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the musings of adelia chamberlain
stream of conscience sharing from the mind of an indie author.
Posted on November 1, 2017 May 29, 2019
book review: aftermath: empire’s end by chuck wendig
Aftermath: Empire’s End is a canon novel written by Chuck Wendig and the final volume in The Aftermath Trilogy. It was first published by Del Rey on February 21, 2017. The novel features the Battle of Jakku, the final engagement of the Galactic Civil War.
Category: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Publisher’s Summary: Following Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt, Chuck Wendig delivers the exhilarating conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy set in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
As the final showdown between the New Republic and the Empire draws near, all eyes turn to a once-isolated planet: Jakku.
The Battle of Endor shattered the Empire, scattering its remaining forces across the galaxy. But the months following the Rebellion’s victory have not been easy. The fledgling New Republic has suffered a devastating attack from the Imperial remnant, forcing the new democracy to escalate their hunt for the hidden enemy.
For her role in the deadly ambush, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is the most wanted Imperial war criminal—and one-time rebel pilot Norra Wexley, back in service at Leia’s urgent request, is leading the hunt. But more than just loyalty to the New Republic drives Norra forward: Her husband was turned into a murderous pawn in Sloane’s assassination plot, and now she wants vengeance as much as justice.
But Sloane, too, is on a furious quest: pursuing the treacherous Gallius Rax to the barren planet Jakku. As the true mastermind behind the Empire’s devastating attack, Rax has led the Empire to its defining moment. The cunning strategist has gathered the powerful remnants of the Empire’s war machine, preparing to execute the late Emperor Palpatine’s final plan. As the Imperial fleet orbits Jakku, an armada of Republic fighters closes in to finish what began at Endor. Norra and her crew soar into the heart of an apocalyptic clash that will leave land and sky alike scorched. And the future of the galaxy will finally be decided.
Review: Norra Wexley’s singular need to find her husband Brentin and Grand Admiral Rae Sloane leads her and her crew to the planet of Jakku, where they discover the majority of the remnants of the Imperial fleet orbiting the planet. Ordering her son Temmin to return to Chandrila to raise the alarm, Norra and Jas Emari use an escape pod to reach the planet’s surface. Temmin orders his battle droid Mister Bones to take care of his mom and sends him in a second escape pod before he and Sinjir Rath Velus escape enemy fire and return to Chandrila. And we’re off.
I’ll be honest. There was hardly a page of this book that I didn’t enjoy. It’s by far the best of the Aftermath trilogy and it’s portrayal and description of the battle of Jakku was fantastic.
The relationship between Rae Sloane and Brentin Wexley as they attempt to help each other achieve the same goal of capturing Gallius Rax while on opposite sides of the conflict was interesting. Their interactions with Niima the Hutt, who I realized a couple of chapters after she first appeared has to be the namesake of the Niima Outpost Rey mentions in Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, were very funny and action-packed, and when Norra and Jas ended up tangled up with Niima as well, the levels of comedy and action rose more. Niima was a very different kind of Hutt to Jabba personality-wise, and it was a contrast that I really enjoyed. Mister Bones reuniting with Norra was an emotional scene for many reasons, and even though I started out being really annoyed by that droid, I’ve grown to really love Mister Bones.
Political conspiracies were circling back with the New Republic as elections drew near, and this is an example of Star Wars politics done right. I didn’t find any of these plotlines boring and tedious the way that thinking about the prequels from the opening words of the Phantom Menace‘s crawl does. While the New Republic come to terms with how to deal with what’s happening at Jakku and how to proceed, our characters there face different points of decision when it comes to their future, and I thought that each decision was made in a way that I understood and that didn’t seem forced.
When the battle finally commences, the action is well-written and the various storylines that are occurring throughout it are weaved together seamlessly. You get the points of view of people in orbit above the planet, and in the air and on the ground on the planet, and Wendig switches between them in a way that doesn’t seem like he’s trying to squeeze in too much for the scenes to handle. There were moments that surprised me, character deaths and sacrifices that I didn’t see coming, and I really enjoyed Wendig’s writing.
That’s not to say that everything was perfect. It doesn’t exactly explain why Jakku was so important to Palpatine that he would have Gallius Rax cause the final battle to occur in the planet’s atmosphere. It becomes very clear throughout flashbacks that Palpatine knew that the battle he would have Rax stage there would be the final destruction of the Empire because Palpatine believed that the Empire should not outlive its Emperor, but as to why that battle needed to happen at Jakku, we’re still in the dark. The interludes again mostly fell flat for me. The ones with the Acolytes of the Beyond are the only memorable ones, and they have me questioning whether or not the Acolytes are the beginnings of the Knights of Ren.
Recommendation: This book is fantastic. It’s a great finish to a trilogy that didn’t start out the greatest but built momentum and turned into one of my favorite trilogies I’ve read in awhile. I think that if you’re at all interested in how the final battle between the Empire and the New Republic played out you need to read this book. I would suggest reading the entire trilogy to get a better grasp on the characters and where they are at the beginning of this one. But definitely, read this. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
meeting.
thoughts on avengers: endgame.
a midnight poem
a four p.m. poem.
artist problems.
book review: aftermath: empire’s end by chuck wendig – the musings of adelia chamberlain on book review: aftermath: life debt by chuck wendig
AdeliaChambo on Audiolog #2 – My Life With Mental Illness
Nancy King on Audiolog #2 – My Life With Mental Illness
book review: aftermath: empire’s end by chuck wendig – the musings of adelia chamberlain. on book review: aftermath by chuck wendig
book review: aftermath: life debt by chuck wendig – the musings of adelia chamberlain. on book review: aftermath by chuck wendig
artist problems
audiologs
film mini-reviews
fox sports broadcasts
international soccer tournaments
mental health minute
stream of conscience sharing
tennis is one of my favorite sports
the australian open is the happy slam
the fortnight of no sleep™
© 2019 Adelia Chamberlain
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Genre Chick Interview: Nia Stephens
Lettuce, milk, bread, cereal…boys? Yes indeed–that’s what’s on the grocery list of Dafina author Nia Stephens in her new young adult series Boy Shopping . Genre Chick Alethea Kontis met Nia at the mall to ask her about this unique, modern, choose-your-own-adventure series–and to try on some fabulous shoes.
Nashville’s Nia Stephens and I stroll down the shiny wood floors of Opry Mills Mall. We pass a gaggle of giggling young girls, and Nia smiles sagely. After reading Nia’s new book Boy Shopping, I know what those girls are really in the market for.
But what if they could try out boyfriends–like so many shoes–and give them back if they weren’t a perfect fit? That’s the crux of Nia’s fabulous modern choose-your-own-adventure series. Three books, three girls, and so many boys to choose from!
Alethea Kontis: What was your label in high school?
Nia Stephens: In high school, I was all about geek pride. In fact, I’m still all about geek pride. Fortunately, geekiness (thanks to groups like Weezer) was pretty hip in the late ’90s. My social life revolved around the geekiest of geek institutions: high school debate. I spent most Friday nights in a hotel room somewhere east of the Mississippi, which led to a very unique dating history to say the least.
AK: What’s your best/worst high school memory?
NS: April of my junior year was awfully cruel: my best friend and I were in a serious car accident, and another friend ran away from home–it was a bad month.
Choosing my best high school memory is harder; I had a lot of fun at my school. Because it was for gifted students, they gave us lots of freedom. (Any freedom they didn’t give us, we were likely to take anyway.) I have lots of memories of playing Frisbee on the roof, frolicking in Centennial Park in the middle of the afternoon, having picnics on the Vanderbilt campus in the middle of the night. It’s ridiculous, really–sometimes I’m amazed that I got into Harvard.
AK: The Boy Shopping series is published by Dafina, Kensington’s African-American fiction line. But with such a multicultural cast of characters, do you feel the series appeals to a wider demographic?
NS: Absolutely. Shakespeare is no more relevant to your average white tenth grader than your average black tenth grader, and the ability to connect with a character has nothing to do with the (wholly imagined) color of that character’s skin. The search for true love is very nearly universal, and I hope that teenagers of all races can identify with Kiki, Gemma, and Bree in their attempt to find that perfect someone–no matter what their ethnic identity might be.
America is wildly multicultural. When I was in high school, I hung out with kids of every race. It would have felt false to me to write books in which a black main character only spent time with characters who looked, talked, and felt exactly like her. I think diversity makes life more interesting, so I would never leave it out of any book I wrote.
AK: Kiki’s a drummer, Gemma’s a basketball player, and Briona’s an actress. Do any of their activities reflect your own experiences?
NS: I was a terrible violinist in high school, I hated sports, and my school didn’t even have a drama program. One of the things I like best about being a writer is being able to say, “What if things were different?” In my fantasy writing, it’s asking questions like: “What if Woodstock was actually a cover for a secret meeting of all of America’s witches?” In the Boy Shopping books, it’s: “What’s the dark side of being gorgeous, popular, and having a million dollar record deal?” Every possible life has its benefits and problems. For each of the heroines–even though their lives may seem perfect–they have a hard time making an authentic romantic connection. That’s why writing them was so much fun.
AK: Who are your favorite bands? Favorite sports teams? Favorite actors and actresses?
NS: I love music, especially live music, and since I’m lucky enough to live in Nashville, I catch a lot of acts. Lately I’ve been listening to Frou Frou, Imogen Heap’s old band; Venus Hum; Butterfly Boucher; Weezer’s old albums; Gotan Project (a Tango Nuevo band); Gipsy Kings; lots of ’80s music, especially David Bowie, Salt’n’ Pepa, Peter Gabriel, and A-Ha–I’ll spare you the rest of the list.
I cheer halfheartedly for Manchester United, for all the worst reasons, but I don’t actually like watching sports much. I generally view televised sports as an opportunity to eat dip, but otherwise I’m just not interested.
There are several actors and actresses I like. I wish Thandie Newton would play me in the movie of my life. I will watch Johnny Depp in just about anything, and I love watching David Bowie on screen. If the three of them are ever in a movie together I might actually die of joy.
AK: How did you go about writing the different possible endings of the books? Was that difficult?
NS: It was tough. Each book has eight different endings. But having that many outcomes forced me to be a lot more creative than a single ending would have. If I were writing a single-ending love story, I probably wouldn’t have written a foot-fetishist mafia type, a blind shipping heir, or a dancer who might be in love with the heroine’s mom–much less all three in one book. But Get More has all that and, well, more.
AK: Did you write these books to thwart the time-honored “last page of the book first” reader? Have you ever done that?
NS: No, I wrote it to delight the last-page-firsters. Eight different last pages–what could be better?
Honestly, I’ve never read the last page first, and never would. I love to watch stories unfold. That said, I once wrote a backwards novel–it began in the present and worked its way back. It was a grad school experiment and completely unpublishable, but it taught me a lot about the construction of narrative, and how far you can stretch even an avid reader. There are limits, apparently.
AK: Have any of the girls’ choices for boys been your personal favorite?
NS: Even though all of Kiki’s friends keep harping on her to find a “fun” guy, I love Lyman. He doesn’t just amuse Kiki–he challenges her. And I say this as someone who considered dumping her boyfriend on the dark day that he beat me at Scrabble. But I think going out with someone who is truly your peer is good for you, even when it’s tough. (I have to admit, though, that I haven’t played Scrabble with my boyfriend since that first loss.) It’s a different kind of fun than the brainless cuties Kiki often meets, but it’s also a better grounding for a relationship. When you trust someone’s brain, it’s easier to trust his heart.
AK: How have libraries helped you and your career?
NS: I was lucky enough to win the Bennett Fellowship from Phillips Exeter a few years ago, and I essentially spent the whole year hanging out in the school library. My office was decorated with signed poems and photographs from every visiting poet–Mary Oliver was my favorite. It was terrifically inspirational.
Since I’ve returned to Nashville, I’ve fallen in love with the new downtown library. It’s so beautiful–all snowy marble and glowing wood. There’s even a café and an outdoor courtyard with rosemary hedges and a fountain. It has lots and lots of books, which means that it is my idea of heaven. And the staff is fantastic. I do a lot of research, some of it rather obscure, and the inter-library loan office and rare books librarians have always been very helpful, even when my schedule forces them to meet me at odd times.
NS: I’ve always felt a connection to Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Admittedly he’s more of a super-villain, but the tentacled, disembodied alien brain with major ego issues has always appealed to me.
AK: What’s next for Nia Stephens?
NS: I’m currently working on a series of YA novels that reinterpret a few lesser-known fairy tales in a very dark, very modern setting. My agent is shopping the first one, The Dream Palace of Sister Simon, right now, while I’m working on book two: Blood Red Shoes. All of them deal with issues of identity and taking responsibility for your own fate, but otherwise they’re quite wide-ranging. So far, they’ve been a pleasure to write. I love pre-Disney fairy tales: they’re so much stranger, and they demand a lot from their characters. They’re relevant to the lives of modern teenagers in ways you might not expect. I have four planned now, but I might have to write more.
AK: And finally, what do you think of these shoes?
NS: Thigh-high stiletto boots are always a yes, Lee. You look great!
This entry was written by Princess Alethea and posted on April 13, 2007 at 9:24 pm and filed under Bibliography, Friends, Interview, tennessee. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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Archie Comics Shop
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Home News Archive by category "Events" (Page 2)
Archie and Friends Face Mortal Danger in New, Game-Changing Event Kicking Off in May
“OVER THE EDGE” rocks Riverdale to its core in the pages of the ongoing ARCHIE series from acclaimed team of writer Mark Waid and artist Pete Woods The lives of Archie Comics’ most popular characters will be changed forever as legendary comic book writer Mark Waid and superstar artist Pete…
Ron C. April 24, 2017 June 20, 2017 Events, Featured, News Archie, mark waid, over the edge, pete woods
BREAKING NEWS: Archie Comics-based drama ‘Riverdale’ set to debut Thursday, January 26th at 9pm on The CW
One-shot comic book written by showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa slated to delve into show’s backstory, hits following week Mark your calendars – your trip to Riverdale has been booked. Everyone’s favorite teenagers, Archie, Betty and Veronica, Jughead and more, will take over Thursday nights starting January 26th at 9pm ET with…
Ron C. November 16, 2016 November 16, 2016 Events, Featured, News archie comics, Camila Mendes, cole sprouse, KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, riverdale, the cw
Check out our New York Comic Con 2016 Photo Gallery!
Ron C. October 12, 2016 October 12, 2016 Events, News comic-con, gallery, new york comic con, nycc 2016
Archie Comics rocks New York Comic Con 2016 with ARCHIE MEETS RAMONES and JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS comic book launches
Just a few months before the launch of The CW’s RIVERDALE TV series, the hottest publisher in comics continues its New Riverdale rebirth and unveils an impressive array of exclusives, creator signings and much more New York, NY (September 29, 2016) – Archie Comics, the acclaimed and bestselling comic book publisher…
Ron C. September 29, 2016 October 5, 2016 Events, News conventions, josie and the pussycats, new york comic con, nycc, nycc 2016
Archie Comics heads to Baltimore Comic-Con 2016 with Must-See Panels and Creator Signings!
Archie and the gang are taking over Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend and you’re invited along! In addition to being the focus of this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con Yearbook featuring artwork from the industry’s best and brightest, Archie Comics will be hosting two must-see panels and multiple signing events with top writers and artists throughout…
Ron C. August 30, 2016 August 31, 2016 Events, News baltimore comic con, conventions
Archie Comics and ReedPOP team up for New Riverdale product launch at Comic-Con International: San Diego!
Archie Comics is teaming with ReedPOP to launch a new line of Betty & Veronica inspired merchandise debuting this week at Comic-Con International: San Diego! Are you more of a Betty or a Veronica? Fans can choose a side and show off their allegiance with these special #TeamBetty and #TeamVeronica…
Ron C. July 18, 2016 July 18, 2016 Events, News betty and veronicas, reedpop, sdcc 2016
Archie Comics Creator Signing Schedule at Comic-Con International: 2016 (Booth #1829)
Get your favorite comics signed by all-star talent at the Archie Comics Booth (#1829) at San Diego Comic-Con! *ALL TIMES/SIGNINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE* Updated July 20th, 2016 Wednesday, July 20 7pm-8pm BETTY & VERONICA: Adam Hughes Thursday, July 21 10am-11am BETTY & VERONICA: Adam Hughes 1pm-2pm BETTY & VERONICA: Adam…
Ron C. July 11, 2016 July 20, 2016 Events, News comic-con, conventions, san diego comic con, sdcc, sdcc 2016, signings
Archie Comics Panels at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2016
Archie Comics will have three must-see panels this year including a spotlight on Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer, Archie Horror writer, and ‘Riverdale’ Executive Producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a 75th anniversary panel featuring top Archie Comics talent, and a special ‘Riverdale’ panel featuring the cast of the new live-action drama series…
Ron C. July 11, 2016 July 11, 2016 Events, News comic-con, conventions, panels, san diego comic con, sdcc, sdcc 2016
Archie Comics Exclusives at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2016
Don’t miss these must-have exclusive comics available at the Archie Comics Booth (#1829) during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con! BETTY & VERONICA #1 SDCC Exclusive Variant IT’S BETTY VS. VERONICA! The most highly-anticipated debut in comics history is here with an exclusive convention cover by comics legend Adam Hughes! Betty…
Ron C. July 11, 2016 July 11, 2016 Events, Featured, News betty and veronica, comic-con, conventions, exclusives, san diego comic con, sdcc 2016, sonic mega drive
ARCHIE COMICS STORMS COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: SAN DIEGO WITH A FIRST LOOK AT ‘RIVERDALE’ TV SHOW AND A NEW BETTY & VERONICA COMIC BOOK SERIES
Legendary writer/artist Adam Hughes brings creative firepower to latest New Riverdale debut as Archie Comics unveils plans for Comic-Con International: San Diego 2016 including creator signings, must-see panels, and sought-after exclusives. New York, NY (July 11) Archie Comics, the acclaimed and bestselling comic book publisher that is home to some of the…
Ron C. July 11, 2016 July 14, 2016 Events, Featured, News betty and veronica, comic-con, conventions, san diego comic con, sdcc, sdcc 2016
New Releases for 7/17/19
Newly Digitized Classic Comics – 7/17/19
New to Archie Unlimited – 7/15/19
Revisit the Married Life with Archie, Betty, and Veronica ten years later!
Archie Sites
Dark Circle Comics
Copyright © 2017 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
www.ArchieComics.com
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THIS SUNDAY, April 5th, the folks at Keepin it Deep are coming back with another one of their infamous tent parties downtown! With all the craziness going on for the Final Four, downtown is definitely the place to be! Check out all the info:
Keepin’ it Deep and Tiki Bob’s Present:
Spring Fling 2 w/ The Ying Yang Twins and Keys ‘N Krates
230 S. Meridian St. Tourney Party Tent
TICKETS http://www.ticketfly.com/event/822749
TENT ONLY $20
TIKI’S AFTER PARTY with DJ CRAZE – ONLY $10
BLU AFTER PARTY with MARK FARINA – ONLY $10
ACCESS TO ALL 3 PARTIES $30
Last year we packed the tent for a lineup of 24 local DJ’s. This year we are keeping the locals plus adding national headliners. The tent is heated and is located across the street from Tiki’s at 230 S. Meridian St.
* KEYS N KRATES *
http://keysnkrates.com/
https://soundcloud.com/keysnkrates
https://www.facebook.com/keysnkrates
Keys N Krates is an electronic band from Toronto, Canada. The band consists of Adam Tune (drummer), David Matisse (synthesizer/keyboardist), and Jr. Flo (turntablist).
The band formed in 2008 with a goal of bringing electronic instrumentation to life. Drummer Adam Tune says, “We are referencing everything from classic house music to Timbaland in our beats. They have toured extensively throughout North America. In 2013 the band released their critically acclaimed EP titled “SOLOW” which was released on Steve Aoki’s label Dim Mak Records.
Unlike many other electronic artists, Keys N Krates perform completely live, using only drums, keys, turntable and live sampling.
Keys N Krates successes has earned them spots in some of the world’s biggest festivals like Lollapalooza, Electric Zoo, Ultra Music Festival, Osheaga, and Sonar Festival to name a few.
* YING YANG TWINS *
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialYingYangTwins
Ying Yang Twins debuted in 2000 with the single “Whistle While You Twurk”, which was played on urban and pop radio stations and peaked at #17 on the US R&B/Hip-Hop chart. They grew even more famous when they toured with Juz tha King, Kat Nu and Demo Dil on the tour called King Me. Their full-length debut album, Thug Walkin’, came out later that year.
Immediately after discovering fellow Atlanta hip hop artist Lil Jon, A&R Bryan Leach began talks with representative Michael ‘DJ Smurf’ Crooms about signing the Ying Yang Twins to TVT Records. Protracted negotiations meant that a deal was not finalized in time to for the label to release their next album, Alley: The Return of the Ying Yang Twins, which instead appeared in 2002 on Koch. The album was successful among hip-hop fans in the Southern United States. The same year, the group appeared on the album Kings of Crunk by Lil Jon on the single “Get Low”, and the song was a huge club and radio hit. As Crooms had negotiated only a one-album deal with Koch, the duo was free to finally submit to the advances of TVT, who had impressed them with their recent work with Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.
A new album U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta) appeared in the summer of 2005 as its singles “Wait (The Whisper Song)”, “Badd”, and “Shake” were dominating popular music and rap radio stations, and U.S.A. (Still United), a collection of outtakes, remixes, and collaborations similar to My Brother & Me followed in December 2005. It too was accompanied by a DVD featuring music videos and other footage from the U.S.A. (United State of Atlanta) period.
In 2005, D-Roc and his younger brothers, Mr. Weeny, and Da Birthday Boy, formed the group Da Muzicianz and released their first single, “Camera Phone”. Their self-titled album was released on February 28, 2006.
Displaying their quaint and bucolic maritime themed living room in their MTV Cribs appearance, they boast of “having da paintin”, “the fish”, and “the boat”. D-Roc grunts, “HANHHHHHHHHHHH!”, a number of times throughout the episode, leading one to question if his behavior is staged, or if it’s how he acts in real life. D-Roc and Kaine make a point that no women were allowed to decorate their home. Further viewing yields the “Kichon” (sic), where D-Roc displays his culinary staples, consisting of Crunk Juice and Ramen Noodles.
The episode ends with a tour of the vehicles the Ying Yang Twins own, consisting of a customized 1990 Chevy Caprice with “Tweety Bird” on the interior, as they “Go bananas” when they ride.
LOCAL SUPPORT FROM SLATER HOGAN, JOHN LARNER, ACTION JACKSON, LEMI VICE, GABBY LOVE, MASS APPEAL, DJ GNO, CADILLAC G, DUB KNIGHT, JODYFREE, CLAY COLLIER, CRUXXX, BUTTON MASHERS, EXPLORATIO
There wil be 2 after parties at Tiki Bobs and Blu Lounge.
MARK FARINA will be at Blu
DJ CRAZE will be at Tiki Bob’s
GET TICKETS: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/822749
Want to win a ticket for this show?
Here is how you do it!
1. In the comment section below, tell us is in, why you deserve to win. Make it good people. 100 words or less!
2. Post this event blog to your Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to tag IndyMojo in your post AND make it public so we see it.
** You have to do both to win **
Winners will be announced Friday, Friday, April 3rd!
It’s that time of year again! Mojostock is just around the corner, and if you want to ensure a spot on one of Indy’s biggest events of the year, this is the only guaranteed way to make it happen!
It’s no secret that we do a lot of events and book a lot of talent over the course of the year. But we can admit there can be holes in the system in which we use to book said talent, and many budding artists and DJ’s could be getting overlooked. This is why we want to put together a Mixtape Competition, with BLIND JUDGING, so there’s no playing favorites, no spam, no complaints. (Who am I kidding? There will always be complaints – but you get the idea).
Winning Mixtape will be awarded:
- Mojostock Booking (Main stage – Date/Time Slot TBD)
- Headlining slot at Altered Thurzdaze.
(on a mutually agreeable date once winner is selected)
- $100 cash
- Potential to open for a national act at one or more of Indymojo’s events.
(depending on coinciding music genre that makes sense for available headliners, mutual agreeable date, and some restrictions apply)
Second Place Prize:
– Mojostock Booking (Stage/Date/Time Slot TBD)
– Altered Thurzdaze booking (date TBD)
Third and Forth Place Prize:
– Free ticket to Mojostock
– Will be considered for Mojostock’s 3rd stage.
We want to set a few simple guidelines:
1. Create a new mix (30-45 minutes in length).
All genres welcome – PLEASE NO TOP-40 commercial crap. Be creative. Don’t insert anything that will reveal identity, such as a name drop.
2. Put it on a CD/Audio quality disk or thumb drive. (Mark them so I can notate who is came from. Judges will receive anonymous mixes)
3. Give the mix to me (Matt Ramsey – You can find me at any Indymojo event) by March 19th.
*For regional mixes, contact me personally.
Mixes will be assigned a number and securely logged in for identification purposes.
Judging:
- Entries will be duplicated and given to 5 judges of various music tastes and experiences, who have no knowledge of the entry creators. Judges TBD.
- Judges will rank the entries based on track selection, originality, and technical ability.
- Winner will be announced by April 18th.
Saturday, November 1st – NapTown Sounds is proud to bring a new all ages live music experience to the Indianapolis area!
Freakaphonics is an event that shifts the paradigm for common live music experiences. Freakaphonics incorporates active surround-sound mixing of live bands, live “surround” video mixing/projection, and “surround” stage lighting. Audience members will be able to experience their favorite bands while submerged in a professional, multidimensional environment.
Featuring music from:
Hyryder
http://www.hyryder.com/
The New Old Cavalry
http://newoldcavalry.com/
Kaleidoscope Jukebox
http://www.kaleidoscopejukebox.com/
Audio: Matt Vice / Malcolm Johnson ( Naptown Sounds )
http://naptownsounds.com/
Lighting Design: Hey Tommy ( Herm Productions )
Video Projection: Jesse Bieber ( Bad Dagger )
Jeff Lowe ( Jeff Lowe’s liquid lights )
Doors: @ 7:00
Show: @ 8:00
Cover: $10 / $15 D.o.S.
All ages (12 & under FREE!)
the Irving
Buy Presale & Bus package tix here: http://freakaphonics2.brownpapertickets.com/
Admission Level Price
*General: $10.00 ($11.34 w/service fee)
Pre-Sale Discount
*Bus Package: $25.00 ($26.87 w/service fee)
The Bus Package includes free transportation from The Mousetrap (5565 N Keystone) to the Irving Theater and back. Entrance to BOTH venues is included.
2. Post this event blog to your Facebook Page and/or Twitter. Be sure to tag IndyMojo.com in your post and MAKE IT PUBLIC so we see it. Get as many likes as possible. (on your comment below) The winners will be picked by the amount of likes they receive.
Winners will be announced Friday, October 31st!
Ready to Laugh OUT Loud? Indy Pride & Talbott Street are proud to present the one-of-a-kind Wendy Ho, who combines musical and comedy into a raunchy cabaret. Draq queens have been performing her numbers for years, and now you get to hear her sing them live! The show also features the return of the stand up talents of Keith McGill!
Laugh OUT Loud is one of the few times a year Indy Pride is raising money for ourselves, and your support helps us with rent, insurance, and other general fund needs. So, sit back and enjoy an evening of comedy, and help us continue on our mission to support this community!
Laugh OUT Loud Starring Wendy Ho
Tickets are $25 online and $30 at the door, with your first cocktail included in the ticket price. Indy Pride members receive a $5 discount online with a promo code, which will be emailed out to you. Indy Pride Board Members will also be selling tickets.
Here are links to Wendy Ho’s videos. Needless to say these are not really safe for work!
Who is Wendy Ho? – http://youtu.be/b3EQSrSD70c
Oprah Winfrey – http://youtu.be/P8OYQ3FbXOY
F$ck Me (Live in the Studio) – http://youtu.be/hLncV_pIYuA
Poop Noodle – http://youtu.be/1xc_BJxdDgg
Want to win tickets for this show?
Comment below and share this page on Facebook or Twitter and tag IndyMojo so we see it.
We will select winners and announce them on Wednesday, February 19th!
IndyMojo & Live Nation present:
SAVOY – Get Lazer’d Tour
GET TICKETS HERE: http://bit.ly/18vdRiB
Thursday, Jan 30th
Deluxe @ Old National Centre
* SAVOY
Brooklyn, NY / Boulder, CO
https://www.facebook.com/SAVOY
http://savoyband.com/
http://www.twitter.com/savoy
http://www.soundcloud.com/savoyband
Savoy has new lasers!
* DOTEXE
https://www.facebook.com/officialdotexe
https://soundcloud.com/musicdotexe
DotEXE at Spring Awakening – Chicago
Scott “DotEXE” Stanley, an electronic music prodigy, was smack dab in the middle of studying computer programming when he typed his last command — “.exe” — and never looked back. He has since adopted this mysterious moniker as his DJ alias and this 22-year-old is now one of the fastest growing underground electronic producers of 2013. His Meg & Dia’s “Monster” remix has achieved viral status, accumulating over ten million views in just over a year. Despite his remix success, Stanley, a member of the growing Monstercat family, prides himself on originals, including “Run Away From Me”, “Kill It with Fire”, and his latest, “Hipster Cutthroat”. With a wide range of tempos and addicting melodies, DotEXE is breaking sound barriers at a venue near you.
Local Support from:
* INDIGO CHILD
Indigo Child
Indymojo // G-9 Collective
https://www.facebook.com/IndigoChildIndy
https://soundcloud.com/the_indigo_child_89
GET TICKETS: http://bit.ly/1h1mGaO
DELUXE at Old National Centre
502 N. New Jersey
2. Post this event blog to your Facebook Page. Be sure to tag the IndyMojo.com Fan Page in your post so we see it.
Winners will be announced Tuesday, January 28th!
IndyMojo & The Vogue present:
* GREENSKY BLUEGRASS
Greensky Bluegrass
If you’re familiar with bluegrass music, then you’re tuned in to some of what Greensky Bluegrass does. They’re also known to throw a great party, rock n roll, and (if the critics are to be believed) they have great songs. They are unquestionably a team of friends that traverse the country making music they enjoy. What makes Greensky different than Bluegrass? Poignant rural ballads about real people? Dobro tone that Jerry (Douglas or Garcia) would love? Distortion Pedals? Grit and attitude from a whiskey soaked card game? Indeed, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This quintet from Michigan has been staying up late at all the coolest festivals and stopping to play your favorite clubs and theaters across America for 11 years now. Nearly 175 shows per year has prepared them for the rigorous task of continuity. Greensky Bluegrass isn’t slowing down. “They’re coming to your town to help you party down.” Yeah. Really. Like you never thought possible.
At the start of the millennium,some of these guys met, then they met more guys. They thought Greensky was a clever name for a bluegrass band. Fast forward to 2011 when they recorded their fourth studio record, called Handguns. Among them, words like, “proud,” “killer,” and “damn right!” have been spoken in regards to the music of Handguns.
While they all may be accurate, we hope you’ll find far more than you expected, hell – even more than we expected contained in this piece work that may well come to define one of 21st Century America’s hardest working musical ensembles.
http://www.greenskybluegrass.com/
http://www.facebook.com/greenskybluegrass
http://www.twitter.com/campgreensky
http://www.instagram.com/greenskybluegrass
http://www.youtube.com/greenskybluegrass
Local Support:
* FLATLAND HARMONY EXPERIMENT
Flatland Harmony Experiment
Flatland Harmony Experiment is a non-traditional vocally driven bluegrass string band based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. FHE started in the summer 2011. Since then the Flatland Harmony Experiment has worked relentlessly across the midwest and has been received with open arms. Flatland Harmony Experiment is Scott Nelson on upright bass, Kris Potts on Mandolin, and Johnny Plott on Banjo.
www.facebook.com/pages/Flatland-Harmony-Experiment/195406290515120
http://flatlandharmony.com/
Get tickets: http://ticketf.ly/1cFauJw
$20 Day of
Friday, Jan 17th
Show 8pm
http://www.thevogue.com/
http://www.indymojo.com/
Winners will be announced Thursday, January 16th!
With our latest volume of the Collective Sessions Mix Series, we went to our very own, L810c! With production styles varying from deep and sexy to a more upbeat DNB, L810c gives us a sexy electro breaks mix for us to sink our teeth into! We hope you enjoy!
@l810c
www.facebook.com/L810csys
1. z4thoichi – Overmaster (Charlie Kane Remix)
2. Matskie – The 9th gate
3. Wolfen Technologies – Ace Space
4. Smoke Sign – Welcome To Neo India
5. Brujo’s Bowl – Way Behind
6. Kwah – Proton Perspective (Unconscious Minds Remix)
7. Marv in blue – Phaze 3-gti
8. Ap3x – Manufactured Reality (Bad Tango Remix)
9. Merkaba – Metamorph
10. Neurodriver – Man Made (Hedflux Remix)
11. Bad Tango – Enzyme (Hedflux Remix)
12. Big Mistake – Critical Mass
All tracks have been edited and re-arranged by L810c
Artwork by Nicholas Love Visuals
www.facebook.com/nicholaslovevisuals
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE AMAZING TIME! We hope you had as much fun as we did! Much love and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
For volume 23 of our Collective Sessions Mix Series, we tapped the shoulder of one of our own bass music producer/DJ’s, Indigo Child! Rob likes to swing it heavy, but he shows us his deeper, gentler side with this mix, before laying the hammer! We hope you enjoy!
@soundcloud.com/the_indigo_child_89
www.facebook.com/IndigoChildIndy
1. Demon – Geth
2. Persist – Fall
3. Fabricator – Society
4. Piezo – Ptay
5. Subreachers – The Machine
6. Chapta – This Wan
7. Jubel & J:Kenzo – Visions
8. TMSV – Persei
9. Matt-U – The Strangers
10. Bukez Finest – Homicida
11. Geode – Tesla
12. TMSV – Haze
13. Red Eyes – Night Falls
14. Rekta – Tugboat
15. Truth – Don’t leave
16. Shu – Albae
17. Fomax – Desolate
18. D Operation Drop – Defection VIP
19. Bandicoot – Mayan
20. Hiloxam – Frozen In Time
21. Dubapes – Mercy
22. Reamz – Falsify
23. Deco – Trenchtown
24. Echomaker – Ragnarock
25. B.Dual Shock – Mechanik
26. Cyberoptics – The Artifact (Truth Remix)
27. Richie August – Bust
28. Indigo Child – Cyborg Samurai
29. Indigo Child – Introduction
30. Liquid Stranger – Drones (Mantis Remix)
As we work to grow the Indy Mojo Stream Team, it recently occurred to me that we’re looking for a very specific kind of person to fill the job. I think sometimes street teams are made to seem like any ‘ole body can and should join them. That’s true in some cases, but I think Indy Mojo is looking for something more committed right now- something more involved than hanging a few fliers whenever your favorite bands come through town every 3 or 4 months in exchange for tickets to those shows.
I used to love getting mail from The Reverend Peyton and hanging show fliers for The Big Damn Band around town. I used to participate in the Wuhnurth and Springfest chalking contests. That level of activity was fundamental in carving a niche for myself in the local music community. I got free tickets for those events and had fun doing the work with my friends in return… and I got to meet tons of cool people along the way.
– Danielle Look
Music Editor for Indymojo.com
Chalking for Springfest tickets in 2009
Indy Mojo is searching for the kind of people who enjoy and actively participate in those kinds of events- and view them as opportunities to advance in their long-term professional goals. We have roles for people who can be engaged on a regular, recurring basis and are actively looking to fill them. We love our fans and supporters dearly and couldn’t do what we do without them, but also I know that we have fans and supporters who want to have a greater purpose and are willing and able to give their time and energy to be a part of our loving, supportive family.
Promote, discuss, and share upcoming local and national shows (social promotion online, flyering, and word of mouth),
Participation with setup/teardown of the promo table and stage set at Indy Mojo shows
Spreading the word of who IndyMojo is and what we do on a daily basis, and
Encourage interaction with the Indymojo.com website and ticket contests.
As you can see, it’s not as leisurely as sharing events on Facebook and flyering at your convenience. It’s an operating model of the saying, “Work hard to play hard.”
If this is something you’re interested in doing, or would like more information, please email our Street Team Manager, Jackie Pingul, at Jackie@indymojo.com
If you’re looking for a way to shine a spotlight on your craft (writing, photography, art, etc.), practice your hand at event organization and promotion, earn college credit (if you’re in school), or otherwise put your passion for the local music scene to good use, check out our Internship info and email our Promotions Manager, Gwen Wilson, at Gwen@indymojo.com!
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The Lumberjack, February 17, 2011.
and a focus on using natural light.
“We decided to make a lot
of the areas multipurpose,” Cas-sells
said, noting a blank section
of the 1/8-mile indoor jogging
track wall. “We want to put a
projector up so [people can see
instructors in] large group exer-cises,
or [to create] a small con-cert
venue or something like that
for a fitness week.”
“I toured [the HLC] for my
construction class, and I thought
it was amazing,” said William
Gray, a junior construction man-agement
major and Recreation
Center employee. “It’s top of the
line, and it’s going to be such a
step up from the Fieldhouse.”
The red brick Fieldhouse
is decades old and features a
curved, concrete roof that rests
on corbels, which extend into
columns. Inside, there is a blue,
vinyl track around a rectangular
area that is divided by a basket-ball
court and dark blue mats
where group classes are held.
There is a rock climbing wall in
the corner and a cardio room just
off this major athletic space.
“The current building is
definitely too small to cater to
the growing amount of students,”
said Crystal Becenti, a gradu-ate
student. “The cardio room
where the treadmills are has been
packed [to the point] where I
couldn’t use it.”
The HLC will have more
cardio equipment, and the walls
of windows will give exercising
students a view of the outdoor
track. There will be rooms for
smaller exercise groups, and nu-tritionists
and personal trainers
will also be available.
Natural lighting is essential
to the HLC’s design. The third
floor has a “corridor with a big
skylight, [and there are] win-dows
along the outside of the
classrooms to let natural light in,”
Gibbs said. “[It] is pretty unique;
each classroom will have its own
natural light.”
The classrooms are also ac-cessible
by escalator.
“The escalator only goes
to the third floor,” Cassells said.
“The idea is because all of the
classrooms are on the third and
fourth floor, students going be-tween
classes can get to them as
quickly as possible.”
Stairs will connect the third
and fourth floors.
Gray said he is eager for the
new center to open.
“I’m just excited for the at-mosphere
[at the HLC,]” Gray
said. “There’s not only going to
be the gym, but also Fronske, a
juice bar and study lounges, so
there’s just going to be a lot more
student traffic and a more social
atmosphere than the Fieldhouse
The HLC will also have
an extended pharmacy and a
38-feet-tall rock wall that can be
used by 11 students at a time. It
was painted by an artist to re-semble
the mountains of Sedona,
Cassells said.
“When we started look-ing
at combining health and rec
services and whether it would
be a good alternative to create a
wellness center, one of the things
we looked at was student use of
both of the facilities,” Cassells
said. “Around 80 percent of the
student population used one or
more of [their services]. We an-ticipate,
at one time or another,
every student who comes to
campus will use this facility for
something, even if it’s just com-ing
in to use the lounge, the café,
or to go to class and then go
somewhere else.”
At 1:31 a.m., a subject
called to report someone was
running after her and a friend.
An officer was dispatched,
and the subject was identified
and had trespassed.
At 2:27 a.m., an officer
pulled over a subject outside of
Allen Hall.
One subject was cited and
released for slightest DUI and
being over the legal limit. The
other subject was cited and re-leased
for minor with liquor in
the body.
At 5:13 p.m., the office
received a report of a subject
walking in circles near the Ge-ology
Annex building.
and the subject was found to be
intoxicated. Flagstaff Fire De-partment
and Guardian Medi-cal
Transport were dispatched,
and the subject was taken to
Flagstaff Medical Center.
At 10:43 p.m., a staff
member from Allen Hall called
to report a door from Target
was found in a hallway.
An officer was dis-patched.
The door had been
found at a Dumpster at Target,
and the resident assistants and
residence hall director said
they would discard the door
the next day. No charges were
pressed.
At 6:12 p.m., a subject
called to report someone had
approached her and asked for
her name before following
her for a short time down the
hall in the Performing and
Fine Arts building.
Officers were dispatched
but were not able to locate the
subject.
from POLICE BEAT page 2
from ROLLE page 1
from H&L CENTER page 1
Feb. 17 - Feb. 23, 2011 | The Lumberjack 3
Rolle earned his bachelor’s degree at the mountain campus
in 1941. As a student, he was two-time student body president, as
well as a talented basketball player. He was awarded the Golden
Axe Award and President’s Award his senior year. After graduat-ing,
Rolle served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World
War II. Following his return to the U.S., he went back to NAU,
completing his master’s degree in 1950. Rolle then became the
dean of University Services, and he held several other jobs at the
university until his retirement in 1973.
After retiring, he and his wife, Marie Rolle, volunteered
extensively as leaders of the alumni association. The Joseph and
Marie Rolle Award for Excellence scholarship, which honors stu-dents
who demonstrate high achievements, was established by the
couple in 1989.
Mike Adras, NAU’s men’s basketball coach, speaks fondly of
the Lumberjack legend.
“Joe Rolle was one of the most distinguished gentlemen I
have ever met in my lifetime,” Adras said. “Whenever I speak of
alums, the conversation never goes far without mentioning Dean
Rolle. The impact he had on this university is tremendous.”
John Haeger, NAU president, said the school will continue to
honor Rolle as an esteemed alumnus.
“Joe Rolle has been a mainstay at this institution since the
1940s,” Haeger said. “Few people have had an impact on Northern
Arizona University as Joe and Marie Rolle. Joe remained active on
campus throughout his life, and while he is no longer with us, his
legacy will last as long as there is a Northern Arizona University.”
Joe Rolle is survived by his wife Marie, his sons Charles and
Randi Rolle, and his daughter Jo Anne Rolle. He was preceded in
death by his son, Lawrence “Murph” Rolle. A rosary will be recited
tonight at the Church of the Nativity at 7 p.m., followed by mass on
Friday at 11 a.m. and a reception at 1:30 p.m.
ABOVE: The new grandstands of the Health and Learn-ing
Center will eventually contain seats, not bleachers.
On the left, a new press box is being constructed facing
Mountain View Hall. RIGHT: Cassells leads the tour with
reporters. FAR RIGHT: An escalator remains veiled in
the main lobby area. (Photos by Daniel Daw.)
Title The Lumberjack, February 17, 2011.
Oral history transcripts and a focus on using natural light. “We decided to make a lot of the areas multipurpose,” Cas-sells said, noting a blank section of the 1/8-mile indoor jogging track wall. “We want to put a projector up so [people can see instructors in] large group exer-cises, or [to create] a small con-cert venue or something like that for a fitness week.” “I toured [the HLC] for my construction class, and I thought it was amazing,” said William Gray, a junior construction man-agement major and Recreation Center employee. “It’s top of the line, and it’s going to be such a step up from the Fieldhouse.” The red brick Fieldhouse is decades old and features a curved, concrete roof that rests on corbels, which extend into columns. Inside, there is a blue, vinyl track around a rectangular area that is divided by a basket-ball court and dark blue mats where group classes are held. There is a rock climbing wall in the corner and a cardio room just off this major athletic space. “The current building is definitely too small to cater to the growing amount of students,” said Crystal Becenti, a gradu-ate student. “The cardio room where the treadmills are has been packed [to the point] where I couldn’t use it.” The HLC will have more cardio equipment, and the walls of windows will give exercising students a view of the outdoor track. There will be rooms for smaller exercise groups, and nu-tritionists and personal trainers will also be available. Natural lighting is essential to the HLC’s design. The third floor has a “corridor with a big skylight, [and there are] win-dows along the outside of the classrooms to let natural light in,” Gibbs said. “[It] is pretty unique; each classroom will have its own natural light.” The classrooms are also ac-cessible by escalator. “The escalator only goes to the third floor,” Cassells said. “The idea is because all of the classrooms are on the third and fourth floor, students going be-tween classes can get to them as quickly as possible.” Stairs will connect the third and fourth floors. Gray said he is eager for the new center to open. “I’m just excited for the at-mosphere [at the HLC,]” Gray said. “There’s not only going to be the gym, but also Fronske, a juice bar and study lounges, so there’s just going to be a lot more student traffic and a more social atmosphere than the Fieldhouse now.” The HLC will also have an extended pharmacy and a 38-feet-tall rock wall that can be used by 11 students at a time. It was painted by an artist to re-semble the mountains of Sedona, Cassells said. “When we started look-ing at combining health and rec services and whether it would be a good alternative to create a wellness center, one of the things we looked at was student use of both of the facilities,” Cassells said. “Around 80 percent of the student population used one or more of [their services]. We an-ticipate, at one time or another, every student who comes to campus will use this facility for something, even if it’s just com-ing in to use the lounge, the café, or to go to class and then go somewhere else.” Feb. 12 At 1:31 a.m., a subject called to report someone was running after her and a friend. An officer was dispatched, and the subject was identified and had trespassed. At 2:27 a.m., an officer pulled over a subject outside of Allen Hall. One subject was cited and released for slightest DUI and being over the legal limit. The other subject was cited and re-leased for minor with liquor in the body. At 5:13 p.m., the office received a report of a subject walking in circles near the Ge-ology Annex building. An officer was dispatched, and the subject was found to be intoxicated. Flagstaff Fire De-partment and Guardian Medi-cal Transport were dispatched, and the subject was taken to Flagstaff Medical Center. At 10:43 p.m., a staff member from Allen Hall called to report a door from Target was found in a hallway. An officer was dis-patched. The door had been found at a Dumpster at Target, and the resident assistants and residence hall director said they would discard the door the next day. No charges were pressed. Feb. 13 At 6:12 p.m., a subject called to report someone had approached her and asked for her name before following her for a short time down the hall in the Performing and Fine Arts building. Officers were dispatched but were not able to locate the subject. from POLICE BEAT page 2 from ROLLE page 1 from H&L CENTER page 1 InTheNews Feb. 17 - Feb. 23, 2011 | The Lumberjack 3 Rolle earned his bachelor’s degree at the mountain campus in 1941. As a student, he was two-time student body president, as well as a talented basketball player. He was awarded the Golden Axe Award and President’s Award his senior year. After graduat-ing, Rolle served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II. Following his return to the U.S., he went back to NAU, completing his master’s degree in 1950. Rolle then became the dean of University Services, and he held several other jobs at the university until his retirement in 1973. After retiring, he and his wife, Marie Rolle, volunteered extensively as leaders of the alumni association. The Joseph and Marie Rolle Award for Excellence scholarship, which honors stu-dents who demonstrate high achievements, was established by the couple in 1989. Mike Adras, NAU’s men’s basketball coach, speaks fondly of the Lumberjack legend. “Joe Rolle was one of the most distinguished gentlemen I have ever met in my lifetime,” Adras said. “Whenever I speak of alums, the conversation never goes far without mentioning Dean Rolle. The impact he had on this university is tremendous.” John Haeger, NAU president, said the school will continue to honor Rolle as an esteemed alumnus. “Joe Rolle has been a mainstay at this institution since the 1940s,” Haeger said. “Few people have had an impact on Northern Arizona University as Joe and Marie Rolle. Joe remained active on campus throughout his life, and while he is no longer with us, his legacy will last as long as there is a Northern Arizona University.” Joe Rolle is survived by his wife Marie, his sons Charles and Randi Rolle, and his daughter Jo Anne Rolle. He was preceded in death by his son, Lawrence “Murph” Rolle. A rosary will be recited tonight at the Church of the Nativity at 7 p.m., followed by mass on Friday at 11 a.m. and a reception at 1:30 p.m. ABOVE: The new grandstands of the Health and Learn-ing Center will eventually contain seats, not bleachers. On the left, a new press box is being constructed facing Mountain View Hall. RIGHT: Cassells leads the tour with reporters. FAR RIGHT: An escalator remains veiled in the main lobby area. (Photos by Daniel Daw.)
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| 0.657469
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Plagiarism Through The Eyes Of College Students
Plagiarism has been condemned lately by all types of experts, including scholars, university board members and even commercial parties, such as TurnItIn, which sells plagiarism detection software righteously claiming that plagiarism should be combated through the most efficient and up to date tools. Well, if these companies ever reach their ultimate goal of eliminating plagiarism, they will go out of business. Meanwhile, we see that everyone discussing plagiarism has certain motivation and interest to defend one point or another. Students, however, don't seem to have an interest to speak on this subject at all, or worse - they have never been asked.
I neither belong to the camp that combats plagiarism, nor to the one that defends or partially justifies it. I simply want to make the voice of college students heard with no hidden reason behind it.
My own college profile of a "straight A student" had nothing to do with any type of plagiarism that would involve direct copy/paste and serious violation of copyright law. However, now that the definition of plagiarism has evolved to such a broad extent, I can't tell for sure whether all my college assignments can be referred as 100% original and plagiarism-free.
While I was able to devote most of my time to studying (with 2 scholarships that covered almost 85% of my college expenses, and monthly checks from my parents, who had above average income and the only daughter to spend it on), I saw many of my friends struggling with their assignments, especially when it came to writing essays and developing research papers.
At that point I didn't question the meaning and purpose of my own devoted enthusiasm for education. I enjoyed the process as the end in itself, didn't have to worry about money and had all those skills and talents for being a successful student. Most of my friends, however, were different. I didn't like to hang out with the "know-it-all" crowd. I enjoyed the company of people with different backgrounds and different perspectives on life. I could learn something new from each one of them.
My friends and I were very close and we could trust each other any secret with no doubt. So, I knew they cheated on the exams occasionally and hired someone to write their term papers. However, their integrity has never been challenged in my eyes by this knowledge. I knew them well enough to tell that they had their own reasons. Were they valid enough? I can't judge that objectively, because they were my friends and I was on their side. But one thing I can tell for sure - these reasons must be heard before blaming anyone a degraded cheater.
VICTIM OF SOCIAL PRESSURE
My friend Joshua grew up in a hard-working, but relatively poor family with three other siblings, who were younger than him. His father was a high school teacher and his mother was a nurse. They both were hard on Joshua about his education and future career. It took them a lot of efforts and a lot of money to get Joshua through college, so my friend was carrying a heavy burden of high expectations and big responsibility. He had no excuses for failure and no right for mistakes, so he could not allow himself fail some class and spend thousands of dollars to repeat it next semester just because his writing skills weren't good enough.
Sad, but true. The knowledge itself is no longer a valuable asset in our society, what matters is one's degree or certification. Our society has invented the terms where grades are all that matter for education, why blame it on students after all. Joshua would have been an empty space for an employee without his degree, no matter how smart he was in engineering. So, he needed that degree no matter what.
May be it was due to lack of self-confidence, or perhaps our English professor was too hard on us, but Joshua always had problems with his writing assignments at college. He never seemed to meet the instructions no matter how hard he tried. English was not the only problem. Other classes required a lot of writing, too.
When faced with the threat of failure, Joshua turned to other people's help. First he asked for our advice and we tried to work out some solution for him. Unfortunately, nothing else helps to develop writing skills other than practice. But Joshua didn't have extra time for it, so it work. Then, he started using works of older students, since the assignments for some classes often repeated themselves every year. However, when caught once by one of our professors plagiarizing the same essay that was turned it a year before, Joshua decided it was too risky, because he could have been expelled.
Finally, when nothing else seemed to work for him, he started ordering his term papers and essays from one of those companies that offer writing services for a fee. I thought this was quite expensive, but then I learned that competition for these services is quite fierce, and some like Go2Essay or CustomResearchPapers now offer custom written papers for as low as $13.95 per page. I was against it, but it seemed to work just fine for Joshua.
ACADEMIC HONESTY DOESN'T PAY OFF
My other friend Kim was from a wealthy family of a self-made businessman, who owned everything he had to his own persistence and discipline. He didn't want Kim to grow as a spoilt offspring of a wealthy family. When Kim was applying for a college, her father said that if she gets accepted, he would pay for her education, but would leave all other expenses up to her. So, Kim had to find a job when she was a freshman.
Not a big deal, when you still can count on your parents to support you. However, in Kim's case she couldn't afford quitting her job even if there were too many college assignments to cope with, because she wouldn't have means to support herself otherwise. Her father didn't care much for Kim's grades as long as she could get through another semester. He only advised her to learn hard at those classes that she thought were interesting or useful for her future career, while the rest was permissible to skip as long as she could get a passing grade.
In her junior year Kim had finally decided that she would go in advertisement. She was very good at drawing and really enjoyed her creative design classes. When hired for one advertisement agency as a logo designer, she was soon making $15 per hour and working full-time almost always, so the end of each semester was a real catastrophe for her, since she felt too much pressure from her deadlines both at work and at college.
Kim didn't feel that there was something wrong with hiring people for writing her academic papers, which were not of particular interest or relevance to her career. However, she never cheated on her creative design assignments. She held them sacred and was truly the best student in her group.
Perhaps, it was her father's influence, but Kim valued her time and was quite picky with how she spends it and whom she spends it with. None of Kim's friends, including me, could tell that she was lazy or had a lot of disposable income to spend on her custom written papers. For Kim these services were the only way to ensure that she wouldn't loose her job spending half of the day writing her paper on a subject of no relevance to her, and than turning it with no guarantee of a passing grade and no reward for her time.
At the end of a semester with so many writing assignments coming from different classes it was not just a matter of making some extra money, but a question of life and death: either she writes all assignments herself and goes broke next month, or she survives the pressure by delegating some of her essays to other people. Even if it looks like an academic dishonesty for other people, I know Kim was always honest to herself in pursuit of her goals, and after all it's the only thing that matters.
These are just few examples of how the perception of plagiarism as a disastrous crime can be challenged if viewed from different perspective. I don't think that plagiarism is the best solution for students and I do not defend its practice, however I do believe that the roots of plagiarism should not be looked in the nature of modern students, but instead - in the nature of modern education system, which values grades higher than knowledge and is designed to respond to the national standards rather than student needs.
Thus, plagiarism detection software may help to combat plagiarism in a short-term run, however, unless we re-evaluate and improve the existing system of education, the root of plagiarism will not be extirpated for a long-time benefit.
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Writing Writing
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A Global Movement of New and More Effective ‘Problem Distribution’
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The growing hum of citizen-led community building
Tuesday July 03, 2018 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
A bold match-making project in Vancouver peels away the mist on what’s possible for creating our preferred future as a society. Pairing universities’ capacities with civic needs, City Studio Vancouver unleashes cognitive and creative surplus in students that see their energies making the city better.
“In the past, the problems we have in society have typically been given to some experts or some narrow groups to solve,” says City Studio Vancouver co-founder Duane Elverum. “They really are not distributed to the demos or the democracy in very effective ways, other than voting.”
But that’s changing. A new and more effective way to distribute societal problems might soon be called a global movement.
“In Europe in particular, there is a sense that the state is in retreat or has come to recognize the limits of its usefulness,” writes Axiom News founder and CEO Peter Pula. “Additionally, there is the sense that too much of community life is reliant upon institutionalized programs and professional services.”
City Studio Vancouver is just one example of what’s unfolding. (Watch for a full Axiom News story on the studio soon.)
In Bregenz, Austria, an Office of Future Related Matters exists to answer any call to host a community conversation about something that is important to citizens or elected officials.
Over the years, Axiom News has told the stories of many community-building efforts. Many of the stories share this common element: There is always a convenor or a host. These individuals may or may not be acting from within an institution, but they all seem to be necessary for at least “holding the space” for community building to occur. It is also worth noting that the definition of “community building” is not hardened and dry in these stories; there is large space for ambiguity, interpretation and liberty. Here are the headlines of just a few of the stories we’ve collected:
A Small Group Builds New Cincinnati
Cincinnati citizen Peter Block started A Small Group, a monthly gathering of citizens who may not otherwise be in relationship with each other. In small groups, participants answer carefully crafted questions that get to the root of accountability, commitment, their gifts and talents, and possibility.
“As soon as people talk to people they’ve never met before their life starts to change. Especially, if they talk in a certain way, which is about possibilities, about ownership and about gifts,” Peter said in an earlier interview, adding these questions lead to action.
“People get mobilized, they begin to become more accountable to what they care about.”
"I hope that people keep weaving this social fabric . . . and the narrative of our urban centres and our rural centres start to shift and people begin to see them as places where people become alive, and (that) they're useful, and they're important.”
— Peter Block
“It’s a shift to talking about the possibility as a community, it’s a shift to talk as if we as citizens are creating this community instead of complaining about what they, as leaders, are doing to this community.
“It doesn’t mean there aren’t problems in the community, that there aren’t homicides, and poverty, but if that’s what we choose to focus on, that’s what we get.”
At the time of the story, A Small Group had been running for eight years, and had more than 600 people involved.
Sangudo Community Forms Investment Co-op to Spur Local Business
The Sangudo Opportunity Development Co-operative (SODC) in the hamlet of Sangudo, 99 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, Alberta, was incorporated in May 2010 with the mandate to fund local business projects.
Six local residents — all busy businesspeople who didn’t have time to personally run a business themselves — created the co-op.
“We decided that we could pool our capital into a co-op and we could become a business incubator,” SODC chair at the time, Dan Ohler, told Axiom News. The main thing the group wanted to do was buy economic infrastructure and connect it with entrepreneurs.
The three initial SODC projects were:
purchasing a local abattoir that was for sale and leasing it to two community members who wanted to give up their jobs and own the meat shop. The SODC agreed to be the landlord for the Sangudo Custom Meat Packers. The co-op was to receive a percentage of the company’s gross sales.
purchasing a building that the local legion branch wanted to sell, and leasing it to another two community members who wanted to start a coffee shop and restaurant. The co-op was to receive a percentage of quarterly gross sales in this case as well.
providing debt financing to the Sangudo Custom Meat Packers. The company received grants through a federal and provincial program to rebuild part of the shop and kitchen. They needed $108,000 of their own money, and approached the SODC, which loaned them the money.
A long-term vision for the SODC was to find a way to be engaged in supporting every business in the community.
Salmon Arm Radio Journalist Reinvigorated about Community’s Future
Journalist Leah Shaw was only to be reporting on a community gathering in the southern B.C. city of Salmon Arm. The gathering was centred largely on the six conversations introduced by author and thought leader Peter Block. The conversations aim at building community and are pointedly designed to confront the issue of accountability and commitment.
“Listening to the ideas of how we can all use our gifts to make a better community, that’s the part that resonated with me,” said Leah, a journalist for more than 20 years.
“It reinvigorated my commitment to radio. After 18 to 20 years of working in the media, this is something I can offer back to my community . . . for the good of the community.”
As a result of her experience, Leah began working with Shuswap Settlement Services to develop a community radio program that would feature the individual stories of immigrants living in the community. The overarching intent was to provide a more multi-faceted perspective of the community and help people better understand the “richness of individuals” who live there.
Massive, Main Street Photo Exhibit ‘Shifts Feelings’ in Alberta Community
LG-Massive,-Main-Street-Photo-Exhibit-‘Shifts-Feelings’-in-Alberta-Community -- 500.jpg
More than 140 photographs of local residents by portrait artist John Beebe adorned the wall of a Delburne, Alberta school.
Internationally renowned portrait artist John Beebe collaborated with the Village of Delburne in Alberta to create gigantic photos of local residents. These were then wheat-pasted on multiple exterior building surfaces throughout the village. The village school featured a collection of about 140 portraits.
The art project “shifted the feeling” in the community, according to Delburne Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) community worker Nora Smith.
“There’s something incredibly powerful in tying the art element into the community development piece,” says Nora. “I can’t really put my finger on it, but I know it’s there just by the way I watched the community members stop and appreciate each other.”
The project was part of a larger community building effort championed largely by Nora. The “shift in feeling,” though on one level a seemingly minor outcome, testified to the foundational level of change that Nora and others were investigating through the community engagement process. The work was largely about the biases and prejudices that shape one’s thinking and therefore one’s way of being in society.
There is a whole movement of people building community. People such as Peter Block have been saying this for several years now.
“I hope that people keep weaving this social fabric . . . and the narrative of our urban centres and our rural centres start to shift and people begin to see them as places where people become alive, and (that) they're useful, and they're important,” Peter told Axiom News in 2011.
If citizen-led community building is a vital element in reimagining democracy, then how do we amplify and accelerate that happening?
“Now is not the time for childish positivity. Pollyanna thinking will just not cut it," writes community-building author and facilitator Cormac Russell in his blog, "Communities are the atomic elements of molecular democracy, Part 4."
“As argued brilliantly by Oliver Burkeman in The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking (2013), we need to embrace uncertainty, accepting the world as it is, not as it should be. I would add: ‘So that we can co-create the world as it should be, not as it is’.”
Cormac goes on to write about the compelling need to find a “new lens to discover what’s actually there,” meaning what’s actually in our neighbourhoods, towns and villages.
His blog lists a number of ways to a more citizen-centred democracy, all of which are worth reviewing closely.
To his list we would add “tell the story.” Tell the story of unfolding citizen-centred democracy. Tell the story in such a way that the storytelling waters and fertilizes what is emerging into strong and healthy growth.
With files from Camille Jensen, Jennifer Neutel, Peter Pula.
Axiom News is interested in stories of citizen-led community building. To share your story, please contact the newsroom by e-mailing us.
To ensure you don't miss any of this content, sign up for the free Axiom News e-news by clicking here.
Comment on, share or print this story:
Michelle Strutzenberger
Generative Journalist
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Local News Publication Wants to Lead the Way to Citizen-led Democracy
Alberta Municipalities Encouraging Neighbours to Get Know Each Other
A Mammoth Gesture in the Direction of the Commons
Wisdom Councils in Europe Glean Citizen Input
A ‘North Star of Hope’ for Education and the World
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Upgunned Tanks
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Author Topic: Upgunned Tanks (Read 17858 times)
dy031101
Yuri Fanboy and making cute stuff practical- at least that's the plan anyway
Prefers Guns And Tanks Over Swords And Magic
FT-17 TD courtesy of World of Tanks
Top: With a high-velocity 47mm gun.
Bottom: First time in action.
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?
GTX_Admin
Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
Administrator - Yep, I'm the one to blame for this place.
Whiffing Demi-God!
Re: Upgunned Tanks
Interesting. WW1 era?
All hail the God of Frustration!!!
It'd still be a bit too early for Pz. II and Pz. 35(t) as victims.
(Ignore the T2 for a sec. here)
Now upgraded Matilda tank in 3D, again courtesy of World of Tanks.
Top: with Cavalier turret and QF 6-pounder gun.
Bottom: with ZiS-96 76mm gun.
Churchill Mk.I re-equipped with a 6-pounder gun turret. Hull-mounted howitzer is retained since 6 pounder has ineffective HE shells anyway.
(WoT actually allows for it to be armed with Vickers 75mm HV as its biggest gun, but I don't think it's do-able in real-life: Churchill has a smaller turret than Cromwell, IIRC, and Cromwell couldn't take the 75mm HV......)
arc3371
Takes no responsibility should anyone try to turn the drawings into plastic...but we will still hold him accountable for the madness that ensues!!!
I have been thinking about a T-28 based TD with the 107mm M-60 gun (that I love in WoT, the gun not the tank)
Tank Hunter Theme
While I was cursing WoT a while ago for taking away my T-28's 85mm gun and putting in its place a ZiS-4, I was reminded of the T-34-57, a tank hunter version of the pre-85mm T-34.
Then I figured that a tank hunter theme might not be so bad after all...... so here come the two tanks in my inventory armed with ZiS-4. Good against distracted enemy tanks.
I heard the 75mm gun used by early versions of the M4 Sherman uses the same ammunition of the famous French 75? I couldn't think of a scenario for this to happen, but I couldn't help to think of how a 75mm tank gun with the same kind of upgrade that made the German Pak-97/38 (muzzle brake, HEAT shells, amongst others) might have performed, either......
(I know it'll never beat the 76mm gun M1A1, and WWII HEAT shells weren't exactly the most reliable stuff, but that ought to still bring about some improvement......)
« Last Edit: November 06, 2012, 12:02:04 PM by dy031101 »
"Of course, I could be talking out of my hat"
Re: Tank Hunter Theme
Quote from: dy031101 on November 06, 2012, 12:00:26 PM
I heard the 75mm gun used by early versions of the M4 Sherman uses the same ammunition of the famous French 75?
Well, essentially any 75mm gun can fire the shell from any other 75mm as they are the same calibre. As the US 75mm tank gun was indeed essentially the French 75mm slightly tarted up and put in a tank, the shells they fired were from the same stocks that had been put aside for the 75mm Field Gun.
M3 Grants/Lees used German 75mm shells (after they were remanufactured to British standards) in the Western Desert in 1942-3.
The German captured Russian 76.2 Field Guns used German 75mm ammunition with changed/enlarged driving bands to ensure they engaged the lands in the barrel properly, when the Russian shells ran out. When Russian cartridge cases ran out, they "rechambered" (essentially gave it a new breech) the weapons to accept German rounds as a complete unit.
Quote from: Rickshaw on November 15, 2012, 05:23:32 PM
Curiosity...... did they have a chance to see how far they could go with Ex-German HEAT projectiles?
Quote from: dy031101 on November 16, 2012, 07:53:39 AM
I don't think there were any HEAT rounds in the Western Desert. Hunnicutt who mentions the remanufacture of German shells only refers to HE rounds. The shells had to have their driving bands machined to allow them to fit the US 75mm barrel and they had to be put on US 75mm shell cases (the powder from the German shells was reused). Apparently they had to make the lathes run in reverse because running them clockwise had an unfortunate effect on the fuses - arming them!
I don't think there were any HEAT rounds in the Western Desert. Hunnicutt who mentions the remanufacture of German shells only refers to HE rounds.
I see- it would still have been interesting to see if HEAT round would have been a (all be it crude and temperamental) way to counter "Mark 4 Special" and even Tiger I......
The top attachment is a T25E1 equipped with a larger turret and a 105mm gun; granted my fascination is with the T25 with HVSS (below attachment)......
In addition, I also wonder how that turret can be up-amoured. Magach-like armour pack, or Russian/Ukrainian-style ERA placement?
To be realistic, I think you're going to encounter the same problems they did in real life with trying to put massive heavy tank turrets on medium tank hulls - it becomes too heavy for the suspension/engine and mobility suffers. it also becomes top heavy and unstable. The only up-armouring which could actually save you from that is ERA. It's lighter than passive steel armour. However it means your vehicles no longer have close infantry protection.
Frank3k
Excession
Formerly Frank2056. New upgrade!
Quote from: Rickshaw
The only up-armouring which could actually save you from that is ERA. It's lighter than passive steel armour. However it means your vehicles no longer have close infantry protection.
Well you can... just not for long.
What about an early version of Chobham armor/armour? Reactive and ceramic armor were developed/built at about the same time. The ceramics would still be heavy, but not as heavy as a thick steel armor plate.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 11:09:24 AM by Frank3k »
To be realistic, I think you're going to encounter the same problems they did in real life with trying to put massive heavy tank turrets on medium tank hulls - it becomes too heavy for the suspension/engine and mobility suffers. it also becomes top heavy and unstable.
Okay, I see. But the capacity to increase its turret ring to 80 inches seems to open up a few possibilities...... can I assume that's also what the M26/M46 is theoretically capable of?
(Oh...... for some reason I'm thinking East-meets-West again......)
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 11:24:04 AM by dy031101 »
Quote from: Frank3k on November 18, 2012, 01:42:09 AM
Not after the first tile goes off anyway.
The US Army experimented with glass armour, utilising both blocks of glass and glassfibre mats on tanks in the 1950s when HEAT was the most common AT round. Worked but was considered too fragile to be able to be used on a battlefield.
The Royal Navy experimented with asphalt armour in the 1940s but found it wasn't effective against AP ammunition.
Chobham's primarily designed to defeat kinetic energy rounds, with a secondary role against chemical energy ones.
I think you have to be clear as to what time period you're talking about. I don't think Chobham was possible before aluminium armour and that doesn't appear until the 1960s when aluminium comes into widespread use in the civilian market and the automatic industry started looking at "crushability" as a safety feature in cars. The combination, plus a bit of lateral thinking created Chobham.
If however, you were talking about the 1950s, an asphalt and glass fibre combination - the glass fibres held in an asphalt matrix might have had possibilities in defeating HEAT rounds, and it would have been durable. Wouldn't work in hot climates though.
Ceramics have real possibilities but don't really start being developed for industrial uses until the 1970s. The Soviets ingeniously used to pour ceramic marbles into a steel matrix for the T-72 turret, so you got a combination of both which made it highly resistant to HEAT and kinetic energy rounds. I wonder, now if someone had thought of that with glass beads, in the 1950s, what effect do you think that would have had on tank design?
From a link on the Wikipedia entry on Chobham armor: "In 1918 Maj Neville Monroe-Hopkins found that a thin layer of enamel improved the ballistic performance of a thin steel plate"
So this was a possibility even before aluminum - imagine thinner steel armor faced, bonded or sintered with a ceramic layer. I don't know how advanced large scale powder metallurgy was in the late 40s and 50s, though, so this may still be a 60s-70s technology. Dropping ceramic powder pellets into molten steel (like the T-64 armor) is probably similar in principle.
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2013 in Review: 2014 in Prospect
Meet the new year, same as the old year, as Pete Townshend might have said. New Year's never been much of a thing round our house. Seasons change and so does the weather but resolutions and predictions don't figure much. Still and all it's as good a time to reflect as any and it's always fun to speculate, so away we go.
As many have observed already, 2013 was something of a mark-time year for MMOs. The biggest event of the year was either Neverwinter or the re-launch of FFXIV. When the best the genre has to offer is a choice between the latest project on the Perfect World/Cryptic assembly line and the second coming of a game that failed hard the first time round it would be tough to claim we'd had a vintage year.
That said, a lot of people seemed rather to enjoy Neverwinter although they often seemed to be admitting to something of a guilty pleasure whereas FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, to give it its full, unwieldy title, generally received the warm, if bemused, reception accorded to an old dog as it unexpectedly manages to learn a new trick. That the FFXIV revival was done so well did surprise people but nowhere near so much as that it was done at all.
For me, Neverwinter turned out to be one of those games that I like in theory but never get around to playing very much and now that it's decided not to run at all on my PC even the theory part is, well, theoretical. FFXIV I liked a lot and played a lot, for a while, but the combination of extreme alt-unfriendliness and subscription payment model did for any plans I might have entertained for playing it long-term.
The biggest new story of the year, in my opinion at least, was the combined EQNext/Landmark reveal at last summer's SOE Live. For a couple of weeks that seemed to be just about all anyone was talking about. More surprisingly Sony just about managed to keep the buzz going for rest of the year with a seemingly inexhaustible series of pointless polls and uncomfortable videos.
As I explained, while I think I'm relatively clear on what to expect from EQNext (nothing this year for a start) but I'm still not much wiser as to what Landmark actually is. The time is fast approaching when all will be revealed. According to Smed alpha should start sometime in January. Will I be there? The Magic 8-Ball knows.
Other than that, 2013 was all about GW2. It's an odd game. In some ways it turned out to be nothing like most people expected or ArenaNet claimed. With amazing sleight-of-hand ANet contrived to replace the usual vertical end-game gear grind progression with a similarly exhausting version based on crafting, while at the same time converting the hitherto sprawling, cyclical, unruly open world into a tidy, manageable sequence of numbered and packaged limited-duration events. The promised flat leveling and horizontal progression elements still exist but have deftly been rendered almost entirely irrelevant. A remarkable achievement.
While the entire game was being re-purposed around us, however, one of the original articles of faith at which many, myself included, had scoffed turned out to be no more than simple truth. It had been claimed before launch that World vs World vs World would provide all the endgame that was needed and after a coughing, stuttering start so it proved. The part of the game I never expected to pay any mind to has become, over these last few months, almost the entirety of my concern. I'm not saying I like that. Indeed I may be saying I don't like it much at all. But it's a fact.
Of course there were other MMOs, foremost among them EQ2, with whose expansion before last I finally caught up and whose current expansion I am just about ready to begin to explore. Then there was City of Steam, which came badly off the rails before righting itself after a fashion and carrying on along a new track altogether. I rode herd on dinosaurs in DinoStorm, jetpacked around Firefall, snuck back into The Secret World and even revisited World of Warcraft. I thought, often, about Getting Something Done in Everquest and Vanguard but rarely did.
And so it goes. 2013, the Year of More Of The Same. A comfortable year. Not much got done but by and large I had fun not doing it. What about 2014? Are we stuck in this cosy little rut for another twelvemonth? You know, I rather fear we may be.
The prospects for 2014 look uninspiring. I imagine the Big Three on the watch list of most Western MMO fans would be WildStar, TESO and EQLandmark.
Landmark I've already mentioned. To elaborate and prognosticate, I think it will confuse and disappoint in equal measure. Half the potential audience will be wishing they were playing EQNext and lobbying hard for Landmark to be a Full Feature MMO while the rest will just want to be left alone with a toolset to make their own worlds. I predict the two demographics will not play happily together and few will feel satisfied. On the other hand, I could be the blind man at the back of the elephant telling his friends he's found a piece of old rope...
TESO, on the other hand, looks set to disappoint just about everyone. I don't have any residual affection for the IP so if it ends up appealing to me even in the slightest I'll be both surprised and delighted. Plenty of other people, however, are very heavily invested indeed and when an MMO gets made from an IP that people love it doesn't often seem to go down as well as either the developers or the fans might hope or expect. LotRO might be the exception although even that's had its ups and downs, but the commercial and/or artistic history of the rest - SWG, SW:ToR, Warhammer, AoC, STO, DDO, Lego Universe, to name just a few of the better-known - well, it doesn't make pretty reading.
WildStar, being an original property, should at least avoid disparaging comparisons to its source material. Instead it risks the usual fate of would-be mainstream themepark MMO launches of latter years - being largely ignored by most of the audience it would like to attract while at the same time drawing unflattering comparisons with established titles from those who do give it a try. Nevertheless, while WildStar doesn't hold much interest for me, I wouldn't be that surprised to see it making the best showing of these three in 2014, at least until something better comes along. It smacks rather of Rift, a clean, well-designed MMO from a commercially-focused and adept team with a lower megalomania co-efficient than the average MMO development House.
So WildStar's my horse in this three-way race. I'll back it but I don't plan on riding it. Most likely I'll spend much of next year hacking around the same familiar landscapes on the same spavined, slouch-backed old nags or bumbling around Landmark with my eyes on the horizon and the distant promise of EQNext.
Oh come on! Let's not be negative! Perhaps Landmark will surprise us all when its really A Thing. Maybe the climax of GW2's year-long Living Story will blow our socks off and leave us cheering for the next installment. Maybe something none of us has yet heard of will roar in out of left-field and bowl us all over.
Or maybe 2014 will just be The Year Of More Of More Of The Same. Could be worse.
Posted by Bhagpuss at 6:04 PM 4 comments Links to this post
Labels: City of Steam, EQ2, EQLandmark, FFXIV, MMO, Neverwinter, TESO, WildStar
We've Gone On A Quest By Mistake : EQ2
Freeport was never the most relaxing shore-leave you could find but the current crisis makes even the pending anarchy of Lucan's sabbatical, a time when you could get kicked in the backside by a self-appointed "guard" just for having the temerity to walk down the cobbled street from The Jade Tiger to the docks, feel like the Glory Days. There are dragons circling the city, breathing fire in that disconcerting way that dragons have when they want to let you know they're ticked.
Doubting The Overlord is a criminal offense, Citizen.
I'm a tad vague on how they came to be there or what Lucan might have done to upset them but whatever it was Our Overlord has the mages of the Academy of Arcane Science working overtime maintaining a protective dome over the entire town lest the dragons burn it to the ground. It's putting quite a damper on the Frostfell festivities, I can tell you.
As a Freeportian in good standing with the citizenship papers to prove it, my Berserker has every confidence in Lucan's capacity to handle a few dozen dragons. Some of the sniveling common-folk whimpering in the streets and alleyways aren't showing the unquestioning loyalty to the Overlord they should, although of course, they don't have all their valuables safely stashed in a mansion in Maj'Dul like some forward-thinking rats do, but still...we must have faith! The Overlord Will Prevail!
And so is Defeatism!
It so happened that when my Berserker finished helping his Othmir pals get settled into their new, undead-Ulthork-free home in Cobalt Scar the bags and boxes he lugs around to carry the vast amount of stuff he seems to acquire everywhere he goes were full to bursting. (Seriously, what kind of refugees hand out dining-room furniture for favors done anyway?). He'd been on a killing spree for what seemed like weeks and he seriously needed a clear-out, not to mention his armor needed a good scrub down and re-oiling, which is how he came to be back in good old Freeport in the first place.
Dismissing all concern of imminent draconic destruction, he was rummaging through his bags at the counter of the Freeport Bank, when he came across a strangely-marked hide. So much had happened of late with scarcely a minute to stop and reflect that he'd forgotten all about the strange, shadowy creatures that attacked him, first in Cobalt Scar and later in Great Divide. He'd just shoved the odd skin he'd found into his packs to examine more closely later. Well, now it was later.
And that was how it all began. A close examination of the hide revealed a brand unlike any he'd seen before. Thinking it through he recalled an old acquaintance from his younger days, Grim Stormshield, sometimes referred to as the Nesingwary of Norrath, although not to his face. Last seen, Stormshield used to hang out in an isolated camp in the Jarsath Wastes.
Today feels like a good day to buy a lottery ticket
Jarsath Wastes never used to be the easiest place to get to, which is why it was always worth making the considerable effort to acquire the Fabled Worker Sledgemallet. Even once there it was a fair old trek out to Stormshield's camp. Those days are long gone, it seems. Rather than whacking hapless wildlife in the Commonlands in the hope of a proc, nowadays it's a quick ding on the World Bell and there you are on the Danak Shipyard docks. What's more, Ormark Stormshield is standing right there with a rent-a-horse trained to go straight to his brother and there's still paid time on the clock from a previous customer that he's happy to let you use. Now that's what I call timing.
And that's how it went. I found myself involved in a quest that I wasn't expecting, that I'd acquired by happenstance and that I was following out of pure, natural curiosity. Each step followed neatly and logically from the preceding one, requiring a good deal of travel but providing just the right options to make the journey a pleasant run out rather than a painful slog.
Got that right.
The winding path took me from Jarsath Wastes back to Freeport then on to Somborne Village in the Loping Plains, to a secret lair beneath the Nektulos Forest shore, into the formless void of a Spiritual Wound and under the sea to a sunken cave off the Butcherblock coast. There was a lot of overwrought, overwritten metaphysical maundering and plenty of punch-ups. At no point did I really know what I was doing or why and it was great!
All the while I was trying to guess what the purpose of the quest might be. Was it a lead-in to the new expansion? Maybe, but it didn't seem to have much to do with dragons. Was it a Heritage Quest? Possibly, but I couldn't think what ancient Everquest item it might be. Could it be a Holiday Event? Didn't seem very seasonal.
That sound you hear? It's a penny dropping.
Not knowing why I was doing this long sequence of tasks made each step all the more fascinating. It felt like a throwback to how questing in Norrath used to be, only with the good parts - the mystery, the speculation, the curiosity - left in and the bad parts - the tedium, the dead-ends, the massive xp loss - left out.
Of course, at any time I could have googled to find out what was going on but the whole thing flowed so smoothly it literally never occurred to me. I generally only look up quest walkthroughs when I get stuck or frustrated and that never happened. It wasn't until about three-quarters of the way through that I began to get an inkling that what I was doing might be related to the new class that was added with the Tears of Veeshan expansion but I still wasn't sure until I reached the very end and received my Arrow of Spirit.
What's more, I still have no idea if the quest is something you have to do before you can roll
a Channeler or whether it's just some lore and flavor to get you in the mood. I don't even especially want to play a Channeler. Or I didn't, before this. Now I think I just might.
This is what questing used to be like before it got a bad name, isn't it? Alright, probably not. It's what I'd like it to be like from now on, though.
Posted by Bhagpuss at 12:45 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: EQ2, Freeport, MMO, Quests
No More Sleeps 'Til Christmas!
And a Very Merry Christmas, One and All
Can You See What It Is Yet? : EQN Landmark
Another day, another Landmark video.
Here's the bullet point rundown:
Huge, giant world
Procedurally generated
Five environments
Hot Volcanic (Lavastorm)
Cool Forest (Qeynos Hills)
Arid Desert (Ro)
Colorful Deciduous Forest (Feydark)
Snowy (Everfrost)
And what, if anything, can we infer from that?
Well, it seems we need the "huge", "giant" world because "there always needs to be something for people to go explore through" and it has to be procedurally generated because if they'd handcrafted it they way they did Everquest and EQ2 "it would just take way too long and people would consume that content long before we could create more of it". Hmmm.
So do we conclude that the "content" of Landmark is territory and that the act of exploring said territory will consume it? Is that consistent with the emphasis previous videos gave to building and creating? Is there any need for a vast world to explore if the main thrust of the game is building structures, which almost by definition tend to remain where you put them?
Consider this:
a) The game is called "Landmark"
b) It's marketed as a game, not a utility
c) The premium pre-release Pack offers as one of the highlights "a 48 hour or more headstart into Open Beta ensuring ... time to find amazing new claims".
d) By the time Landmark officially launches it should include combat, achievements, titles and an economy.
A pure MMO Construction Set presumably wouldn't need "content" or gameplay at all, so this must be a game first and a construction set only incidentally, unless, like Neverwinter Nights, the Game and Toolset parts come separately, something that hasn't been suggested. Yet.
Not just a game either but one with a competitive element. I'm having trouble not thinking of it as a corporate version of Wurm Online, which is an intriguing, if slightly terrifying image.
Also, wasn't the idea that we could build anything we fancied, not just things that might exist in Norrath? I seem to remember there being something about a SciFi setting and maybe a contemporary one. Did I imagine that, because if not, don't these five environments offer a somewhat limited palette? Or are they purely for the "Only In Norrath" segment that feeds into EQNext? That would at least explain the constant referring back to pre-existing Everquest zones.
It seems the more they tell us about Landmark, the less clear it becomes what exactly it is, which makes it somewhat difficult to decide whether to spend $20, $60 or $100 or just pass on the whole thing until the finished version arrives for free. I haven't stumped up for any of the Founder's Packs yet but the time for getting down off the fence is fast approaching. John Smedley is now suggesting a mid-late January start for Alpha rather than the end of February.
Oh well, I guess it's only money...
Labels: EQLandmark, Landmark, MMO
Anything Else You'd Like Me To Help You With? : EQ2
The Cobalt Scar main quest sequence, like the Ethernere timeline from the Chains of Eternity expansion, is a long one. Long, but very enjoyable.
It benefits enormously from the strong nostalgic affection many longtime Everquest players must have for the original zone that inspired it. Alright, that I have for it, then. The nostalgia factor comes through very strongly even though in most respects the EQ2 version is scarcely recognizable as the same place. About the only thing that remains unchanged is the crescent shape of the water, water which, it transpires, (Spoiler Alert!) is no longer an ocean at all but a large lake.
Indeed the entire zone now has the feeling of someplace halfway up an Alp, with great swathes of nordic pine forest covering half the map and bears and stags roaming all over. It reminds me a lot of Timberline Falls, one of my favorite Tyrian landscapes.
Hey, I've got one of these at home! Smaller, and his head goes round and round.
Missing, and much missed, is the crazed musical score that so enlivened every day, and there were many, that we spent among the Othmir. I still whistle that tune at work now and again. The otter men themselves are there in force but no longer are they the jolly top-hat wearing comedy figures (and perpetual murder victims, although never at my hand) that once they were.
Now, in keeping with the grimmer mood that seems to prevail in almost every imaginary online world, they are desperate, driven refugees, harried on all sides by forces they don't understand and cannot hope to defeat. Well, not until I come along to sort it all out for them, as usual.
If we had a bridge we could play Pooh Sticks. Oh, sorry.. Funeral.
It's a pretty decent plot, too, as these things go. It certainly makes more sense than the Ethernere one, sticking to a much more down-to-earth mystery model than that confusing metaphysical mash-up. Actually, it's two mysteries. The Case of the Undead Othmir is solved but the Enigma of the Eerie Encampment remains just that - an enigma. Maybe I missed a step.
Along the way I got to participate in an Othmir funeral (they send the dead back to Prexus on rafts, Viking style, although without setting anything on fire), got turned into an Othmir (the nearest we'll ever get to having them as a playable race, sadly) and listened to foliage reliving the past (as exciting as it sounds).
Ulthork Man-O-War. Can't go wrong with a Classic.
I also had to kill about a hundred thousand bazillion things. The current design brief for EQ2 zones appears to be "Hey, you left a square foot of grass free over there! Put a mob on it! No, wait. Make it three!"). For every Kill Ten Ulthork quest (yes, there are Ulthorks, although no Bulthar that I saw) I'd estimate I ended up killing twenty. Often more. There wasn't any quest that I ever found to kill wasps but I killed dozens of them trying to get to the bears. And forget any thought of flying over all this stuff to avoid it - Cobalt Scar airspace is jealously guarded by flying snakes, drakes and plain old hawks.
I'm the one in the fancy hat.
For all that killing, and there was enough of it that my mouse finger was aching long before the end of every session, experience moved like treacle going uphill. With the entire timeline completed as far as the last segment that will take him into Siren's Grotto my Berserker stands at 93.65.
With luck and a following wind Siren's Grotto and Frostfell should take him to 94, at which point I'm hoping he'll be ready to start on the real current content. He certainly couldn't do it at 93. That means back to the Ethernere for a cruise around the Vespyr Isles. And after that I imagine both he and I will be ready for a lie down.
Labels: Cobalt Scar, EQ2, MMO, Othmir, Quests
Project: Gorgon? No, Can't Say I Have...
A brief reference in a recent post by HarbingerZero was the first I'd heard of Project: Gorgon. Probably. I don't know...I might have seen the name before somewhere, I guess. So many indie sandboxes - it's hard to remember them all. Probably wouldn't have noticed it this time either had HZ not bundled it in with the much-missed Dawntide.
I played a fair bit of Dawntide in its various incarnations. It was one of the buggiest attempts at an MMO that I've ever come across, although the bugs often didn't get in the way too much because most days the extreme lag made the whole thing unplayable anyway. Even when it did run, for the longest time there was next to nothing to do but walk around looking at the scenery. At the pace of a tortoise. A tortoise with a broken leg. Later, when there were things to do - fighting, crafting, trading, complicated, innovative stuff like that - the implementations were some of the slowest and most cumbersome I have ever seen.
You can pack that in. You've had all the cheese you're getting.
And yet it had something. I must have put in several dozen hours on and off over a couple of years. I'd play, get frustrated, leave it for a while and then catch sight of the icon on my desktop and wonder... Then back I'd go for another few sessions until the pointless futility drove me to question my judgment and my sanity all over again. Eventually the funding ran out, or the developers' patience, or both and development on Dawntide stalled then ended. Finally it closed down thereby saving me from myself.
Until now. Always keen to demonstrate that I learn nothing from experience, I went straight from HarbingerZero's link to the Project: Gorgon website. In what seemed like less than a minute I was in the game. Barriers to entry? Never heard of 'em. Didn't need to register, give my name, email, nothing.
I can breathe! I can breathe!!
Like all too many MMOs, indie and mainstream alike, it starts in a cave. And your character's a blank slate with no memory of a former life. Could it possibly be worth carrying on after an opening like that?
Well, yes it could. For a start the controls are easy, intuitive and they work. That puts it about five ranks up on Dawntide already. And there's lots to do right from the start. NPCs to talk to, skeletons to fight, puzzles to solve, chests to open, mushrooms to pick. (Bit of a Thing in P:G, mushrooms are, or so it turns out. But let's not get ahead of ourselves).
The sandbox approach is plain from the get-go. The cave is a tutorial of sorts, so there are plenty of hints, suggestions and advice, but it's very clear that what you do and how or when you do it is down to you, matey. You can use all the weapons, learn all the skills, be whoever or whatever you want to be. Just don't come crying to us if you hurt yourself, or turn yourself into a cow. Forever.
Tame Ten Rats
I was ready to risk a cowing if only I could get out of that cave. I'd been in there for a couple of hours, found some very unsavory used clothing that was nonetheless an improvement on the soiled underwear I'd started out in, found some cheese and used it to learn to tame rats. I had one of the oversized variety following me about like a dog, which would have looked odd enough even if I hadn't chosen to be a Rakshasa, which is basically a cat standing on its hind legs.
The rat and the cat, we had some adventures but when the cat saw the glowy blue portal to the outdoor world and the rat couldn't follow she dropped him like *that*. Cheese to spare and rats come cheap and easy. Soon find another. So out I stepped from the dark (if occasionally psychedelically-illuminated by weird crystal formations and borderline radioactive fungi) tunnels into blinding sunlight.
Market Day's Tuesday
Maybe it's just me but if I was trying to entice people to come play my sandbox MMO and I was able to make landscapes as entrancing and visually appealing as this, even in my pre-alpha days, I think I'd start people off right there. Not in a cave!
The very first view as I emerged, blinking, from the portal was stunning. The walled, medieval village is one of the best I've seen in a game as far as spurious authenticity goes. I've been in that village several times, in France, in Spain, in Portugal. I think there's one like it about 30 miles West of where I'm sitting typing this. Maybe someone's using photo-reference. Whatever, it convinced me I was "somewhere" and that's most of the battle won right there.
Are we in The Cotswolds?
From then on it's mostly been wandering about. The explorable area is relatively small, I think, although it's hard to be sure. Foot travel is on the slower end of the spectrum and by the time I'd run far enough in one direction to come up against an invisible barrier in the hills surrounding town I wasn't inclined to go check every other cardinal point for breaches.
So far, in three or four hours altogether, I've learned to meditate, which here is a prerequisite for the martial arts, I've met a man willing to teach me Fire Magic if I can come up with fifty gold, I've bought a potato seedling, planted and watered it and harvested a potato (go me!), I've wantonly slaughtered two pigs and a chicken and I've been killed by a bear coming out of a farmer's house even as the farmer's wife was warning me not to go inside because there was a bear in there...
Just because my back's turned doesn't mean I don't see you eying up my potato, rat.
So Project: Gorgon really isn't like Dawntide at all. There's no lag, plenty to do and most of it works. The light changes, the shadows lengthen, the birds sing and when you raise a skill fireworks go off and a bell chimes. For a pre-Alpha it looks in pretty good shape.
Before I logged out this time I did what they hadn't made me do to begin with - I registered an account. You can do it right there from inside the game. I did it because it ensures my character will still be around next time. And there will be a next time, because in one very important way Project: Gorgon is like Dawntide: it has potential.
Labels: Dawntide, MMO, Project: Gorgon, sandbox
Cabin In The Woods : EQ2
Someone at SOE is on a roll. For Halloween they came up with what was quite possibly the best small prestige house in EQ2 history - Fright Manor. Now for Frostfell they've surpassed even that exemplary standard with a positively Platonic Ideal of a winter retreat.
For years I've been piling up Station Cash for no better reason than "it might come in handy some day". Now that day has come. Two houses bought in two months. Carry on like this and I'll be SC broke in under a year!
The deed on the generically named "Snowy Dwelling" (seriously, for something this gorgeous, that's the best name you could come up with?) comes with a price tag of 1350SC. That's $13.50 at face value but it's probably closer to $5.00 at the exchange rate that prevailed when I last topped up my imaginary money pit. That was back in the glory days before someone at Sony's Accounting Dept. paid a visit to San Diego and put the kibosh on all those Double and Treble SC sales.
Note to self: Check insurance for cover against meteor strikes
Even at full price it would be one hell of a bargain. Not only do you get a beyond-charming log cabin, surrounded by mature pines and set on its own private island, you also take freehold on a large swathe of the surrounding ocean both above and below the waterline, including several ice floe archipelagos. Everything's fully enabled: you can swim in the water, you can fly through the sky (assuming you can fly in the first place, of course). It's your own personal Winter Wonderland and it feels bigger than Norrath's actual holiday zone itself, Frostfell Wonderland Village.
The Greening of Frostfell. I smell elf.
Talking of The Village, it recently underwent a very successful and welcome facelift during which not only did the invisible decorator elves (the best kind) polish the ice, plump up the snowdrifts and repaint the rainbow bridges, they somehow managed to drag up a whole new mountain. Add that to the considerable visual pleasures of the Ethernere and the very convincing "Spring Meets Winter at Tundra's Edge" atmosphere of the recently-added Velious zone Cobalt Scar and it would seem that EQ2's artists and zone designers have turned something of a corner.
Maybe it's new blood in the art department. Maybe it's the same old bloods feeling the hot breath of the Landmark crew on the backs of their necks. Maybe they just have better tools to work with nowadays. Whatever it is, EQ2 has never looked better.
Not your grandmother's Cobalt Scar, that's for sure.
So my Beastlord has a log cabin with enough stable room for a few dozen warders, provided they don't mind a few inches of snow on their backs. Like my Necromancer before him, now he just needs to decorate. But where to start? There's so much potential, what with the church-high ceiling, the exposed beams and the massive basement.
So much potential and so much work. Just getting the carpets laid and finding a bed took the best part of an hour. Still and all, it'll be good practice for Landmark. If I can't commit to decorating one single-room cabin I can hardly expect to make much of a go of a game dedicated to the building of worlds now, can I?
Bloody goblins. They told me it was flameproof...
This winter and the spring that follows look set to be all about building and decorating. I suppose they always did, inasmuch as I'd expected to be decorating in Eorzea around now, with FFXIV's promised housing patch due to land just before Christmas. Then Square announced that housing would be for Free Companies only for the foreseeable future and that even if personal housing ever did arrive it might only be in the form of rented rooms within Free Company halls and that went most of the way to killing any interest I had in setting up home in FFXIV. The recent revelation of the truly insane pricing structure only delivered the final death blow.
Heating might be a problem
When it comes to payment models for MMOs I'm no zealot. I'll pay my sub or buy in the cash shop as required provided I'm enjoying myself. When it comes to a choice between paying a monthly fee to grind repetitive in-game content for hundreds of hours to save up sufficient imaginary money to buy an imaginary house or just getting out my credit card and handing over the earnings from just an hour or two of real-life work...well, there's no choice, is there?
Calm down! It's not a giant reindeer coming to get you. It's just the sunrise.
Today, in Norrath, I decided to have a cabin in the woods. Today I have a cabin in the woods in Norrath. Now I get to spend many fun hours in-game crafting, questing, buying and trading for things for my house, followed by many more fun hours making the old place look like home. If I'd decided today to get a tiny house the size of an inn room in Eorzea, I guess if I did nothing else but grind the gil I might have one by, ooh, this time next year. Provided I had a few friends willing to give up their free time and throw their cash in the pool too.
I think I'll stay where I am. I know where I'm well-off.
Labels: EQ2, FFXIV, Frostfell, housing, MMO
Scarlet Against The Snow : GW2
Jeromai has an excellent post up about the change of pace that comes with GW2's latest Living Story update. Ravious agrees, as do I. If only we could believe it comes from a deliberate revision of policy rather than just a felicitous gift from the holiday season.
The Living Story itself, or its "first season" at least, now has an end date. It's all laid out in this official memo. There are four more releases to come, the next not arriving until January 21st. Assuming the traditional two-week drop rate that puts the "epic finale" on March 4th 2014, meaning the inaugural story-arc that began so limply with a few dazed refugees stumbling through the Shiverpeak snows will have occupied our time for well over a year.
All discussion of the merits and methods of the Living Story process seems to have been subverted and overtaken by negative reaction to Scarlet, the storyline's hugely controversial central character and star villain. If ArenaNet set out to create someone we'd love to hate, well they got it half right.
Focusing on Scarlet's many flaws risks letting ANet off the hook for the more serious, structural problems that have sometimes tended to make playing GW2 this year an enervating activity. It's a feeling that surely underpins our sense of relief as we come into Wintersday with the prospect of six whole weeks to get stuff done before it all kicks off once more.
Much has been made of the lack of effective tools for carrying a story in the first place. The decision not just to make a questless MMO but to make the very fact that it has no quests one of its unique selling points looks ill-advised when only a few months after launch you choose to re-focus your entire game around a single, extended narrative.
A heroic effort has been made to use just about every in-game system to share the load - mail, achievements, dynamic events, incidental dialog, personal instances, cut-scenes - you name it, they've tried it. In the end the main thing all that hard work has served to do is emphasize how useful a framework the MMO quest is and why game developers created it in the first place.
Over time the handling of the tools and the way information is disseminated through them has very clearly improved. That and we've become used to to it. It feels rather like driving a beat-up old car, the door handles replaced with string, a tinny transistor radio balanced on the dashboard, the exhaust pipe patched with a Coke can; it's not pretty, it's not always comfortable but it's familiar and it gets you where you need to go.
Some parts do shine. There have been some impressive cut scenes. The team working on those should feel pretty pleased and proud with their work for the year. Indeed the visual elements have all been impressive, with the Bazaar of the Four Winds the stand-out.
Whoever does the incidental dialog deserves a bonus, too. Arguably the best part of every Living Story update has been the bit where you hang around before and after the action and listen to the characters bantering with each other.
If you want to know what's going on, some pro-active talking to NPCs on your part is advised, too. I spoke to all the actors in our current drama as they idle on the blasted heath in Kessex Hills and learned a lot. Most of it probably came up already, but in the hurly-burly of chasing achievements and trying to stay alive it's all too easy to miss a few lines of dialog. Luckily I have two accounts so if I think I've missed a key plot point I can take another run at it, but I have to notice I missed it in the first place.
I hadn't really appreciated the degree to which the three Orders, Vigil, Whispers and Priory, were now involved in the battle against Scarlet. I didn't realize Lady Kasmeer was in training as Marjory's assistant (nobility appears to operate under very different rules in Kryta). I certainly hadn't appreciated that when the Asura let Scarlet study at all three Colleges it was because they thought they were studying her.
Ah yes. In the end it all comes back to Scarlet and that is a problem. Having a central villain who elicits a first response of "FFS not her again!" is going to cause difficulties in any narrative form. ANet like to compare the Living Story to a TV series but if your audience's instinctive reaction when your main villain appears on screen is to flip to another channel you're going to struggle to keep them coming back for future episodes.
My feeling is that where Scarlet is concerned the damage has already been done. No matter how epic the finale, no matter how neatly the loose ends are tied, no matter how satisfying the conclusion, too many people just flat out can't stand her. She's unlikely to be forgiven past indiscretions just because she bows out with one hell of a fireworks show.
In any case, I'd be very surprised indeed to find the whole thing wrapped up prettily with all the bows tied. It's been a rag-tag, kick and hope affair thus far and I fully expect to go into next Spring not all that much wiser about what was going on or why it mattered.
All in all, the Living Story Season 1 has had its ups and downs. Bits of it have been fun and the bits that haven't have been easy enough to ignore. Whatever follows it is going to need to do better. TESO launches just a month after the final episode of the Scarlet story arc. WildStar must be getting close to pressing the Go button, too. And there's a WoW expansion coming, most likely before the end of Summer. This year GW2 had things relatively easy. Next year could be tougher.
Competition is supposed to be the friend of both quality and value. Let's hope so.
Posted by Bhagpuss at 2:21 PM 13 comments Links to this post
Labels: GW2, Lady Kasmeer, Living Story, MMO, Scarlet
New MMOs for 2014: There Are Some
J3w3l has some trailers for forthcoming attractions up, along with her second take on WildStar. That, along with both her and Keen's enthusiastic responses to the latest EQ Landmark promo (may as well embed it - everyone else has...) got me thinking about what we have to look forward to for 2014 in MMO Land.
Off the top of my head I could think of WildStar, EQLandmark, The Elder Scrolls Online and... well that was it, really. Come on, there must be more than that. Maybe it's my memory failing. That age thing again.
Remembering stuff, though, that's so 20th Century. We have machines to do that for us now. So I googled "mmo 2014 releases".
Top Free MMORPG.net offers Star Citizen (don't care, won't play, won't be out in 2014 anyway), EQNext (care so much it hurts, will play unless dead, don't believe it will be out until the very end of 2014 at the earliest), Titan (yeah, right), PK Project (um, excuse me?), Lineage Eternal:Twilight Resistance (not quite clear what this is but I've successfully managed to avoid the Lineage franchise for the last decade and a half...) and World of Darkness (now you're just being silly).
I won't go through all the rest of their, um, idiosyncratic list, although it did remind me that The Crew, despite being delayed, is due out next summer. Not all that interested in the gameplay on that one but the prospect of being able to take a virtual road trip across the continental United States has a certain appeal.
Games Radar has a very slick slideshow that includes the usual suspects but throws in some marginally interesting possibilities like the two hyper-realistic South Korean offerings, Bless and Blade and Soul, neither of which appears to have any kind of Western release scheduled.
They also name-check Black Desert, which I was interested in briefly but am no longer and Otherland, in which I was very interested indeed but which I was sure had been cancelled. On checking it appears that, weirdly, the Gamigo website is still up although the latest news refers to the closed beta from over a year ago. I'm pretty sure it's dead.
Other than that the Games Radar list offers a smattering of funded Kickstarter projects like Embers of Caerus, Pathfinder and City of Titans, all of which are nominally interesting but won't see daylight in 2014.
Ten Ton Hammer includes both EQNext and Pathfinder in its Top Six Sandbox MMOs To Watch In 2014, a list which intriguingly includes TESO, which I hadn't realized was supposed to be a sandbox, along with a previous hot tip now fading fast, ArcheAge. Mention of that one reminded me of Trion's other iron in the fire for next year, Trove. They're both games I'm moderately interested to take a look at but I can't say either is stoking any great fires.
Massively has a round-robin of staff picks for next year that doesn't really shed much light on anything other than the predilections of the individuals involved but the paucity of suggestions on offer does serve to back up my own feeling that 2014 is going to be a really thin year for MMOs. Not having played Halo and not having much interest in space-based games, Destiny, one of the few MMOs the Massively crew add to the pile, doesn't press any of my buttons. Neither doesTUG, yet another of the seemingly endless spawn of Kickstarter-funded sandbox titles.
So back we come around to where we started. I'll try most any MMO for flavor and in our brave new world of open betas, free to play and try-before-you-buy there's no reason not to give any or all of them a run. Curiosity and the potential for getting a blog post out of the experience almost ensures I'll try all of them at some point but I'm not actually looking forward to playing any of them.
I don't even have the same sense of excitement and expectation for EQ Landmark that I had for, say, GW2 or The Secret World back in 2012. I'm interested in in it, sure, but I can't help thinking it looks like work. No, it's EQNext I really want to play.
And that, I think, is the heart of the problem. Everything else is just marking time until EQNext, which probably won't be out until 2015. Next year is looking like another year of more of the same - GW2, EQ2, all the old favorites - unless, as I very much wish it might, one or more of the MMOs on these lacklustre lists manages to pounce on me and sink its fangs in deep.
Failing that, anyone have any other good tips for 2014?
Labels: Bless, EQLandmark, EQNext, MMO, The Crew, video
Et In Arkadia Ego : CoS
The new City of Steam opened its doors last night. At two in the morning where I live. On a work night. Thanks for that. Wasn't 'til this evening that I managed to pop in for an hour. No time to go into detail - haven't gone far enough in to have much detail into which to go. Just throwing out a few very early impressions...
The graphics, already excellent for a browser game, seem to have been polished up even further. I also noticed a number of significant improvements in the UI. Seemed smoother, tidier, less cluttered. Player names turn off. Hooray! Still no "Hide UI" button that I could find. Boo!
They changed the music. It's still lovely but I miss the old tunes. Tune really. There was only one but it was a good one. Maybe it turns up further in. I hope so.
Character creation's streamlined to perfection. Looks great, takes no time at all. Very clear. Once past that, the opening Fall of Denton sequence has been heavily pruned and is much, much better for it. All the good bits, the atmosphere, the lore and background color, the delightful cut-scenes - still there. The deadweight and repetition - all gone.
The whole extended tutorial whips by in just a few minutes. I've done it in far more iterations than I can remember but I think this is the best version so far. Perhaps they'll keep it.
Once you hit Refuge it's straight to your new home. No faffing about. Again the fat's been pared. The original goblin house is back too...I think. The one-roomer. It looked as though maybe the rump housing quests that were left in the R2 version even though they no longer went anywhere have been removed at last. Whether anything replaces them I didn't have a chance to find out because...
...the Cellar under my house leads to Heaven! Well, Arkadia but it looks like Heaven, if Heaven has cogs. It appears to be some kind of hub zone with all the facilities, including Fishing and Mining mini-games that I didn't quite understand on a first run. But, hey, fishing! Visually the whole area is positively spectacular. Also bright, airy and sunny. What with that and all the flowers in Refuge the whole tone of the early game feels lighter, more positive.
You get a vehicle as soon as you arrive in your house. Free! Okay, it's a wonky dirt bike but the Guide Toiler in Arkadia, a robot with some kind of 80s shoulder-pad fetish, runs you through some upgrade and crafting routines to improve it. Upgrading your vehicle's now a thing.
Plenty of people there taking in the new sights. It was busy, really busy. Then again, so it was last time it launched. Keeping people around's the trick. This time, though, there were GMs in chat. Chatting. Reminded me of Fallen Earth, that. Also lots of events flagging up. No idea what those are yet.
Perhaps most importantly of all, the whole of the opening part of the game now has the feel of an MMO. All the tutorial instances I did were effectively open dungeons, albeit very small ones. Huge improvement, although I saw a couple of complaints on the forums from people who prefer to adventure alone at all times.
My very uninformed first-look impression; seems like a much-improved offering. It feels very different to the gritty, bleak world that so impressed me way back at the beginning but it's none the less intriguing and for once it feels like it might have heft, traction.
We'll see. I'll certainly be playing on.
Labels: City of Steam, CoS Arkadia, MMO
The Long Road To Harrow's End : EQ2
It's over at last. The journey that began back in Antonica all those weeks ago, when Firiona Vie, Leader of the High Elves, Chosen of Tunare and Norrath's sweetheart fell suddenly and inexplicably dead at my feet, ended today in battle with a god; Drinal, The Silver Reaper.
Okay, he's not one of the better-known gods. And my part in the fight was mostly trying not to get agro while my new partner, Oligar of the Dead, took all the hits. And anyway we only had to fight him for a short while, softening him up just a little before I stuck him with the bizarrely-named "Soul Skiver" and brought him to his senses. Still and all...a god!
The whole affair has been a farrago of nonsense from start to finish but I've thoroughly enjoyed it, not so much in spite of the fact that none of it makes any sense as because of it. This is Norrath! Our Lore never makes any sense! We wouldn't have it any other way.
Hey! Watch where you're swinging that thing!
Zubon observed recently that going back to traditional questing after playing a more modern MMO like GW2 "is like driving a car with a hand-crank starter". I've never actually started a car with a hand-crank (I wonder if Zubon has?) and I struggled a bit with the analogy but I think he meant that you have to keep re-starting the process yourself - if you don't then the narrative just sits there, going nowhere.
Coming into GW2's series of beta weekends back in the Spring of '12, I was on the verge of burnout with traditional MMO questing. I'd lost patience with lazy NPCs standing on street corners asking me to do their dirty work for them. It seemed very refreshing to have them run up to me in a panic instead, yelling blue murder about something awful that I could actually see happening right now, right there.
A year and change later and it's the frenzy of the Dynamic Event and the Living World that seem enervating. Being able to dictate the pace, to accept each task in my own time and take as long as I want about getting the job done seems positively relaxing in comparison.
But, but... I'm a pirate too!
There seems to be something of a drift back to the traditional quest-driven MMO of late, at least in the corner of the blogosphere I frequent. Kaozz and J3w3l are questing away in Rift. Wilhelm and Stargrace are back in WoW. Even SynCaine dusted off his questing hat for another run at Baldur's Gate, although of course that's not an MMO.
Ah, there's the nub of it. How much, really, does what I've been doing in EQ2 lately have to do with MMOs as we used to know them? A few weeks back, when I was goblining it up in WoW, I mentioned that the starter area felt like I was in my own private instance. All the bloggers linked above allude at various times to the solitary nature of their questing, the difficulty of synchronizing quests with others due to phasing, instancing or lack of quest-sharing mechanics and the extreme soloabilty of quest content.
My time in EQ2's Chains of Eternity expansion hasn't felt entirely isolated. There has always been a smattering of other players swooping down on their griffons and flying horses to use the bank in Cardin Ward or grab quest from a nearby NPC. A few times I've even needed to move on to another quest for a while to let someone "play through". In essence, though, completing this very lengthy quest sequence, well over 150 quests in total, has felt much more like playing a single-player RPG than an MMO.
My, Firiona, you are looking pale. Oh wait, that'll be the "dead" thing...
And I don't play single-player RPGs. Haven't for many, many years. Why, then, am I eagerly consuming the exact same kind of content here? Two reasons; Person and Place.
Person comes in the form of my characters. The overarching motivator of MMOs is probably character progression, which requires a couple of things to work: a character in which you are sufficiently invested to put in the time and some clear progress there to be made. The Chains of Eternity content ticks both those boxes with confidence.
I love my EQ2 characters. It's a strong word but it's the right one. I made them, I care about them, I feel a responsibility toward them. Every time I help one to become more powerful, more skilled, more rounded as an individual it feels satisfying.
Moreover, because the worlds they inhabit change whether or not I am there, even though my characters remain in stasis while they go unplayed, things may still have happened to them. That's something you just don't get offline.
Yesterday I patched up LotRO and logged in my Guardian; several minutes-worth of trait updates flashed solemnly across the screen, after which I chose and specified a new Trait Tree for him. I had no intention of playing him, then or probably ever again but I knew he'd change and grow if I logged him in and I knew he'd want that. Or, if you prefer less metaphysics in your gaming, I knew I wanted it for him.
Dreary? I beg to differ. I can think of worse places to spend the afterlife.
That done, I Iogged out. Although I have a few characters there for whom I retain some affection, LotRO is not one of my favorite MMOs. Unlike for many, the faithful Tolkein setting doesn't engender any particularly strong feelings of recognition or familiarity in me. I like Lord of the Rings well enough but I'm hardly a fan.
I am a fan of Norrath. Very much so. That second reason to keep plugging through the quests, absent in Middle Earth, is very much present in EQ2. A sense of Place. It might seem like laziness or parsimony to base new zones on the architecture of old ones but in my experience it almost always works. The Eidolon Jungle and Obol Plains are versions of The Feerrott and Loping plains respectively. I've spent an inordinate amount of time in both the originals and traveling through these odd, hallucinatory revisions of old, familiar haunts has been fascinating. It's nostalgia and novelty all rolled into one.
For your unhappiness, that is. Not for anything I might personally have done to you. Like, say, kill you repeatedly just to get a door open...
Better yet than familiar landmarks are familiar faces. Even though this is the metempsychotic holding pen of Norrath I was still surprised enough to say it out loud when I realized just who was that woman with the beetle pet standing by a tent on the Dreary Shore. "Whoah! It's Jenni Everling"! I killed her often enough - I should hardly be surprised to find her here among the dead...
If Jenni was a predictable surprise, what to make of Fabian? I don't believe Fabian the Bard even makes a walk-on appearance in EQ2. He must have died centuries before the Shattering. Yet here he is, sitting on a log ruing the broken strings of his lute. As in life, so in the Ethernere.
This is the kind of context you can only acquire through time. No new MMO can ever arrive freshly-minted and thrilling yet hope to score such easy hits simply by mentioning a name and playing a riff on an old quest that should have long been forgotten but somehow still sets a whole line of bells jingling merrily away. This, when we get right down to it, is why talk of a new expansion has people patching up old favorites and why it's so much easier to get excited for EQNext than WildStar.
Labels: EQ2, GW2, MMO, Quests, WoW
Because, Reasons : EQNext, GW2
In the long PR build-up before the launch of an MMO the quantity and quality of information coming out of the company making it may vary but usually it follows a definite narrative. We are making this type of game. It has this type of content. You can expect this type of gameplay.
Companies take various stances on inclusivity and collectivism during those long months and years when there are no customers to satisfy, only curious potential purchasers and pre-sold fans. ArenaNet chose to release a seemingly endless series of "Reveals" while the EQNext team is running what appears to be an open-ended series of discussions with "the community" on just about every aspect of their upcoming flagship franchise release.
Currently they're highlighting Lore. They already ran a poll on it and followed that up with one of those mildly uncomfortable PR videos that most game companies seem to insist upon doing, where a couple of guys who look like they'd probably rather be getting on with their real work do their best to emulate the co-hosts on a regional TV show that goes out in an unpopular time-slot.
Omeed Dariani and Steve Danuser, well-known to the EQ community in particular and the blogosphere in general as Moorgard, do a better-than-average job keeping the conversational ball in the air. It's an entertaining-enough watch as these things go but in the end I'm not sure how much wiser we are about the precise mechanics by which Lore will be disseminated in the next iteration of Norrath.
If I had to guess I'd say it won't look that much different in practice to GW2's "Dynamic Events" system. The part where they discuss the various potential outcomes arising from Orcs attacking a village sounds eerily similar to ArenaNet's famous pre-launch "Manifesto" only with Orcs instead of Centaurs.
Get to know that face. You'll be seeing it again.
That's not to be cynical. It's a given that almost everyone involved in the complex enterprise of making of these entertainments wants everything to turn out just as well as it can. Experience suggests, however, that, when it comes to making MMOs, reach all too often exceeds grasp.
GW2 turned out to be a magnificent failure in many ways. A huge, sprawling, living world that should have continued to grow and change by day and by week ever after but simply...stopped. A year and more later the same centaurs burn the same villages as the same villagers shout the same lines even though there's no longer anyone there to listen. Meanwhile odd, fractured, half-baked tales are told badly in secure corners instanced safely away from the world, popping up like mushrooms to be gathered, consumed and forgotten.
Scarlet's return as the instigator of the Thaumonova Reactor Meltdown hasn't gone down well. If ANet were to run a popularity contest between Trahearne, Logan Thackeray and Scarlet, Scarlet would probably come in fourth. There are a lot of reasons to dislike her, from her derivative personality and nonsensical backstory to her annoying catchphrases and irritating voice.
That's his excuse...
I find the catchphrases amusing and the voice acting entertaining myself, but it's a minority view. Instead, I share the objections of the commenter on the pithily-titled forum thread Scarlet Hate " who observed "She can basically pull what she needs from thin air, in no time and deploy it instantly, without anyone noticing. It would not be out of her apparent remit to simply make lions arch city vanish into thin air."
There's a theory going around that she's behind the mysterious sizzling pillars that popped up overnight all across Tyria. Apparently they extend even into the previously untouchable realms of Orr, thought for practical reasons at least to lie outside the remit of the Living Story. Her dire hand has already been felt across the Mists, where the pillars have been received with a little more equanimity than the universal loathing which greeted the incursion of her Toxic Alliance across the borderlands.
In the face of widespread, if not unanimous, disapproval, much like the character herself the Scarlet storyline endures. Still, there is hope yet for her haters. ArenaNet move as though behind a veil, mysteriously. Things once forbidden become ordained.
When World Versus World received its own, separate progression path complete with its own, discrete pool of experience points, its own titles and ranks and traits, ArenaNet chose to tie all progression strictly to characters rather than to accounts. I rather liked the decision but again that put me in a tiny minority.
By George, I think he's got it!
Since launch WvW had been, nominally, a character-based activity but the sheer lack of any practical purpose to WvW beyond server pride and the fun of fighting other players made that easy to ignore. The arrival of points and prizes led many people to feel they had no choice but to concentrate on a single character for WvW. It was the death of Alts.
Constant petitions were made against the decision, all unheeded. Then a few days ago a simple announcement turned the whole thing on its head. Most players were unwilling to look this gift horse too closely in the mouth in case it turned around and bit their heads off but there were some who raised questions. Devon Carver, ANet's WvW Co-ordinator gave the following reply, which is, I feel, emblematic:
"We never said we couldn’t do it. We said we weren’t going to do it. There is a large difference between things that we decide to do for design reasons and thing that are technical constraints."
So true. And so unhelpful, begging as it does the question of why a "design decision" taken a few months ago and rigidly adhered to ever since was the right one then but is the right one no longer.
On we roll. At some yet unspecified date in the future all our characters will gain the benefits of the work done by their account-mates. Another step away from the origins and, as some would have it, meaning of the genre but a large stride towards making the game into something closer to what most people appear to want it to be. By the same token we might wake up any day and find Scarlet fell down a hole and can't get up.
EQNext is the only upcoming MMO for which I have any real, meaningful, emotional feeling. Landmark is...I don't know what it is. Everything else is a curiosity at best. I'm certain-sure I'll play EQNext. I'd lay very long odds I'll enjoy it. Do I expect it to live up to expectations, either mine or those of the people making it?
Well, what do you think?
Labels: Dynamic Events, EQNext, GW2, Lore, MMO, WvW
Anything Else You'd Like Me To Help You With? : EQ...
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Home School News Brick Schools Name 2016 Teacher of the Year
Brick Schools Name 2016 Teacher of the Year
District officials present Jeannette Wehner with the 2016 Teacher of the Year award. (Photo: Brick Twp. Schools)
The Brick Township public school district announced Tuesday morning that Jeannette Wehner, a 5th grade in-class support and STEM teacher at Emma Havens Young Elementary School, is the district’s 2016 Teacher of the Year.
“Ms. Wehner represents the dedicated and talented teachers of the district,” the announcement said. “Her action inspires others as she goes above and beyond for her students and colleagues alike. She is truly an asset to our school community.”
Wehner is “always engaging in new technology and techniques to use in the classroom,” as she promotes a STEM curriculum where students learn by doing, said EHYES principal Patricia Lorusso.
Wehner’s actions “inspire others to dream more, learn more and do more!” the announcement said.
In addition to staying current with best practices for teaching, she is also a contributor and presenter to the district’s Professional Development Academy.
The district’s teacher of the year is chosen from a pool of nominees with academic contribution and student performance as important factors in the committee’s selection. The nominees for each individual school represent the “endless commitment to the students of Brick Township,” the announcement said.
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Home » Cloud » How Google Cloud helped Multiplay power a record-breaking Apex Legends Launch
How Google Cloud helped Multiplay power a record-breaking Apex Legends Launch
Posted by: Admin in Cloud, Google Cloud March 18, 2019 36 Views
Can you take a wild guess how many players a new multiplayer game typically attracts in its first day of availability? Would you say thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands?
Without any pre-launch marketing or promotional pushes, the free-to-play battle royale game Apex Legends, from Respawn Entertainment, reached a whopping one million unique players during the first eight hours of its debut on Monday, February 4, 2019. In the first 72 hours after its initial launch, Apex Legends reached 10-million players and has now reached 50 million unique players after just one month.
Managing such high levels of engagement can be nerve-racking and intense. If players experience connectivity issues at launch, the game may never recover. So much rides on a game’s launch, including its reputation, revenue, and longevity; it’s no surprise that it requires a robust infrastructure for an optimal multiplayer experience.
Apex Legends was developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, using the game server hosting specialists on Unity’s Multiplay team to facilitate the game’s availability across most major platforms. With a state-of-the-art cloud server orchestration framework and 24/7/365 professional services team, Multiplay is able to fully support ongoing game growth. The orchestration layer leverages Google Cloud to help deliver seamless global-scale game server hosting for Apex Legends in ten regions spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Predicting the capacity required for a free-play title, from such a prominent studio, is impossible. Multiplay’s Hybrid Scaling technology scaled the majority of the demand for Apex Legends with Google Cloud while utilizing its global network of bare metal data centers. Google Compute Engine, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service that delivers virtual machines running in Google’s data centers and global network, provides the core computing services. Compute Engine enables Multiplay to effortlessly ramp up to match user spikes — a critical requirement for many games, especially since Apex Legends received 1M downloads in eight hours after its initial debut. Compute Engine virtual machines can also spin down quickly, correlated to player demand, helping to optimize costs when fewer game servers are needed.
Google Cloud’s global private network is also an important infrastructure component for Multiplay. Fast connections, low latency and the ability for game servers to crunch through updates as quickly as possible together ensure the best experience for players.
Multiplay, a division of Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most widely used real-time 3D development platform, has had a long-standing relationship with Google Cloud.
“After working with Google Cloud on Respawn’s Titanfall 2, Google Cloud was the logical option for Apex Legends. With its reliable cloud infrastructure and impressive performance during our testing phase, it was clear we made the right choice,” Paul Manuel, Managing Director for Multiplay, recently shared. “Throughout launch, Google Cloud has been a great partner. We greatly appreciated the level of dedication the team demonstrated during the simulated game launch, and for making sure we had the necessary number of cores worldwide to support this launch.”
You can learn more about how game developers and platforms turn to Google Cloud for game server hosting, platform services, and global scale and reach in this blog post. And for more information about game development on Google Cloud, visit our website.
Feed Source: Cloud Blog
Article Source: How Google Cloud helped Multiplay power a record-breaking Apex Legends Launch
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PARTICLE MAN
Through “Particle Man” Ramon Perez (See PEREZ Ramon) has created a delightful world of fellow superheroes “The Canadian” and G. I. Gerussi against the super villainous “Group Of Seven” including “Purple Reign”, Le Bouclier, Loon, Land-Phil, Madame Équerre & Doctor Schrödinger.
In the first story, school boy Daniel Atom comes to the aid of “The Canadian” fighting “Purple Reign” and “Le Bouclier” by turning into “Particle Man. He accomplishes this through a ring he got in a Kinter Egg and by saying “Particle Ring Do Your Thing!” Perez sets the stage for this transformation, though the teacher giving a science lesson about rearranging protons and electrons. This is probably the shortest origin story in superhero history. At the end of the story “The Canadian” and probably other superheroes decide to take “Particle Man” seriously.
The second story, “Trash Talk” involves a conflict between “Particle Man” and “The Loon” assisted by “Land-Phil”. Yes there are ecological overtones. Again how “Particle Man” saves the day is preceded by a small science lesson describing how water needs an impurity in it before it can freeze.
The lightheartedness of these stories but perhaps even more the sly references like “Gerussi (is he referring to actor of Beachcomers Bruno Gerussi?) or more obviously naming the super villain group after Canada”s icon “Group of Seven” make them fun to read.
BOOK GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:
“Particle Man.” Car., Ramon Perez. True Patriot: All New Canadian Comic Book Adventures. Ed., J. Torres. True Patriot Comics, 2013: 91-98.
“Particle Man in ‘Trash Talk’, Acts 1 & 2.” Car., Ramon Perez. True Patriot: Heroes Of The Great White North. Ed., J. Torres. True Patriot Comix, 2014: 12-17 & 61-65.
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