucks.

Written by: Michael Enger

In the idle hours of the night, when I am busy working on some project or other, it is easy to be distracted. The working becomes slow and drudging and I grow ever weary at looking at the increasingly complicated and disorganized lines of code. In such times it is nice to turn to my laptop where I usually have some form of Solitaire open so that I can rest my mind in between sessions of cognitive labor… but I don’t always win.

I have discovered that the best way to play Solitaire, when it is done as a distraction from work, is to play until you win. You keep going with every failed attempt to beat the random situations and you return to work once you finally do. This takes the control out of your hands and gives you a definite sense of completion. Even though you could end up playing for a long time and not winning it means that when you finally do, you have no excuse to say “just one more”. Having a defined ending scenario, albeit random, leaves you never dissatisfied with the short break, leaving you with the sense that the given time period which is paradoxically clearer than if you were to give yourself a set time period to avoid working.

But this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. This seemingly random justification for my extended bouts of idle playfulness is completely uninteresting even to me, but seeing beyond the pixelated cards that shift and move at your every whim there seems to be an underlying idea that Solitarie is rooted in: self-challenge.

And the suits are like the different types of people that live in the world!The game of Solitaire is played alone; although you could argue that you are actually playing against the computer, you are only struggling to accomplish a simple task by following strict rules. There is no counter-play to your actions and, aside from the clock ticking away every second of your diversion, you are under no pressure to complete the task. It is, in essence, a simulation of self improvement.

Self improvement is the progress of forced (or coerced, if you will) evolution of an individual which mimics the natural process: a (relatively) slow process of changes that will result in a betterment of the subject. Whether it is to learn to play an instrument, to be a better husband or to dress yourself more elegantly, every self-improvement project comes from the person’s desire to fulfill certain criteria that were previously unattainable, all done within the confines of his/her life. And, much like Solitaire, it doesn’t always end in success.

Life is short, compared to the span of human civilization, but very long compared to the everyday workings of the human mind. You have a lot of time to grow, to better yourself, but you don’t have a lot of time to do the same thing everyday. The monotonous stability of daily traditions and patters are easy to get into, but in the end are counter-productive to your personal evolution. Sometimes you just have to accept that you’ve run out of possible moves and you need to start a new game.

Written by: Michael Enger

Creating creepy environments in a video game isn’t just a simple walk in the park (unless it’s a midnight stroll through the parks of Transylvania), because there are a lot of things that can go wrong. The right combination of silence and noise can create the oppressive atmosphere that makes your heart pump and your skin crawl. Being a big fan of the horror genre I usually jump at the chance to have myself scared witless by digital entertainment so I have seen things done well and things done badly.

Clive Barker is a horror writer who has dabbled in video games and, while impatiently waiting for his recent endeavor to hit the store shelves, I picked up a previous title he has branded his name on entitled Clive Barker’s Undying. The horror story which the game mechanics circulate around is interesting and unique enough to keep me playing for a while, but in the end the gameplay gets in the way and I quickly grow tired of the game’s failed attempts at scaring me. Although there is something unnerving about hordes of enemies piling out of graves to claw at my flesh, it does tend to get tedious in the long run. Things that come around the corner without warning is good for shooter-heavy games like Doom3, but when the story in the game is as fascinating like the one in Undying, then I am expecting more than a simple run-and-gun experience. I want to be frightened, not empowered.

Although the game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem doesn’t really try to create a creepy atmosphere with it’s bright and simplistic graphics, there are some parts of the game that are genuinely scary. Your character has a sanity meter and when it runs low strange occurrences keep happening; your character dies suddenly and violently, you see flies crawling on your TV screen or the game pretends to delete your save file, something that had me running over to the GameCube in pure desperation. Without using the usual darkened corridors or flashing images of something horrid standing behind you, the game efficiently frightens you and does so as a punishment for playing badly.

Click to enlargeMan, I’m tired of this street…A mod developed for Half-Life² called Halloween HL2: Pumpkin Night on the other hand, does a wonderful job of ruining the atmosphere completely. Without spending too much describing the terrible level design I’ll just say that they separate every creepy encounter with minutes of monotony, forcing you to walk over great, detail-less, distances and you end up spending 90% of the game time doing absolutely nothing. What they clearly failed to remember was that the fear you experience during the silent moments is based on the anticipation that something is going to happen and although I know that something is even more shocking when you don’t expect it (example: the ending of Carrie), you have to balance out the silent parts a little bit or else people will just get bored.

The list of games that claim to have “horror elements” is quite long; too long if you take into consideration how very un-frightening most of the games are. Shooters like F.E.A.R. and Condemned: Criminal Origins utilize scare-tactics to keep you on your toes but without a strong story to back it up you end up being more scared for your health-bar than your sanity. There doesn’t have to be quivering bodies that drag themselves after you or an empty room with a crying child in the corner for something to be scary, but simply having characters jump out at you from time to time doesn’t classify the game as horror. That being said, I still appreciate when a game at least tries harder than just sending wave after wave of enemies at me and every horror-themed shooter has its moments when the simple scare-tactics work very well and I’m at the edge of my seat for the next hour. I guess that it is my love for those moments that fuel my disappointment when they aren’t executed perfectly.

Written by: Michael Enger

In my many tirades concerning web standards, I go on and about how so-and-so company don’t support open standards, constantly push their own formats, or hate working together with other companies to make life better for consumers. I have never taken into account that people don’t really care. Who cares if Internet Explorer 6 is keeping the web in the stone ages with its quirky css implementation, a relic from the browser wars? Who cares if corporations still hold weight over standardization organisations when it comes to pushing their proprietary formats into people’s faces. Who cares if lobbying has come to the computer world and results in my country going ape shit over fairness?

I do.

Open standards, such as the ones put forth by the ISO, are formats and systems that are open to use by anyone, completely royalty free. They are created so as to avoid the confoundment that consumers experience when different companies do the same thing in different ways. They are the opposite of proprietary formats, which are created by a single party and where they prevent anyone from knowing how it works so that you have to come to them if you want to build anything around it. Being a nerd, I tend to favor the open formats and I will try to explain why.

Less hassle for the consumer
Think of batteries. The typical AA-type battery cell is a type of battery that everyone can easily recognize. Anytime you buy a new device that uses that type of battery you know where you can find it, the batteries are interchangeable between the devices and you don’t have to struggle with looking for new batteries when the device becomes obsolete. A cell phone battery is completely different, usually built to specifications determined by the company that designed it and sometimes to that specific phone. They are hard to come by, since only specialty stores stock them and if the phone becomes outdated then you’ll be hard pressed to find that type of battery.

Click to enlargeFrom the desk of Microsoft:
Hey, we know that you already have an open XML format for office documents, but we made our own so why don’t you just read through this massive document and let us know if it’ll be a standard. Or better yet; don’t read it and just pass it as law anyway.
KTHNXBAINo royalty fees
Judging by the amount of MP3-players out there, you would think that the MP3 format was open to be used by anyone but in actuality it isn’t. Someone owns the MP3 format and you’re required to pay royalty fees to them whenever you build a device or a program that can decode MP3 files. However, a certain convenience is that we’re not really sure who exactly owns the MP3 format, so people who build open MP3 encoders (such as the LAME encoder) can get away with it because nobody really knows who has the right to stop them. Ogg Vorbis was created to replace the MP3 because of the royalty issues.

The work is done for you
Say you want to create a word processing software. You’re tired of Word and OpenOffice and you want something that will automagically replace every swear word with a picture of a kitten so you go about your business building the program. When it comes to saving the files that you’ve created (filled to the brim with kittens), how should you do it? What contingencies should you plan for when determining the file format? How big should it be? Should it be plain-text or binary? What about pictures, how should they be stored? It’s a lot easier when all of those questions have been asked before and an open standard for storing written documents already exists, so you just have to follow the specifications to be able to open and save that type of file, independent of which program created it.

Negative aspects about open standards
To be fair, I should talk about what’s bad about open standards. First of all, they are slow to create. When you make a proprietary format you are under complete control over what you put into it and so decisions come quickly. However, open formats take a while to become mature since there are so many voices trying to incorporate their opinion on the standard. The Ogg Vorbis file format (mentioned above) doesn’t have official support for meta-data (such as the artist name or album) and it doesn’t look like it will be officially added anytime soon, so the end result is that the format isn’t really ready to be used on a grand scale.

Another negative aspect is that it opens up for competition. If anyone can use an open standard, then why would people want to use your program or device? If you make a video-editing software that uses an open format for saving video projects, what is stopping people from ditching your program for something else that uses the same format? Nothing, so to ensure that people are locked to using your software/device you should only support your own proprietary formats. This may have been a bit sarcastically said, but it’s probably the main driving force behind Apple and other companies when they fight against standardization.

Lastly; who the hell do you think you are to tell us what to do? Why should Microsoft, one of the biggest companies on the planet, listen to what a committee of hippies and nerds have to say about how a word document should be stored? Do you think that the collective minds of a community that really cares knows better than a giant corporation?

Click to enlargeLook, googling for “open standards” doesn’t really reveal a treasure trove of images to choose from, alright? You get a pretty girl to look at so stop complaining.Open standards make our lives easier. It means that you are not locked to using a specific program or device and you’re free to make a choice on what to spend your time and money on (and we have so many to make). Of course I understand that to non-geeks and the normal world it seems that we’re getting our panties in a bunch over something that is unessential to our having a pleasurable life, but I submit that we should get angry. We should be vocal about our displeasure with letting corporations decide what’s good for us. Although they have teams of people that study this full time, they will never come close to the understanding shared by the collective community of caring individuals. Open standardization makes it easier to communicate and share with each other, rather than forcing everyone into their respective shells simply because some people chose a Zune and others chose an iPod*.

* Personally I chose to use my phone as an MP3 player and avoid both of them

Written by: Michael Enger

For those too lazy to Google: here’s a map of Africa.Today, we’re going to do a little experiment. Go fetch an atlas or globe or something and turn to the continent of Africa. If you don’t have any form of archaic map system in your house, feel free to google it. Now take a look at the borders of the various countries. Notice how some of the borders are unnaturally straight? In a world where borders are primordially determined by natural geography, it seems strange that the majority of countries in Africa have borders that rival even the arbitrary segregations of the United States of America. That’s because, a long time ago, a bunch of white men sat around a map of Africa and used a ruler to divide it as they saw fit. Many years later, the meddling of the “civilized world” in the affairs of a continent that would be better off without them has reached the even geek world: enter Microsoft.

According to a fellow blogger, Microsoft has decided to donate tons of software and equipment to South Africa in an attempt to bring the country up to speed with the rest of the technical world. Although this can be seen as well and good, it seems that the whole affair is a ploy to counter the growth of free software in the nation and replace it with a generation of students taught to use Microsoft-branded products, almost guaranteeing that they’ll grow up to be faithful Microsoft customers.

Click to enlargeWhy are they all so happy? Because they’re running Linux, that’s why.Now, this paranoid finger-pointing seems to be a bit alarmist (also coming from a blog called “Boycott Novell” that’s filled with more anger than my rant section), but it comes after the announcement that Microsoft wishes to replace the Linux-based operating system in the One Laptop Per Child computers with their own. Again, this will replace a system that is innovative and open to exploration with one that the children will end up paying for as they grow up, since it is the system they are used to.

Is this a devious plot on the side of Microsoft? Of course. Should we care enough to set the whole geek-o-sphere alight with anger and fury? Not at all. In the end, we are arguing about the benefits of one donation over another to a country far away full of suffering people we don’t know personally. We are so separated from the actual problem that we can easily bicker about mundane points like who gets to give free stuff to Africa’s children.

I feel that the arrogance of this situation is on par with the organic food activists who shun and fight against biologically engineered food as it “isn’t how mother nature intended” when that same “mutant food” could help the millions of people who are starving to death. It all ties in with being a part of a society so privileged that it can complain about how privileged it is, something most people grow out of past the age of 14.

Click to enlargePumping useless technology into a location that doesn’t even have running water seems wrong somehow.So what should we do about the “threat” that Microsoft poses on the free software community in Africa? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If Microsoft feels that they want to donate millions of dollars worth of software and equipment to a developing country then they should be free to do so without the online community murmuring in diastase while they type angry letters with fetid hands greased in potato chips and week-old armpit sweat. Here in the “civilized world”, a majority of us grew up on Microsoft products, but we are in a privileged position to move away from it (where able) so why don’t we just let the African nations get that far in their development before we start complaining what software we force feed them?

Written by: Michael Enger

That’s what the internet looks like from space.When I was younger, a few years before the turn of the millennium, my school saw it proper to teach us about the wonderful world of the internet. They set up special classes where we could learn to navigate the amazing world of hypertext, where every link would bring us to another (hopefully not pornographic) part of the world so we could bask in the warm glow of unhindered knowledge. Back in those days, when high-speed internet in your own home was an unrealized dream, people were still optimistic about the internet and I was told that it was a world of information where anything that was ever created would be available to me by the touch of a button. However, that idea quickly devolved into hatred and fear when it suddenly became possible to get a hold of everything ever created; the world had suddenly become pirated.

For the sake of diversity, I am going to try to stay away from talking about the benefits of file sharing and my ideas for a better world where people are generally nicer and more responsible and I will try to focus on the idea behind the internet, or how it was perceived by my naive and malleable mind. For when I was first introduced to the internet it was actually presented as a global collection of works that defined our species where anything and everything was available to us. Perhaps it was in the minds of those who envisioned the world wide web that it would be a place where information would flow freely, breaking the barriers that usually stopped us from learning from each other. Whatever their initial idea was, the internet had become incredibly popular and soon everyman was sharing his knowledge with the world. Including me, who’s first introduction into web development was a Tripod account and their “Make Your Own Page” wizard.

The internet grew and I along with it, steadily learning to extract the information that I needed at a pace which my mother found profoundly impressive (and a bit disturbing, I would think). As I entered my teens the internet had become a comfortable place for me and I was using it daily, not only to look at pictures of naked women, but also to utilize a great piece of programming called Napster. Napster opened up to a whole new world of downloads and the internet had finally become the world of unbridled information that I was promised. Well, we all know what happened to Napster and after that nothing was the same. Proprietary owners were aware of the dangers presented by peer-to-peer networks and I had suddenly become a criminal.

Although this idea is nothing new (just in a different package) the world has become incredibly internet-savvy and the response from publishers was aggressive and direct: don’t download things, if you do you are a bad person. That makes me a little sad because it destroys the idea behind the internet that I was presented with when I first sat down in front of a web page. Information was no longer free and available, it was too valuable to give away and what we were left with was the scrap that nobody thought could be sold, which resulted in the information presented on the internet going from being useful to being questionable. You could no longer site a website as a source because, as we all know, all the good information is only that which you pay for.

I see that this trend of distrust has recently extended to Wikipedia; whereas a few years ago it was acceptable to use the information on Wikipedia it is now considered unprofessional and you are encouraged to use more reputable sources because somehow we have come to doubt the collected knowledge of the entire planet and rather favor the $2 encyclopedia you picked up from that creepy guy who sells old books outside the supermarket. Call me idealistic (or not) but I would like to think that free information is a good idea and can be trusted, we just have to get rid of this mentality that nothing free is ever good enough and that every contribution needs to have some monetary compensation.

PS: I know I promised that I wouldn’t talk about piracy but I just had to share this article and this video with you.

Written by: Michael Enger

Blizzard has made their grand announcement and it was just as the internet predicted: a new StarCraft game. I can imagine that a lot of fan boys (*cough*Koreans*cough*) are pissing in their pants right now, staring at screenshots and concept art with a strange, unfamiliar, bump growing between their legs. We were all ready for a new StarCraft; it’s popularity hadn’t really decreased over the years and an update to the beloved system had been speculated for a long time. Hell, it’s about time.

But what makes this announcement so world-shattering? Is it the fact that StarCraft is such a great game and a new version will just mean another decade of “OMG! ZERG RUSH! KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE”? Well, yes, but there is a little more to Blizzard’s announcement than just revealing a new game. The difference lies in their ability to manipulate people and generate hype even before they have let people know what the game is.

Click to enlargeThat looks like a Zerg rush, alright.Take for example the release of Command and Conquer 3. It was most likely announced like all other games:
“We’re making a new command and Conquer game!”
“Sweet! Will it be in the Generals or Red Alert series?”
“No, we’re going back to the original. We’re bringing back Kane!”
“That’s cool! I’m looking forward to this game!”
C&C3 was released to great anticipation, along with a flurry of commercials and other promotional material. Blizzard did it a little differently.
“We’re announcing a new game in a month.”
“So what game is it going to be?”
[silence]
The internet went crazy with rumors and, coupled with Blizzard’s recent hirings of RTS programmers, most of these rumors were around a new StarCraft because, as we all know, it’s about damn time!

Click to enlargeI must admit, it looks pretty.Blizzard really knows how to pump the hype into the gaming community like no other company can. Their combination of saying nothing, but not hiding actions that can hint towards what it is, drives people crazy. I have to admit that even I checked their website now and then to watch their splash page count down to the new announcement. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the StarCraft logo, but I am amazed at how they could possibly keep everyone silent about it.

But let’s be honest for a second. I won’t buy the game on release day, I might not even buy it the first year, I will download a pirated version and grow tired of it after a week only to be guilted into buying it when the price drops to something manageable. I am not an RTS fan, I never finished StarCraft and I won’t finish this one. Perhaps I’ll play it online with my friends for a while, but this is not a grand event in my life. I’d be more excited if a new Quake game was announced…

Written by: Michael Enger

I recently read a book called “Fahrenheit 451″ (written by Ray Bradbury. It’s awesome, you should probably check it out) wherein a “fireman”, whose job it is to burn books, struggles with the implications of living in a world where books are outlawed due to their thought-provoking nature and the dangers that presents to the placid, horribly monotonous, populace. Now, despite how easily influenced I am by outside ideas, it doesn’t take a book to convince me of the dangers of living in a society where intelligence is “weeded out” as society conforms to a more manageable state of being, but I get the idea that it’s already happening.

Bradbury states that he wrote the book due to his thoughts on the steady increase of interest in this brand new “television” thing that had recently been invented (it was the 1950s, mind you) and how this form of easy entertainment was quickly overtaking the written word as the people’s choice of hobby activity. He was right in his paranoia and now, only half a century later, people can lead entire lives without ever picking up a book but there are few “civilized” men or women that haven’t watched an hour of TV.

The decline of modern civilization is nothing new and I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of people who are saying that we’re killing the planet, killing ourselves and that we’re on a one-way ticked to hell (or some similarly negative imaginary place). I am, however, going to make the claim that the amount of time that the western world spends on celebrity gossip and other useless endeavors could, if allocated properly, have “civilized” the entire continent of Africa, something which would benefit the entire human race. Only a handful of individuals profit from the sustained poverty of half the planet and I bet that you’re not one of them.

It’s funny, ironic and horribly tragic that ignorance can’t be fought with education, because nobody wants to know, they don’t want to care enough, they don’t want to think about it. So quick-thrill forms of entertainment dominate the market of human interest and legendary classics are abridged for the sake of saving time and maximizing political correctness. The human mind stays under-stimulated and thusly oblivious to the horrid surroundings brought by the same pacifying ideology which is the cause of the ignorance. It’s a vicious cycle of violence and stupidity.

I think that “Mein Kampf” should stay the way it is (although always presented with a large dose of history), “Hamlet” cannot be appreciated unless ingested in its full form and the Bible should just stick to the old testament, where rape, murder and frivolous sodomy ran rampant amongst the pages. Nothing should be changed, not for convenience or to soften the impact of the horrible things that our past and culture has wrought. We are evil, tedious beings and no amount of censorship or shortening of our literary works can hide that.