Tabula Rasa - The control point and you

Alright, here we go yet again back into the world of Tabula Rasa. Like the last walkthrough, we are again hooking up with Z. Mainly because she's high enough level to solo Control Points found in the Wildneress, which is where players will first encounter the field Control Points.

Control Points should be familiar to anybody who has played Planetside. Players most remove an opposing force from the base, then capture the base for their side. Like the bases and towers in Planetside, Control Points in Tabula Rasa can be used to respawn, reload, as well as serve as points of travel to move around a zone.

If you complete the training segment of Tabula Rasa, you'll be taken through a mock Control Point assault. However the assault is aided by the cannons and shield wall being susceptible to a single detonator charge, which players will never run into out in the real game. There are several other twists that the in-game training does not cover.

We find Z hanging around the Memory Tree in Wilderness - 1. Just wondering, but do you know enough of the Logos Language to translate what the Tree says?



Z checks her map and finds that both Control Points in the Wilderness currently belong to the AFS, her side.



Z decides to head over and check the Landing Zone Outpost. Seems fairly calm.



Scratch that, a metric ton of Bane are incoming.

At Z's level there is a catch here that isn't immediately noticed. All of these bane are far below her level. However, if you are in the Wilderness at a Wilderness appropriate level, you'll find that the Control Points are assaulted by Bane that anywhere from 2 to 4 levels over the Zone average.



Since Z is the only AFS elite soldier hanging around, looks like it's up to her to fight the Bane back.



Most control points signify the end of an assault by friendly NPC units dropping in and helping to wipe up remaining Bane forces. Here we can see that despite Z's best efforts, the Bane did manage to drop the shield on the front of the control point.



Okay, the shield is back up, the Control Point is safe.



Oh dear. Z has switched to Wilderness - 3 where the Bane have control of both Landing Zone Outpost and Imperial Valley control points.



Z heads to the hostile Landing Zone Outpost.



If you are attempting to take down a Control Point while at a zone appropriate level, it's a good idea to start taking out the turrets that guard a Control Point.



With the turret down, Z can now turn her attention to the rest of the battle. As you can see though, standing still is just inviting trouble. Had Z been at a zone appropriate level, that big ugly purple thing would have her for lunch.



Z's now going after the shield for the Control Point.



The best way to take a shield down is to EMP weapons. Since Z is a Demolitionist, her choice of EMP weapons is largely limited to EMP shotguns, EMP rifles, EMP Pistols... and EMP bombs.

Trust me on this. For Control Point offensives, stock up on EMP bombs.



Shield is down, and Z is into the courtyard.



Courtyard is clear, time to recap the base.



You probably did this part in the Basic Training segment, so you know how to click on the Control Point tower.



What you may not be aware of is that just because the courtyard is clear, does not mean that the Bane won't show up again. Z's been interrupted by some Bane that just dropped in.



Once Z has cleared out the Control Point again, she completes the capture.



Once a Control Point is recaptured, the front shield immediatly comes up. A quick look at Z's radar shows that multiple friendly units are now on the scene to help finish wiping up any leftover Bane.



A check of the map shows the Control Point is now controlled by the AFS... but there still is one more in the paws of the Bane. A soldiers work is never done.


A couple notes for the end of this. First, I was planning to do a crafting walkthrough. Seems I got beat to it: http://www.rgtr.com/community/community_news/crafting_101.html

I'll probably still run mine anyways, just for the fun of it.

Second : if you came from here : http://www.rgtr.com/community/community_news/weekend_wrapup_2252008.html

welcome. And a very hearty Moo to you.

Tabula Rasa - Weapon Maintenance

In Debt Penalty and Repair I went over the damage to weapons after dying. Now I'm going to go deeper into Weapon Maintenance. Unfortunately Zed Blogspot is only level 5 and doesn't have that wide a range of weapons to chose from. For this walkthrough then I am using one of my play characters, hereafter referred to as Z.

Because this play account is the same that I used to out the trolls a few posts ago the name of my avatar has been blanked out as at least one of the trolls has been witnessed logging into the game while in the process of writing this walkthrough.


Lets start by running over the basics of weapon usages. As we can see here Z is holding an Exothermic Polarity Gun. Basically this thing shoots a stream of plasma that melts most enemies in it's path, but not all as we will witness later.




Using the forward stroke to bring up the chat window I can use the mouse to move over and view the properties of my weapon. The properties tell me the current amount of damage my weapon produces, the type of damage my weapon produces, as well as the range at which full damage is dealt on the target. In the case of this polarity gun, any target out to 40 meters gets the full damage.

The properties also list what type of ammunition the weapon uses, as well as the weapon condition. The weapon condition does affect weapon power. Too much damage to the weapon, and the weapon stats will go down.



Moving the mouse over a non-equipped weapon not only displays the non-equipped weapon, but also the currently equipped weapon, allowing for easy comparison of weapon statistics.




Lets go ahead and open up the backpack. Items that are colored red are unable to be equipped by the avatar. Items that can be equipped are clear icons.




Mousing over an item that cannot be equipped and the missing requirements are listed at the bottom of the item information. In the case of this Incendiary Blade the missing requirement is Novice Training: Blade.




A quick check of the training requirements reveals that I would need to be a Spy in order to use a Blade.




In the case of this Salvage Tool I would need pumps in Engineering: Photonics.




For this Polarity Gun I just need another level.




As mentioned the weapon pop-ups can be used to compare weapon stats. Here we have two photonic shotguns. A difference of a mere 5 levels translates into just about 1000 points of damage between the level 32 and level 37 shotguns.

We can also see that these weapons use different grades of ammunition. The level 37 weapon uses High Grade ammunition, while the level 32 weapon uses Improved Grade ammunition.




Weapons and Equipment are also separated by color grade. Items with no color coding are the baseline equipment. Green items are slightly better. Blue items are better than green. Purple items are better than blue items. The higher grade a weapon has affects statistics like how fast the weapon deteriorates, or how fast the weapon overheats. Purple weapons will overheat less than Blue weapons and retain firing condition over a larger amount of fired ammunition.

Here we can see the defense difference between blue and green mech boots of the same level. The Blue boots have almost 320 more points than the green boots.




Alright, lets go back to the topic of Ammunition. Z has headed over to a nearby supply sergeant.




Again, this Photonic Shotgun only uses High Grade Power Cells.




The vendor sells 5 different types of ammunition. Standard, Improved, High, Select, and Elite. However, only the High Grade ammunition will work. None of the other grades will work in this gun.

Basically, don't buy higher grade ammunition until you have a weapon that uses the higher grade.




Here we can see that the Exothermic Polarity Gun will only accept Standard Grade ammunition.




Okay, lets go into ammunition cost. The High Grade ammunition the Photonic Shotgun Z is using costs 16 credits. Since the Photonic Shotgun fires 3 shots with each blast, each press of the trigger costs 48 credits.

So lets go out and kill a Bane.



This low level bane only drops 40 credits. Basically, the ammunition cost for this weapon is higher than the return for a successful kill in this zone.

In other words, watch what weapon is being used against enemies. Sometimes it's a good idea to have a lower classed weapon around when going through a lower-level zone.




Alright, lets go find some Bane that are within Z's level range. Guardian Prominence is a higher level zone that can be reached from Wilderness. Outside of the instance we find some higher level Bane.




While removing these Bane we can see that one of them has been set on fire and a red skull is located over the Bane's head. This is a critical hit. Run up and hit F on the keyboard to execute a special animation kill for double experience points.


Okay, one Bane left. Lets go back over weapon condition. As mentioned in the Debt Penalty and Repair walkthrough hitting enemies with a non-melee weapon results in a 1% condition loss. So lets kill this Bane with melee attacks.

As we can see, Z's current weapon condition is 99%.




Okay, the Bane is dead, lets check our stats.




Our combat tab shows the damage results from the round of fisticuffs.




Then we find that the weapon condition has fallen to 84%.



Okay, lets see what the damage condition drop is like in a normal battle. Z has entered Guardian Prominence and repaired at the local vendor. With a condition of 100% Z will fight as far as she can until she dies, at which point we'll check weapon condition again.



Z has come across one of the modified Hunter enemy class. These guys now reflect damage. Something to keep in mind.



Another battle basic. When enemies have lootable items, you don't have to actually go up and click T in order to loot the corpse. Just walk over the corpse.


Okay, Z has finally died. Since the repair penalty for death has not yet been applied, we find that Z's Exothermic Polarity Gun has a condition of 93%.



The basic point is to keep equipment repaired. If entering a heavy combat zone it's probably a good idea to have extra equipment available in case the condition level drops too low and a vendor is not around.

One of the final aspects of Weapon Management is to always have the right weapon for the job. As seen against this Swamp Grubber in the Marshes, the Exothermic Polarity Gun is useless.



The Electric Polarity Gun however... works quite fine.


Don't get too dependent on one weapon type. Those red spots on the radar around the Swamp Grubber were Mox's. They happen to be immune to the Electric Polarity Gun...


However, roasted Mox on the end of the Exothermic Polarity Gun? It's considered a favorite treat.


The final word of advice is to always have a wide selection of weapons and equipment available. The battlefield on Tabula Rasa can change rapidly, and many enemies with conflicting weakness's can often be found hanging around together, like the mox and swamp grubbers.

Tabula Rasa - Warps and Logos Puzzles

When Tabula launched I ran a feature on Gamenikki.com titled Tabula Rasa: Saying Goodbye to Planetside. In the featured I compared Tabula Rasa to the only game even remotely in the same genre, and at the same time covered many of the basic mechanics for how the game worked. Well, now I'm going to go back over one of the mechanics of Tabula Rasa that holds a lot of potential for future gameplay, the logos puzzles. In the Gamenikki feature I rattled off several of the future possibilities of how logos usage could be integrated into the game and went over a couple of the puzzles already in the game. At the same time I'm also going to go over the usage of warp points in order to get around the maps.

So lets catch up with Zed Blogtest. Seem's Zed has found a bright blue door in Daghda's Urn. This is a logos locked door. The 5 circles around the door hold the symbol of logos the player will need to have in order to pass.



As Zed approaches the door he finds that the lock is turning red. Zed does not have the logos he needs in order to enter. Zed will need to leave and find the missing logos before he can enter.



Zed's now at the waypoint teleporter for Daghda's Urn. Lets go over the basics of using a waypoint.



When Zed steps into one of the minor waypoints he is presented with a map showing all of the unlocked waypoints in the zone.



Currently the only other waypoint Zed has been through is found in Alia Das.



The waypoints can also be used to switch between servers. The right hand column shows that there are currently 4 Wilderness servers available. Zed is going to head to Wilderness-3.



Here Zed has chosen to go to Alia Das in Wilderness 3. A click to teleport...



And the players find themselves at a loading screen.



And now Zed is in Alia Das, Wilderness 3.



Since Zed has to go hunt some more logos we'll leave him alone for a bit and talk a bit more about instance switching.

Why would you switch server instances anyways? Well, the primary reason is due to lag. A less populated server is quick to play on. Another reason is to take back or defend control points, which will be addressed in another walkthrough. When hunting special spawn monsters or bosses, it's also a good idea to head to a lower populated instance where the spawns are more likely to be present.


So what's Zed been up to? Well, hes' now outside of Ranja Gorge checking out his list of gained logos. He thinks he has all of the logos now to open up that door in Daghda's Urn.



A quick check to his map verifies that he has the Ranja Gorge Waypoint.



And of course the Daghda's Urn waypoint hasn't disappeared.



As Zed enters the Ranja Gorge waypoint the map shows all of the available waypoints.

Word of advice, some waypoints are one way warps only, such as those found in Control-Points. You can use them to leave, but you can't use them to enter.



This time the door lock cons white and Zed can enter the Logos Chamber.



One of the factors to keep in mind about the logos is that they sometimes form word puzzles. For example, to enter this chamber you need to have the logos mind...



The logos power...



Which gets you here.



There's another logos puzzle in the game that Zed is going to go have a look at, but he needs to get over to Palisades first, which means a long walk. Zed's first stop is by Twin Pillars to pick up the dropship waypoint there.

The dropship Zed is looking at is designed for inter-continental travel. Zed can use it to switch between the Wilderness, Divide, and Palisades zones.



Zed has managed to make it to Foreas Base in Divide and takes a moment to grab the dropship waypoint there.



As Zed enters the dropship pad he is presented with a similar map to a local waypoint map. However this map shows all of the dropship zones that have been picked up.



Back behind the Foreas Base dropship pad players will find the Foreas Base Wormhole.




After a harrowing trip through eastern Divide Zed has arrived at the relative safety of Cumbria Research Facility, where he finds that not all dropship pads call down a dropship he can use.



Ah here we go. Can you translate this obelisk? I can. I'll also note that one of those white dots around me is a named boar.




Word of advice: When players get to the obelisk translation puzzle in Palisades it is tempting to ask for the meaning of the puzzle over the chat channels. This is actually one of the worst things that can be done. As I covered over in Gamenikki.com feature there is a steady progression of the logos puzzles to teach players how to hunt for the logos, and how the logos are used as the in-game language. Once the player collects all of the logos in the Palisades Zone the meaning of the obelisk will become clear. At the same time players might get a basic understanding of where the logos puzzles could go in the future.

Tabula Rasa - Debt Penalty and Repair

In many MMORPG type games there is some sort of penalty for dying. In Final Fantasy XI the death of an avatar resulted in loss of experience points, which in some cases could cause a player to lose an experience level already earned. In City of Heroes an avatars death is met with an experience debt. Players only earn half experience as they pay back a percentage of their overall experience point count to debt. In Planetside the death of an avatar resulted in the player's respawn time increasing. Multiple deaths could quickly remove a player from a battle as the respawn timer counted down.

So, now we'll go over the punishment for dying in Tabula Rasa. Poor Zed Blogtest, this requires some intentional suicides on his part. Seems he took on a Bane mob that was too much to handle.

Upon dying players are presented with a list of hospitals that they have unlocked. While Zed died on the edge of Corman Lake he has the option to go to Alia Das or Daghda's Urn.



Zed's decided to head over to Alia Das.



Respawn time is near instantaneous as Zed quickly finds himself in the Alia Das hospital.



With a recent death Zed is currently under a 20% debuff effect on his powers for 5 minutes. If he dies again the counter is increased by 5 minutes, and the status debuff increases to 40%. If Zed dies again after that the penalty timer is increased by another 5 minutes and a possible 60% status debuff.

There is a small advantage though. The debuff numbers roll off on the countdown times of 5:00 and 10:00. So lets say Zed has a countdown time of 8:00 and he dies. The countdown timer is increased to 13:00 and Zed moves from a 40% debuff to a 60% debuff. When the timer hits 10:00 on the countdown the debuff decreases to 40%. When the countdown timer hits 5:00 the debuff decreases to 20%.



Here we can see Zed's current status. Body has a rating of 24, with mind and spirit sharing a rating of 15.



Players can buy and use Res Trauma Kits to alleviate the status penalty of dying. Since Zed is only level 5, he can only use a Class I kit.



Upon using the kit Zed's body returns to it's default 30 rating. Mind and spirit both increase to 17. Zed's total health has gone up by over 100 points, from 472 to 577.



There are more effects than just a character status debuff. Here we can see that Zed's armor has taken heavy damage. Each death drops the condition on all equipped gear by 10%.



All equipment means items likes guns and weapons as well. Only gear not equipped is spared.



While the status debuffs can be dealt with by waiting for the effects to wear off or investing in Res Trauma Kits, equipment condition needs to be actively addressed. Equipment can be repaired at any vendor. Zed's dropping by the armor vendor for repairs.



On the bottom right hand corner of each vendors interface window is a tab labeled repair.



The repair tab shows all the gear that has less than 100% condition.



A quick press to the Repair All button...



And Zed is now ready to get back out into battle.



Word of advice. Equipment deteriorates with every action, and some actions inflict heftier condition loss than others. For example a player can fire off 5000 rounds through a polarity gun and have a condition of 95%+. However, if a player uses their ranged weapon to hit an enemy with a melee attack, each melee will generate 1% damage to the weapon. So 5 melee hits with a polarity gun and it will be in worse condition than having spent 5000 rounds of ammo.

There are two classes of avatars available that have melee weapons. Those are the Spy and Guardian classes, which have staffs and blades respectively. Unless a player is running an avatar of these classes, melee combat is discouraged. Remember, Tabula Rasa is a third person shooter, not a third person brawler.

Some of the skill specializations help to decrease condition deterioration in equipement. For example higher levels in the soldier's machine gun training directly affects the condition of a machine gun as it fires.

Tabula Rasa - Mission Management

One of the common questions that floats across the new player channels is how to find the logos damage. Players state they can see it on their radar, but they just can't get to it. Learning how the mission management system in Tabula Rasa works will go a long ways towards accomplishing complex objectives, as well as perhaps aid in zone navigation.

Currently Zed Blogtest is sitting in Palisades checking out his mission log. Couple of things to note is that players can have up to 30 concurrent missions, and that the missions are largely sorted per battle zone. However, it is possible to get a mission in one battle zone, such as Wilderness, that needs to be completed in another battle zone, such as Divide. The Liaison Receptive missions are a good example. Each Liaison Receptive will send a player to the next level appropriate zone, and often tell players how to get to that zone.




Zed's going to take a look at his Lurking in the Shadows mission. Here he finds that he has already completed one of the mission objectives which is checked off, and the next objective is highlighted.



Zed checks out one of his completed logos missions, Logos: Area. Although Zed isn't instructed on where to return to, he remembers to talk to the Alia Das Liaison Receptive.



Zed then checks out his progress on Targets of Opportunity. The catch with some missions, such as the ToT, is that all of the objectives are not listed from the start. Zed will have to explore the Wilderness a bit more to find out what all he has to do to complete this mission set.



Okay, so how does one get missions anyways? Most missions are found inside bases and control points, but not all. For example Zed can see a Corman Doctor with a radio over his head outside of a base.



As Zed gets closer his contact now shows on the radar in the lower right hand corner. Players need to keep an eye on the radar since not all contacts will be out in the open. The general rule of thumb is that if you see a radio icon? Check it out.



Zed's taking a break on Memory Hill, so lets take a moment and see how the radar works with missions that are already obtained. Each mission has a checkbox on the right hand side of the log window. Zed's going to mark Lurking in the Shadows.



Lurking in the Shadows now has a bright green check box, and a yellow arrow has shown up on the radar in the lower right hand corner.



A quick check of his map and Zed knows where he has to go to get this Proctor Fulgore.



Not all missions have map points as Zed will demonstrate with Treelurker Samples.



Treelurker Samples is a hunt mission which can be accomplished anywhere treelurkers are found. As such there is no radio marker indicating where players should go hunt.



This doesn't mean that Zed shouldn't check his map. Treelurkers probably hang around trees, so Zedd should probably head to one of the forest sections.

Some missions will tell you a region of the zone to hunt in, so when in doubt, check the map anyways.



Zed's radar is fairly useful. Zed has a mission to speak with an elder atop Memory Tree Hill. When Zed is below the level of the elder, the radio icon on his radar displays an arrow pointing up. That way Zed knows that his target is above him, so he should keep climbing.



Zed's radar will also indicate when objectives are below his current location. Currently Zedd can clearly see a body he needs to check out atop this waterfall, but there is another radio icon he can see.



In order to get to that second radio icon that wasn't directly visible Zed finds himself signing up on an introductory spelunking course.



It is also possible for radio icons to show multiple different directions depending on the zone geography. As Zed's radar currently shows, he can see the mission to check out that body atop the falls, as well as the mission to check out the miner under the falls.



One of the factors that is commonly overlooked in Tabula Rasa is that players can have up to 30 missions at one time. Basically, the idea is to not get hung up on any one particular mission. If you don't have the level for the mission, come back later with a better team, or with better weapons and armor. If a mission seems to be bugged? Just move on.

Most missions can be dropped and accomplished at a later date as Zed will now demonstrate. He's going to do the River Recon mission which had him talk to the body in front of himself. Now Zed has to report back to Sgt. Witherspoon.



Zed's decided he really doesn't want to see Sgt. Witherspoon right now, so he radio's in that he's going to abandon the mission.



Next time Zed's back in Alia Das, he checks up with Outpost Commander Rogers who hands him the job of reconnoitering the river.



A quick check of the map, and Zed is back to the waterfall...



Where... oh bugger... Zed's going to have to search that body again. Wonderful.


Word of advice. Not all missions can be completed. Some missions will fail. Zed's not high enough to solo Cater Lakes which is one of the first zones players will encounter with a split objective mission. In split objective missions players can have one or two choices on how to complete the mission.

In Crater Lakes the player is given the choice of allowing a fellow soldier who suffered under Bane medical experiments the chance to go free, or the choice of turning the fellow soldier over to the AFS Medical corps. If the player turns the fellow soldier over to the AFS, they will fail the go free mission, and vice versa. Currently there are no known long term in-game consequences to the various split objective missions, so the choices are currently largely up to what each player wants to do.

Tabula Rasa - Managing Chat

Alright, here we go again back into Tabula Rasa with common beginner questions. Perhaps one of the most common requests in Tabula Rasa's new player chat is whether or not players can manage the GUI settings, exampling the ability to move the chat window, radar, or other components of the screen.

Well, the short answer is no. At this time Tabula Rasa's User Interface is static, and as far as I am aware there are no development plans to change that. However, the player does have some control over some of the window panes, as Zed Blogtest will shortly demonstrate with the chat window.

I'll go ahead and state I'm not exactly thrilled with the design choices made by Destination Games in regards to the default chat format. I'm going to compare the chat to City of Heroes for a second. City of Heroes defaults with a broadcast channel that only covers the zone the player is currently in. Ergo if a player is in Atlas Park, their broadcast chat will only be heard in Atlas Park. The broadcast chat will not be heard in Steel Canyon or Skyway City.

The default chat channel for Tabula Rasa is general chat channel that covers every zone and every instance in the game. It is my opinion that the presence of a default channel for every zone and instance is what gave rise to the extreme amount of trolls that populate the general chat channel.

The result is that many new players to Tabula Rasa shortly ask if they can turn the general chat off. I'll go so far as to say that the vast majority of people who play Tabula Rasa avoid the general channel. It is my opinion that Destination Games needs to eliminate the general chat channel, and switch to the broadcast format found in City of Heroes. The broadcast format is actually already in place for Tabula Rasa, but it is channel #4, so the underlying code change should be fairly trivial to remove the general channel.

The point of such changes is to push the focus of battle organization into the clan networks, or private channels. Private global channels such as Triumph Watch and Freedom Badge have gone a long way towards simplifying team organization in City of Heroes, and the formula has been proven to work. One of the reasons why private channels work in CoH is that whoever creates the channel has, and can assign, admin rights. Ergo unruly players can be visibly silenced or kicked from the channels by moderators.

Until such time as the chat system is reworked in a manner that neutralizes troublesome elements, lets meet up with Zed and see how we can manage what is currently in the game.


Seems that Zed has found his way to the top of Stone Anvil. To begin our chat window modification, first start like you were going to send a message.



For me I tend to use the forward slash, /, in order to start a chat message. At this point the mouse pointer should be free. So move it up to the chat tabs and right click.



Seems that we have a drop-down window now with various commands to play around with. While I didn't show it, the opacity mentioned there? Changes whether or not the window fades to the background. In the first picture the opacity is all the way off, and in the picture below, it's at it's darkest.



Lets walk through deleting a tab. I already have a Clan tab I created earlier. With a right click to Clan, I can then left click on Delete Tab.



Whenever you delete a tab you have to confirm that the tab will be deleted.



Now our chat window is down to just 5 tabs. Clan is gone. Now lets bring Clan back.



With a right click on local and a left click to create tab...



We now have a flashing blue New Tab.



At the flashing blue text I've typed in Clan



Now to set the channels that will appear in Clan. With a right click I bring up the menu again, and I've mouse hovered down to Channels. A left click to each channel will select the channel. However... I don't want any of those in my clan chat.



So with a mouse hover down to Clan, I have both members and leader selected.



I can also use this method to turn channels OFF. A left click to General System Messages... Okay, note how the new Clan channel marked my AFK? Messages like that will no longer appear. The only thing that will appear outside of clan chat is *ADMIN* chat... and I don't really want to ignore that anyways.



To answer one other question, can you delete the default tabs created by the game?



YES. Goodbye General tab.



This walkthrough does differ graphically a bit from the previous Tabula Rasa walkthrough. For those who have not followed my screen-cap methods I make it a point to only use native OS-tools. However the native screen-cap tool in Windows is Microsoft paint. I'm not exactly happy with the quality of the jpeg's that Microsoft Paint produces, so for this walkthrough I went back to the method I used in Windows 2000 to create png's for MepisGuides. Microsoft Paint is used to capture the full screen in bit-map mode, then the GIMP is used to compress the image into the final format at a lower quality. On the monitor I used to create these guides I think the image quality is better with an 85% jpeg compression from the GIMP.

Tabula Rasa - Wilderness Guide

It's not a secret that I'm not exactly fond of what passes for a community in Tabula Rasa. The general chat is filled with people who do not know what they are talking about, and wish to argue with those who do. Since I happen to be fond of proving that I know what I'm talking about, here's some proof. I created a brand new character on Tabula Rasa and I'm going to walk through several of the common questions found in the Wilderness zone. One of the questions that is continually asked in Tabula Rasa is when players should clone their character, and there are a myriad of answers that result in chat. Many of these answers try to pin when to clone to a specific number or level count. It's not that complex as we'll shortly see.

Typical of all Blogspot pictures, click on the picture itself for the high-resolution jpeg. I capped these in 1650*1050 for a couple of reasons. The first is that I had to do this under Windows. There is no native Linux client, and neither W.I.N.E. nor the most recent stable Cedega release run Tabula Rasa. The second reason is that this game looks good, and you have to keep in mind I'm running this on a Pentium 4 with a Radeon x1800 XT.

So let's meet Zed Blogtest. He's going to walk us around the Wilderness. As we see below he's a cocky sort who just skipped Basic Training so he could enter the Wilderness at an even level 4. Strong, handsome, great green hair... oh wait. We want the Gordon Freeman knockoff in white. Sorry.



As Zed walks down the hill he has a radio message come up. Might as well answer it.



Cool, Zed gets to go get a pet who will follow him around and do absolutely nothing!



Before getting his pet Zed takes a moment to go see what Targets of Opportunity are available.



Now Zed heads over and collects his pet. The little robot sounds good.



Seems that Zed decided to take a moment to /rave just before he hits level 5. A lot of players will state in general chat that you should clone before you level. No. Zed's decided to celebrate a bit too early.



There we go. Level 5 is reached.



Since he's hit level 5 Zed finds that he has an orange hand on the right hand side of the screen that won't go away, and there also is a radio mission awaiting him.



Checking the radio mission will give players a mission to go train up to their next class.



This radio mission will put a radio icon over Soldier Trainer Bukowski



as well as Specialist Trainer Hoffman



Zed decides to talk to the Specialist trainer and finds he has a clone option.



Clicking on Clone will bring up a message asking you if it's alright to log out. If you want to clone, Hit Okay.

Word of warning before I go on. Level 5 is a horrible level to clone at. I reached this point in the game in under 15 minutes. You really want to save the clone gained at level 5 for later. Since this is just a test character though, Zed's going to be a little stupid and clone at Level 5 anyways.



After hitting okay, you should be at the character selection screen. As seen on Zed he has a 1 clone available. In order to clone, hit clone



I went ahead and made Zedd, changing only his hair and beard color. Once you are satisfied with your clone's, hit accept.

Word of advice if this is your first time playing... don't get too hung up on your armor color and armor appearance. Armor will change a lot during the first 30 levels.



Back at the character selection screen we find that both Zed and Zedd are recruits. I'm going to go ahead and put Zedd into the battle.



Zedd feels he's a little light on firepower so he's going to go be a soldier. he figures he can't go wrong with a machine gun at his side.



Now that Zedd is a soldier he finds that he got some more experience that was held back until he chose a class. He knows that if he had been on a mission and had not been able to train up he would not lose any experience he gained in the fight.



Now lets go get Zed.



Zed likes firepower, don't get him wrong on that, but he wants to be a little bit more creative in how that firepower is applied to battle. He's looked over his career options and decided that the Engineering path sounds downright devious. However, he needs to be a specialist first.



With his new class Zed finds that he's also got mission experience that was held back.



Alright then, so when is the best time to clone? When you go to train up to your new class.

There are some other factors to cloning through. The general recommendation for players is that they save their level 5 clone, the one Zed used up, and use it at level 30 to create a crafting clone, and save a Targets of Opportunity clone for level 50.

The explanation follows that at 30 players have enough points to maximize all of the cloning skills. Cloning at 50 allows players to craft anything in the game. By not investing any points in crafting on their primary battle avatar players have more points to spend on battle useful skills and weapons.


We are not done quite yet though. One of the other common questions in Tabula Rasa is how does one locate the caves in the Wilderness. One of the factors in Tabula Rasa to keep in mind is that the game is heavily based on patterns, and there is a pattern to the caves in the Wilderness.

There are two rivers along the Wilderness. The Upper and Lower Eloh Creeks, and the river in Ranja Gorge.

The first cave is at the start of each river.




The second cave is at a major feature in the river, such as a waterfall...



or a bend.



don't be afraid to get off the beaten path.



The third cave is off to the side of the river further down...



Sometimes really far off the side of the river.



And sometimes not so far.



The final question that gets asked a lot is how to locate the logos in Pravus Research Facility.

Can you find where Zed went?

AMD : more open-licensed goodies

Wanted to talk a bit about some of the releases from AMD over the past couple of days. The first bit comes from Alex Deucher who is employed by AMD. The X.org ATi driver has been updated to release 6.8.0 which is worth a note for a couple of reasons. The release notes read as follows:

- - mach64, r128, radeon ported to libpciaccess
- - massive restructuring of ati wrapper
- - radeon support for r5xx, rs6xx, and r6xx chips using ATOMBIOS
- - return of zaphod mode support
- - radeon support for centered modes using scalers (selectable via output attributes)
- - PAL tv-out fixed on supported chips
- - initial support for render accel on r3xx/r4xx chips (rotation)
- - fix TV option handling
- - Xv RGB fixes
- - XPRESS Xv fixes
- - improve bios/driver interaction on radeon
- - revert back to previous AGP mode behavior
- - lots of bug fixes

Some of this might as well be greek to some of us, but it's a lot of good changes. I'm most interested in the RadeonHD support which seems to indicate that some of the work from the X.org-RadeonHD driver has been merged into X.org-ATi.

After the release of the X.org-ATi driver on the 18th, AMD followed up with another Open-License release on the 20th. The press release is located here : http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~123872,00.html

Basically AMD opened up it's former proprietary AMD Performance Library, which is comprised of over 3200 high performance software routines that help developers write multi-threaded applications for x86-class processor platforms. The new project, named Framewave, is intended to help developers wring more performance out of systems with more than one processing core.

Phoronix caught something something about the Framewave release that wasn't obvious in the AMD press announcement. I quote from Phoronix.
[quote]Among the supported operations are H.264 video decoding[/quote]

Interesting that AMD would open source information on how to accelerate processing High Resolution video content.

So, why is this important anyways? What's the big deal?

The big deal is that video and multimedia support on Linux has traditionally been behind Apple Unix and Microsoft windows by several steps. Many technology vendors have deliberately created incompatible software or licencess to prevent Linux users from legally playing or viewing certain types of media. Off the top of my head I can think of MP3 playback and DVD playback as being two quick examples.

On the side of the graphics, Linux today is far ahead of where it was. Mepis Linux was the first to include a setup tool to easily install proprietary video drivers, a design choice now mimicked by many other distributions. However, Linux still falls behind Microsoft Windows in several areas of graphics.

Off the top of my head I can think of Asynchronous -display support. Asynchronous-display is when you have two differently sized monitors with two different resolutions and refresh rates. It is possible to get Asynchronous-display working in Linux now, but the process is far from simple and automatic on most distributions. Under Windows? Well, Windows 2000 never had any problems driving two different displays with two different resolutions, and that was released 8 years ago.

A quick look over the release history of many drivers and multi-media applications reveal people who are doing the work because they won't too. They aren't receiving paychecks for the work. They just do it.

Now? AMD is funding people like Alex Deucher to do the work. To write the drivers, and to talk about the drivers and progress in public forums in a way that the average user can understand. AMD has gotten involved at a community level, and is now funding members who have contributed.

I've stated before that if you want to support Open-Licensed software, you should buy from vendors that support Open-Licensed software. AMD has made some gutsy moves by placing software and technology that used to be considered trade-secret out in the open. To me, that's worth supporting, and worth talking about.


****

Corrected Framewave's name. Note to self, always make sure Spallchaq doesn't correct something that does not need to be corrected...

MMO: Why should trolls be permanently banned anyways?

In Tabula Rasa: Oh how the trolls congregate, as well as the Simon Adebisi call out, I recommended that the developers of each game permanently ban the account holders. In the Tabula Rasa screenshot it was shown that I was talking to one of my friends about having to deal with some trolls. This friend has asked me before why do I support the permanent, and public, banning of trolls in Massive Multiplayer Online games. Specifically I have advocated that MMO games follow the pattern of IRC. An admin kicks the offending player with text of *Admin has kicked (name) for (time): Reason (reason)*, and bans a player with the text of *Admin has banned (name): Reason (Reason)*.

The first reason I support this method is that everybody on the server notices. Everybody knows exactly who the troll is, and anybody associated with the troll is given time to rethink their actions and words.

The second reason is that such methods are proven to work. Many IRC channels have been cleaned up by an Admin stepping in and drawing a line on what's appropriate or not. More often than not, troublemakers eventually learn to go elsewhere.

The third reason is precedent. I'm going to pick on World of Warcraft here for a moment. World of Warcraft is well known for the various gold farmers, people who sell in game gold for real world money, or sell leveling services in exchange for real world money. Despite these actions being against World of Warcraft terms of service, Blizzard's failure to quickly, and in a public manner, eliminate the farmers means the infestation has grown. World of Warcraft is a massive target for gold-farmers because they know the chances of Blizzard actually doing anything to the offending accounts is extremely unlikely. Blizzard could have stopped the farmers early on by being aggressive about kicking and banning accounts.

NCSoft has typically been better about getting a handle on in-game spammers and farmers, with City of Heroes developers taking relatively quick action to put in place systems to deal with spammers. While spammers aren't exactly gone from CoH, they still pop up, the frequency of spammers has greatly deceased as a precedent has been set on what is, and is not, accepted behavior in CoH.

Tabula Rasa is currently in a delicate stage of growth. With a bare 3 months behind itself, the initial shake-out has not yet completed. It won't be until 4 months or so after the launch that the trolling players who initially signed up will be gone off to whatever new title is on the way.

As such, Tabula Rasa is still setting precedents about what is, and what is not, acceptable behavior. So far the developers and GM's have been very good about cracking down on spammers. Problem is spammers are not the end of the problem. Destination Games, the developers of Tabula Rasa, will need to start setting precendents over what is acceptable chat behavior and what is acceptable game behavior. The names I listed before; Soros, Breacher, Angels, Firehappy, Firewater, and Principality; actively worked in a manner contrary to the game itself.

There is a difference between simply saying something in a chat channel, and getting called on it, and saying something in a chat channel, getting mad about getting called on it, then acting out in-game harassment of the player who has the guts to call a troll for what a troll is.

The developers need to take actions now to get across the point that trollish in-game actions are not tolerated. If that means losing 6 accounts due to permanent ban with no chance of the credit card numbers being accepted for any other NCSoft games, that's a far less price to pay than having the reputation of being a haven for trolls. As I see it, and I think previous games such as Everquest, DoAC, Planetside, WoW, and Anarchy Online have proved, the community standard that is set early carries through the rest of the life of the game.

City of Heroes also stands in evidence of this behavior with it's multiple Generic-Heroings. City of Heroes has a reputation for not allowing copyrighted names and avaters. For example, if you show up in Atlas park as the X-men's Wolverine, complete with the scrapper claw set with a blue and yellow outfit, don't be surprised if you get a message stating you have been forcibly disconnected from the server, or you suddenly find your self with GenericHero(number) above your head and a bright orange jumpsuit costume. Even if you do get away with running a character like SDVegeta, or River Tamm, older veteran players will warn you that if the devs or GM's see you, you might be out a chunk of money on an account suspension.

By setting a precedent now and actively removing the trollish elements, Tabula Rasa can set a reputation that such behavior is not tolerated throughout the rest of the life of the game. Even if Destination Games didn't ban any more accounts in the future, the fact that they have banned accounts in the past will ensure that the chance is still there.

Ergo, troublesome elements will find themselves thinking twice before causing problems. That in turn will improve the community aspect of Tabula Rasa, which will attract more players who are in the game to play the game.

Tabula Rasa : oh how the trolls congregate.

For those who have read this blog, you'll remember that I love calling out trolls and revealing who they are. For those who read Gamenikki, you'll also remember that I gave Tabula Rasa a glowing preview, and a rather glowing review despite an average scoring. At one point during the beta I stated I liked the game so much that I would buy it even with the current massive number of bugs. At the same time though, I expressed reservations about what passed for a community in the game. At one point I listed the number of people I had in an ignore list for spamming, trolling, and so on.

The retail launch of the game wasn't much better, with many of the trolls who only were there for a free-beta leaving, only to be replaced with new trolls determined to take Tabula Rasa in their own directions.

I hold that PvP in Tabula Rasa is a bad idea. I even went into a multiple part blog post on Gamenikki detailing inherent imbalance and why PvP in such games tended to be a bad idea. I've also gone into the state of PvP in the general chat. This has placed me at odds with a many a troll who want to see Tabula Rasa turned PvP only, and who swear up and down that Tabula Rasa's end game is, and always will be, PvP content.

Now I'm going to take a tangent here. Who all has heard of George Soros? Well, if you want a less than balanced opinion of the guy, check out Wikipedia's entry. Short version is that George Soros is a multi-millionaire responsible for funding a lot of the campaign finances for liberals, not just democrats in particular. He's been one of the primary backers of a multi-year smear campaign against the Bush family, and it is widely considered that there is enough evidence against Mr. Soros to convict him of treason under the legal definitions in the US.

Okay, so that sets the picture for what could possibly pass as a bad person.

Now, what would you say if I told you that somebody in Tabula Rasa took the name Soros. Couldn't be the same person, right? Well, on that basis, you'd probably be right. At 77 I'm pretty sure that the real George Soros isn't interested in video games, much less actively trolling in a video game.

Well, there is somebody in Tabula Rasa that did take the last name Soros, and it seems they have a cabal. After the most recent interaction with this group I decided it's time to ask NCSoft to step in with a couple of permabans on some of the accounts. Ready?


Okay, badly edited image to remove other names, and people in my ignore list who haven't earned the distinction of being called out.

The question is now, what did this group do that was so bad, that I would recommend NCSoft ban their player accounts? Remember Simon Adebisi? Fellow earned himself a mention for griefing during the I7 and I8 CoH Hamidon raids, and for his particular vulgar comment vocalized just before leading a Monster class opponent into a group of hamidon holders. Well, that's the standard set then. Something just that bad.

Well, hows this strike you: when called out for being trolls in Tabula Rasa's general chat, the group pictured above find whoever dared call them out, surround the player, follow the player around, and then proceed to kill anything that the player comes across.

The point of the exercise is simple. The trolls prevent whoever called them out from gaining any exp, thus making the game impossible to play. The trolls also attempt to accomplish field objectives before the player can accomplish the field objectives.

The term used to describe such behavior is known as kill-stealing.

Most MMO's implement some type of damage control or ratio of damage to prevent kill-stealing from occurring. In effect, if you get a hit in, or some type of damage, or assist in a battle in some aspect, you will get experience points for your actions, regardless of whether or not you make an active kill.

Okay, so next question is, why didn't I take a screenshot of these trolls carrying out their actions? I took a screenshot to reveal who they were. Honestly I was laughing too hard to do anything till I took several warp jumps and lost them. You'll also note that I landed in Irendas Colony. What I didn't screenshot is that after my first couple of jumps, the trolls split up, and as I walked into Foreas Base, two of the trolls were waiting at the dropship transport, and as I transferred to the Plains, one of the trolls followed, the other heading off to the second warp point possible from Forease Base Wormhole. Disturbing behavior no?

The thing is, I like Tabula Rasa. I really do. It's a great game, it's got a wonderful story. It's probably the best MMO to come along in a long while.

However, Massive Multiplayer Online games are defined by their community. Freedom server on City of Heroes is often called Freedumb by other servers, due to it's high percentage of less than intelligent players. In my own personal experience I've had to explain to high level -storm defenders (44+) that their O2 boost was used to prevent sleep, disorient, and end-drain effects. I've encountered Fire Armors that skipped the jumping power pool, and therefor had no native knockback protection. Some took fly, but trust me on this, you still can get knockbacked and lose aggro with fly on. Freedom is also where I've encountered the most people who take two travel powers, a power choice I've looked at extensively on this blog before. It's not like these are not players with only a couple months play time either, it's players with 5 or 6 veteran badges, who honestly should know better.

In some aspects Freedom is such a horrible server to play on that I've gone on record stating that if I had started on Freedom, I would likely not still be playing City of Heroes, and I likely would have never picked up City of Villains. In one case after instructing a brand new player with no vet badges on some good power choices, the new player expressed puzzlement that I hadn't ended the conversation with a "good luck" or "have fun" comment. When I replied back I explained that they were on Freedom, and I'd be lying if I told them I thought it was a good server to play on.

Don't get me wrong, Freedom's not all that bad. There are some people who do make Freedom worth playing on, but I only found those people by hanging around the Badge channel, something new players are not going to be aware of.

From a community standpoint though, Freedom is almost vilified by many of the other server populations, and is often referred to as the farming server. Freedom has earned a reputation as a poor community server.

Tabula Rasa stands in almost exactly the same light. It might be a good game. It might be a great game. It might be one of the best games I've ever played. However, it is a Massive Multiplayer Online game, and as such the community interactions are outright obscene. I couldn't recommend Tabula Rasa to anybody in the current community state. I've maxed out my ignore lists on my high level players, and I still can't enter the general chat on a regular basis due to all the trolls.

For me then, NCsoft and Destination Games have a difficult choice ahead of them. They'll either need to step up and actively ban people like Soros, Breacher, Angels, Firehappy, Firewater, and Principality...

or they'll have to deal with new gamers that are not just going to be turned off by the trolls, but are going to take their money elsewhere.

Speaking for myself, I'd rather see the trolls outed and removed permanently, than to watch Tabula Rasa die off.

still cannot connect to MepisGuides.com

This is beginning to get beyond the point of annoying. Here's my current traceroute:

7 ge-7-3-105.car1.Atlanta1.Level3.net (63.211.121.29) 26.772 ms 26.388 ms 27.850 ms
8 ae-31-55.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.68.103.158) 41.377 ms 47.354 ms 49.361 ms
9 * ae-68.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.69.134.50) 36.921 ms *
10 ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.134.21) 49.513 ms * 48.896 ms
11 ae-63-63.csw1.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.154) 48.146 ms ae-73-73.csw2.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.158) 47.212 ms ae-93-93.csw4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.166) 49.024 ms
12 ae-14-69.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.6) 55.726 ms ae-24-79.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.70) 46.248 ms ae-44-99.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.198) 46.331 ms
13 THE-PLANET.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.71.122.2) 46.363 ms 44.686 ms 46.587 ms
14 te7-2.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.26) 45.116 ms 44.693 ms te9-2.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.14) 45.755 ms
15 po31.dsr01.dllstx4.theplanet.com (70.87.253.74) 46.329 ms 48.843 ms 46.337 ms
16 gi1-0-2.car17.dllstx4.theplanet.com (67.18.116.85) 49.620 ms 47.665 ms 47.159 ms
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
Zerias@Li-Viri:~$

********

As can be seen, I'm still timing out on ThePlanet.com

For those who don't understand a traceroute, a traceroute goes through the normal connection paths that a TCP/IP connection takes to get to the host. If a connection is broken, a traceroute will tell you where the connection is broken at. In my case I am timing out on the hops through ThePlanet.com's servers. Perhaps the following pictures from Xtraceroute might make the problem a bit more clear.



As can be shown my connection starts in Georgia, and my ISP connects to Level 3 out of Atlanta. Level 3 connects with itself in Dallas according tp the LOC field from the DNS server. Level 3 in Dallas passes itself off to ThePlanet.com. My connection to the site then hops through a couple of ThePlanet.com's servers, and then dies with no further response.

This data tells me one of two things. The first conclusion I can draw is that ThePlanet.com's servers are broken internally. A router is down or a line has been cut.

The second conclusion I can draw is that one of the connection services that ThePlanet.com connects to is broken internally or externally. Either a router is down, or a line has been cut.

In either case, the only course of action I have is to contact the host of the last hop on the traceroute and let them know that their connection is broken. Specifically, all I can do is contact ThePlanet and tell them they have a problem and inform them were the problem is.

Depending on the actual connection issue at hand, the process of the troubleshooting is no longer in my hands.

In the case of the first conclusion, that ThePlanet.com's servers are broken internally, I have to wait for ThePlanet.com to reboot the appropriate server or fix the physical connection issue at hand.

In the case of the second conclusion, that a party outside of the ThePlanet.com has servers or routers that are down, I have to wait for ThePlanet.com to locate which connection party is down, notify that party of an existing problem, and wait for the 3rd party to fix their connection. At the same time I am reliant upon ThePlanet.com to inform me of who went down and the timeline that has been provided to ThePlanet.com by that 3rd Party as to when the services will be fixed.

The part where this gets annoying is that after 2 emails to ThePlanet.com, I have not received any notification or response to the connection problem. I generated a third email today since the connection problems have now surpassed, in the time that I've been directly counting, 7 business days. Entire time has been closer to almost 2 or more weeks of access downtime.

Wikipedia Accuracy : it's not an encylopedia

I'm not a fan of Wikipedia. Everytime I cite or link to the site I preface the link with text such as according to Wikipedia. I've also used various context phrases such as if Wikipedia is accurate, Wikipedia seems to be accurate, and despite Wikipedia having the average accuracy of a Star Wars Storm Trooper from Episodes 4-6, whenever I refer to information obtained from the site.

I have several issues with Wikipedia to begin with, one of which concerns webcomics. Over the past couple of years a singular individual editing Wikipedia conducted a campaign to remove all webcomics from the site by citing that webcomics were non-significant. I've also witnessed a Wikipedia editor actively remove anything on a Jeremy Clarkson page that painted his quintessentially German car segment from Top Gear in a neutral tone. I've witnessed discussion on a page concerning Geri Halliwell, one of the spice girls, in which a Wikipedia editor was actively telling other users to remove all but basic information about the singer.

Now, I'm quite familiar with http://www.dictionary.com which is owned and controlled by Lexico. I'm also somewhat familiar with http://www.merriam-webster.com/. On a whim then I decided to look up the definition of encyclopedia.

Dictionary.com Unabridged defines encyclopedia as: 1. a book or set of books containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject.

Dictionary.com references the American Heritage Dictionary which defines encylopedia as : n. A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field, usually arranged alphabetically.

Dictionary.com also references WordNet which defines encyclopedia as : noun a reference work (often in several volumes) containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty

Dictionary.com proceeds to reference Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary (Beta Version) as well, which defines encyclopedia as : a reference work containing information on every branch of knowledge, or on one particular branch

Miriam-Webster defines encyclopedia as : Function: noun Etymology: Medieval Latin encyclopaedia course of general education, from Greek enkyklios + paideia education, child rearing, from paid-, pais child — more at few Date: 1644 : a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject

Okay, fair assortment of definitions for an encyclopedia, and none of them say anything about removing information. Rather each of them states that an encyclopedia contains information on every branch of knowledge.

Right off hand, Wikipedia has already failed the basic test to qualify as an encyclopedia. Information is discarded, instead of stored. One of the excuses given to removal is that of the storage space available on Wikipedia. Okay, I can test that theory. One copy of open office. One 209 page long document filled with capital A's in red text lettering with black background color. One save in Open Document. One save in Microsoft .doc. One save in .html. One save in the .txt format to strip text encoding. Care to guess the document sizes? Well, see for yourself.






The heaviest document format was to be had in Microsoft's Word Format. The smallest format was to be hand in the Open Document format with a mere 9946 bytes... which includes the entire formatting. The HTML format was still under 1 meg. So lets face it. Space for text really isn't a problem. Any wikipedia editor that sites saving space as a reason for deletion has pretty much disqualified themselves.

Wikipedia editors also have a long history of removing information in a biased manner, and there are multiple sites that go after Wikimedia and Jimbo on a daily basis. Cade Metz, who has been published in PC Magazine and I believe is still an editor with Ziff Davis, went after the issues surrounding the creator of the Wikipedia Conflict of Interest section.

It is my opinion that many of the existing Wikipedia editors do not understand the concept of an encyclopedia, and it is my opinion that Jimbo of Wikimedia has no intentions what-so-ever of enforcing policies that would turn Wikipedia into an encyclopedia.

I don't want this to be taken as an indication that the Wiki format itself is flawed. No. The failure of Wikipedia has given rise to smaller wiki's based on specific subjects. Example, Wiki Fur, which tells you about people such as Blade. Word of advice... telling her to have fun while drawing is probably not considered a brilliant idea. In fact, it's probably one of the dumbest things you can possibly do. Ever.

Guess who did it twice.

A very real problem then is to handle citing Wikipedia. As a source of credible information, Wikipedia fails even basic litmus tests. As a source of reliable information, Wikipedia fails there too. As a source of neutral information, Wikipedia doesn't just miss, the hit rate is so low many editors could fly by throwing themselves at the ground.

Why I am adding my voice to the anti-wikipedia crowd? Why now?

Simple answer is that the article written by Cade Metz was a tipping point. Within 5 or so minutes the write-up was verifiable, which isn't the case with many of the other charges leveled against Wikipedia that could take days, weeks, or even months to properly verify through normal sources. As I see it, Wikipedia has been caught with their pants down around their ankles. The term busted springs to mind.

Since I cite Wikipedia myself, I find myself in the position that I don't want to drive traffic to the Wikipedia cite, and I don't want my linkings to be taken that there is a tacit approval of some of the stunts wikipedia is involved in.

Granted, I was probably already doing that with the contextual comments.

BSD impact ; take two.

Jimmy left a response on the GPL and BSD impact entry that I've been sitting on while I figured out how to address it. So, lets get started. My comments are in italics, Jimmy's responses in bold,

#4: Everybody who modifies the source code must submit the changes back to the original author

If I _distribute_ the changed software, I must make the sources available.
I am not forced to send my private changes back to the author.

Problem here is that that my original entry was not talking about private modifications. The examples and scenarios I gave dealt with the redistribution of a modified program, or inclusion in commercial software with a price tag. So, I'm not really sure what Jimmy is on about here. The licensing style of the GPL is designed to protect authors from having their code stolen or re-used. The BSD style license offers no such protection. Again, that is great if you don't care who uses it. It's perfect for items like the Ogg encoding formats where you will run into a lot of other licenses really quickly.

#5: Anybody can relicense modified code

With a BSD-Style license, while code can not be stolen, rights of ownership cannot be enforced either.

In fact, whoever made the changes could theoretically relicense the music program under a new license that would prevent Amarok from every implementing the performance fixes... even if they reversed engineered the fixes.

Further, the BSD license does not allow the licensed code to be re-licensed. It may, however, be included in a larger work which has a different license.

This is one of those comments where I'm not really sure the BSD communities and supporters really understand the implications of the BSD license style. Fact is, Microsoft has taken the BSD TCP/IP stack, has implemented into Windows, and has a restrictive license covering that usage. Fact is, once the BSD style licensed code is entered into another overall project with another license, that BSD style licensed code has effectively been relicensed. Sorry, that's reality. That's what has happened. Again, because of the terms of the BSD licensing style, whoever takes, modifies, and redistributes the code can effectively steal the code, and there is nothing the original author can do.

I'm not saying that is a bad thing. There are many cases in software where ownership of the code and contribution changes are deprecated points. I've already mentioned the Ogg Media formats. Another good case in point is the GATOS project. While it's been dead for a few years, it could not be merged into the X.org ATi drivers until it was relicensed under a BSD-Style license.

If you released your GPLv2 program at a cost, only people who have paid for the product have access to your source code.

Yeah, but if I buy your program I am allowed to make the binary and source available to everyone else, at no cost, if I want to.

Already went into this back with Auto Assault. Yes, you can make the binary and source code available to anybody else, but what about trademarked branding? The case in points are FireFox and MySql.

In the case of FireFox, only source code compiled into binaries by Mozilla can be distributed as FireFox. Binaries not compiled by Mozilla must be distributed with another name. There are also restrictions on the artwork. Which is why you have projects like SwiftFox and IceWeasel. Not that I'm a fan of wikipedia, but they do have a somewhat neutral write-up on the subject Ice Weasel.

The point is, despite relatively anybody being able to republish the FireFox source code with modifications once the branding is stripped, the source code spin-offs only have minor percentages of the overall FireFox market.

The real interest though is MySql. MySql charges for the enterprise edition, and ended public distribution of the Enterprise Edition source code. You can only get the code if you are a purchaser of the Enterprise Edition.

Ergo, the theory has already been put to the test. Only MySql clients buying the Enterprise Edition can get the code. Yes, somebody else could take it, and redistribute it, but they couldn't call it Enterprise Edition, could not call it MySql. Any changes made to the redistributed version would have to be submitted back to MySql themselves. Now I'm repeating the competitive advantage point I made in the initial run.

Now, I could go on and examine CentOS, or Sun's take on a branding stripped Linux, but I think the point has been made. Redistribution by a 3rd party isn't a big deal as long as the code changes keep flowing back. A GPL style license ensures that changes are at least submitted and known.

BSD? Doesn't do it. If that's what you want? It's there.

Microsoft + Yahoo = no problem?

One of the big items in the news the past week or so has been Microsoft tendering a bid to purchase Yahoo. The offer has generated multiple opinion, analytic articles, and various joke stories about what to name the merged company. I'll get the last one out of the way first. I'm in favor of naming the company Bloathoo.

Couple of reasons for suggesting that name which also cover why I'm not too terribly concerned about an acquisition by Microsoft. The first is that Yahoo employees are not exactly too thrilled with the offer, with many suggesting that the fun might be over. The second is that Yahoo has lost out to Google for several technical reasons.

When I repair or service a computer one of my first steps is to remove the Yahoo toolbar, the Yahoo Instant Messenger, and most of the other Yahoo software. While I doubt I could ever classify the Yahoo software as intentional malware, it does have some functions and features that do resemble existing spyware applications. Yahoo software also tends to be very heavy on system resources. I've never done a technical comparison of Yahoo messenger versus Pidgin/Gaim on identical Windows platforms, but with the messenger alone, in my experience the Yahoo client chews up memory and processing time. Supposing that the two actually were equal right now, the difference really would not matter to me. Pidgin/Gaim has includes much more operational functionality than the Yahoo client.

On top of that, I am a little biased because Yahoo declined to stop developing their Linux Client. One of the major reasons Pidgin/Gaim took off is that it ran on Linux. Ergo if you want to access your Yahoo messenger service, you needed to use Gaim in the past. Yes, there are other competent multi-chat clients out there right now. Kopete for one. Yet for years, Gaim and Trillian were it, and Trillian's free version wasn't really in the same feature class as Gaim, and Trillian had/has no Linux client.

The Yahoo toolbar went because it was just bloody annoying. If you want to search with Yahoo, it's just a simple click on one button under FireFox and Opera. No additional software is needed. Okay, Konqueror is a bit of pain since Yahoo is not in the default search options, but you can add Yahoo there too if you really wanted. If your using Internet Explorer? Don't.

For me, everytime I ran across Yahoo software, or tried it, I kept getting the feeling that the computer was being hijacked. Everything was Yahoo-fied and it annoys the living daylights out of me.

Granted, I'm not one for toolbars to begin with. I don't even bother with the Google Toolbar. However, I generally leave the Google toolbar alone if it's installed on a computer because I don't see any other bloatware getting installed alongside of it.

So, not a big fan of Yahoo's downloadable software, and I can't say I'm a real big fan of their online site either. Take a look at some of the site comparisons out there, such as this one from lukew.com which gives a run down of each page. For a better visual history Search Engine Journal did Yahoo while Blogoscope did Google.

The Yahoo site is a bloody mess. There are columns going everywhere, massive ads right when you open the front page, and from 10 feet away you might not even know what your looking at.

Google on the other hand has barely changed. From ten feet away you know somebody is searching with Google. In fact, Google's biggest problem is telling people about the software they offer because the front page rarely changes. Summer of code? Open Source support? Well, if you do not know know about it, good luck finding it on Google's normal home page without using search.

Then there are the email systems. I have a yahoo account. Want to see what happened when I opened up my Yahoo mail while writing this?



Yes. That is a pop up. You might also note that I wasn't actually taken to my inbox. I was taken to some sort of news feed. Sorry, I actually use my Gmail accounts so I'm not snapping a picture there of the login and first screen.

For me then Yahoo has lost to Google because Yahoo just doesn't get it. Sure, Google may not be all that innocent in some of their business dealings, with China coming to mind, but that sort of misses the point.

Yahoo's software is too complex, too heavy, too busy for an average user. Google software has tended to be pretty simple, if not extremely basic. Gmail is only now offering the sort of integration that I would get in a stand alone email client. It's not going to replace Thunderbird, I like having an archive of my messages on my own machines and storage medium, but Gmail isn't difficult or annoying to use.

From a perspective of usability and functionality then, I think Yahoo shares a lot in common with Microsoft. I'd be hard pressed to call Vista an easy to use operating system. There are some aspects of it I like, such as the integration of the Windows Update into the control panel itself. While the process of updating by accessing IE hasn't changed, the presentation has, and the presentation makes more logical sense. Yet for that step forward, Vista took flying leaps backwards in almost every other User Interface aspect. The new control panel makes no sense at all, and that Personalize link controlling the display resolution?

Yahoo in the same way has had tiny steps forward in technical integration of software. Each tiny step forward is just completely undone by everything else.

Yahoo and Microsoft then might actually have more in common than the Yahoo employees might want to believe. What will happen to internet search in the meantime?

Absolutely nothing.

Google has become King of Random search because they simply offer a good product. Google results tend to be more accurate than competitors. Google has aggressively pursued elimination of Google bombs, specific link chains set up to hijack a particular search result.

Yahoo? Well, their search is good, and it's certainly better than anything Microsoft has put forward... but it isn't brilliant. It's not as accurate as Google search, and Yahoo does not have a reputation for shutting down users who abuse the search systems.

For Google then, there is little worry of Yahoo and Microsoft actually composing a valid threat.

The threat to Google will come in non-random search. I'm talking about stuff like Technorati and Beagle. Non-random searches are when people are after a certain subject from a certain source. Sure, Google is wonderful if you want to crawl the internet for a specific subject. What if you just want to find a file on your hard-drive? What if you want to search with an engine that is Open-Licensed?

See the point? Yahoo and Microsoft merging wouldn't change anything that is already occurring. The Status quo would remain the same.

Microsoft would need to undercut the community goodwill Google has generated. Ergo, Microsoft would need to release the Yahoo search engine under an Open-License.

Microsoft would need to counter the simplicity of Google's design. Ergo, Microsoft would need to clean up Yahoo's interface, redesign the UI from the ground up, remove the ads, columns, and everything else, and default the mailbox to actually going to the inbox.

Forgive me if I sound rude when I say this, but I'm pretty sure I have a better chance of getting sent a fat paycheck by Intel for "promotion of retail products" than Microsoft actually doing what is required to compete against Google in the random-search market.

Amber could use some help

Site is : http://www.missmab.com/

Well... I guess you can read the rant there if you want more info... It's below the comic. Don't get hung up on the cute.

***

The goal was met.

Which is more? 4.3 or 4.9

Strange title? Not really. I'm referring to the sales of the Xbox 360 and the Playstation3 over the Christmas Season. I've already stated that I don't think Microsoft actually sold 4.3 million Xbox 360's. I base this on what has generally been outright fabrication about Vista sales, and Microsoft's repeated historical mis-representations of actual sales numbers.

By the same token, I never really trust Sony's numbers either. Sony pretty much wrote the book during the time of the original Playstation on how to hide negative data on sales. Over the past years I've gone into depth on their tax filings and regulatory reports, data which has gone up on Gamenikki before.

Now, ignoring the Wii for a second, I stated at the start of the year that the Playstation 3 had taken 2007. So upon hearing that the Playstation 3 had managed to sell 4.9 million units during the Christmas season, from Dailytech of all news sites, was of interest. What's even more interesting is that a quick overview of retail sales and it I'm not seeing any data that would suggest the number is incorrect. It does look like Sony is reporting accurately... the Playstation 3 console looks to have sold just under 5 million units.

Okay, so I was wrong. Sony has already started outselling Microsoft in the console market. It is not an event that is going to happen sometime in the future. So, lets examine why Sony is going to be the winner, and we'll do that by starting with Nintendo.

Where does Nintendo fit into the overall scheme of console sales? Well, the answer nobody is going to like is this: Nintendo doesn't. Most console sales are started out by the hardcore gamers and gadget lovers buying up the first shipments. Most expect the games to be junk, they just want to be first. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are exact models of this purchasing behavior.

By comparison Nintendo's launch and retail success has not been delivered by hardcore gamers. Instead Nintendo has enjoyed success by one of the widest ranges of purchasing consumers in the history of video games. Nintendo is constantly running success stories of where the Wii and DS systems are being picked up by elderly consumers. The DS in it's pink format has sold in the millions to females which are not typically known for buying video games.

In the traditional model after a year or so the mainstream retail market starts buying each console as units become available, prices are reduced, and a larger library of games is available. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are entering this stage of their retail life. Developers have finally started to get handle on each console, good games are being released on a regular basis, and the price is acceptable.

Nintendo breaks the traditional model. The mainstream market that would only now start to the buy the products has already buying in conjunction with the traditional gamer market. That is one of the factors behind Nintendo's inability to keep Wii's in stock. The demand that would only come in a year or so after the console's launch was in effect from just about day 1.

Nintendo then presents a major problem to third party developers. Many of the successful games so far have been one-shot games. Stuff like Dancing with the Stars comes to mind. Nintendo holds the current lead for overall number of consoles sold, and the demand is not likely to decrease for several months, if not another year, to come.

Ergo, many developers are having to rapidly retool their production lines and development programs to get stable franchises onto the Wii platform. Almost all major developers now have Wii games planned, and have reported that they've reallocated various resources to fuel Wii production.

The result is that Nintendo really doesn't factor into considerations of the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. The Wii has successfully become the dominant product, and will remain so as the restructured development process starts pouring on the software selection.

Okay, back to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 then. Why is Sony going to win the overall sales record? I went into some of the reasons before. In crude terms, Microsoft basically has a single PSG1, and it's already fired the allotted shot, Halo. Sony has the equivalent of a M60.

Let me put it this way. When was the last time RareWare was a factor for Microsoft? Well, It wasn't a factor with the big gun from the Nintendo 64, Conker, on his Xbox Remake. Rare wasn't a factor at the launch of the 360. Perfect Dark Zero had mediocre sales. Rare wasn't a factor after launch, as Kameo: Elements of Power didn't too well either. In fact if you take a look at Gamefaqs you'll note something relatively disturbing.

2006
Xbox 360 Kameo: Elements of Power 02/02/06
Xbox 360 Viva Pinata 11/09/06
Wii Donkey Kong Country 12/08/06

2007
DS Diddy Kong Racing DS 02/05/07
Xbox 360 Jetpac Refuelled 03/28/07
Wii Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest 05/16/07
Wii Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble 12/24/07

I've bolded the... appropriate... sections here. While I'm not sure whether or not Nintendo has published individual Virtual Console sales numbers, 3 of RareWare's past 7 releases were modified ROM's from their Super Nintendo days. In fact, during the entire time that RareWare has been a part of Microsoft, they've only released 6 games total for their owners platform. During that time RareWare has launched 8 titles for handheld systems, 7 of those titles going to Nintendo platforms. That's a far cry from the 1999 and 2000 sales where RareWare released over 4 games each year. 2001 could have been a 5 game year as well if Dinosaur Planet hadn't been delayed to it's 2002 launch as Star Fox Adventures.

The point I'm getting is that RareWare has basically done the same thing to Microsoft that Nintendo got rid of them for. I've always stated RareWare was a bad purchase, and that has been born out by the sales records.

That's pretty much been true of all Microsoft's developers. Most of them cannot deliver on time, if at all.

Sony, by comparison, has a large stable of first and second party developers. These first party projects mean exclusive sales. Sony also has free online play, where-as the Xbox 360 has paid online play. That might not sound like such a big deal if you are a hardcore gamer, but it doesn't take long for the average consumer to figure out that they will pay more to play a Xbox 360 online, than it will to play a Playstation 3 online. That will be factor in the mainstream purchasing decisions.

Sony also has an advantage in their media playback, which as new models of LCD panels are introduced, the prices of getting a decent wide-screen TV have fallen. I myself use an almost stock Wide-Screen monitor. That will be a factor as consumers look to the future over the next year. The Playstation 3 simply offers a better media playback system, which what is going to be the dominant media format, Blu-Ray.

So... was I wrong about Sony had sell the Playstation 3 as more than just a Blu-Ray player. I don't know. I'm still convinced that if Sony had taken the chance to go after Vista with the launch of the Playstation 3, there wouldn't even be a discussion about Vista anymore. I don't think it would factor in for any purchasing decision. I'm still convinced that Sony has the opportunity to deliver a knock-out blow to the Xbox 360 that Microsoft will not be able to recover from.

Keep in mind that Microsoft is under federal regulation for at least two more years. Microsoft cannot add a word-processor, browser, email client, or other such items to the Xbox 360, in order to make it equal to a standard personal computer.

Sony... can.

Yes, the Playstation 3 has already begun to surpass the Xbox 360 in current retail sales, but there still are several million Xbox 360's already on the market. Those systems are not going to go away. They are not going to disappear. I think that the Playstation 3 sold because it started offering real games like Ratchet and Clank or Uncharted. I think the Playstation 3 sold because Sony got smart about the downloads and started putting hard to find titles like Wild Arms into the store. I think the Playstation 3 sold because it is a better product than the Xbox 360.

And I think it could sell better if Sony would just get over what-ever fear they have and make the Playstation 3 a Linux computer.


****

My Apologies if this seems disjointed to read. I got stopped several times during the course of writing this, and I think that is obvious in some of the paragraph junctures. I also tried to keep from repeating that which I've already said in other links, which also served to put artificial breaks where I had to re-write the context to build a point.

wthcomics... returns??

http://www.wthcomics.com/

Maybe I send slightly more than 5 people Joshua's way. Okay, so what's my deal with this comic? Well, like Fanboy Otaku Gamers Club, I used to run the chatroom for wthcomics on Nightstar. I think I found the comic originally through Greg Dean's Real Life Comics when Jericho ran a joke that nobody could bench press an X-box.

Yeah, my sorta joke. wthcomics was also one of the few webcomics I've read that was funny from two different perspectives. Joshua continually referenced various anime shows and movies in almost every story arc. Most comics that do such references typically aren't that good unless you know the source material. For example, Kris Straub's Rod and Berry. If you know Star Trek, Simon Pegg, and BattleStar Galatica, the 3 test comics are hilarious. If you don't know the source though... well... It's not really that funny.

wthcomics on the other hand, had a tendency to not rely on the source content being the joke. If you knew the source, the comic was funnier... and if you didn't? It was still funny. Not many comic writers out there can do that.

... now my question is... is Joshua going to try to do the Kim Possible style again... or go back to the classic style... or do a whole (new) style. Guess I'll find out sometime this year.

Font optimization

More of a public notice than anything else. I was questioned about the choice of formatting for this blog. I try to optimize posted text for Linux systems without the msttcorefonts package. So, if you check this blog on systems that use Microsoft Fonts... yes, I know that the text is going to look a bit weird.

I am unable to connect to Mepisguides.com

Heads up if you sent me email on Mepisguides.com

I am currently unable to check the email due to a problem with ThePlanet.com

Partial text of traceroute follows:

7 ge-7-3-105.car1.Atlanta1.Level3.net (63.211.121.29) 46.523 ms 48.327 ms 54.458 ms
8 ae-31-55.ebr1.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.68.103.158) 44.894 ms 44.296 ms 30.751 ms
9 ae-68.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.69.134.50) 35.895 ms 30.572 ms 33.498 ms
10 ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.134.21) 48.276 ms 52.035 ms 48.514 ms
11 ae-73-73.csw2.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.69.136.158) 48.991 ms 46.142 ms 58.476 ms
12 ae-24-79.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.70) 53.852 ms 77.055 ms ae-34-89.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.19.134) 68.819 ms
13 THE-PLANET.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.71.122.2) 57.656 ms 47.792 ms 69.684 ms
14 te9-2.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.14) 50.384 ms 45.673 ms te7-2.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.26) 56.440 ms
15 po32.dsr02.dllstx4.theplanet.com (70.87.253.78) 76.147 ms 50.166 ms 49.559 ms
16 gi1-0-1.car17.dllstx4.theplanet.com (67.18.116.69) 63.897 ms 68.889 ms 67.985 ms
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Zerias@Li-Viri:~$

Intel joins AMD with non-NDA'd GPU documentation

Caught the story on Phoronix earlier today that Intel has released programming documentation for their GPU's. There is a slight potentially factual error in Phoronix's article. Unless something has drastically changed with Project Larrabee, as I wrote back in 2006, it wasn't really shaping up to be a factor against Nvidia and ATi, something ArsTechnica noted in 2007.

One of the big features of Intel's release is that they've already included 3D support documentation for their GPU's, which AMD hasn't released yet. However, that isn't actually as surprising or in Intel's favor as you might think. Intel for years has used a Tile-Based architecture. This is the same type of rendering that was in PowerVR products, such as the Kyro Graphics cards and the Sega Dreamcast. Beyond3D has a good write-up on Tile-Based rendering. Ergo, the technology behind Intel's GPU's has generally been fundamentally different than the technology behind AMD or Nvidia GPU's.

One of the factors ATi talked about in 2003, 2004, 2005 and so on is that both their driver technology and their graphics cards used licensed technologies. Ergo, ATi, then AMD, couldn't just raw drop the documentation and driver code examples... doing so could have violated existing licenses.

***

However, it is encouraging to see Intel get in line with AMD on providing non-NDA'd documentation for their GPU's. This leaves Nvidia as the only vendor who hasn't done so... which leaves the question of when Nvidia will release their non-NDA'd documentation.