Wednesday, February 26, 2014

This Is Me #14

This vs. That: League of Legends success compared to Starcraft 2

Fifteen years ago, Blizzard ruled the world. They came out with multiple titles, namely Diablo and Starcraft that were loved by the community. I'm not very familiar with their shortcomings because I was so young at the time. Being young, all I know is that I enjoyed playing the games. And generally, this is the consensus I get from the gaming community. You will never hear players criticizing these games. Maybe we know more now, maybe those games really were perfect. It doesn't really matter anymore because Blizzard has fallen from grace and the successors to those titles have fallen short.

Today, League of Legends, a free-to-play, multiplayer-online-battle-arena (MOBA) game, is king. And by a wide margin. In the majority of aspects, from popularity to profit margin to E-sports relevance, it's hard to disagree with the fact that the recent past and future belong to LoL. Why is this and why hasn't Starcraft 2 taken its rightful place on the throne?

1. Market Penetration: You can bet that everyone and their grandmother who played Starcraft was looking forward to the release of Starcraft 2. This is a game that engulfed an entire generation and already had an established fan base. It's easy to see that making a sequel would be very profitable for Blizzard. However, this is a new age, an age of creative digitization and diligent monetization that are designed to make everything convenient for the buyer. We don't buy games at Best Buy anymore. We order them on Amazon, we download them off Steam, or there are even FREE games that we don't need to pay money for. League of Legends is one of those free games. It didn't start with the same fan base as Starcraft, but it was able to creep its way into more computer hard drives. I didn't need to buy a $50 copy and put the CD in my disk drive. I just downloaded the game and was off on my way. My wallet wasn't any lighter (at the time) and that meant less commitment. This game didn't have to be good because I hadn't invested in it yet. So while Starcraft 2 started with a larger fan base, the next generation who had no familiarity with it had no reason to commit. And let's be honest, downloading a game with the click of a mouse is easier than asking Mom and Dad for some money to burn on video games.

2. Multiplayer Aspect: I can make a crude comparison of Starcraft to something like Civilization or Age of Empires. There are really only two types of game play, pvp and pve. This is simple and it's almost always been this way. However, games like Counter-Strike (which led to a whole genre of FPS games) and Defense of the Ancients (a LoL predecessor) allowed friends to play with each other. They could be on the same team and in fact, they were meant to be on the same team. The core of the games involved team work. This was simply not true of Starcraft or things like Civilization. Even now, I don't play Civ 5 against my friends because it's easier to just beat up on bots together. Everyone has fun that way. If I take out my friend with a Reaper rush super early, he/she is not going to be happy. However, in League of Legends, you're supposed to play with your friends on the same team. You have the same successes and struggles, and like a really hard Chem AP class, it brings friends together against a common enemy.

3. Mechanical Gameplay: Any game with a lot of strategy takes mastery of the game mechanics to develop a proficiency when playing. This means that games with a large amount of things to learn can be extremely rewarding when game mechanics are executed correctly (like being good at basketball vs being good at hop scotch). However, when a game is very hard to learn, some will not even take up the challenge to learn the game. Which is why I stick to hop scotch. Starcraft 2 and League of Legends are both mechanically intensive games, but Starcraft 2 blows LoL out of the water in this regard. Actions per minute (APM) is one of the most important stats in SC2, and coupled with a good knowledge and correctly executed strategies, can make you a beast whether you play Terran or Zerg. I tuned into an SC2 stream once and I just heard endless amount of keyboard clicking. It's really insane. When we take APM into LoL's world, this stat really doesn't matter much at all. Reactions and timing still do, but overall, you don't need to micro or macro as many things. Some may say that this reduces the skill cap of the game, that this means the game is inferior as it's easier to play, but I don't buy it. Let's take mountain climbers who climb Mt. Kilimanjaro vs. mountain climbers who climb Mt. Everest. If you can climb Kilimanjaro, it's not like you don't know how to climb a mountain. Sure, Everest is harder, but no one can say the amount of skill it took you to climb Kilimanjaro was nothing. There are only a handful of people who climb Everest, but far more who climb Kilimanjaro. When we apply this to League of Legends and Starcraft 2, it's easy to see why people would opt for an easier, yet still pretty rewarding game in LoL.

4. Team Strategy: How many of us have watched a chess match? I haven't and I hold nothing against people who do but I'll propose the same question for golf. I haven't watched a tournament and I hold nothing against those who do but I'll propose the same question for basketball. I have and I hold nothing against people who don't but I will say that statistically, team games like basketball and football are more popular when it comes to viewership of pro-games. Why is this? I believe it's because we believe there are so many different places in which things can go right or wrong and it's therefore more spectacular to watch when it all goes right or disastrously wrong. SC2 is a 1 v 1 game, matching pure individual skill. It's a lot like real time chess. League of Legends is a 5 v 5 game, matching teamwork and strategy. It's not about who can micro their character better (for the most part), it's about pressuring bottom to take a free dragon. This is much more appealing and easier to watch for spectators in E-sports because it's a much more macro game. Moreover, it's easier to focus on things. 10 players in the game mean that 10 things can impact the game. In SC2, you can have 15 hydras against 12 reapers against 3 colossi , etc etc. A layman can focus much more easily when you make game play based around less units and this also leads to greater market penetration and developing fan bases.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

This Is Me #13


This is the most sarcastic song I've heard in a long time. And it describes my mentality towards people perfectly!

I don't know about Paramore, but as the one "singing" the song, I feel like I only say these lyrics because I am someone who feels that the world orbits around me sometimes. It's not something active that I try to do but it's something I do nonetheless. However, this is not even something I realized a year and a half ago. Therefore, with this realization, I need to rub this in everyone's face who doesn't yet know this.

And, yes, it is fun.

Monday, February 24, 2014

This Is Me #12

If God was willing to share his glory with me, who do i still screw up? Why am I not a perfect being? I hate failing. I hate falling short. If Christianity was real, why would I have to wait on what's promised?

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

This Is Me #11

Final Countdown

Six hundred seconds
Until the clock beckons
And Cinderella gets her wish

No more washing dishes
She'll have servants who listen
To the sound of her voice

Her choice is to go to the palace
Or back to making salads
Would paradise even be the place for her?
Maybe she'd rather go to a place she deserves

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

This Is Me #10

Christianity Nay


At what point do Christians stop obeying, word for word, what the Bible says? One passage most Christians don't follow is , 1 Cor 11:2-16, regarding head coverings for women in church. There are some churches (power to them) that do follow this tradition but most do not. Paul clearly states that women must have this head covering, yet it's a section of the Bible that is easily dismissed in most of the circles I've been apart of. The most common argument I've heard is that, "That was a cultural thing and it doesn't really apply to us now."

And in fact, this argument lines up with one that I've heard from a lot of non-Christians with regards to disobeying the Bible in its entirety. They argue it's outdated, it was written two thousand years ago, our culture is much more progressive now, etc. It has sections of it that are great, are used in weddings, but a lot of that hoopla is just not for the modern folk anymore. Obviously, applying the argument to this degree is not something that the majority of Christians agree with. But where is the line to be drawn? It seems like a very weak argument to say that part of the Bible can be flat out ignored in practical application but all the other stuff needs to be followed completely and in its entirety.

Monday, February 17, 2014

This Is Me #9

Nisekoi Anime Review

Nisekoi is another show that has emerged in the Winter 2014 season. The story revolves around the heirs to two rival gangs, one being a guy and the other being a girl. The gangs are about to go into an all out war when the bosses decide to create a fake relationship between their children, the two heirs, and create peace between the gangs who would've otherwise fought to the death and destroyed the city. The day is saved, but this plot point is mainly a distraction as the main goal is to create a situation where a guy and a girl (who have extreme disdain for each other) are forced to get to know each other better and will probably turn a 180 and fall in love.

I find each episode entertaining enough, though I can't help but think it's a show full of distractions. The most obvious distraction is their artsy fartsy art style that they kind of shuffle in and out of different scenes. It reminds me a lot of the style that Nisemonogatari uses, involving a lot of unusual spacing, contrasting visual patterns, and close ups of character's faces (or even just parts of their face). It works in Nisemonogatari because the writers have also scripted the dialogue and music to be just as disjointed and unusual as the art style. You can see what they're trying to do and everything adds up to be one big ball of art fart. However, in Nisekoi, I feel the frames with unusual spacing clashes with the rest of the scene. It looks pretty but I feel that it's mainly a gimmick to try to be different. They don't let the characters carry the load of the entertainment like a show like Toradora! would. And I do feel that's important because it's a romantic comedy. If I don't find the characters appealing, why do I care if they fall in love?

That being said, they make great use of the close-ups to accentuate emotional responses. And even if it's a gimmick, there is entertainment value in an unusual art style purely because it's a novelty. I can nitpick at Nisekoi a lot, but at the end of the day, it delivers in entertainment, which is the biggest factor of them all.

8/10 a very watchable show but nothing innovative here just yet

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

This Is Me #8

Odysseus

Chapter 1

There was once a boy who looked at the heavens and stood in awe. He wondered what it would be like to gaze these celestial bodies, to reach out and touch them, to fall into them. His dreams were filled with what he would experience when he finally stood face to face with these giants.

The boy grew into a man and he remembered his dream. The man built a vessel that could take him into space. There were those around him who mocked him. They told him his vessel could not endure the harsh environment he wanted to traverse.

The man paid them no heed. He knew of the dangers and had prepared for them all.  His ship was sleek and air tight and the route it would take had been all planned out. The last concern was time's pull on his aging body and mind, and for this, the man had concocted a sleeping potion. This would allow his body to rest and his mind to dream, free from time, while his ship would bring him closer and closer to his goal.

Upon finishing his preparations, the man celebrated the start of his journey with some wine. The man decided he would celebrate all day and all night instead of resting, as he expected the next months, even years, to be filled with sleep. After many of hours of merriment, the bottles of wine had been exhausted, yet the man still craved more. His eyes wandered all over his house, searching for more drink.

The man finally stumbled into his study and caught a glimpse of the sleeping potion he had concocted. In his drunkenness, he had forgotten all about his plans and his dreams, choosing to indulge in this moment instead. Seeking yet more pleasure from the drink, he drank the sleeping potion. Even when his eyes became heavy and his body would no longer respond, he had no notion of the mistake he had made; and in his study, he slept for many, many years.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

This Is Me #7

Christianity Meh

The truth cannot be humble. A sweater that is black cannot entertain comments that it might be green or red because it does not want to step on people's toes. It is simply black and there's no other way to look at it. Sure, you can say that "this sweater was dyed black" and that's why it's black or you can say "this sweater does not reflect any light waves that would give it color" and that's why it's black, but at the end of the day you simply have to admit that it's black. The sweater isn't going to "be nice" and pretend it's another color to eventually let the fact sink in that it's black in the distant future when you're more ready. It's black. End of story. And that's the whole truth in a world where clothing is animate and has emotions.

Christianity's truth can be described in a similar way: Jesus Christ died for our sins and because his actions on the cross, we are promised eternal life with God in heaven. Anyone who is a Christian usually does not dispute this notion. Much like the color of the black sweater, this truth seems to be in your face, screaming, "I'm here! I'm here!" in the New Testament and there's no real way of getting around it if you believe the Bible to be true.

What Christians do not seem to agree on is how this should be lived out, what this affects in our day to day lives, and how it affects them. The whole spectrum exists, those who have conservative moral beliefs, those who have more liberal moral beliefs, those who believe in a young Earth, those who believe in evolution, those who give away all their money, those who save money to be used in ways they deem fit, etc. And all of them claim that they're right. Anyone who has conservative views believes that their way of living Christianity is the truth and is equivalent to the truth that Jesus is the Christ. The same can be said of more liberal Christians. One half says "shame on you", the other half says "this is the 21st century, get with the program". Both have biblical support (it seems). Both have few people who are willing to admit that the other group has any kind of meaningful traction that could be used in their own lives.

Outside of Jesus Christ, does Christianity have a truth like a black sweater? I have relegated myself to silent agnosticism in this case. Being humble seems to be a better route to me but this is little more than admitting I don't know the truth.

Monday, February 10, 2014

This Is Me #6

You can do it if you try
Go big or go home, don't just get by
Lies, false promises were told
Those were the words they said

Guess this is what they call life
Get knocked down and stay down, might
Be better tomorrow when the sun comes out
But for now, I wanna believe the best days are ahead

Friday, February 7, 2014

This Is Me #5

D-Frag! Anime Review

This is easily the best show to come out in the Winter 2014 season. D-Frag! is a perfect example of how to abuse the fact that you're watching an anime. It excels at being completely outrageous, both in its characters and plot, it can transition hilarious moments to very serious moments in the blink of an eye, and its content is extremely trivial yet somehow extremely entertaining. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Gintama in just how absurd every episode becomes.

D-Frag! is classically set in a high school and the authors have chosen to fill its halls with the most random smattering of students you could ever think of. The only thing anyone has in common is that they are all failures. The main character is a delinquent who is actually a really nice guy and wants to help people out. The main love interest (in a very odd way) runs a do-nothing club. The rival club president cannot make amends with her friend. The school president is largely responsible for most conflicts as opposed to keeping the peace. The other delinquents in the school get beat up by the female population.

The show is able to combine real characters in real settings with the most unrealistic interactions. Of course, a teacher who sleeps all day in a club room seems very unrealistic, yet it properly portrays the fatigue that adults feel. D-Frag! properly portrays everyone's failure. We pretty much suck at what we strive to be and we unintentionally hurt people around us a lot of the time. To me, this is what story telling is all about: portraying reality through fiction. On top of that, anime allows writers to be as absurd as possible which usually makes things incredibly hilarious.

9/10. D-Frag! is great to watch and easily to relate to.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

This Is Me #4

Teaching Methodology: Motivation

For students or anyone looking to learn something new, motivation is always at the forefront of why we subject ourselves to homework, exams, projects, and generally everything we dislike experiencing in life. Motivation can differ greatly from person to person. Some people seek education to please their parents or please their job/boss/company's requirements. Others learn new things because they have an interest in those subjects. Whatever the motivation is and for whatever reason there is motivation, learning is much more efficient and effective when motivation simply exists. Therefore, it is in teachers' best interests to learn to motivate students if their goal is to pass on complete knowledge and understanding; and, indeed, there are many ways in which teachers can motivate students.

Encouragement: This word can mean many different things and they are all applicable to helping a teacher also be a motivation. Anything from helping students who ask for help or merely giving positive reinforcement for tasks completed correctly could be seen as encouragement. The point of encouragement is to build students' confidence in the subject they are learning. Without encouragement, students are more likely to simply give up because they don't know how to solve a problem. However, with encouragement, students are allowed to take baby steps, making the larger problem less daunting. Additionally, they are given an external push to complete the problem along the lines of what a coach does for an athlete.

Challenge: Students often think a subject they are learning is boring for a plethora of reasons. Perhaps it is uninteresting to them or perhaps they think it is too hard for them to grasp. Another way of looking at this is through a "challenge level". If a subject is uninteresting and boring, it is likely that the subject is not challenging enough. If it is too hard and students give up before they even try, the material is likely too challenging. Balancing the challenge level at a proper point will motivate students to overcome this challenge and feel fulfilled when the challenge has been bested. This idea can easily be illustrated through completing a puzzle made of X pieces. If the puzzle where 2 pieces large, it would hardly be a challenge and hardly worth one's effort. If it was made of 1,000,000,000 pieces, the puzzle would also not be worth one's effort, but this time because the amount of effort required would be too large. However, many people love puzzles of 100 or 1000 pieces because that is a reasonable challenge level. It is not daunting enough to warrant immediate resignation and daunting enough to feel a sense of completion when it has been finished. Completing challenges will, much like encouragement, give students confidence as well.

Confidence: This is the idea that "I'm good at this". Confidence creates huge motivation because larger and larger challenges can be completed and a larger and larger sense of fulfillment can be obtained from completing these challenges. Many people take jobs in certain areas or study certain subjects in school because "they are good at it". If a student had no confidence in their ability, no matter how simple the challenge, he/she would likely not even attempt to complete it. Encouragement and challenge are tools to create confidence in the student, which in turn, creates motivation.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

This Is Me #3

Tech Ideas

Low Cost Taxi System

Key component: Google' self driving car

Vision: Keep prices low no matter what

Exit Strategy: Sell idea/infrastructure/code to Google

Selling points:
- 24/7 response time (already possible with current driver systems)
- No need for human interaction, user can input destination into GPS interface
- No need for central dispatch, system can merely locate and send nearest car
- Cars can idle in vacant parking spots at no cost
- Idle points can be strategic in region's volume of demand
- Ultra cheap fares as machines do not need salaries, becomes much more efficient for customers looking to rent a car for an entire day/longer period of time
- Can entirely replace car rental market
- Hybrid/electric cars can be used to be more efficient with gas (selling point for cities to gain subsidies)
- Luxury cars can be used to gain access into high end market
- Can opt for ads somewhere, somehow inside or outside the car as additional (possible even main source) of revenue
- Mobile app to allow easy requests

Arguing points:
- Destroys large source of jobs
- Competes with public transportation already in place
- Greater road congestion if former is true
- Eventual need for refueling is a difficult problem to solve without human interaction with cars
- Constant maintenance checks likely required to keep cars running smoothly (difficult without dispatch center and having cars be on call 24/7)
- Need for Google's device is potentially large source of expense
- Nothing in place to prevent Google from becoming a competitor themselves
- No security on car itself (possible damage/terrorism)

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

This Is Me #2

Christianity Yea

 Something that a lot of Christians like to take solace in is Christianity's overarching nature. It explains everything we ever need to think about and this is quite nice because if we believe God is omnipotent, he should most likely want to have a hand in everything as well. This is something that cannot be said of evolutionist or atheists in general. I think even they will agree that they do not wholeheartedly devote their mind, strength, body, and soul to evolution or science, or even that they strive to do so. One of the closest historical examples I can think of humans trying to achieve this is the Nazis. Now this sounds hyperbolic but when you think about it, if you were very concerned about evolution and wanted the best evolutionary outcome for humans, you wouldn't want mentally retarded or the like to be in your gene pool. If you were concerned about furthering scientific exploration, you wouldn't mind doing some human testing or even animal testing. However, the case is that a lot of people seem to mind these things and many people hate that the Nazis did these things. Additionally, a lot of people also have compassion on those less fortunate than themselves. I'd say these are good things.

 One may argue that evolution or science or atheism does not need to pursued in a fashion similar to religion. That fanatical actions of any sort lead to these atrocities and fanatical religious actions have led to similar tragedies like what the Nazis did. Evolution or science or atheism does not need to be taken to that degree and probably shouldn't be pursued that heavily but is still a good explanation given the evidence we have. I think this is a reasonable stance to have but it also leaves a lot of empty worldview (and also devalues the argument itself to say that "well I don't really care about it that much"). If one does not devote themselves to evolution, science, or atheism, what do we devote ourselves to? Our self fulfillment, self progression, others? The funny thing is that this is ground that religion has a much bigger say in. Principles such as loving your enemy can go a long way to being that "good person" we all see ourselves as. At the end of the day, I think these are the things people really care about. Not that humans came from monkeys or fossils but how humans can help each other, how humans can persevere, and how humans can do amazing things. Religion surprisingly has great things to say about these things.

Monday, February 3, 2014

This Is Me #1

Life Inertia

 This is a race.
Started out fast.
I thirst,
Chasing the finish line
Head down, face first.
Gold medal here, blue ribbon there.
First place, post game interview
 I'll tell the world I'm great.

 But when my feet cross the line
They say another lap, "You're getting behind".
So I struggle.
Muscles ache and lungs wheeze,
Thoughts of giving up begin to tease.
The speed is gone,
I trudge as
I try to pick up my feet.

 The friction from the track catches my soul
I can't take another step
My motion has stopped
Is there something out there that wants my dead?
Or is it just all in my head?