News: Brainstorming a New GUI

Thursday, April 12, 2012

I've been thinking about that some day I may have to use my own GUI for Z-Net 3.0 or Z-Band instead of the zbattle cloned GUI it has now, so I started pondering about how I could make it different. Rather than trying to think up different setups purely for the sake of being different, it of course makes sense to think of how things could be done better, if they can at all.

So from there I decided to create a step by step list of the entire process of zbattle and Z-Net 2.0, starting from installation, and ending at when 2 players are finished playing a game with each other. Without going into the details I came up with for all the steps, I'll just say that I boiled it down to 10 steps. From there I supplied details about each step for each project, and went back over it giving each step a ranking regarding issues. Issues mostly being confusion or based on how many things need to be done by the user to complete that step. I went into it figuring zbattle would clearly win, and to my surprise, that wasn't the case. Now I didn't show any biased in my scoring for Z-Net, as doing so would taint the results and screw up what I was trying to achieve with this. That said, while I did learn a little, my conclusions about this scoring is that it just isn't accurate enough to be conclusive. Both zbattle and Z-Net scored a 14, with a 10 being perfect. zbattle is clearly less confusing for a user overall compared to Z-Net. Maybe my scoring numbers should have been doubled, because if so I think that zbattle would have scored lower/better, though still not by as much as it should.

While not a perfect scoring system, I did however learn some from it. Both projects I felt lacked in certain areas by options not staring the users directly in the face, leading to a little or a little to much confusion. To anyone that's used both projects, it should be no surprise that the steps were the 2 projects showed most of their differences is in the steps going from game room creation/selection, to game selection, and to starting the game. Both projects had most of the points against them in those areas. Z-Net however only did as well as it did because it basically combines those 3 steps.

As of yet, I have no idea about how I will use this info. My goal I suppose would be to boil all steps down to a setup resulting in a score of 10, and use that setup with a new GUI. Seeing as those steps contributed the most points against each, it would indicate that that's the area I should work on if I want to make things easier. I'm not completely certain how though. One idea I've considered before with Z-Net and more so Z-Band, is a X-Band like auto matching system. Each users simply just selects a game they want to play, and then wait to be paired up. No game room list or pre-game discussion needed. However this option wouldn't be ideal for everyone. Some people may just want to play with friends, so a option to play with specific users would still need to be present. Some people may not like that kind of randomness, and instead would want to choose from a list of games themselves after talking with another user. I don't think there's any one option that offers all that. So in theory offering all options would be best. The thing is though, the choice between 3 options can be confusing itself. So offering that choice may be counterproductive. Additionally, offering such options is another "feature" I believe needs to be reserved for a project that has a sizable enough establish user base. For example, people who would prefer to use a random match making system might end up being forced to use a game room list because to few people are using the match making system. And to few people using a match making system could easily be a result of to few people using the match making system, just further feeding an issue. Or vise versa, match making could be more popular than the game room list for the same reason and with the same results. There's no doubt that when presented with multiple options, one of those options is going to end up being more popular than the other. But that popularity should only be because more users PREFER that option. Not because more users USE that option.

Still, there probably is a more optimal solution, and devoting some brain cells here and there to the issue is the only way it will be found. So it's something I will keep thinking about.

If anyone wants to discuss their ideas, here's the steps I listed for my brainstorming. Honestly, I had 2 more steps in it during my testing, as I was considering Z-Band and its match registration steps, but I removed those. #8, and maybe #9 could probably be ignored too as they too have little meaning in regards to zbattle and Z-Net.

01.) Install:
02.) Startup:
03.) Setup:
04.) Connection:
05.) Find Opponent:
06.) Game Selection:
07.) Starting Game:
08.) Game Progress:
09.) Finishing Game:
10.) Done With Opponent:

News: Thinking About the Future of My Z-Net and Z-Band Projects

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Last night I managed to dig up an email address for Veeb0rg, and I sent him an email asking him what the real status is with zbattle, and if he plans to bring it back. I have no idea if he will reply, or even received the email since his email account may very well have been hosted through the same server as the zbattle server (I think it is). Whatever he might respond with, I don't know what directions my projects might take. While I've made no promises about their futures, as I don't expect the projects to gain the kind of popularity I feel they would require, I personally would really love to release the projects and maintain them. With all the time I've invested into the different iterations over the years, I would really like to see one or more released and succeed.

Sadly though, I feel there's just to many projects around that despite lack of credit as such, are trying to follow in the footsteps of zbattle, Z-Net, and what I planned for Z-Band. Shortly after Z-Net 1.0, it was things like zConnector and ZeNP. Around the time of Z-Net 2.0, it was things like CGA. Now in the absence of zbattle which has persisted and dominated throughout those years, I find my self in the same position as I did with Z-Net 1.0. Z-Net 1.0 was never meant to be a ripoff of zbattle. It was inspired by it, but was created to replace it after zbattle was down for several months. Had it not have been down so long, I'd have never seriously considered making it. Z-Net 3.0 is in the same exact position. Z-Net 2.0 was, if anything, intended to be a non-laggy alternative to Kaillera, but was really developed just because I was bored and just purely wanted to create it how I felt Z-Net 1.0 should have been from the start, to prove it could work as a mIRC script. My thoughts about what I would need to do with a project like this to get it to succeed are always on my mind when thinking about the projects at all. I've considered shooting strait for the Z-Band idea, as I've always felt those features were strong enough to carve a spot for the project in the online emulator scene, as its a original idea. Sadly though, it seems yet again, even that I idea has become ripped off to an extent. Starting with CGA's blatant half assed Z-Band ripoff, and now continuing with 2 other projects I've learned of, to some extent.

So I really don't know what kind of future I could hope for with these projects. Competition is good with a lot of things, but not projects like these. That would just leave project mergers. While I'm not opposed to that idea, as one would expect, I'm sure posturing and politics would get in the way of that happening to easily. Using zbattle as an example. While I have never discussed a project merger with Veeb0rg, that I can remember, issues would likely be that despite zbattle having an established name in the scene, I wouldn't be interested in making a zbattle 2.0 (or 3.0? I forget...). I'd likely have done all the work on a new client myself, as Veeb0rg himself doesn't know how to code such a program (last I knew). So I'd adamantly want to name it myself, likely using the name Z-Net. I'd completely understand his point of view if he wanted to use the name zbattle, but I just plain wouldn't agree with it. And I'm sure a project merger would stall there. Project mergers with other relatable projects would be similar. Or possibly just require my involvement on someone elses client, of which I have zero interest. I don't care much for diving in and figuring out someone elses code, nor does hopping aboard someone elses projects as a new team member, high or low ranking, seem that interesting after experiences like with the EQC project. It may seem like a pretty selfish stance looking at my point of view from the outside, but it is what it is. I can't help that. I want to have fun while doing a project, and I know what things can seriously hinder that fun.

Anyway, I suppose it would be something, so I might as well officially throw this out there, as projects devs never usually even do this much. But I'm not opposed to a project merger of my own projects with another. There are likely to be issues making doing so not progress to easily if at all, but I can say that I'm willing to open talks about it.

Moving on to my projects as is. They're still just as I've previously stated. If things keep going the way they are, I would release Z-Net 3.0 under the conditions I've stated. And the same would go for Z-Band. If Veeb0rg decided to bring back zbattle soon, then I'm not certain on everything with Z-Net 3.0. I can pretty much state that the poll will be ignored, and I will no longer release Z-Net 3.0 purely because it reached some minimum number of votes. The project would likely go back to the state it was in before. From there, I'd likely purely work on Z-Band as a stand alone client itself when I'm bored, and if I were to release anything in the future, it would be that. If things were heading that direction, I'd likely create a new poll purely for interest in that project, but with no deadline. With zbattle being back up, and me focusing more on Z-Band, while not completely discarding GUI/feature similarity's to zbattle, I would likely put effort into my own design (learning from zbattle, and Z-Net 1.0/2.0 regarding what to/not to do.), as I've stated before cloning another program like that I only deem fine if the original project is dead. My own project would have to be different in my opinion. After taking my project in my own direction like that, I would become more interested in releasing something to the public, if only just beta versions I don't really intend people to seriously use.

Those are all the thoughts I can think of on those things right now.

Oh. I changed the Z-Band page and link too. It's now a page instead of a post, rewritten descriptions, a basic project log, and the links to those leader board and score tracking pages I made.

News: Continuing My Fun With the Z-Band Code

Monday, April 09, 2012

I messed around more with the Z-Band code. I refined it some more to be more inline with how the usage process is supposed to work. I added a "Register" button to the host and client windows of my zbattle clone. Once the host chooses a game, each player can then press that button. Once they do so, all the Z-Band magic starts its work and waits for the host to press the start game button, ZSNESW to load up on both ends, and players to start racking up the scores. Once their done and ZSNESW closes on one of their ends, Z-Band automatically un-registers the match with the server, and the new rankings can be viewed on my leaderboard page I created. I still love seeing it all in action!

Additionally, I set up a basic User Log page. There's not much purpose to it atm since this is a private project, but it was easy to setup. So why not? I created it for the tournament part of Z-Band, as I realized I was neglecting that part of the projects goal. A true tournament server would be much more involved and mostly automated, but this would at least allow a designated official to track the scores of the users to be manually calculated in a manually run bracket. There's not much to see outside of my personal testing results, but I don't mind linking this page. I'll likely link the Leaderboard later after I clean it up a bit. Its all basic though, so not much to see.

• Z-Band User Log
• Z-Band Leaderboard 

If/when I fool around with the code next, if my efforts aren't to clean the code up some more, it would likely be to refine the registration process even further. I think the goal of only needing the host to click a register button would be best. I could probably completely automate it, but even if I did release this project it would make sense not to force people into rankings. Sometimes you may just want to play causally, do some practicing, or not be listed at all. Its strange to be thinking about such considerations, as I hadn't really thought much about such things if the project got this far along. I suppose an auto register checkbox would make sense. But I also have to think about the case were one player isn't even signed up with an account. This would be more code I'd have to work on, but not something I think I would be working on at this stage of the project. Core stuff first and foremost!

In other news. To help give the poll more of a chance at reaching the results I hope for, I extended the deadline by 2 days to the exact end of this month. Traffic to my blog could pick up by then, but I still don't see it as looking good to hit that reasonable 50 vote minimum. Sadly, while these projects rely on users to do the bulk of advertisement, users generally just don't do it. I understand why, but it does suck. =( I can track my blogs hits and were they're coming from. Only really one person has tried telling other people as far as I can see, and even there (the ZSNES forums) the interest has been non-existent because that forum is a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Most of the hits come from google and my efforts to catch as many potential hits from it as I can. While I'm against the idea of me personally signing up for different forums and attempting to inform people, I was recently considering it with one place I won't mention by name. I figured I'd just see how friendly the community is first before I'd consider it more. Sadly, not to friendly it seems. That matters to me only because I have a feeling they may be unwilling to accept my project, perhaps even aggressively. And well, starting a community around this project, full of unfriendly people, of course doesn't sound to good. Still though, my effort so far may have just been to poor. So I might try again sometime.

Anyway, to better explain myself as to why I will only do so much advertising. First, doing so sucks. I've hated it with my past projects. I'll spare the details as to why it sucks, but for me as the developer of the projects, it just does. Second, I feel it would be counterproductive to what I'm trying to get out of the poll. If the project doesn't have enough users that would be willing to do what they can to help it grow, then I just don't see much hope for the projects future. Third is based of the state of this project. It's current state is about a poll. Not a downloadable/useable program itself. If it were about the program itself, as much as I'd hate it, I would probably be scouring the internet for websites to submit the project to as news. I just don't think many people would figure a poll is main page news. A poll is something more suited to something like a random or regular user posting about on a forum. Fourth I guess would be that, I've already done plenty myself, and that my time is part of the issue with this project. Sure I can get bored from time to time. but when I do, my time is spent on this blog, or on my projects. And I'm just 1 man. You guys are many. With your help, this could spread much further, faster, and with less individual effort then I could do alone.

Anyway, I just felt I might need to share that.

News: Boredum, Z-Net 3.0, and Z-Band

Sunday, April 08, 2012

I've been really bored lately. I log in WoW for a few minutes, get bored, and log out. This boredom has caused me to start fiddling with the Z-Net 3.0 code some over the past few days. I mainly just wanted to see in what state I left the code at after reinstalling msvc++2008. While exploring it, I fixed a few bugs I thought of. Mostly stuff with the games list window and how game rooms are opened from it. As is though, It's just as I've said. Fully working, but with some fine tuning needed.

I quickly got to the point were I didn't want to mess with bugs anymore until the poll shows enough interest from people. So I got bored again. This time I decided to fiddle with the client side end on the Z-Band stuff I worked on a few months ago. At the same time I figured I'd see how much work it would take to put that code into the Z-Net 3.0 project. Not properly implemented, but just merged and functioning.

I was able to port it into the Z-Net 3.0 code much easier then I thought. It's probably the messiest code I've ever done, but it's in, and working! But it still wasn't setup to work with the server setup I designed a few months ago.

After a lot more messy coping, pasting, and editing of my code, I finally got it all working together! Yay! It's nice to see all this code working as I wanted, and it's awesome to see this project I envisioned so many years before, working so beautifully! Beautifully meaning you can barely tell anything is happening at all. The Z-Band project page, and some of my old blog posts would explain what this is about if you don't know, but I'll try so sum it up how the project would be right now.

Z-Band is the name for the score tracking code I've developed. It's created with he intention to be used for tournaments and leader boards. You might have heard of something like this before from projects that seemed to have poorly ripped off the Z-Band idea I first introduced back in 2003 or 2004, but this is different in that this doesn't rely on the honor system/intelligence of players regarding correctly submitting their game results. Z-Band does this automatically! It actually watches your game as you play it, and it instantly sees new score results as they happen and automatically updates the server. No input is required from the user at all. In fact, all the users would have to do that's extra for this, is in theory press a single button to register the match with the server, unless I could eliminate that step as well.

The only limits of this is that Z-Band needs to be coded for each game individually. But If I had the time/desire, I could probably have it support every popular multiplayer SNES game, and I see no reason why I couldn't branch it out into other console emulators if I used it in a project that supported more (Like Z-Net 2.0). Right now I have it coded for SMK, as that's the game I've always used when developing it. But in the last version I had working with Z-Net 2.0, it supported SFII and GWED as well, with support for Bust-a-Move being worked on by request (maybe finished). Enabling SFII and GWED with this new setup shouldn't take much more work.

This project is far from being useable for average players however. For many reasons. The servers PHP was coded by a beginner (Me), the client code is a complete mess right now as I said, and it has a lot of work that would need to be done to be properly implemented for players to use as intended. And of course, I have zero plans to get back into the emulation netplay scene right now, unless the poll results come back favorably. In the scenario in which people do show enough interest to draw me back enough to release the Z-Net 3.0 project, that would be the first step. As much as I would want to, as Z-Band is my favorite project, I could/would make no guarantees. The Z-Band project has always been one that pushes my coding limits, and I wouldn't commit to it when its so far from finished. And despite being my favorite project, I have zero interest in attempting to make it without one of my Z-Net projects being successful first, as I would intend on linking them together.

If I were to move this project forward towards release, Z-Net 3.0's demand and release would be the start and absolute minimum. After that, it's success in maintaining a decent amount of users would be next of course. Beyond that, I'm uncertain. Someone else who's much better at PHP then me to take charge of the server code, would help a ton. And I might want to add support for a few more games as well.

For now, I suppose this projects goal is exactly what its doing right now. Killing time when I'm bored. Though I do wish someday I could release it. We will see.

Release: Super Mario Kart - Z-Net Special 3 (v2)

Saturday, April 07, 2012

I recently discovered EpicEdit. It's a track editor for SMK that's much newer the the editor TrackDes that I used years earlier for my SMK hacks. TrackDes had various limitations that caused me to have to make compromises with my design plan for my 3rd SMK battle mode hack. Those limitations don't exist with EpicEdit, so recently I decided to download EpicEdit and poke around this old hack of mine. To my surprise it worked quite well to the point were it didn't take that long to fix the hack to be more inline with my original design plans.

So here it is, the new version of my 3rd SMK hack. All 4 battle mode courses have had some updates, but #1 and #3 have had the most. I could go on and try and describe what I've done, but that would be boring. it's in the readme though. Just download it and have some fun!

I'll add it to the Z-Net Special page soon, replacing the other link. I'm undecided if I'm going to make new screenshots and pics for it at any point.

I don't have any plans to revisit the other 2 hacks, as I'm fairly certain the 1st had no such issues, and while the 2nd might have had some odd tile placement here and there, if it did, due to the nature of the hack, it does little to effect the design goal.

I have no plans to work on a 4th hack right now, but someday, who knows. I had some ideas that due either to the limits of TrackDes, or my own hex editing limits, I never got to use.

Z-Net Special 3 (v2)

Enjoy!

News: Z-Net 3.0 - Adjusting the Voting Goal

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

After thinking about it for a few days, 150 votes is a bit much to expect. While zbattle likely had that many users or more, it didn't have enough to were I should expect 150 of them to find their way to my little blog. I should shoot for some more realistic number of votes, as all that would really matter is how many people are using the program at any given time once I did release it. Additionally, based on the amount of interest, I simply may release it "as-is" with as much polish as I care to invest time into it, then move on with no plans to maintain it outside of critical issues. The new minimum goal for that plan is now 50. If the poll gets more votes, depending on how many, I'll evaluate if I'll want to invest time into maintaining it.

Also, I temporarily removed the link from the side menu to the 2010 client page, to help avoid confusion. I included a link to it in the contents of the new client page as a reference though. I've also moved the 2.0 link down on the side menu to the past projects menu to help avoid confusion as well. I can always move it back later.

I've fixed some broken links to files hosted on megaupload too. To my shock, I also noticed that I typed up, but never posted my Super Mario Kart hacks or AR Extractor program. The SMK post is now up, and posted at the original date when I created it. So its not on the main page. However, there is now a link to it on the left under "Past Projects". The AR Extractor I'll leave as is for now, and likely place it on a "Misc" page at a later date.

News: Project Codename: Z-Net 3.0 (The Alternative to zbattle)

Saturday, March 31, 2012

In the past couple days I've devoted some free time to my blog and more specifically, the zbattle/Z-Net situation. Rather then continually re-editing the last post, I decided to create a new one.

I created a brand new page for the unreleased clone project I'm offering up as a alternative to zbattle. I've given it the code name "Z-Net 3.0" for now, but if the project does ever get moving I may go with a different name, though still including Z-Net in some way. This new page serves as a central hub for all info relating to the project, including it's origins, present status, and potential future. As well as any polls regarding the project and how you can help. Additionally I enabled comments on that page for any discussion. You can find the link to the page on the left, directly beneath the Home link. I may refine this page some more if I can, but for the most part, I've done all I can to optimally leave this projects fate in the hands of users, allowing me to return to filling my free time as I normally would, and just check up on this blog to see how things are looking with this project.

With such a page, I won't have to worry about posting unrelated news and hindering any attention to that project or polls. If you chose to share a link to this blog regarding that project, you can simply link to that page rather then the main page.

I've also done what I could to optimize this blog for catching search engine terms related to the project. It's still early in the month deadline, but if traffic stays as it has the past couple days, I doubt I'm going to feel there's enough interest in the project after its over. It's not easy deciding on a number, but I guess I will go with 150 votes. If the poll hits that sooner, then I will get started on working on the project that much sooner, assuming I have the time. Of course, if I feel the voting has been cheated in some way, I may either readjust that goal, or perhaps completely remake the poll.

News: zbattle Dead Again. Time for Z-Net's Rebirth?

Thursday, March 29, 2012

An old friend/Z-Net regular/mod (Sferics) dropped by the comments and informed me that zbattle is dead again, in regard to the website and program servers being down. I've decided and stated before that if that were ever to happen, I'd consider releasing the 2010 stand-alone/spoof client I made, at the very least as a zbattle alternative/replacement so those zbattle users have a new home. I don't know what happened to zbattle. While I certainly expected at some point to see zbattle down here and there from maybe a couple days to a week, I didn't expect a month or possibly permanent downtime. Veeborg seemed on the ball in recent years when it came to getting zbattle back up and running. So I never expected to actually be considering releasing my thus far, private project. But here I am, now doing so.

My consideration on this matter is based mostly on users desire being sufficient to be worth my time and effort of polishing it up and maintaining it. So to see how those users desire stands, I've created a poll. I listed 6 options to select from. None of those options are a "no" as, if you don't want it or don't care, you can simply not vote. This poll isn't meant to see how much of a percentage of users want it, it's just to see if there is a sufficient amount of users interested in general. I just chose to add these choices so that if/when it meets the requirements for moving forward, I can be better prepared for a more optimal direction with the project. The most popular result wouldn't necessarily be used, but rather just help guide the project on whats best for the users. I'm going to give it about a 1 month cut-off date. After which, if there's a significant amount of attention on the poll, I'll go from there. Perhaps sooner with enough interest.

I personally won't be spreading word of this poll to try and catch the attention of former zbattle users. Advertizing my past projects when they were alive was involving enough, and doing so for a project in this state, even if its a poll requiring votes as a direct result from hits to this blog, is beyond the amount of involvement I'd want to invest in it at this point. If you want this project released, want a new home for zbattle users, and feel like spreading the word to others who might share that desire, go ahead and link to this blog, directing people to the poll.

For reference, I'll include a link at the end of this post to a new page I've created for my this potential 3rd installment of the Z-Net project/zbattle clone/spoof/alternative, in case you have never been to this blog before and/or don't know what this all is about. Also below I'll include a short quotable that sums all this up for anyone you may share this with.

In my boredom a couple years ago I created a 100% working clone of zbattle that I have never released. Now that zbattle seems to be dead, the criteria for me to actually release it has been half met. The other half requiring enough interest from players. Simply, if you want it, show your interest by voting on the poll on my blog and/or spreading the word to others who may be interested as well.

-- DarkAkuma

• Z-Net 3.0 (development codename)/zbattle alternative

News: What I've Been Up To

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Wow. It's been almost 4 months since I last posted!

Well. It's understandable to anyone I guess. I lost interest in the blog due in part to my playing WoW again, and in part because my latest project failing to take off at even a low popularity. Honestly, I'd be surprised if even 5 people have downloaded it.

I'm still always brainstorming new ideas for some project to take on. But nothings ever really getting out of my head, let alone on then off the drawing board. Right now, I'd really like to do something more artistically creative. Mostly some form of story of some sort, through a as of yet undecided medium. That's currently what I'm brainstorming the most I guess. Trying to figure out a rough plot setting and characters I like, to the point were I actually have something worth pursuing.

In the meantime, WoW has been my sole hobby. To list all of what I've done on wow since my last posts would be extremely long, so I'll trying to sum up the gist of it.

Completely retired from that emu server, finished my Rogues transmog set, had some drama with my guild while trying to progress my legendary, found a PERFECT fit raid for me outside of my guild with whom I  could regularly progress the legendary with, joined that raids guild on my Rogue, attained stage 2 daggers (last week), somewhere in all that I level up my Mage from 80-85 and attained a 384 PvE geared equipped ilvl, leveled up my druid from 20's-85 as a tank, attained a 384 PvE equipped ilvl with him as well, shockingly PvPed quite a bit on my Rogue and Mage in that time before not-so-shockingly getting bored of it, both having about half s11 honor and s11 conquest gear, done 8/8 DS10 on norm, and 1/8 DS10 on heroic (hopefully 2/8 next week), attained a 398 equipped ilvl on my Rogue (highest ilvl in my raid), and mostly lately have just been playing my druid as i only got him to 85 last week.

At this point, I'm seeming less interested in WoW again. I'm not burnt out yet, I'm just finding little that's interesting to do outside of my regular raid days. I'm still interested in my druid since hes so new and different, but like my Mage, I've hit a wall with him to were I can only do more with him in DS. LFR is terrible, and while its all I do on those 2 characters for raiding, I'm not that interested and pug raiding them in normals. Normal mode pugs are ridiculously fail. LFR is probably to blame since people get to use to not trying, they just don't think they have to. Thinking instead that since they got a few pieces from LFR, their gear will carry them in normal mode. I may get 1 of them into an alt run, but I'm not going to pursue that to hard. Doing so on my Rogue was exhausting enough.

My Rogue is currently on course to get his Legendarys on May 9th, so its nice to see that on the horizon. I just hope MoP doesn't come out till at the least 1 month after that. Preferably 2-3. I want to put those daggers to use before their made obsolete by 5 new levels with overly inflated gear stats.

As for this blog. It's still doing what I originally intended for it to do. Preserving my past projects. It doesn't get many hits a day, but it is at least consistent with about 2-6. I don't know how often I'll post to it, or even create new or resume work on past projects with it. I'm devoting less time to WoW lately, so I could very well resume interest in a project or spark interest in a new one. Who knows...

Review: Skyrim

Thursday, December 01, 2011

I haven't played Skyrim to far in yet. I've been waiting on the contruction kit to get released. My first impressions of it weren't very good. I saw it as being developed very lazily, in that there were few improvments over Oblivion. Mostly just the graphics were made more modern. The issues I always had with Oblivion are, horrid looking character models, lack of (online) co-op, finding the quests and characters engaging, horrid UI for a PC game, etc. Skyrim improved on these issues very little, and in some cases not at all.

With the ugly models, well, thats why I'm waiting on the CS to get released, so I can play it without the poorly modeled characters distracting me and pulling me out of the immersion into the game.

Its probably because I've played MMOs to much over the years, but any time I play either game, I do so with some sort of nagging feeling in the back of my mind. Its not completely clear what that feeling is, but my guess is that it just feels like I'm playing an MMO, but I'm the only one on the server. It's kind of a eerie feeling. That and I would find the game SO much more enjoyable if I could just share my experience with someone else.

While not very much better, I did find the story more engaging in the early parts of the game then I did in Oblivion. Quests were easier to find, the main quest line was easier to stay on/follow. I've always felt these TES games could do with a better, more cinematic feel type of approach to the quests and stories. And with Skyrim its closer to that, though could still use a lot of work.

Besthesda is extreme lazy with the PC version. Despite a significant amount of players using the PC version, they just half ass port the console interface and controls to the PC, and nothing ever feels right. Granted, the UI and controls are better this time, but that's just because there better for consoles too (most likely). No effort was put into the PC version to make it better.

I haven't logged in a lot of time. Maybe 10 hours. And as of writing this, I haven't really played it for a few days. Any time I'd otherwise invest into it has been spent on Oblivion. It turns out that Oblivion runs a LOT better for me then it used to. I have virtually the same comp, just a better video card. Seems the video card upgrade is enough, because I can now run Oblivion with everything on max and at a decent very playable frame rate. When I last played Oblivion before there weren't nearly as many mods out as their is now, and a lot go a long way towards making it more playable. Still though, I won't let myself get to involved in that. I'd like to put more time into Skyrim first, before I go back to Oblivion.

So,. while not living up to its epic hype, and certainly not worthy of a game of the year honors, Skyrim seems nice and worth playing if you haven't. But if you would have the same issues with it as I do, I'd recommend waiting a little bit. At least until there are some mods to fix the models, and maybe the UI.