Half-Life

Let me start by saying this is all my opinion. I'm not the most professional or the most subjective on this matter so I won't be mad if you disagree, that's where you can use the comments.

All pictures i use in this article are taken from their respective Wikipedia pages... 

So yeah, I've played through pretty much all official versions of Half-Life (Half-Life, Half-Life 2 (I'll abbreviate them with HL and HL2), Episode 1 and Episode 2) and I liked it.

Why?

Well, the games don't consider their players to be the largest retards ever. In the first game there wasn't a tutorial incorporated in the story (you could play the tutorial if you really wanted to know what ways of movement are possible but nothing too complicated...) and in the second one it was a very minimalistic one in a (later in the game unexisting) HUD popup (wsad to move and picking stuff up).
Further on there are no indication of where to go to, which way to go or what to do, you have to figure that out for yourself. Of course there's only one right way which becomes obvious after a few tries, but still, that isn't too obvious from the start.
The game does tell you a lot of things indirectly. When introducing a new enemy for example it does this from a distance and mostly while fighting something else so you already know how it attacks and how to avoid it. Usually there are a few health packs lying around for the hard learners and the usual way of killing it is by firing a lot of bullets at it.

The game takes its time to give you a weapon. In the first one you get the crowbar pretty early, but only receive a gun once someone carrying it dies. Later you may find a shotgun laying in some guard's locker or an assault rifle after you've shot a trooper... It's never handed to you, you have to "earn" it in some way.

Introducing new areas happens in an interesting way. For example Ravenholm in HL2. Before you even get there you hear the sentence "We... We don't go to Ravenholm".
Eventually you wander in and see some improvised traps, mangled zombie limbs and some booming voice you are not sure to trust. Combine this with a new howling zombie type, a town without any visible human residents and a pitch black night and you have one hell of a level.
Sure, everything is linear, But it doesn't feel that way. There are no invisible walls, if the level designer doesn't want you to go some way there is a pretty good reason for. A giant canyon, a huge wall or a radio-active river prevent you from wandering off course.
Sure, in the original game some level elements aren't logical ("Why is there a railing here?", "How would anyone get up here?", "Where was this ladder supposed to lead to?") but this is less the case in HL2. Not only that, but the source engine in HL2 was used to its maximum to show off that can be done. This with an improved level design makes HL2 one of the best looking games I can run on my laptop.

The Half-Life series ware also the inspiration for many mods that in some cases became even more popular than the original game. CounterStrike, Portal and Team Fortress are all spin-offs or mods from one of the HL games and have a huge player base.
There is even a Half-Life revisited mod available for free, called Black Mesa, that recreates the original story of HL in a more recent Source engine, making it more beautiful to play and still keeping as close as possible to the original story. Only the last chapter is unfinished and should be released some time next year.
The mod didn't just take all the original HL models and placed them in the Source engine like Half-Life: Source did? The team recreated most of the models and sometimes they used models from HL2 or Garry's mod. They also re-imagined most of the levels so every platform has a (closed) door leading onto it, every ladder seems to have a purpose and sometimes they improved the design of some levels to look better.

It made me ooh and aah more than once, laugh at some details and sometimes jump up from my chair when something jumps out of a dark corner... I'll embed their launch trailer which shows only in-game footage. It's just incredibly beautifu

There is even a comparison video that compares the first few scenes of the original with the Black-Mesa version. IGN did a commentary video with two Half-Life veterans where they give their opinion on what's awesome about the game.

Best part of all: Half-Life has no cutscenes. if you have a gun and a guard is giving you directions of where to go you can go and shoot him, cutting off his monologue and continue playing the game. If that guard was supposed to open up the next part of the level you're stuck. There is also a lot that can be going on in the background (a scene comes to mind where a scientist smashes a headcrab with a monitor, but still gets headhumped by one behind his back) which you can miss without being too much in a rush, which may be not optimal, but you as player of the game stay in control of your character at all times.
Compare that to some modern shooter (Spunkgargleweewee if you like) where you as Tanker McTank get bitchslapped around by some dude with only a handgun while you have a minigun on your back but can't use it because it's a cutscene...

Anyways, I like the Half-Life series a lot, if you haven't figured it out yet. I recommend you to go and play at least one of these games to know for sure what I've been talking about..

Thank you for reading all this and see you next time.

-ThOR

Abomination

I saw an abomination a few days ago.

It was a Macbook Air.

Not that it's a Macbook, not even because it's the way-too-slimmed-down version on it. It was because the owner (a nitwit to be honest) installed Windows7 on it.
No, he did not install Win7 via a virtual machine. Win7 is since the installment his main operating system. I'll let this sink in for a minute.

I can accept that he (the owner of the laptop(I can't even call it a Macbook anymore)) is using Apple hardware because he can afford it and thinks it's superior, and I can accept that he thought Win7 is the OS he can cope with best and fits his requirements, but those 2 things are not meant to ever be together in one laptop.
 I can imagine that the guy who got the assignment of installing Win7 as the main OS on that Macbook felt like he had to do a hellish task, because someone who's capable of doing such things should know what monster it will become.

Not that it ran badly, no, it started up like any newly bought laptop would do. It's just the moment someone told him to bringing up the context menu he started wondering how to accomplish such a thing without a mouse.
You see, Apple has a few was to accomplish this where Windows has right-click. You could for example press "ctrl" and click at the same time. It would've worked, but Win7 doesn't recognize this. Windows on the other hand has the open-context-menu-button on the right of the space bar, but sadly Macbooks lack that kind of feature.
This, combined with the fact that the poor owner doesn't really understand computers at all made me feel like I've seen an act of defiance to all the good that is in this world.

It was such a horrible thing that I wanted to share this so you would know to avoid this kind of things.

-ThOR

PS: I may have exaggerated with my feeling over a simple right-click function, but please, for the sake of all that is good, remember that 2 good things together may become much worse that they were good.

Angels

I've talked earlier about spirit, souls and bodies, and somehow I believe in angels. How could i possibly connect that as they are more than just material creatures and still manage to exist somehow on the material plane (you can call it the "dimension" of matter).

Well, inspiration for my view on angels come from the "His Dark Materials"-trilogy by Philip Pullman.

Angels are ancient and immortal beings whose true form is composed of intelligence and feeling, since they are structures of Dust. 

Angels are creatures with a spirit, a soul and a body, but their body is an abstract something. They don't consist of material, so their form is not fixed. They appear to us as we think they should appear, we see them as we expect them to be seen.
If you think they are all sexless and winged, then they are. If you think they are all child Putti like many baroque painters imagined them to be, then they are. There are many ways to perceive angels because they are immaterial, our minds give them an appearance.
What that appearance is is not important to them, but they still need some place in the world to occupy, otherwise they would not exist.

Believing or not believing doesn't matter. If your mind cannot give they an appearance they'll be just a voice if they need to transfer a message to you, or a bright light if they need to show you something or whatever you more can imagine, as that's what limits your mind from seeing them.

Why would they need to be seen, why would they need to contact us, why do they exist?
Those are big questions we can't even answer for ourselves, but important is that they with their knowledge and their existence in this world can transfer messages from forces even greater than ours.
So why?
God knows why, and we can only guess.

There's one angel that I find interesting. This idea is not exactly from the above-mentioned trilogy, although a slightly inspired. Death.
Yes, Death too is an angel.
Maybe a bit of rephrasing is necessary: Your own death is an angel.

There are many stories about people meeting their Death. Greek mythology had Thanatos, we have the Grim Reaper (not necessary cloaked skeleton with a scythe) and there are many more personifications to be found on wikipedia and seeing most of them predicts an untimely death, sometimes even creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy" (man sees his Death-vision, runs from it and because he ran he dies/passes away/causes a lethal accident/dies of a stroke).

A few interesting examples are the Japanese "Shinigami" (very close to the western Grim Reaper they represent a horrible creature, not necessarily a skeleton (not even humanoid) and haunt people dealing with death or who are about to die), the "Doppelgänger" (an unexisting twin who is often just seen by the person he's impersonating, sometimes by more, puzzling all of them, sometimes no more but a shadow of the person), known deceased friends (calling to join them in death) and many more.

Reason for so many "visions" of death?
They are angels.
They bring the message of "You're going to die" or "Remember you're mortal" which are basically the same.
Don't get me wrong, they don't kill people, they just tend to be present at those moments. And again, they rely on the mind of the person to be perceived. Some may be accompanied constantly by their Death, others may never see it. Or they may see one after they passed away to guide them to wherever they go after this life.

I often think immortal people are in constant company of their own Death angel. These immortals would have to find a way to live with their Death, even though they can't experience it. They can hate them and try to run away from them, or they could accept them and see them as an old friend.

Speaking of immortals, there is this Dorian Grey, a guy who sold his soul for immortality and transferring his aging to a portrait of himself. In some way this portrait also could've been seen as an angel of death, as it reminds Dorian of every year that has passed without him aging and keeping every wound that was inflicted to him.
This lasted until Dorian Grey couldn't bear to look at it anymore and put a knife into the portraits heart and so killing himself.

I have no idea what I will do if I ever see my own Death. Now I think I could live with it, but I'm afraid that may not be the case when the moment actually comes. Anyways, I'll write some more until that moment comes, so I'll see you next time.

-ThOR

Creating a Texturepack: Part 1, Planks

"Why wouldn't I create a Minecraft texture pack?" I thought, faintly remembering my previous attempt that didn't get farther than cobblestone and planks...

Being in the middle of discovering the many possibilities of Tekkit and dreaming of steampunk I thought I could create a texture pack combining those 2 elements... No idea if I'll ever get this actually going.

In my enthusiasm I almost started changing every texture in the game to my heart's desire, but then I remembered something: it is quite some work.
So I had to make some decisions. First of all I would start with Vanilla Minecraft, changing only the original textures. I would also go for a 32x32 resolution (double the original 16x16) to have a bit more space to mess around with.

For the style I would like to have something steampunkish, but a subtle one. Not just placing a gear on every other block, that would just look stupid.
I also want it to be functional, meaning if you play regular Minecraft you will know what you're looking. I've seen packs that change stuff around (for example wool no longer being wool, but some decorative block) and that's not what I want.
Other than that I want to combine mechanical and magical elements, but not too much.
Once I've finished doing a vanilla pack I'll add Tekkit stuff, starting with Redpower (to have most worldtextures under my control and changing tungsten so I would stop confusing it for coal). So basically my aim is having a texture pack that is made steampunk by using it with Tekkit.

But first vanilla.

Where to start?

I always wanted to change the plank texture, as no plank ever runs on forever and is that straight. So there I have my first block to work on.

Wood planks: normal, pine, jungle and birch planks.

So that's where I started.
I eyedroppered the darkest color on the original planks texture, used that to draw some lines, divided that into planks, placed nails in, played around with the L of the Lab color picker and added a bit more texture.
Further was easy: copy the texture 4 times, use with different Level-layers, make the jungle wood more orange (I hate them being pinkish) and paste them in the terrain.png.

That was easy I thought.
Well, it turns out it's not that easy. I had some alignment issues to fix after the "pasting into terrain.png", because in older versions of this picture I had strips of the old texture running from top to bottom, meaning I had mispasted something. But for some reason I insist on having the entire pack unpacked in a projects folder with some template files sitting a folder above it. So every time I have to change something I have to open both terrain.png as the template files, paste the correct texture into the correct place, save both, zip the pack folder, cut and place the .zip into the correct folder and hope I didn't mess up somewhere.
After having done this a few times I started looking for ways to automate this. I downloaded 7zip for commandline zipping, learned some batch programming syntax, did some test runs, noticed 7zip likes to save a folder in a zip folder, so I have to give it every subfolder and every file one level below the level I want zipped (if you have messed around with it you'll understand) and after some time I came to this code:

  REM delete the original file
DEL %AppData%\.techniclauncher\tekkit\texturepacks\ThORVanilla.zip

  REM run 7zip and pack a new .zip file
C:\7-Zip\7z.exe u "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla.zip" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\achievement" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\armor" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\art" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\environment" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\font" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\gui" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\item" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\misc" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\mob" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\terrain" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\title" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\font.txt" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\pack.png" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\pack.txt" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\particles.png" "H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla\terrain.png"
  
 REM Move the new file to the texturepacks folder
MOVE H:\Projects\Minecraft\TexturePacks\ThORVanilla.zip %AppData%\.techniclauncher\tekkit\texturepacks\ThORVanilla.zip

 REM wait "some time" before closing in case there is an error message
PING -n 9000 ECHO OFF

I know I didn't have to make everything a direct path, but I wanted to be sure it worked. And it does so stfu.
So now I only need to run this .bat file to have my entire folder packed and moved to the correct place.

Next will be stones, but that will be for another time.

-ThOR

PS: if you figure you want to use this code don't forget

Damn you Brent Weeks!

I'm very sorry if the title may provoke, but it's exactly what I thought while reading the Night Angel Trilogy by mentioned author. He has a very interesting imagination, one that sometimes is very close to mine (A black stuff that can adapt to the bearers wishes? An old master training a young fellow? Magic that uses some form of energy and has to be replenished after use? Magical energy that can be stored somewhere for other magicians to use? Get out of my head! (but not really)).

Don't get me started on the characters. A prophet who's losing his mind because of his ability, a dangerous organization that has more power than the king actually has, with a leader no one knows about... it's too much to spoil it all before you read it.
Seriously, read it if you're even slightly into fantasy. Magic, but not too much, fighting, assassins (even if it's wrong to call them that) that (depending on their preferences) leave pools of blood or no trace at all ("That's why assassins have targets. Wetboys have deaders. Why do we call them deaders? Because when we take a contract, the rest of their short lives is a formality." - Durzo Blint), a hated king and a loved successor, a Godking, a godess, conspiracies, magical artifacts some forgot they existed, Night Angels and more to keep you reading to the last letter.

I must say I read it all and absorbed a bit of his ideas (like it happens with most stuff I read) and I'm very glad he left out a part that I would've made important if I would write a similar story: spirituality.

You know what's even better? The writer still lives and still is writing. There may pop up some more books that I'll devour with a lot of joy...

Enjoy reading!

-ThOR

The Hunger Games and more...

We all know those people.

Those people that have bought the all the Lord of the Rings movies from the moment they were to be bought. Not once, but at least twice as the 12 disc special extended edition (with at least 2 hours of extra footage) just HAD to be bought.
The same people that watched all the Twilight movies at least twice in the cinema (waste of money I'd say), that went to the re-screening on the Titanic movie, that have the complete collection of Harry Potter (both movie and books)...

One of those people is a very good friend of mine and is living in the room next to me.
And he bought the "Hunger Games" DVD...

I didn't want to download it and borrowed it from them. I tried downloading it, but there are more fakes and bad cams than there is a good version of it. Easier to borrow it from a friend than to trust Mister Anon to provide something you don't really want all that much.

So I watched it and I must say I'm not impressed. Even reading the book (a few months ago) was kinda m'eh. Actually the book spoiled it for me. If I'd have read the book after the movie the general impression would've been better.
The reason for this is the writing style. It was too easy to read because the book didn't do anything else but telling the story, telling stuff that's important to the story.

Isn't that what a book's supposed to do?
Not really. A book should also create an atmosphere in another way than by the stuff that happens to the main character.
An example: Currently I'm reading "The Dragon Keeper" of the "Rain Wild Chronicles" by Robin Hobb. Between every chapter there's an intermission where you can read the correspondence between 2 pigeon keepers which gives a broader view on the ruined city after the war that ended in one of the previous trilogies. Concerns about released slaves mixing with the uptown Traderfamilies, concerns about inexplicable illnesses that appear and whatnot.
Next to all that you have dragons that have no idea what happened to them, humans that slowly turn into reptile people, a lost civilization no-one really cares about except for the awesome stuff they left behind, pirates, knights in the north, some angry asshole-nation a bit south of that, and a giant world filled with confusion and mishaps...

Really, I'm not all that into "the Hunger Games", obviously. It could've been so much more if it weren't so easy and accessible (the main reason why it caught on and got itself a movie...)

There are so many more books that could be translated to the  Big Screen with ease. The Night Angel trilogy for example (more on that in a later post) or the Left Hand of God. Those are interesting books and may result in some nice series or movies...

But yeah, I've written quite a lot, maybe it's time to call it a day and have you guys read it...

-ThOR

Deverry

Yeah, so recently I finished the Deverry Cycle...
It took me 15 books to get to the end. But yeah, it's finished now.

What do I think of it?
Well, it's quite the read, although it takes a while before a storyline is finished.... It's a hell to get to the end of a story that took a few centuries to finish, certainly if you take into account several rebirths with some people surviving for some of those centuries. every book ends with a big battle (which sometimes is a bit unnecessary) and some story lines took way too long to finish...

Honestly this is only for those who would take the time to read all 15 book one after another...

The magic is quite interesting, but it didn't really change any views I have on this matter.

If you want it better you should read the Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings series, where every 3 books can be read as a separate whole.
Sure, the story goes on in every book, but the story ends with every few books.
The only problem I have with it is that it's an on-going series, while you can read until "latest released" you'll have to wait until the next one is finished and released. I'm waiting for the "The Rain Wilds Chronicles" to end so I can read them from beginning to end.

Anyways, that's all I can write at the moment. If I have enough time I'll change some things, but now I'm writing this it a slightly tipsied state (2 "La Chouffe", 2 cognacs, 2 Filliers Gins and a Dürüm) this post may seem a bit out of my usual writing style.

Thank you anyway for reading.

-ThOR

Magical additions

After posting my previous post on this matter I remembered I forgot some things.

For example the wands/staffs many link to magicians.

In my opinion I think they don't hold any real power by themselves, they merely are a way of focusing. For example instead of visualizing yourself focusing on something you can use for example a wand to point at what you're doing  and it will help you keep your focus.
Of course some may "cheat" and add some life power or some thinking abilities to it so it helps out with performing the magic I'm describing (more on that in a future post).

Of course, once you figure out the atomic changing you can do pretty much anything.
You could, for example, figure out how an eye is build, figure out how it's connected to the rest of the body and give yourself a third eye.
You could improve your body, you could adjust things that never were adjustable before... but this would be very dangerous as you could accidentally kill you in the process.
This atomic fiddling is of course not the easiest thing to do, so only great masters of concentration would be able to do this.

Also knowing that most magic is basically the manipulation of energy big magician cities should have some kind of energy pool, a central place that can store energy for magicians to use. The hardest part of having this is being able to use it from a distance. Your spirit is in general only able to manipulate energy in your body. A magician is already able to manipulate things outside his body, still close enough to focus on.
Anyone wanting to use the energy pool needs to be able to focus on (reach with his spirit to) that energy pool. The easiest way to circumvent this problem is to come closer to the pool, so you can easier access it or carry some container with you or using your body as one. The last one is again very dangerous, as you could drain too much from your body and die from it (gee, I've got a lot of dieing in this post...).

Anyways, there will be at least one more post on this subject, but not now.

Until the next one.

-ThOR

One more game

Oh, how I could forget about this one.

In my previous post I talked about games that are in development and which I would like to see finished. Somehow one game slipped through my memory wile I was writing it but I like it too much to forget about.

Overgrowth

The developpers call it a spiritual successor to "Lugaru" which I have played. In that game the combat was very simple and quite contextual, having only 3 action-buttons: jump, attack, crouch/reverse.
When you jump while moving you will leap forward, if an enemy happens to be very close to your landing spot and you press attack (or jump, I don't really remember...) just before hitting him you'll jump off of him launching him further (and most probably disabling him). Any attack can be countered. The flying kick I just described would be blocked by an enemy noticing you before you land the hit, so he'll grab you by the legs (you're a rabbit, it isn't hard to grab those legs in flight...) and revert your attack by making you land face first...
If an enemy attacks you you can do the same, but only if you hit the button just before his attack lands, otherwise you'll go into crouch, which is a weaker position for you to attack him...
The game had very little information on the HUD, the only way to figure out how your character is feeling is by listening to the sounds and watching the posture he has. But in general it still was a hitpoint based game.

Now they're developing the idea further. No more hitpoints. The combat is entirely bone based. A kick to the arm is offsetting, a kick to the head knocks you out or kills you. You kan kill yourself by jumping up, timing your roll badly and landing on your head.
You can choke and drag enemies, hold them as a meat shield, disarm them, and many more, all without the need for a HUD, in a very fast paced fighting style.

That's it for now.

-ThOR

Games I would like to see finished

So, E3 is going on but for some reason I don't feel like paying much attention to it.
Why? Shooter, shooter, shooter and some other genres. Not much variety in there. I think the best shooter has been made years ago (the Half Life series for singleplayer, Counterstrike for multiplayer) so I'm a bit more interested in other stuff.

Let me make a list of the few games I'm actually waiting for to be finished so I can throw some money at it:

Fract

Fract is an adventure type game, from what I understood after playing their prototype. You walk around in an amazingly nice looking low poly world solving puzzles, getting old machinery working without actually knowing what they do and gradually discovering more of the world.
It will have real-time synthesized music that you'll be able to compose your own music with it (I kinda hope for a built-in recorder) presented in a very nice low poly look.

The art style of this game is enough for me to instantly want to buy and play it, but unfortunately it's still under development (like all the games in this list).

Castle story

We all (should) have heard of a terrifying game called Dwarf Fortress. I would have liked the game and have played it fully if only it had a more accessible interface. Luckily Castle story looks like it will live up to that hope. Sure, the developers don't have that much depth planned, but I'm pretty sure after this game releases someone will make a mod that adds all these functions to it. All the more reasons to wait for this game to be released.

0x10^c

The "New Game From Notch" (aka "oh ex ten to the cth", "Ox ten see",  "Oxy tensee" but actually its "0x" as in "the next number is in hexadecimal" and the "10^c" as in "that's 16¹² in decimal").
A space game, low poly graphics, sandbox, RPG, fully customizable spaceships with fully programmable computers, single and multiplayer connected via the multiverse, duct tape and lots of engineering. These were only a few features Notch has planned for it.
Together with the raging community this will result in piracy, epic space battles, player programmed Operating Systems, custom ships with a lot of references to movies or series, ... just way too much to think of.
The game is just in it's starting phase, meaning Notch barely has the general gameplay mechanics implemented (gravity, lighting, movement) while he often requests for community input. This means we all still can dream of what it will become.

It just recently got in development, so we'll see what becomes of it.

There are some alternatives to this concept like Rodina and Infinity-Universe, but even those are under development...

Minecraft

"Haha!" you may think, "You can't fool me, Minecraft is out for about half a year now!"
Yes, it is, but no it isn't out of development yet. The Mojang team is working hard on getting the game to where they want it to be, Minecraft development is far from done. Although I already threw a bit of money at it.
The effects of a Minecraft out of development are easy creation of mods, easy installing of said mods, optimized gameplay with lots of terrain features, a less raging community (since there won't be huge updates anymore), bug free playtime and much more.
Minecraft still has a bit to go until it's complete, but it already is one of my favorite games ever...

--
(end of list, for now) (hmm, I thought there would be a few more...)

Anyways, I think I talked enough about games, let's play them...

-ThOR

Magic

We all have heard about it somehow, somewhere, mostly in stories (like movies, books and games).
But what is it?

Well, I don't know and I won't tell you that, I'll only tell you what I think it is.

But first I'll have to explain to you guys how I think living beings live.
If you hadn't noticed: this post will be a quite philosophic one.

In my opinion any living being exists out of 3 main components. A soul (the energy), the spirit (the thinking ability) and a body (a "vessel" for the other two). Please note these terms have nothing to do with what a dictionary says they mean (I didn't search it), I use these terms because they are the closest to what I mean when using them.

So the soul contains the energy a being needs to think/live/be, the spirit is a term to describe the thoughts and the consciousness while the body is "simply" the embodiment of the immaterial parts of the being.
Despite the many abilities a being has it's limited to what the it can do. A spirit without a body or soul can't do much more than think (and therefore only "be"), a soul alone would only be energy floating around and a body on itself would fall apart. On the other hand a being without a soul wouldn't have the energy to do something, a being without a spirit either and a being without a body wouldn't exist in this world all together.
So every part needs all the other parts for the being to be functional and every part needs all other parts to be functional. Because of this every part is limited to what all other parts can do. A spirit can't influence anything outside the body, a soul can't "power" anything because of the same restrictions.

But imagine someone who can use his spirit to influence energy. This someone could take energy from other places (or his own body) and use it to influence something else.
This someone (from now on called "the Magician") would firstly be able to control temperature by moving energy away from whatever should be cooled and towards whatever should be warmed/heated/combusted. Yes,in my opinion that should be all it takes to make something burn. It may be a bit of a problem to gather enough energy for something to catch fire but within this frame of reference it's the easiest and most imprecise way because you just "put" a lot of energy in on place or take it away from another.

The next step would be to move something. Since temperature makes atoms move faster or slower the Magician already does this, but now he should apply this energy in such a way that it actually becomes a force that influences his subject. Making a ball roll, making a Rubix Cube solve itself and making things fly are all in this category.

The final step is taking a material and changing it into something else. Why should this be one of the hardest things? Because it involves manipulating energies on a (sub)atomic scale.
To be able to do this kind of stuff the Magician first needs to know what he's doing exactly and until now some parts of quantum physics are by (the real, existing) scientists explained as 'magic' for lack of a better word. (For example electrons. Once you try observing them as particles they'll start behaving like waves. Try observing them as waves they'll start behaving like particles. Why? Magic!)
Once the Magician has figured out what he's doing he has to manipulate energy in such a way it affects that atom just in the way he wants it, which requires some serious focus.
For some decent results he also needs to do this on quite some atoms, so I can imagine real atom Magicians would be very rare.

I say it again: this is just how I think Magic would exists, if it would happen to be real. I don't know if it really does exist, I wouldn't know if it doesn't.

Anyways, I think I wrote enough for now.

See you a next time.

-ThOR

The Other R*****, Part 2

Well, I already made a post on this. Now I have received an answer from Comet:

Well, to put it simply, it's hate speech.
Hate speech that has been diffused throughout the west and has lost some of its impact, but hate speech nonetheless, and that is not lost on those the word targets.

I'll put it like this; if the word nigger became prevalent across the west (again) and was used in common conversation, and lost some of its impact, would you expect black people to not be offended? And people are offended even if you don't use it around them, as you're still promoting the idea that such speech is acceptable.

I remember you said that even if we stop using the word retard, another word will take it's place, but unless we try and stop the use of such language in the first place things are unlikely to get any better, and at the least we can make the use of such language less common. Thank you for changing your name. 

(I did make it a bit more readable, but it's mostly copied out of my inbox).

In the thread where the discussion started he said: "Why won't you call yourself 'TheOtherNiggerFag', see how that turns out."
I won't call myself 'TheOtherNiggerFag' because I have nothing to do with the word Nigger, and I don't identify myself with people with a darker skin. Not that I will avoid them, I have friends that are pretty much "chocolate brown" and I have no problem being seen with them. (Some exceptions are made when it's late at night and I'm walking to my home when a group of 15 of them, dressed as New-Timey Gangsters, stares at me), nor do I relate myself to the group of Fags (Yes, one of my best (male) friends has a boyfriend and I'm completely okay with that. As long as they remain decent in the presence of other people (as ANY couple should do)).

I mostly relate to the group of Retards, acting 'stupid' (in the eyes of other people) for no particular reason, being happy with the smallest thing they receive, ...
If I could I'd like to share some of my IQ with my mentally retarded nephew so he could see the world a bit more like we do (but on the other hand I don't think he'll be as happy as he is now with that gift...).
I care about anyone who has a disadvantage in any way, as I know they'll be pretty much picked on by the first bully they meet (children can be evil to each other once they find a weak spot).

In any way I'll keep my name as 'TheOtherRetard' unless the website's Admins say otherwise, next will be 'ThOR' (with that exact capitalization) and if that's not available I'll figure out something different.

I think that's all I have to say on this theme...

Thank you for reading.

-ThOR

Lecture - Literature

Let me start off by saying I haven't read a lot.
Very probably did I read more than most people of my age, but I still could've read more. I remember sitting on the bus/tram/train and wishing I had a book to read. It wouldn't matter what book, just anything to read.
Yes, I could spend that time listening to music, but my iPod is dying (barely a few hours battery life in normal (20°C) temperatures, "Back/REW" and "Play" button are refusing to work (thank you Center Button for not giving up on me), so I expect I'll need to replace it with something else by next year) and I often forget to stop by the library to pick up a book.
But thanks to friends I sometimes have something to read...

Anyways, back on topic.

Recently (today, that is) I finished the "Hunger Games" book. The first one that is (No, I haven't watched the movie, maybe I'll download it next year... or maybe I could convince someone to go to the cinema with me...) and I'm hoping my brother will find the sequels fast enough so I can finish the story.

But I don't like the writing style.

Don't get me wrong, it's a page turner once you get into the story (read it from begin to end in less than 2 days) but there aren't any passages where you can feel the translator had a hard time translating something that is very specific for the English language.
Yes, I read a Dutch translation, but I don't expect reading it in English would improve the story in any manner.

Let me bring in another story for comparison. One that many know, that isn't too complicated and that also has a movie coming up. (Sheesh, did I get distracted for a few hours while trying to copy that link...) (To those hesitant to click the link: it's "The Hobbit")
I've read the story in both Dutch and English and believe me when I say that the latter is way more enjoyable. The first time I read it I needed a dictionary to figure out some words (oh, the synonyms for walking) but I liked it all the more.

If we go even further down the way of literature we find Gormenghast.
I've read it a few years back, but I must say I'm still impressed by what the writer (Mervyn Peake) did with it.
It doesn't have a clear theme in which it's written. At first sight you may say it's "Fantasy"... But once you're reading you notice there isn't any magic happening, there are no characters that aren't human by definition (although lots of them are brute caricatures of humans) and everything seems plausible, since it may happen if some castle would've grown from the roman age and slowly progressing in size, building styles, functionality and weirdness to finally end up like the humongous castle that's described.
"Fiction" covers too much of what the book actually is and "Historical Fiction" isn't correct as there is absolutely no attachment to our existing world. In my opinion "Surreal" is the most fitting description.
Let me give you a quote from the book (found on the Wiki):

Mr. Flay appeared to clutter up the doorway as he stood revealed, his arms folded.... It did not look as though such a bony face as this could give normal utterance, but rather that instead of sounds, something more brittle, more ancient, something drier would emerge, something more in the nature of a splinter or a fragment of stone. Nevertheless, the harsh lips parted. "It's me," he said, and took a step forward, his joints cracking as he did so. His passage across a room -- in fact his passage through life -- was accomplished by these cracking sounds, one per step, which might be likened to the breaking of dry twigs.

Here is described one of my favorite characters is the series.
I bet none of you know anyone like this Mr. Flay, now try to imagine him... May be kinda hard, lacking a lot more info on it, but I imagine most of the characters as cartoon characters instead of trying to compare them to real people.

But the book provides more than just strange characters. If you plan on reading it be prepared for pages filled with descriptions of a river running through a landscape, "hopping" from character to character while you're reading (you start with one, he meets someone, you hop on to that character, another encounter, another hop, and so on...), passages of "Internal monologue", changes in telling perspective, ... A real feast for people enjoying the art of writing.

And here's the big thing I miss in a lot of stories. The art of writing the story. Not just telling it in a way so we know what's happening, but using the language you're writing in to the fullest to tell the story.
Sure, the Hunger Games lured me in because of the story, but I miss the joy of language. The playing with sentences to make some parts stand out, the vocabulary enrichment I kinda expect every book to be...

But hey. I'm not going to ignore books because of this, I just wanted to point out some things I would like to see more in modern literature.

I'm not saying my parts here are pure literature... I don't really think about the sentences, I just write whatever comes into mind, as some may have noticed...

But I'd rather read something more complicated (Maybe I'll once try to read Finnegans wake, but not very soon) instead of another "high fantasy" story where Elf and Dwarf and Man fight with/against each other and Light tries to defeat the Dark...

Anyways, I said enough on this topic for now.
If anyone has propositions for books to read, tell me in the comments.

Thank you for reading.

-ThOR

Games

Jah, sure, it couldn't take long before even I'd react on the latest news event.

Wondering what I'm talking about?
Google "Breivik video games" and read the most recent entries.

I just opened the first one, read through it and i the end it adds 5 examples how some murderers (including the most recent, Breivik himself) were inspired by movies/books/games to commit some murders.
Note, there are only 5 listed, 5 cases between 1974 and now.
Sure, these aren't the only 5, but it's still not terribly much compared to the total amount of murders committed...

But now they are all blaming it on video games, saying Breivik used them to prepare for the final "attack" he planned. All those articles against video games, but none noting Breivik himself never said such a thing. He for example played WoW for more than 16 hours a day over a year to "take a sabbatical" (his words), to not be preoccupied planning all that stuff, to do something he'd love to do before he'd die (as he planned his actions to be suicidal).
Not many sources mention his extensive planning BEFORE playing these games, his many hours in a shooting range, perfecting his aim, his claims to be a member of a "anti-Jihad crusader-organization" and his legal/illegal acquirement of his weapons. Nope, it's just video games.

No, I don't want to defend his cause in any way. What he did is horrible and he should be trialed for what he did. But don't blame it on video games. As realistic some first-person-shooters claim to be, they still don't prepare you in any way on the real deal. You can't revive after you die in real life, you can't heal instantly from a bullet in your arm by picking up some health-pack, you can't run around with a rifle, waving it around like it's made of plastic and then kill someone (accurately) seconds after rolling into position by simply playing video games.

You seriously CAN'T.

I remember my first time I fired a bullet.
Yes, it was in an ex-soviet state.
And yes, it was a AK-47 or Kalashnikov.
And no, after all those hours playing Counter Strike 1.6 (I can't link too much, I never exactly know who my audience is...) I still wasn't prepared on anything that thing did.

First off, that thing's HEAVY. You try holding a 5 kg (11 lb) bag of potatoes with arms stretched and imagine shooting stuff with it... take a break before your arms fall off.
The kickback is also a surprise. It's those same 5 kg stomping you in the shoulder every time you pull that trigger. After the first bullet I already had a bruise and I was deaf for the next few minutes. Because that small detail game designers tend to leave out: The bang is so loud you can only understand your own words after 5 minutes. To understand others it takes even longer...
No movie, no game ever actually tells you this, it's all soldiers that storm into battle, screaming to their brothers in arms who understand them from 2 meters away, waving their guns without real fatigue...

As far as I remember I only saw one movie that kinda did show this correctly. And it was some strange French movie we had to watch with school for some reason...

So no, nothing in popular media can prepare anyone on a real battle, only hard training can.
But as long as no one talks about it they all tend to forget about this and blame only video games.

As a final thing I would like to link a more gamer friendly article.
Sure, it starts with the usual panic-inducing headline, with some more panic blah that should accompany these articles, but halfway the writer quotes gamers (more than 30 year-old-gamers) that express their concerns on the current situation.

-ThOR

PS: I found a funny quote in the last linked article:

Breivik said a holographic aiming device used in Modern Warfare helped him develop skills with a real gun.

...
Now think about it.
How could a virtual "holographic aiming device" possibly help someone aiming a real gun?

PPS: Oh, hey, turns out there's more articles up now. Go read this analysis posted yesterday (currently second result when googling...). I started writing this yesterday, there were more "doom is upon us because video games" articles then, so the current google search may not be all that correct...

PPPS: Thank you for reading.

The Other R*****

Dear readers.

A few days back I happened to be in the center of a heated discussion concerning my name.
Quite unsettling for me as it's the very first discussion on the internet with me in the center of it (mostly I'm what some call a lurker, I don't really say much)

I had registered on the forum of Notch's new game (0x10^c, may you wonder) and I posted a small introductory post saying hi and stating who I am...

First reply is made by someone named Comet:

Nice post, but please let me know if your name is intended to be funny or an attack at people who think it is? If it's the prior, change your name. It's offensive, and even though i take it you don't mean it, you should know better.

Until now I still don't actually know what the guy meant, I just sent him a PM as a request for more information on his arguments.

And why could I use my name for about 3 years without anyone pointing this out to me?
A short list to all my identities as TheOtherRetard or alike on the internet:

• CounterStrike (and Steam in general) 
• LeagueOfLegends 
• O-Game 
• Minecraft
• CastleStoryOnline
• Twitter
• Youtube
• here
• Wikis
• Weekly Pickaxe
• ... (This is just what I could remember from the top of my head, if you Google me you may find even more...)

So yeah, on all those communities, on all those websites, after my 400+ posts on the Minecraft forum only 2 have openly opposed and demanded me to change my name because of possible offensiveness...

First of all: I don't use the word Retard as an offensive word. In my opinion it's used for someone who acts stupid. And I do lots of stupid stuff...

Let me tell you a bit more about myself.
I know what it's like to be called names. I was that one kid that liked to play alone, I was that kid that was the first one of my class to wear glasses (at the age of 7), I was that kid that didn't do or say much during lessons, but still could score above average on most tests...
Per definition I was the one they (the other kids, you know which ones) picked on. Well, me and the fat kid. And when they were picking on the fat kid I never participated, just because it wasn't as fun as they made it look like...

Anyways, this made me have quite an aversion from calling names cursing and stuff, which I still have (if you hear/read me cursing you know I'm agitated...). So when i use the word Retard I mostly just refer to myself...

Oh, I didn't tell about the creation of TheOtherRetard.
It dates a few years back, to when I was playing Counterstrike 1.6 with my (younger) brother. One day we had the idea to name ourselves alike and have some kind of a "clan" feeling. After some suggestions we stopped on "Retard", since we never took ourselves quite seriously and did a lot of stupid stuff while playing the game...
This discussion was followed by a few days of me being away from the computer and when I came back my brother had taken "The_Retard". I quickly settled for "The_Other_Retard" and we went on shooting...

And I liked being the Other Retard. No-one expects much from me, so when I screw up they can say "What a retard!" ending up with me smiling.

One letter too long to fit on a sign...

Ever since that I kept on using the name for pretty much every other game I played, just to have something of a continuity. After the realization that my name was 1 letter too long to fit on a Minecraft sign I dropped the underscores in other games and went on playing.

It never occurred to me people could consider my name as an insult as I clearly name myself a retard, and no one else.

After all that time I'm proud of that name, I'm identifying myself with it and I don't plan on dropping the name because 2 people (of the millions on the internet) want me to change it.

I ended up changing my name as they added "Slurs and insults" to the Forum Name Rules, so I'm now registered as "ThOR"...
I won't fight this decision, there's been enough discussion on it. I'll still use "TheOtherRetard" as a first choice, "ThOR" if Retard is considered insulting and if that's taken I'll think of something similar.

Anyways, thank you for having read all this. If you have any comments, please post them, I'll respond on them as soon as possible.

-ThOR

PS: The story hasn't ended yet, there is a Part 2 of this post.

Steampunk

Anyone who is a bit  often in my presence probably already heard me talking about it (I tend to not shut up when I'm in some kind of mood), but let me explain anyway.

Steampunk is a retro-future/alternate-history genre. You go back to some time in history (in this case the industrial revolution/Victorian age) and you imagine how the current age would've looked if that style persisted until today. Add in some alchemy, some magic if you would like and build a story upon that.
This is originally very fitting for novels, where Steampunk actually started (Jules Verne is often addressed as the "father" of this genre), but lately also appears in art, fashion and design.
For more info, there's a Wiki on this and Google is still your friend.

Quite recently I got caught again in a sudden burst of appreciation for this and I started looking for more on it. I found a lot of lookalikes but I won't get offended if someone switches some, because the difference sometimes isn't very big. Back to what I found: several Steam-themed websites: Dieselpunks (I'm liking some of the music) and Davenport & Winkleperry among others, but I also found Abney Park, a band that created an entire Steampunk related story around itself and with it also released a novel and a tabletop role-playing game next to their usual music. Let me try and embed another video.

At a certain moment I even found Steampunk themed W40K conversions, but I forgot to bookmark the page and now I can't find it. But still, 2 things that can capture my imagination for a while. Together!

The most interesting part of the entire Steampunk genre is (according to me) the general aesthetics behind it.

For example this. It's a gameboy classic that someone painted in a brass color, glued some cogs and "pipes" on it and called it steampunk. How good some may say it looks, it isn't steampunk enough. If he had removed the casing altogether, organized it in a wooden box and made it look like a "ye olde arcade game" with actual cogs turning on the sides with some retrotronic elements on it I would agree with it being steampunk. Now it's just a golden gameboy with bits glued on it.

The steampunk cellphone does stuff correctly in my opinion. No internet connection, no SMS, no full qwerty keyboard, hell, no keypad at all. Some gauges on a wooden box, punch-cards to dial numbers. Not over the top, aesthetically pleasing, if the Victorians had wireless communication this might have been the "ultralight version" of the busy man.

Anyways, I don't know what else to tell here. If anyone has any more questions: there's a comment section for that...

Let me end with another video, I couldn't resist to not putting this in...


I hope you enjoyed it.

-ThOR

Downloading

There's been a lot of attention to it some time ago: Illegal downloading.
Lots of protests against SOPA and PIPA (what was ACTA again?), lots of lobbying to get it through anyway... Why?

Yes, I do download.
And some of those downloads aren't the most legal content.
But I must say: sometimes I want to play a game that's long gone from the stores (Homeworld, Descent: Freespace, ...) and knowing the original creators already got involved in bigger stuff, stopped caring about their first spawns or maybe just don't exist anymore I'd think they wouldn't mind that I enjoy their stuff and praise it without actually buying the game.

It's not that I refuse to buy the game... I'd buy it if I had the money. After all it's easier to do so than waiting for a few-Gig-file to download, installing the software, running activation blockers, or finding the folder the game got installed in to replace some files with cracked (and possibly virused) files. I'd rather insert the disk, let it run and play right away, while being assured of a decent support center when something goes askew...
Not to mention the (mostly) broken multiplayer you get with an illegal copy, which sometimes is basically the other half of the fun.

On the other hand, some software just is a tad bit expensive. Buying Adobe Creative Suit 4 as a requirement for your studies, using it for a year and then having to buy CS5 the year after was really an attack on my bank account...

But I still don't get why Big Companies are playing witchhunt on those who extend their software's user base and increasing potential buyers. After all, if it wasn't for illegal downloads I would've never thought of getting a Steam account where Valve could dangle some 5$ games in front of me, making it very attractive to buy more...

And what the hell happened to demo-versions? The only things you sometimes see when a game gets promoted are pre-rendered trailers and you basically have to rely on your computer to be strong enough to handle the software you've just bought...
For example: I (being a total hardware noob) am considering buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (purely hypothetically speaking). There is absolutely no way to test if my computer can handle the game or not, I have to rely on my own knowledge (very little) and the info given under "Minimal System Requirements" (note: unexistant on the main website) to understand whether my 5 year old laptop would survive it when I install such a thing. What do all those numbers and letters mean? I tend to figure it out, but I can imagine a lot of people who wouldn't know where to start...
A demo would be nice in those situations to see if your system is willing to handle all that violence and to see if the game is what you expect/want/like it to be. That's mostly what I use cracked games for: to see if my computer would run it may I want a good multiplayer.

(a small remark on MW3: Don't think I'll ever buy the game. The best military shooter has been made already (CounterStrike), now I would like a shooter with more challenge/imagination/creativity (Half Life 3 would be nice))

Anyways, I'm glad there are other approaches. For example (you may have wondered why I waited so long to bring this one up) Notch, creator of Minecraft has tweeted that he's pretty fine with someone pirating the game. "It's a minor offense in the scale of things". Sure, it's quite illegal, but in comparison to the number of people that actually bought it there isn't much reason to worry. Especially knowing Notch is currently a millionaire by making a (relatively) cheap but more than awesome game from scratch and with a completely new/original idea (something we don't see that much lately).

Especially knowing this I don't quite get why the Big Companies keep hammering on "their intellectual property" and how no-one else should have the right to do anything alike except for themselves. Want some more info on what copyright has currently come to? CGPGrey did a very nice instructional video explaining what the current laws are capable of doing.



(Ahh, the joy of successfully embedding videos in you own page)

This post is goining on longer than I originally intended.
Let me wrap this up...

I do download different stuff.
I don't like Big Companies with a lot more digits of income limiting us in distributing/recreating stuff they made.

Heh, that's about it.

Thank you for reading all this.

-ThOR

Religion

I want to tell you about my opinion on religion.

I believe in a God, in an allmighty being. How to call this being doesn't matter to me, be it God(s), Allah, Jehovah, Zeus and Hades (and an entire parade of other characters), Mystical power(s) of Nature or whatever name you want to give it...
I call It for convenience God.

But I admit I do not (and can not) know for sure what It is, or even if It's aware of us.

To clarify this I've heard a very good comparison:
So you have the 3 dimensions. you can observe these 3 dimensions, move in them, feel everything that's in those 3 dimensions and manipulate it with the right tools.
Now, if you think logically the next dimension is time (as I said in an earlier post). None of us (beings in these 3 dimensions) have control over Time. We know it's there, we know it goes on, we can name it and imagine grasping it, but we can't control it.
Now imagine a being that HAS control over time. It lives within these 4 dimensions and can  observe it,  move in it and manipulate it. This being is everywhere, knows everything and can observe the limits of our 3 dimensional space.
This being would be God.
This being may also be not only in his kind.
But we don't know all of this because we're like the Flatlanders looking at the 3rd dimension.

Remember Flatland?
The world where everything is two-dimensional.
Where two-dimensional beings reside, live, die, ... are.
We can kinda imagine something like it, because we can represent it by taking a sheet of paper and draw something two-dimensional on it.
But still, these Flatlanders...
We've never seen them and we don't know if we ever change things in that Flatland they live in.

And that may be the same with the 4th dimensional beings... They may have the freedom over Time, but they may have no idea if and how they influence us...

Or they may, we can't know...

But anyway, back to religion.

As I'm raised as a Christian (Greco-Catholic I think, it's hard if you have eastern European roots) I know and accept Christian faith as my own. Yet I do not judge others based on religion or from the point of view of the religion.
As my friends tend to be quite various in their belief: Mostly atheïst, a few Muslim, some Christian and even a Jehova's Witness, all in one group of friends. Yes, we do have differences in opinion and we acknowledge them, but we won't fight each other just to get the others to believe something else.
This is how I would see the perfect community.

But then again. We aren't more than people, we have flaws and that's why the Perfect Community will never exist on a bigger scale.
These imperfection is also why I don't believe in the Church as an institution. Going to church isn't that important for me, actually believing is harder and gives you more...

On a side note: I don't quite believe the "God creating us after his image". I think this is humanity giving God a relatable figure, as we tend to personificate quite a few things...

I see believing or not believing as a matter of opinion. It's completely personal and it shouldn't be used to attack and kill others because they tend to disagree with your belief/opinion. Just accept that other people may tend to disagree with you...

Heh, turns out my opinion on religion is that it's an opinion.

Phew, I think this post deserves the label "long"...
If you tend to disagree with things I said you may use the comments to tell me what you didn't like about it...


-ThOR

P.S.: Let's add something:

tl;dr: I believe and that's an opinion. Face it.

Weekly TWP article dump

Hmm. I don't know if Issue 8 of the Weekly Pickaxe has been released yet, but I'll release my articles already.

Mojang news:
Carl Manneh signed lots of stuff this week: Not only a contract for the new Mojang office, but he hired no less than 2 extra developpers, bringing the total count of Mojang employees on 20.
To anyone waiting for news on the Minecraft Xbox release: the coverart is more or less finished. of the release of it there isn't really a date, only "spring", so we'll have to wait a bit more.


Minecraft Snapshot 12w05b

Weekly Snapshot!
No new additions, mostly tweaks and bugfixes:
- Mob related bugs got fixed.
- Some new mob behaviours got added, for example to the creepers: now they also have the new pathfinding AI.
- Villagers will try to detect village houses and will try to live in them. So when it gets dark villagers go inside to hide and come out again when it's light again.
- Villagers are able to open and close doors. This ability could possibly be extended to many other mobs, but for now it's a villager only feature. There is a small bug with this: they can't register wether a door is open or closed, which may lead to villagers being stuck opening an opened door...
- Ocelots are easier to tame and cats can be told to sit.
- Creepers run away from cats and wild ocelots, so they are useful after all.
- Updated language files (now with 50% less profanities!)
- Lava received sounds: well, bubbling in particular, but this will make it easier for the player to know when there's lava around
- Abandoned mineshafts received an extra generation feature: When they cross ravines they won't have any more floating poles, since it will generate bridges between the two ends.

This snapshot has been reuploaded pretty quickly because there was a fatal bug that made the game crash on startup...
Also there were some gameplay bugs that accidentally were added and got fixed in an other release of the snapshot, resulting in a "B" in the end of the current version. these bugs was the Shift-Clicking while crafting consuming all items and giving only one crafted product in return. with this upload also came the ablility of making the cats sit with an empty hand.

Downloads for the client and the server are available for download as usual.

For the next update some flaws are already being fixed. Jon tweeted that the AI will know if a door is open or not.

-TheOtherRetard

Minecraft news

Anyone having the Minecraft pocket edition?
Well, if you have it expect an update during the next week.

As you noticed, there's a bit of door changes comming up in a next update. Jeb has already posted a reddit thread explaining some difficulties on doors in Minecraft (the right hinged doors in a double door are actually lefthinged and opened when closed. This is why they react weird to redstone). this may be changed in the next update but it will require you to check all doors in your world to check if they are still like they should be.

-ThOR

Weekly TWP article dump

And another TWP article dump:

Snapshot 12w04a

Lots of new content in this snapshot:
- Cats have been added. More on this later.
- Newly generated structure: Desert wells. Not much information is found about this, other than than they can be found in deserts and that they're made of sandstone...
- Dispenser and normal sapling textures have been changed.
- Mobs in general have the new AI and will no longer try to jump over fences.
- skeletons and zombies will flee to darkness or jump in water once morning comes.
- Players going through vines are slowed down.
- New items are added: fire charge (works like flint and tinder, but only one time use, can be shot by the dispencer resulting in a blaze fireball, cna be crafted by combining coal, gunpowder and blaze powder), Jungle sapling, Bottle o'Enchanting (only in creative, will spawn random experience orbs when thrown...) and Spawn Ocelot egg (only in creative, will spawn a wild cat).
and something that's been changed in almost every snapshot: the language files have been updated. Chatting in Korean should be a lot easier now...

But there are some bug with this version:
- Because of the AI mobs seem to behave very strangely (spin in circles) when standing on beds of enchantment tables.
- Ocelots may get stuck in fences if they run into them.
- Zombies may stand still and only track you with their eyes
- A thrown Bottle o' Enchanting will not appear in SMP.
- Apparently someone (unauthorised) got into the language files and changed "Single Player" to "You are a NIGGER" in the Afrikaans language...

Other than that the game is fully playable as always. If you want to check it out: Client and server are up for download.

TheOtherRetard, news reporter.


Cats!

The latest snapshot introduces a new mob to the jungles: Ocelots, or wild cats. They are specific for Jungles, so you won't find them in any other biomes.
They are the second mob that is tameable (with fish this time) but it won't help running after them rightclicking, hoping to tame them.
They are the first mobs that can actually sprint (instead of just walking) and they have a very interesting AI: whenever you look around or move too fast they will run away and hide, making them hard to spot sometimes. (Note: they actually hide: if they flee from you they may actually jump behind a block where you can't see them and stay out of sight)
Taming one requires some patience: You have to stand still holding a fish, the wild cat will slowly get closer and only when they stand completely still near you you can tame them. Doing anything else will either shoo them away or will not result in a tamed cat.

Once you've tamed a cat it won't run away anymore and will change it's skin into one of 3 preset skins: a ginger (most common), a black and white (based on Jeb's cat Newton) or a siamese cat. Tamed cats will follow the player around, but not as strictly as wolves do. They also will get distracted by chickens and will kill them. Their kittens are pretty much the only baby mobs that don't have a giant head, so they're even more special to see.

Another trivia: They don't have any sounds yet. No random utterances, no hurt sounds (Yes, I did do some experimentation. No, I'm not proud of it, they were adorably staring at me while burning to death...)

As far as I've seen they don't attack anything besides chickens, so they're unless you have a chicken infestation they're pretty much useless. But yet so adorable...

TheOtherRetard, news reporter, cat person.


Minecraft News

So, weekly snapshots are regular as Coca Cola, what's in other news?

Minecraft Lego is closer to reality. The idea has been accepted by the Lego jury and will go to the development stage, the longest of all. No screenshots or photo's have been released yet, but we'll keep you updated once something appears.

Through Twitter someone has brought up the idea of slimes spawning in the jungle, on which Jeb replied the idea has already crossed his mind, so this may be a future addition to the game. Nothing is for sure, but a bit more content to the jungle biome wouldn't hurt.

Notch has released a poll to ask us if we would like to have some info on our way of playing logged. This would be anonymously (of course) and will log general info such as current game mode (single player, multiplayer), operating system (Windows? Mac?), how long you’ve been playing for (how long a game session is), and whether or not you’re playing the downloaded game, or the applet on the webpage. This would be send to the Minecraft.net database once every 10 minutes, so there would be almost realtime feedback.
The poll indicates a 84% liking the idea (out of more than 100,000 votes), so this may be implemented some time soon.

To anyone who had problems with Minecraft or any Mojang related issue: The web support guys have set up a Mojang help page. The page consists of a list of FAQ's that you can search either by topic or type in some keywords and it will give you the most relevant article. They keep monitoring the page and once they get questions that can't be answered with the current articles they'll add more so it will be answered.

That's about it for this week. Enjoy your Minecraft and we hope to see you next week.

TheOtherRetard, news reporter.

Now trying to schedule it. If you read this on Monday it worked, if you're reading this earlier (writing this on saturday) I failed somewhere...

-ThOR

TWP Articles

Oops, I forgot last weeks articles...

Adding them now

Snapshot 12w03a

As punctual as ever Jeb has released a snapshot where
- ladders have regained their collision boxes
- vines are climbable if they have a solid block behind them
- a new jungle biome with new tree types and leaves
- language files got updated
- dispensers with mob eggs will place the mobs instead of giving the egg
- zombies have new path-finding AI
- Wolves have new AI and can be bred

Now I need to update previous written articles... thanks a lot Jeb!
Anyways, I have absolutely no idea why the ladder regained the collision box, but I guess it has something to do with the vines being climbable now...
The jungle biome will eventually also contain biome specific mobs, but they aren't in the snapshot yet.

Go try it out wheneveryou can with the client and the server.

The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Minecraft News

Jon (Kagstrom, the AI programmer) has figured out some of the code and has separated the mobs' viewing direction from their walking direction. This means that when enemy mobs notice you they will keep looking at you while they will follow a path.
Still not sure what this means? Enemy mobs won't walk towards you in a straight line anymore, making it more difficult to predict where they're going and thus making it more difficult to beat them.
For anyone who wonders how this works, go try the newest Snapshot Jeb released, it has the new AI implemented for testing.
Enjoy!

The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Mojang News

The web team has announces that they are working on a decent a support system and account integration, so anyone who has problems with their accounts may be able to have them fixed soon.

Also, a web developper we announced to be joining Mojang, Wollay, decided not to join them after all. He valued his independence more and Notch did the same thing when starting Mojang (Notch would've been hired by Valve if he would've accepted the offer).

For anyone who wasn't online on wednesday the 18th: many of our beloved websites (Minecraft.net, Mojang.com, Playcobalt.com, ...)shut themselves down (even Wikipedia participated) to show people what the net may look like if the SOPA and PIPA bills would've passed in the USA.
Actually this is pretty confronting, because lots of owner of the websites tweeted that they wanted to check out their sites and only remembering they took it down for a day when staring at the blacked out screen.
Minecraft logins weren't affected (as we all noticed), only the in-laucher news feed was bloodred out of protest...
For more info: check Wikipedia or check out the various video's (check TotalBiscuit's here) on youtube. Google is still your friend, don't forget to ask him abouth this.

That's about it for this week, don't forget to check us next week, we will be back with more.
The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Now checking the scheduling options. Makes me forget less...

-ThOR

Movies

Ah, the movies.
The Art of telling stories with the use of moving pictures.

Yes, we all know examples of it, but I think most movies aren't as much art as I'd like them to be.
No, I don't define what is and what isn't art, but I know there are movies i go and watch for amusement, and others I go and watch because it's something I don't see that often.
No I don't watch movies all that often, I skip some because I don't have a TV close by but mostly because I really don't want to watch them.

Lots of movies remember the fact that they're supposed to tell stories (I've seen exceptions), but awkwardly few remeber that it's supposed to be an Artform. Lots of modern day movies seem to be made to show off the latest technologies, to make the experience as WOW as possible for people watching it, while forgetting you don't need huge explosions in SuperReal3D to have people impressed.

Let me compare the first Big Movie in 3D (Avatar) with one more recent one (Hugo)(watched it a few days ago). Avatar was a Huge success. Why? because of the 3D, the effects, the novelty of technics. It wasn't the story that reviewers were praising, it was the technique. Now 3D has become something of a gimmick for Big Budget movies with Big Explosions, while more storytelling movies still are in 2D (A Dangerous Method).
Now comes Hugo. Not that much action (almost none at all) but still wouldn't it be the same movie if they had released it in 2D. The "feel", the atmosphere wouldn't have been the same. I'm not going to tell you what Hugo is about, there are enough reviews out there to tell you that, but it's certainly a movie to be watched, especially if you tend to like steampunk (sorry, I had to include this, there's a lot of cogs and steam and copper and cast iron and mechanical stuff in it), movies and an Art-Nouveau timeframe.

What they did with 3D in Hugo is uncompareable of what they did in Avatar, and I regret that. If you take a look at the list below: most of them are movies where storytelling isn't only done by the characters, but also by the camera, the locations, the music and the time.
Too many movies nowadays seem to forget about that and I regret that...
Well, that's not entirely true. I do like a brainless movie from time to time. The remake of the A-Team some time ago, good for some laughs, but not something I would call art.

That's about it what I wanted to say...

For people wondering what movies I really enjoyed watching (listed without order):

• Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (don't forget the french audio, it's beautiful ...),
• The Matrix (the first one, everything that follows that is just increasing in WOW and decreasing in interest),
• Modern Times (by and with Charles Chaplin, ah, the Art, ah, the pleasure of watching),
• Inception (why don't you tip over?!!1!),
• The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin again, beautiful parody on Hitler (Der Führer himself has watched it 2 times, mind you)),
• The Lord Of The Rings (I must say the entire trilogy is really worth the watch, but especially the first movie),
• Hugo (Duh),
• Bin Jip (korean movie, also known as 3-iron, the 2 main characters almost don't speak),
• The early Star Wars movies (ah, the old fashioned sword fighting),
• The newer Star Wars movies,
• ...

and that's about it that I can think of at the moment.

Oh, and I'd like to give you a Youtube movie that kinda gave me the idea of starting to write this article: The Backwater Gospel. Warning: blood, gore and creepyness is present. But still a good story.

-ThOR

Weekly Pickaxe articles 14/01

And my most recent articles, as promised, a day after official release of the Weekly Pickaxe.

Minecraft Update 1.1

Finally, an official Minecraft update has appeared. Everything that was in the snapshots has now been added to Vanilla with some extra's and some bugfixes. Let me sum them up:

- Bow enchantments (more on that in Bow Enchantments)
- Flaming arrows will set mobs on fire
- Cheaper Golden Apple recipe (surround an apple with gold nuggets)
- Leaves of normal trees now have a slight chance of dropping Red Apples
- 56 language translations
- Flat world option added, for super flat creative worlds.
- Slightly smoothed color transitions between biomes (No more hard edges on swamp biomes)
- Improved world generation (more hilly landscapes, beaches, ...
- Reduced brewing time to 20 seconds
- Added spawn eggs to creative (the colors of the eggs even look like the mobs)
- Added world type options (currently only super-flat and default)
- Removed collision box from ladders
- Adjusted the collision box on fence gates
- Fence gates react to redstone.
- Sheep eat grass and regain their wool
- Walking on farmland will not trample it, only falling will
- Pumpkins and melons do not need tilled land anymore to grow onto, dirt is fine enough
- Magma Cubes drop magma cream now
- NPC villages now spawn treasure chests in blacksmith shops
- New server settings in Server.properties: level-type, spawn-npcs, generate-structures

But a new update also means mods need to update. Just give the modders some time. No one can predict how fast they will update, just keep in mind modders are also human...

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Bow Enchantments

New thing in the latest Minecraft Update: Bow enchantments! Never mentioned, few times requested, but in the update anyway.
There are 4 enchantments available for the bow: Power, Punch, Infinity and Flame. The names sound pretty obvious, but I'll explain what they do anyway.
Power is simple: arrows shot with this bow deal extra damage. There are 5 levels of this enchantment and a fully charges shot with Power V will one-shot kill any passive mob.
Punch adds knockback to mobs, maxed at level III.
Infinity is maybe the most interesting of all bow enchantments: As long as you have at least one arrow in your inventory you will be shooting infinite arrows. Arrows shot this way are unretrievable, so you can't use them to farm arrows, but hey, you'll have infinite arrows. Only one level available because you can't have more than infinite arrows.
And the last one, Flame, is applied to any flaming arrow in game, so if you shoot an arrow (or a dispencer shoots it) through lava it will automatically receive this enchantment. It's effect is pretty clear: whatever mob the arrow hits will be set on fire. This should be tested on the Enderdragon. This enchantment also has just one level.

After doing some tests on my own (with SSP commands) I concluded it is possible to have a bow with all enchantments in one, you just have to be lucky enough to get it. I got lots of bows with only Power or Punch, got one with Flame and got one with Power V, Infinity I and Punch II... One shot kills on most mobs (zombies need a finishing shot and Endermen are just a genuine Pain In The You-Know-Where) and unlimited arrows as long as the bow isn't broken... I enjoyed myself...

So there you go. Everything on the new bow mechanics.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Minecraft News

So, with the new update all previous snapshots became Vanilla. Now you can spawn mobs with their respective eggs, you can enchant bows and you can't bump into ladders anymore.

Minecraft Pocked Edition will receive an update in early february (february 8th according to Daniel Kaplan) which will include mobs and new blocks. Minceraft Pocket Edition will be going more survival than creative, unlike what the original idea was.

On Minecraft Merchandise: There is already lots of stuff for sale, but there might be added a soon-to-be-released Creeper Plushie (https://twitter.com/notch/status/156007083370745856). the picture is of a test product (with santa hat added) that Notch borrowed from the office. And by borrow he meant steal.

That's about it for general news for this week.
Don't forget to check us next week and see ya until then.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter.

That's about it...
You'll see when I post more.

-ThOR

Turd (yes, anal humor intended) TWP dump

And more incoming:

16/12/2011
Minecraft awards.

Since Minecraft recently won the Video Game Award of "Best Indie title" I would like to do a small retrospective on the awards Minecraft got until now.

When Minecraft still was in alpha it already was recommended to be played by Rock Paper Shotgun, the Daily Record, Penny Arcade and Good Game. After this it only got better.
In December 2010 Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for "Best Downloadable Game of 2010" title and Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year. More awards for "Best game of the year" were from Indie DB, Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer UK.

At the March 2011 Independent Games Festival Minecraft was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards and received the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011 Minecraft won the award for Best debut game, Best downloadable game and Most Innovative game award, winning every award for which it was nominated and also winning the GameCity's videogame arts prize.
On May 5, 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that will be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of "The Art of Video Games" exhibit that will open on March 16, 2012. And as we reported last week: even TIME Magazine has awarded Minecraft as highest in the top10 Games of 2011.

The most noted qualities that are cited for describing the awesomeness of Minecraft is primarily the freedom you get when playing the game as well as the simple but innovative way the game is designed. The biggest flaw is the lack of tutorial. Yes, you can find tutorials everywhere on the internet, but you must actually tab out or close the game, google it and find a instructive one as opposed to an easy ingame one...

And so all this lead to the VGA of 2011 wher Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and received third place for best PC game.
It has to be noted that since Minecraft development still is going on thanks to Jeb this may not be the last of awards Minecraft will receive.

I'll continue keeping a close eye on Minecraft news for you.
The_Other_Retard

Weekly Snapshot 11w50a

As weekly a "snapshot" is released by Jeb, with the client.jar (http://bit.ly/scPOSm) and the server.jar (http://bit.ly/sT51vw) downloadable for testing.
Much wasn't added, as Jeb was squashing some bugs that were in the previous Snapshot.
The changes in this version are: the sheep's grass eating has been expanded to tall grass, the Language support has improved, a few multiplayer spam protections were added and a few lines were added to the splash texts (those little yellow lines that bounce on the Minecraft Menu screen).

One thing I failed to tell with the previous Snapshot was the addition of mob-spawn-eggs. This gives you the ability to give yourself "mob eggs" in creative mode which spawns a mob when right-clicking and since they won't despawn anymore you can make add mobs to your custom maps and be sure they will still be there when someone plays it.

The_Other_Retard

Mojang News

The Mojang team and Oxeye Game Studio are working hard on getting Cobalt ready for pre-orders. For now the game is Windows only and heavily under construction. At the final release it supposed to have a full game editor to make complete game levels from scratch as well as new characters and npc's. The release of the pre-orders should also mean the new Mojang Account system will be up and running.

Mojang also started hiring more people to become "the most influential indie game development studio on Earth". They are only looking for developers at the moment, but this might change as the company will grow. Carl Manneh had more than 3000 applications to review and respond to in a few days. One is already hired, but he will only be revealed once the contracts are made.

People playing Minecraft in Europe at early hours (or very late in America) may have noticed the login servers were down a few times to update them. Everyone was warned by a big red box in the Minecraft News feed in the launcher. Everything went well thanks to Mollstam doing all-nighters.

We will be watching Mojang and Minecraft for you, tune in next week for even more.

The_Other_Retard

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Griefers

You may already have heard the next about Minecraft: "It gives the player complete freedom to do what they want". Like it or not, this also applies to griefers. Minecraft restricts very little in how much you can manipulate in the game. This was like this in alpha/classic and still is in the released version.

Do I support griefers? Yes and no.
Yes: they are playing and enjoying minecraft in their way, I can not forbid them from doing so.
And no: I wouldn't like them on my server or on a server I'm playing on.
But since Minecraft allows all this any server Admin should have the sense of limiting the actions of griefers. For example by adding a whitelist, by installing mod-monitoring tools (tools that allow mods and admins to see what modifications other players have while they're playing on the server (like x-ray mods, speedhacks, minimaps, Buildcraft, ...)) or simply by being online most of the time and banning griefers whenever they see one.

Also: don't provoke griefers. If you make a forumpost and type: "Iz hav new server, NO GREIFERZ!! I KILL THEM!!" you may expect griefers logging in to see how well you are at killing them while they grief the hell out of your server.

Another also: People tend to forget Minecraft is a game that comes with griefers progammed in the system (Creepers, Endermen and not to forget the Bane of Wooden Structures: Lightning), so being angry at player-griefers isn't that much of a point worth defending.

In short: a griefer destroying stuff on a server is not the griefers fault, he's just playing the game how he wants it. Whose fault is it then? The server admins for allowing these kind of players to the game.



--------------------------------------------
7/01/2012
Notch News:
Since there is very little news on Minecraft since our last issue so I bring you Notch news.

As he did a few times now Notch has joined the Ludum Dar contest where programmers receive a theme on which they must deliver a working in 48 hours. Notch liked his entry more than usual and continued it, making a christmas version of it and renaming it from Minicraft over to finally Minitale (and "snagging" the .com and .net domains for it). Only Notch knows where this is going.

In slightly related news: Notch has been voted "Person of the year 2011" on IGN.com. Yes, there were jokes and there were too much stating "Person of the Year is Persson!".

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter

Minecraft News
Most recent news states that Jeb finally has figured out what the imperative "fix ladders" meant (as stated in many tweets adesed to him) and he fixed it right away. Since Twitter doesn't allow very long messages the report itself is pretty cryptical and it's not shure what exactly got fixed.
Jeb and Notch both stated that the collision box for ladders got removed, what might result in some adventure-map puzzles becoming a lot more difficult, but this still isn't really confirmed.

Jon Kagstrom, the new AI programmer in Team Mojang is currently working on improving the AI in Minecraft (not yet in the Snapshot). His work will make it easier to add new behaviours to mobs. First goal will be adding breeding support to wolves, after that will follow more useful/interesting villagers.

Once I know more I'll report here.
The_Other_Retard, News Reporter

Mojang News:
Mojang hired some new people! Kristoffer Jelbring (@KrisJelbring) and Jon Kagstrom (@jonkagstrom). Jelbring is "a true Javascript ninja" according to Carlmanneh and will be mostly working on web stuff, while Kagstrom appears to be the promised AI programmer for both Minecraft and Scrolls. They haven't got a Mojang cartoony avatar yet, Junkboy should be working on it.

In other news: Cobalt is releasing smoothly, so I guess, since there's still no counter to see how many people already bought it. On Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDKFG8TzdO4) there are bugs being pointed out, custom maps being developed, just like custom map building tutorials...
During alpha (the current stage) Singleplayer and co-op General campaigns should be developed decently, just like multiplayer maps. For the "customizeable content" only the level editor is planned, while character, sound, weapons and background editors will follow after beta. The prices for Cobalt will be pretty much like Minecraft: 10 euro in alpha, 15 in beta, 20 after release.
For anyone who wants to check it out or play it in alpha: Cobalt Homepage (http://playcobalt.com/).

And Mojang hired one more. Now it's Wollay, currently making Cube World (http://wollay.blogspot.com/). It's a big, procedurally generated world, made of cubes, where you can mine, craft and build. BUT it's an RPG and not even playable except for the lucky few that help programming it. Notch has stated (http://i.imgur.com/OcGYF.png) Mojang will connect a keyboard to Wollay's brain and sell whatever game comes out. Except for that part everything is looking good for Mojang.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Weekly Snapshot 12w01a

And another Snapshot got released with the following updates:
- Languages have been updated
- Color transitions between biomes got "slightly smoothed" (I sure hope they fixed the swamp transitions).
- Brewing time is now 20 seconds
- Enchantment tables are less random (still trying to figure out what this means)
- spawning eggs got colors more representing the mob they spawn
- Biome changes! In general they got more varied, but when starting a new world you can now choose between 'super-flat' and 'default'
- collision boxes on ladders got removed
- collision boxes on fence gates got aligned with the fences

Modding API is underway, but far from implemented...

The_Other_Retard, your favourite News reporter

 That's about it. I'll be posting all new articles the day after the Weekly Pickaxe will be updated

That's all for now

-ThOR