Tuesday’s That Ain’t Right Comedy Night at Fallout wasn’t as well attended by comedians (down to six from around 12 the first time out) but there was a larger audience and they were more responsive. My set was a mix of new and older material. I got some laughs from jokes which previously hadn’t done as well. I just wish I could remember which ones they were. Comedians who showed up included host Dave Hamrick, Ray Bullock, Marc Cooper, Kelly Henderson and Leo. The next shows are on December 15 and 29, which means I may get out a diaper for a New Year’s baby bit. I’ve got one more set in which I’m going to use this material, the December 7 Comedy Night at Cafe Diem.

Comedy at the Camel, another project of Dave Hamrick’s, debuted to a full house, with Ray Bullock headlining and Jesse Jarvis MCing. Sets by Roy Rogers, Dave Hamrick and Bill Metzger of Charlottesville, among others. Blake Midgette stopped by. He was just back from two weeks in New York where he did an open mic at a hole-in-the-wall club in the East Village.

I’m trying to catch up on my backlog of video material. Right now, I’ve stripped the audio from the October 4, 2009 set at the Last Stag Standing competition at Europa Cafe. The next step is to listen to the set or look at the script and get tags for when I upload to Taltopia, Punchline magazine, Gcast and Soundcloud. Unfortunately, I decided to scan the disk with those files on it for errors so I’m temporarily locked out and unable to work with them. The next step is to edit the video file in Pinnacle, which basically consists of slapping titles on the front and back end.

One decision coming down the road is my next step in terms of improving output. I’m still getting feedback that the sound quality of the video output of the Canon PowerShot is not that great, the latest comment coming from Virginia Production Alliance  on YouTube. I don’t have that much of a problem hearing what’s said certainly the sound could be improved. This would take the form of buying a Kodak Zi8, which mean an improvement in video quality as well, going from 20 fps to 30 and 60 fps, as well as going from 640×480 to 780p and 1080p.  This would also mean getting a wireless lavalier mic for what should be a big boost in audio quality. Another advantage: the Zi8 has has a remote control which means I wouldn’t have to be standing at the camera to start filming my sets and those of other people.

Other possibilities for improvements: Brother’s $50 personal laser printer so I don’t have to shell out an arm and a leg for ink jet cartridges any more; Serif’s movie editor so I can overcome the limitations of Pinnacle and one minimalist possibility, getting some business cards from VistaPrint so I can do some more publicity with Salty Tongue Records.

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Los juegos de Xbox 360 que nunca llegaron al mercado. Comentar los juegos i decir qual es el mejor de todos. 

CRACKDOWN:

CALL OF DUTY:

GUITAR HERO:

MASS EFFECT:

GEARS OF WAR :

QUAKE 4:

FINAL FANTASY:

FINAL FANTASY:

FALLOUT:

F.E.A.R:

DEADRISING:

This will become a collectible:

…we never expected to see his mercurial face gracing the cover of a Massachusetts pizza shop’s menu. Expresso Pizza of Billerica, Ma. put the young lad to work on the menu’s cover, holding a pizza and pretending he’s a waiter.

We contacted the Fallout publisher to find out its reaction, and were told, “Well he is a big part of our Fallout brand and is copyrighted, so, yeah, deciding on your own to use him to promote your business or product, or to sell stuff, or whatever, without getting permission from us … not a good idea.”

Via Joystick

-Dave out

During my family leave, I’ve gotten some time during 2.0’s sporadic sleep schedule to play a ton of games. The majority of those games features a common, popular gameplay element – set collection.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  It’s that optional gameplay element in which you’re invited (usually unsuccessfully) to “collect them all” or “find them all”.  A few examples:  Okami’s stray beads, Gears of War’s COG tags, Fallout 3’s bobbleheads, Ratchet & Clank’s golden bolts, Super Smash Bros.’s trophies, Pokemon’s… pokemon.  There are also other, more subtle forms of set collection that you may not have thought about: multiplayer titles, skill sets, armor sets, crafting recipes, beastiaries, codexes (I’m looking at you, Bioware) – even Xbox/PS3 achievements/trophies can fall into this category.  Since I’m a bit OCD and somewhat of a collection nut, I spot these collection opportunities rather quickly.  I also tend to determine rather quickly that the vast majority of such opportunites are not worth my time investment.  And I’m sure many of you have done the same thing – shelved a game without even giving a second thought to those things you left uncollected in that bygone world.  There’s a reason for that – it’s because most games implement set collection badly.  In this series of articles, I’d like to use personal experience from playing various games to examine how other games could improve the quality of these collection mechanics and give players more incentive to participate in these peripheral activities.

First, let’s define what comprises a “set collection mechanic” to restrict the scope of this article:

• Players must be able to complete the set: this rules out procedurally generated things (eg. Diablo/Torchlight loot) or a continually growing set of user-generated content (eg. Spore creatures or Second Life sets).
• Completion of the set should be a peripheral activity and NOT be required to progress through the game: otherwise, our examination of the player’s motivation to complete a set overlaps with other motivating factors; so this restriction prevents applying our study to things like the various mandatory devices in Zelda games – technically, it’s a set of devices that can be collected in its entirety, but (excepting upgrades to bag sizes, etc.) it MUST be completed to progress through the game; heart pieces, however, qualify as a valid set.
• The set must have some easily accessible, manifested representation in the game: in other words, the set must be an intentional collection placed by the designer; this rules out user-defined meta-sets.  Such sets are contrived by individual players who have clearly already conjured up the necessary motivation to attempt collecting the set.  For instance, in Animal Crossing: Wild World, I attempted to find and purchase all of the instruments in the game to make a music room – nothing in the game actually lists the set of instruments; neither are they denoted by some special icon.  It’s an arbitrary set I made up for which I had already mustered the necessary motivation to collect.

Now that we’ve defined the bounding conditions, I’d like to start this series with an examination of a game I only recently had the opportunity to play: the original Assassin’s Creed (and just in time for part II!).  As much as I enjoyed playing the game, I ran into a rather irksome collection mechanic – the city flags.  Of all the collect-them-all mechanics I’ve experienced in games thus far, the city flags are probably the worst of the bunch (at least as far as I can remember).  It didn’t take long after leaving the confines of Masyaf for me to swear off the entire collection altogether.  Here’s why:

• There don’t appear to be any gameplay or narrative rewards for procuring flags except for meta-rewards (i.e. Achievements and 100% completion with the filled “Additional Memories” DNA bar).  Even if such a tangible reward existed at the end of the tunnel, it’s so elusive that it doesn’t really factor into the typical player’s drive to collect the flags.
• Aside from their location, flags are indistinguishable from one another, making the experience of finding one identical each time.  This was exacerbated by the fact that there are 420 of those indistinguishable things!  So finding one was an altogether insignificant and homogenous (read: boring) experience.
• Flags are not particularly challenging to acquire.  Reaching them is simply a matter of hidden knowledge rather than a test of skill or logic.

I’m going to take a look at each of these three points and examine how other games have remedied the problems with Assassin’s Creed’s flag-collection gameplay.

Collection Rewards

One could argue that completing an in-game collection is reward enough.  That may very well be true.  I think that such collections generally fall into the category in which each individual item in the set is distinct enough to provide sufficient player motivation (see the Collection Distinction section below).  But in any case, it doesn’t hurt to provide some extra incentive to the player to collect a set of things.  These extra incentives can typically be categorized as either a gameplay reward or a narrative reward.

Gameplay rewards consist of additional skills or abilities (or some currency toward the purchase of skills or abilities) that expand and augment the player’s gameplay experience.  The most recent example that comes to mind is Brutal Legend’s bound serpents, which, when found, each provide a small amount of fire tributes that can be used to purchase upgrades at the motor forge.  Furthermore, for every ten bound serpents that are freed, the player character Eddie Riggs gets an upgrade to some element of his stats.

Alternatively, collections can grant narrative rewards in several different forms. Again, Brutal Legend provides a convenient example of such a collection: the “legends” scattered across the landscape.  For each one the player finds, another cutscene detailing the Brutal Legend mythos is revealed.  Coincidentally, I also discovered that Halo 3: ODST contains an identical mechanic in the form of the audio logs that follow a story indirectly related to the main plotline.  Yet another example of a narrative collection reward is BioShock’s audio diaries, narrated by multiple characters related to the main story.  However, ODST and Brutal Legend’s narrative collections differ in that each piece of the collection is not associated with a specific piece of the narrative reward.  In other words, whether you find piece A before or after piece B, you’re always going to get story reward A before story reward B.  This is not true for BioShock’s narrative collection, in which specific audio logs are found in specific locations.  This is an important distinction that we’ll revisit in the next section.

There is, of course, no reason why a particular collection can’t give both narrative and gameplay rewards, as is evident in Brutal Legend’s “legend” collection (which I neglected to mention also gives fire tributes for each legend discovered).  Another game I’ve played recently (after putting it off long enough) is Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, in which every five pieces of treasure nets the player medal points that are used to unlock various metagame rewards (tweakable game modifiers like infinite ammo, faster run, and weapon select) and bonus content such as concept art and development videos.  I’ve lumped extra-game content into the category of “narrative rewards” in that they don’t actually augment the game experience.  In all of these examples, I think it’s safe to say that these various rewards can often be an effective incentive to the player to collect the entire set.

Collection Distinction

There is an important element of set collection that seems to be a no-show in many of its incarnations: distinction.  Each element of a set should be easy distinguishable from each other, via its textual, iconic, or geometric representation and/or some titular or numeric label.  As I’ve already observed, all of the flags in a particular area in Assassin’s Creed are identical except for where they are located.  This makes collecting each and every one the exact same experience.  There’s no sense of novelty in finding another one.

As I mentioned earlier, collecting a set of objects can be reward in itself – but this is generally a strong enough motivation to the player only when a distinction is made between the elements of the set.  The word “collecting” carries the connotation of collecting distinct elements.  How often do stamp collectors attempt to find every copy of only one type of stamp?  Or how often do card collectors try to acquire every copy of one particularly rare card?  While these real-world examples present collection goals that are obviously marred by real-world obstacles and impossibilities that don’t exist in the virtual space, art reflects life.  And in life, the appeal of set collection is in the diversity of the set’s various elements and in how those elements complement each other.  The set is a puzzle whose pieces, as they come together, become a clearer and more magnificent picture (even if that picture’s got a few missing spots).

I’ve always liked Nintendo’s first-party approach to collections.  I’m specifically referring to the trophies of the Super Smash Bros. series.  Each trophy is fan-service at its best – each with a unique, nostalgic 3D model of some Nintendo character, object, or setting and a short description of the subject.  All of the player’s trophies are displayed together in one place, literally becoming that magnificent picture I described.  It’s like looking at that Edge Magazine cover with all of the video game shoutouts.  I also played The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker recently (picked it up on the cheap a long time ago and only got around to playing it a few weeks ago).  In that game is a similar collection that the player can complete by using a camera to take pictures of the game’s enemies and NPC’s and showing them to a particular sculptor, who crafts figurines of the photographs’ subjects that are put on display throughout various trophy rooms.  Each figurine can be viewed in three dimensions and contains a short description of the subject’s place in the game universe.

And then, of course, we come back to Pokemon.  While each captured Pokemon simultaneously serves as a gameplay reward (with the new pokemon’s abilities at the player’s disposal), I would argue that the vast majority of pokemon are caught for the sake of completing a player’s Pokedex.  After all, the catchphrase (at least in America… not sure if it’s translated from Japanese) is “Gotta catch ‘em all!”, right?  And since the distinction between each pokemon is both visual and interactive, the drive to collect each one is that much more powerful.

Which reminds me of Endless Ocean (which I’m not ashamed to admit is one of my favorite games on the Wii).  At some point in the game, the player is allowed to populate a personal aquarium with creatures that he or she had already discovered.  It’s yet another fantastic Nintendo example of an interactive collection.

In fact, it appears that the common factor between these Nintendo games’ collections is the extent to which the player is allowed to appreciate his or her collection.  3D models that can be viewed from all angles, textual info and categorization, and in some cases, interactivity all contribute to the player’s connection to the collection and his or her drive to complete it.  It sure beats a little check mark or a line in a book or even a little icon.  And that is why, when Sony announced Playstation Home, something inside me grew giddy at the thought of 3D trophy displays.  Too bad it didn’t turn out that way…

There’s also one oft overlooked property that distinction imparts to a collectible set – it allows each element in the set to be described individually.  The reason this is so important is this: FAQ’s – of the GameFAQs type.  Not everyone can be expected to find every single element of the set on their own.  For those collectors that don’t wish to invest the required time, they should at least be able to look up the locations of the missing pieces.  This is impossible to do when the individual pieces are indistinguishable from one another.  This is especially problematic in Assassin’s Creed because in order to use a guide, you must use it for every single flag.  Otherwise, unless you have picture-perfect memory or you’re using a video guide (which I imagine would be ridiculously lengthy), you cannot possibly know whether you’ve already found a particular flag or you’re just looking at a slightly incorrect location on a flag map because there’s no way of knowing whether you already found “flag 53″ on the map – you only know that you’ve found 178 total flags, one of which may be the anonymous “flag 53″ in question.  I know this isn’t a purely ludological reason for set element distinction, but it’s a valid one nonetheless.  I’m rather confident that all but the most hardcore purists fall back on external sources (strategy guides, FAQ’s) to complete a collection.  I do it all the time.  So even if the “distinction” in a collectible set is just a numeric label or a dull identifier (like Okami’s stray beads), it’s still an important thing to have for the sake of simplifying the collection process itself.

Collection Gameplay

It’s important to ensure that the gameplay surrounding the collecting of objects is as solid as the elements of the collection itself.  I can group collection gameplay into at least three broad categories: steady-stream, challenge, and exploratory.

• Steady-stream collection: these are the sets of the type where the player gets a relatively steady stream of random elements of the set, and completing the collection becomes all about either trading for the missing elements or just investing enough into the game.  Examples: Smash Bros. trophies, Culdcept Saga’s cards (or any CCG’s cards, for that matter), Treasure World’s treasures, Animal Crossing’s fossils, a good number of Free Realms’ collection components.
• Challenge collection: these are the sets whose elements take actual gameplay skill to acquire.  Examples: Street Fighter IV’s multiplayer titles, Modern Warfare 2’s Spec-Ops mode stars, Braid’s stars (yeah, you might not have known about them; I sure as heck didn’t), Xbox 360 achievements and PS3 trophies.
• Exploratory collection: these are the types of sets whose elements are found by exploring the game space.  Typically, you’ll find these kinds of collections in shooters and action games.  Examples (there are tons of them but I’ll just name a few): Gears of War’s COG tags, Modern Warfare’s intel, ODST and Bioshock’s audio logs/diaries, Fallout 3’s bobbleheads, just about everything in Brutal Legend.

Assassin’s Creed’s flag collection can basically be classified as an exploratory collection.  It is this class of collection that I believe is most often (and most disappointingly) implemented.  The big problem that I’ve experienced with these collections is this: they break immersion by forcing the player to think not as the protagonist or the player character but rather as a designer.

For most of these exploratory collections, the elements are often placed with little to no narrative sense.  They’re usually either strewn about randomly or hidden in obscure corners of the map that oftentimes don’t even seem accessible.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, completing such a collection is an excercise in hidden knowledge more than anything else.

When searching for elements of such collections, I almost always find myself thinking things like, This corridor doesn’t lead to anywhere meaningful – there must be something there, or, This ledge is out-of-the-way, but it’s accessible – there must be something there.  The only logic behind these thought processes comes from putting myself in the designers’ shoes rather than doing what makes sense in the context of the game and the narrative.  My wife can even attest to this fact as she watched me play Uncharted, exclaiming, “I smell treashuz!” whenever my designer sense started tingling.  And it netted me 50 out of 60 treasures on my first run-through.  I had similar moments in ODST.  When a path led indoors and to some seemingly irrelevant balcony, I could usually count on finding an audio log.  And there’s no reason to think this Sophie character was actually at any of those audio log locations.

Brutal Legend, however, contains a great example of an exploratory collection with at least some measure of contextual sense – the landmark viewers.  They’re around landmarks!  If I saw something in the world that looked like a landmark, I knew there was a landmark viewer nearby.  I didn’t have to go probing the mind of some sadistic designer.  Another simple way of limiting the breaking of immersion would be to give the player character some in-game way of “sensing” nearby elements of a collection – some blinking UI element or controller rumble feedback to indicate the proximity of the element.  I can’t immediately think of any games that have really done this, although I’m absolutely sure someone must have.  The closest example I can think of is Ocarina of Time’s use of the rumble pak to signal to the player that something was hidden nearby.

Application

So how could Assassin’s Creed have improved its flag collection gameplay?  Personally, I think the most unintrusive way would have been to tie flags to labeled chunks or chapters of historical info (fictional or otherwise) about the city.  Such a change wouldn’t involve adding abilities or tweaking/rebalancing character progression to accommodate gameplay rewards – and the change would fit well with the game’s prominent narrative delivery and historical setting.  Of course, this would probably involve cutting the number of flags down significantly – a most welcome change.  In fact, why not change the flags altogether and instead make them distinctly crafted relics in the vein of Uncharted’s treasures?  They would probably fit into the world a little better that way.   (Really – why are there random flags all over the place, anyway?)  Along those lines, the seeding of these “relics” could be in more logical locations: at the top of notable landmarks or inside obvious places of importance rather than in the shadows of some inconspicuous alley or atop a nondescript rooftop.  Furthermore, the designers can spread clues regarding the locations of those relics throughout lesser “eavesdropping” opportunities in the game.  I found the eavesdropping mechanic to be rather contrived, as the player can only eavesdrop for an investigative mission.  It would have been much more interesting if there were other groups of conversations on which the player could eavesdrop to get clues – much in the same way that pickpocketing is used for both investigations and for acquiring throwing knives.  And, being the valuable relics that they are, some of them can be guarded by hostile templars who must be circumvented or defeated, while others can be locked away in trap-laden rooms requiring a touch of finesse and dexterity to traverse.

And for the record, I have not yet touched the second title in the series.  So now someone who’s finished playing Assassin’s Creed II can tell me whether Ubisoft did, in fact, add a more compelling collection mechanic.

So that covers the shortfalls I noticed in Assassin’s Creed’s flag collection and how one might possibly improve that segment of gameplay. In my next post, I’ll be exploring the importance of community and recognition and how those things have strengthened the player’s drive to collect – especially with the most recent console generation’s emphasis on online play.

I’ve been busy recently so I haven’t haven’t written in the blog lately. Last week, it was the first open mic at Fallout in Shockoe Bottom Tuesday. Kudos to Dave Hamrick for increasing  opportunities for comics to practice their craft. Joe Hafkey of Cafe Diem’s Comedy Night was the MC. Jared Cullum worked out some new jokes before moving on to another gig. Kelly Henderson had a good set about breaking down on the Jeff Davis Highway. I had a chance to converse with Jesse Jarvis, who rooms with Roy Rogers (not that Roy Rogers — we should start a support group for people who share famous first names). A good time was held by all and a good vibe, a community feeling in the room. Attendance was light, mostly comedians, but I’m sure that will pick up with time. I was able to do the first five minutes of my set-to-be at artspace.

Friday, it was a stand-up comedy benefit for artspace, a non-profit member-run gallery at Plant Zero. Organizer Santa De Haven went all out, complete with a “green room,”  amply stocked cooler and programs.  Mike Bonura  did his swan song before moving on to the Marines. I was next and did 10 minutes without blanking and forgetting my lines, unlike the first time I did 10 minutes at Paradox Comedy’s “Motel Hell” Halloween Celebration.  Michal Ketner did about 20 minutes, including a nice bit about becoming the lead singer for Aerosmith, Collin Chute (a 20-year-old who actually knows who Bob Dylan is!) and Tom Via  rounded out the evening with musical comedy about relationships. We did a run-through and evidently the preparation paid off. The chemistry between performers was good and the audience of around 50 was appreciative. The event raised a nice sum for the gallery.

It was good to see Camille Bird, the MC, who has been sorely missed from the Richmond comedy scene, taking a break after co-founding the Comic-Kazze open mics. The bad news is that that was when my cold really started to kick in.

Coming back from a non-existent pre-performance meeting at the New York Deli (I really should read my emails more closely) in the Hurricane Ida backwash, I ran over some glass in the alley. Fortunately, according to an Agee’s Bicycle  inspection, the damage was not enough that I had to replace the tire, which was a source of concern since I was planning to cycle all the way downtown and across the bridge to Manchester for the artspace benefit.

Lá venho eu trazendo mais um nome desconhecido pra vocês, né? Pois é, a figurinha da vez é Patrick Brown, um designer gráfico australiano de apenas 24 anos. Tem-se pouquíssima informação sobre ele na internet, o que é uma pena porque esse cara já devia estar com o trabalho dele bombando por aí.

Artista bastante conhecido no Deviant Art (popular comunidade virtual artística), Patrick é simples e direto descrevendo seus interesses em seu perfil no site: “estou aqui para me tornar um artista melhor, apreciar arte e mostrar o meu trabalho ao mundo. Então o Ogro faz a boa ação do dia e ajuda o digníssimo rapaz em sua empreitada, postando auqi na Caverna alguns de seus trabalhos.

Seu traço é inconfundível, moderno e ousado. As cores também são sempre muito bem trabalhadas. Toda a obra de Patrick Brown tem um caráter impactante e dinâmico. E o aspecto mais interessante de tudo é que os temas de suas ilustrações são sempre ícones da cultura pop, sejam de filmes, games ou quadrinhos. Entre os retratados temos Wolverine, o Exterminador, os personagens do game GTA, Coringa, Dexter, entre muitos outros.

Really great short movie by the director Marcin Pazera. For all those who love grunge textures, industrial metal, heavy machinery, vaults and overall post-apocalyptic feel from the Fallout games (1 and 2 off course) this is something you’ll drool on

W internecie pojawiła się już spora dawka concept artów i kilka najświeższych snapshotów z Project V13, MMO, nad którym pracują panowie z Interplaya, czyli ojcowie prawdziwego Fallouta.
Aktualnie, toczą się spory między Interplay a Bethesda Softworks (na korzyść tych drugich) o świat Fallouta, do którego prawa, od trzeciej częsci gry przejęła właśnie Bethesda. Interplay zmienił więc nazwę powstającej gry i trzyma się mocno wersji, że tworzą alternatywny świat w podobnych realiach.
A co widzimy na screenach? Znajomy klimat z pierwszych części gry, billboardy z Nuka Colą, super mutantów
Każdy fan realiów Fallout czeka, by zobaczyć jak ostatecznie będzie wyglądać Project V13 i czy.. w ogóle ujrzy światło dzienne. Nie stanie się on automatycznie debiutantem w grupie postapokaliptycznych MMO, mamy już, choćby takiego Fallen Earth

..ale przy dziecku Interplay, marka i nostalgia robią swoje.

Så tror man att man ska vakna och vara på bra humör but no, man vaknar och vill fortfarande skjuta folk i huvudet. Problemet är att jag inte har tid att spela Fallout, vilket annars brukar vara en superbra terapimetod. Inte helt säker på hur allmänfarligt det skulle kunna vara dock, hamnar ofta i att gå och dagdrömma om punktsättarn (m82an), men så är det väl med alla spel. Därför undviker jag GTA.

Planen idag:

- Lyssna bort aggressioner med Pendulum
- Käka frukost
- Packa färdigt en kartong
- Släpa fram saker som ska till Robins farsa & mina bröder
- Montera isär bokhyllorna
- Diska och packa ner köksgrejor
- Henna håret om det hinns

Förutom det så får jag besök här i bloggen senare idag igen! Gissa vem!

Dagens låt – Pendulum – Tarantula.

Ps. Elliott var är du?

When Doomsday is finally here, you and your loved ones will ascend to the heavens in a pillar of light as the world around you descends into chaos and anarchy.

It is at that time that Goober and The Viking’s work begins.

Upon successful rapturing, the balances of all the bank accounts of the members of the Goober and The Viking Rapture Readiness Fund (G&VRRF) will be transferred to Goober and the Viking to begin Operation: Saving People & Stuff.

Goober and The Viking will spring into action! They will have pre-selected the appropriate houses, automobiles, weapons, illicit drugs and loose women necessary to complete the task ahead and will purchase them using the newly-heightened balance of the G&VRRF. They will then compile a list of the coolest stuff that G&VRRF Members have left at their residences and begin to amass the best and brightest of the loose women left to gather and stockpile the stuff for the lean times ahead. The stockpiling will be done at whichever G&VRRF Member has left them the biggest and pimpest estate to hang out at while they’re raptured. It is at this estate that Operation: Saving People’s People will begin.

One at a time, Goober and The Viking will go down the G&VRRF Member “Rapture 2.0″ List. They will make house calls to everyone on the list and convince them to get raptured. How they will do this is a patented trade secret. You may want to bring an extra change of clothes for them when you get raptured, ’cause they’ll really want to throw away their shoes when they finally arrive.

The entire time of both , Goober and The Viking will be performing petty crimes, binge-drinking and sleeping around as much as possible to keep their good-to-bad-karma-ratio in check. This is the sacrifice that they are willing to make to keep your loved ones and your cool stuff safe.

It’s a know FACT that the world will end on December 21st, 2012; the Mayans, Nostradamus, the Bible and MILLIONS of videos on YouTube can’t be wrong.

You’ve spent your entire life making some pretty neat friends and bought a LOT of really cool stuff. It’s too bad that when you get raptured up, your friends will be still be stuck down here in lakes of blood and seas of fire. All that stuff you bought will just be SITTING there while you strum on harps with Jesus and John Tesh in heaven.

If only there were SOME way you could use that stuff to get your friends into heaven too…

WAIT… There IS!

Goober and the Viking have devoted their lives to the art of sinning. Between the two of them, they’ve pretty much got most of the commandments broken, battered and deep-fried like a county fair snickers-stuffed twinkie. They will stay here on Earth and use your stuff to get your friends into heaven!

For little money now, and the promise of all your stuff once you get raptured up, Goober and the Viking will FORCE your friends into accepting Jesus Christ as their person savior, thereby granting them entry into the pearly gates! (It’s not like you’re going to need your PS3 when you’re yucking it up with the likes of St. Peter and Joan of Arc.)

Sounds too good to be true? Stay glued to www.ready4rapture.com to learn more about this amazing business and spiritual opportunity!

It’s not 2012,

It’s 2020.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=706861D5307125B4

En éste RPG post-apocalíptico se pueden hacer miles de cosas. Una de las más atractivas es provocar una gran bomba nuclear devastadora. De momento se que solo hay una, la bomba de Megatón, aunque no descarte que haya alguna que otra bomba más. No es fácil hacer que ésta bomba explote, aunque aparente ser sensible. Existe un 30% de posibilidades de que no te des cuenta de cómo activar ésta bomba sin esta guía y siendo la primera vez que juegues. Os explicaré la forma más fácil de ver el bonito espectáculo.

Primero, ante todo, tu personaje debe de tener karma malo, y tener un 40 en explosivos, que lo puedes aumentar tras completar la G.O.A.T. y al salir del refugio. Luego dirígete a Megatón y entra en el bar de Moriarty. A la derecha de la habitación verás un señor de etiqueta con sombrero y gafas de sol. Es el señor Burke, que solo aparece al tener karma malvado. Ve a hablar con él y acepta su trabajo.

Tras eso, coloca lo que te dió el señor Burke en la bomba de Megatón. Al hacerlo, debes dirigirte a Torre Tenpenny, que está en la parte inferior izquierda del mapa, muy lejos de tu posición. Así que tendrás que caminar mucho y armarte bien para los posibles peligros que encuentres Yermo Capital. A mitad de camino, verás la torre.

Al llegar a la entrada verás un necrófago hablar por el telecomunicador. Habla por éste y dí que te envía el señor Burke y quieres ver a Tenpenny. Te dejará pasar. Entra al edificio y continua hasta el ascensor. Arriba, a la izquierda, verás un guardia sentado. Dile lo mismo que al del telecomunicador y te dejará pasar. Adéntrate en la habitación de Tenpenny hasta el balcón, donde encontrarás a Tenpenny, a Burke y el detonador. Cuando estés listo, activa el detonador y observa los fuegos artificiales.

Por supuesto, en este juego cada acción tiene su consecuencia. Megatón quedará arrasada y se volverá unas ruinas radioactivas, así que más vale no acercarse. Y todo ser viviente que estuviera en ese momento en la ciudad resultaría muerto. A cambio, Tenpenny te dará chapas (la moneda de Yermo Capital) y las escrituras de una nueva habitación para ti en Torre Tenpenny, con las mismas prestaciones que tiene la casa que habrías conseguido en Megatón si hubieras desactivado la bomba.

Hasta aquí ésta pequeña guía. Espero que hayáis disfrutado del espectáculo y disfrutéis igual del resto del juego explorando y descubriendo cosas. Aún estáis a tiempo de descubrir algo que aún no haya descubierto.

Saludos

LeviathanDominator

 

Light guide clock part 6, originally uploaded by Black Heart Industries.

The LEDs arrived in the post yesterday. That’s not white. More like faint blue. Vault-boy seems to like it. Gives it a colder feel, electric. Not bad. I wouldn’t have used bright blue, too tacky. I’m not surprised that the color’s off. 100 LEDs, 100 resistors, and free shipping from China for less then $7. That’s ridiculously cheap. I was concerned that they wouldn’t be bright enough, but they are. The clock will be a standard 12 hour. In Europe they use 24 hour, so the schematic needs to modified. When the hours display resets, it will display 00. That won’t do. The hours ‘ones’ counter Q0 will display 1, Q1 will display 2, etc. That causes the advance pulse to be at the wrong time. We will not use pin 12, instead we will use pin 11(Q9, display 0). The transistors will be connected to ‘ones’ counter pin 4(Q2, display 3), and ‘tens’ counter pin 2(Q1, display 1) Confused? I was. When everything is working I will post the finished schematic and a proper explanation.

just finished reading two amazing books. first off, part six in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: and another thing…. it was written by eoin colfer, the dude who wrote artemis fowl, and he did a stellar job at keeping up the comedy.

also sat down and finished the graveyard book by neil gaiman in a day as well. it’s about a boy named nobody who lives in a graveyard, raised by various ghosts and goes on numerous adventures. gaiman totally works his magic craft with it, making it both a childrens book and an adult novel, with awesome art from dave mckean.

gaiman at his best

last but not least, i finally finished up borderlands for the xbox 360, by 2k games and gearbox. a really strong and funny fps mixed with role-playing elements. to do everything it only took about 20 to 25 hours and it was totally worth it. a great amount of fun, like a fallout and diablo mix.

enjoyed it thoroughly

Gah no Super Drama today. I spent an unexpected amount of time dealing with the various Deans at UNT concerning my classes from the current and upcoming semesters and by the time I was done I fell asleep on top of the page of SD I was working on…and I drooled a little on it. So I now have to redraw the page. Unhappy about that.

There won’t be any updates over the weekend as I will be leaving to go to Texas A&M University to visit a friend of mine from my old high school but I will be bringing my drawing supplies with me and if I have any free time I’ll sketch something. Right now I am working on the concept arts and stuff for TMC Fallout so you’ll have something to look at before Fallout day on December 27th (44 days!) I’ve finished one character’s art and I must say it came out unexpectedly well. I want to post concept arts from the main characters of chapter one and one or two people who don’t show up until chapter two because they’re still kinda important to the story in the long run.

But hey when you look at it on Monday I posted 3 comics and you got double the Doing It For The Show as expected so from that standpoint this week wasn’t too bad in terms of missed updates. In fact I’m plus one for the week. Silver lining people.

See ya next week!

I am SO sorry! I updated the folders in my directory to move Super Drama, Fallout and Doing It For The Show to their proper areas but I forgot one huge thing…in doing that I had no index page. Whoops. So yeah.

As far as a Super Drama today. Eh, not so much and if so it will be later today… Technically I put three comics up on Monday so that could be considered the entire week of updates. Just sayin. But most likely I will be putting up a comic before UNT’s basketball game against Newman and if not definitely will have one on Friday. I’m splitting time between Fallout and Super Drama right now to make sure that Fallout has an ample buffer before I start into it and it’s keeping me busy.

Oh and one final thing. To my mom, dad, grandparents on both sides of my family and to all y’all out there I wish you guys a Happy Veterans Day! God bless America!

That is all. See you around!

After much discussion and negotiation, the revisions to the New Home Buyer Tax Credit have been posted. According to the National Association of Realtors Issue Brief, President Obama will be signing off the additions and the following list the highlights to the plan that has been extended to April 30, 2010.

• The income levels will be increased to $125,000 from $75,000 for single home buyers and to $225,000 from $150,000 including the additional $20,000 phase out.
• The $8,000 First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit has been extended to April 2010.

Additional criteria that will be added to the Tax Credit options once President Obama signs the bill, effective December 1, 2009 are:

• The addition of a Current Homeowner Tax Credit will now allot a $6,500 credit for existing homeowners if they “have used the home sold or being sold as a principal residence for 5 of the previous 8 years.
• Extensions to the Binding Contract rule now includes language that as long as the contract to buy is effective as of April 30,2010, then the buyer will have until July 1, 2010 to close.
• A cap has been set for the purchase prices of the homes applicable to the Tax Credit to $800,000, and dependents are not eligible for the Tax Credit.
• An Anti-Fraud rule has been attached to the language requiring the buyer to attach purchase documents to their tax return for the year the purchase took place.

These new criteria are the first-step of making the Tax Credit a real answer to the national real estate market problems. By opening the credit to existing homeowners and extending the timeline to 2010, it should give a strong boost to the 2010 housing market numbers.

Applying the very-much needed Anti-Fraud rules will help eradicate the fallout from any potentially unethical credit applications and maintain the real sales numbers for the next year.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 6 Episode 6 – Fallout?

Episode Synopsis:

Clark is thrilled when he learns that his friend, Raya, managed to escape from the Phantom Zone and has come to see him in Smallville. The two grow close and Raya shows Clark how to restore power to the Fortress of Solitude. However, Baern, the spirit of a killer with the ability to control and feed off electricity, also has escaped from the Phantom Zone. After possessing the body of a street kid in Oakland, California, Baern makes his way to Smallville to take revenge on both Raya and Clark for his imprisonment. Meanwhile, Lana gathers more information about Lex’s research project called ROCK. Also, Jimmy Olson returns to try to win back Chloe’s affections by tailing Lana to find any dirt on Lex Luthor.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Claims and counter-claims follow the sensational decision to remove Derry City from the League of Ireland…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: city furniture. The blog is also related to: city planning.

Claims and counter-claims follow the sensational decision to remove Derry City from the League of Ireland…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: english football live. The blog is also related to: tables football.