#game dev 101: resources | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zaptap · 6 months

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uhhh i just bought a second gamecube lol

like. my gamecube is a dol-101 which means it doesn't have a digital out port (which means converting it to hdmi is always going to look like shit) and i've wanted to get it modded to add the port but that seems to be impossible at least for the time being (the kits have been sold out for so long and now the one site selling them seems to have taken down the listing. plus on top of that i'd have to have someone do it for me and idk where to go for that either) (from what i can tell getting a modchip added also seems trickier than on a dol-001?)

most of the advice ive seen for this situation is "just get rid of it and get a dol-001" which is uh. not the point. this is my childhood gamecube i want to keep using it. it's also a perfectly good console so it's annoying to see people so eager to just throw them aside

but i looked... and for just $100 i found a dol-001 that was already modded with picoboot (ipl replacement that makes the console boot into whatever you want) and they refurbished it (cleaned all the parts, recapped the motherboard which according to them will extend its life by 25 years). disk drive doesnt work but with picoboot that's kind of unimportant. seller seems to be pretty reliable too, they have almost exclusively good reviews going back to 2016

feels a little redundant to get a second gamecube, especially since i can technically already get a digital signal out of natively run gamecube games on my wii u and wii... it does add that to the game boy player though (also: with picoboot you can set a button to hold to automatically boot into the game boy interface, which btw is the homebrew replacement for the game boy player software that does a better job displaying the games apparently). also been thinking about getting a gba flashcart anyway (ez flash omega definitive edition) to add more to that

also my experience using nintendont on my wii u has been kind of awkward. you have to go all the way into wii mode and the homebrew channel and nintendont and then pick the game (sure, injects are a thing, but i've tried a few and they all black screen, and i've tried everything the devs of the inject program, uwuvci, say to do to make them work--and they also say for some people it just doesn't for some reason and nobody knows why). sometimes i get in there and it gets some kind of error and i have to start all the way over. meanwhile modded gamecube boots into swiss and you pick a game from there and that's it

the drawback is that since you're loading from an sd card (either in a memory card adapter or in a serial port 2 adapter, they're functionally the same) there's compatibility issues since it can't always read from there fast enough to run the game full speed. however there's also something called the M.2 loader coming that'll be able to load the data faster (from the ssd you attach to it). you plug it into serial port 1 (where the broadband adapter would go). but anyway if there are any games that don't run right booted from the sd i could probably just do them on the wii u or wii instead

anyway. my hope is that someday i'll be able to get my original gamecube modded (and then either sell this new one or give it away i suppose?), but it's good to have a backup

and it's not like gamecubes are going to get cheaper, probably, so getting that now is good i guess? like. that's a really good deal .a gamecube that's pre-modded and refurbished and apparently comes with an sd card? (the seller casually mentioned they could include some games if asked. the only way to run games on this one is through an sd card, so those would have to be iso files. on an sd card. if theyre giving me the card already then copying files doesnt cost them anything. so maybe there's a card in there). anyway yeah all that for $100. pretty good i think

well. maybe someday as they become more scarce people won't be so quick to abandon dol-101s and there'll be more resources for modding them

#and maybe i can either do the soldering myself or know someone who can do it for me #tbh i think the odds of me doing it are pretty low. like itd be a good skill to have if i could do it but...#idk if i can see myself investing the time into doing that. also the possibility of fucking up would probably weigh too heavily over me #''nice job idiot you poked this circuitboard in slightly the wrong place and now the entire thing is fucked up forever'' i cant do that shi #yeah yeah whatever i can make excuses but i feel like it's mainly me wanting to do a lot of other things so like #it's just not a high enough priority. like im just trying to get through each day and barely fitting in extra stuff mostly #being able to solder WOULD be cool but there are probably like 12 new things id like to learn to do more yknow

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theharellan · 4 years

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101 DRAGON AGE QUESTIONS | not accepting

for the sake of reducing the number of ooc posts i’m answering these all in one and just @ing the people who asked the questions! thank you for them all!

if you sent me one of these btw and rbed this meme yourself and i didn’t send you something, please let me know! i want to send you things back and must have missed you reblogging the meme. this includes non-mutuals.

1. How did you get into Dragon Age? | asked by @kaaras-adaar & @dreamerlavellan

Sort of by accident, actually. It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in university (2011) and summertime is generally a time of inactivity and depression because I cannot tolerate the weather here. My dad happened to own Origins and I picked it up because??? Fantasy? RPG?

Starting the game I saw you could play as a dwarf, who have been my favourites in fantasy since a child as The Hobbit is among my favourite books. Then after that I fell in love with the worldbuilding for dwarves and Gorim, my first actual Dragon Age love. I was more or less hooked after that. DA was actually not my first Bioware game, I was obsessed with Jade Empire as a kid so like Origins appealed to me immediately despite being far less fun to play than literally any other Bioware game I’ve ever played. The characters and world more than made up for it.

I beat it relatively quickly and my dad bought Dragon Age II which had come out earlier that day, actually against my suggestion because I’d heard it wasn’t good. And in this instance my dad forgetting something I said turned out for the best because I ended up enjoying DAII more in some respects. While it took me a while to join the fandom as a content producer I was a consumer and certified DA trash from then on.

2. Have you finished all three games? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

Kskjdfs yes. I’ve beaten each at least 4 times, but probably more like 8. The only thing I haven’t played are some of the Origins DLC because as much as I enjoy my replays I am so ready to be out by the end of the game (and I have the worst luck with Awakening bugs) and I also don’t have Sebastians DLC b/c his never goes on sale individually and I refuse to spend more than like $4 on him.

3. How long did it take you to finish the series? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

I honestly don’t know. I think it took me like a week to beat Inquisition without 100%ing it, I’d say my first playthroughs all probably took about that long. I tend not to do everything in my first playthrough. Like shard collecting didn’t happen until round two, etc.

7. Favorite DA:O backstory? | asked by @dreamerlavellan & @fatefaulted

I’ve played through all of them and I enjoy them all except Cousland, but my favourite is Aeducan. I enjoy the politics, the culture, the aesthetic of Orzammar. I love Gorim Saelac and the surprising amount of depth to this character who is designed to be thrown away after the prologue. I love how it ties you to the Darkspawn threat in a bigger way than any of the origins accomplish. I love how it ties you to the Orzammar plot later in the game, and playing Aeducan first is probably one reason why I adore that branch of the game. It’s a good origin that establishes its world really well and has great characters to boot.

11. Share a pic of your favorite OC from any DA game. | asked by @dreamerlavellan

I just want to share pics of my girl and Solas’ future husband.

Ian Lavellan, non-Inquisitor written by @theshirallen

Thora Cadash, dwarven Inquisitor and default Inquisitor for this blog written by... me lmao.

22. Favorite DA2 party combo? | asked by @fatefaulted

My main Hawke is a mage Hawke, so this party is horrendously imbalanced, but: Varric, Merrill, Isabela. They all just like each other and I think that’s neat. Although in act one my favourite is probably Carver, Merrill, Isabela / Varric. Unfortunately the game doesn’t want me to have a warrior in my party.

24. Favorite main-story quest from DA:I? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

It’s hard to pick between In Hushed Whispers and In Your Heart Shall Burn. I love seeing the red lyrium’d companions and the dark future of Thedas, and speculating on what happened in the intervening year. I love reflecting on what it must do for the Inquisitor to see that and have it be undone. I think it sets up the rest of the game really well, and in ways Champions of the Just doesn’t do quite as well.

In Your Heart Shall burn is a simpler quest but I think the power and emotions in the quest are so raw. Playing this the first time was riveting and I was on the edge of my seat. The triumph of closing the Breach, the strangeness of your first encounter with Cole (whose appearance at the gates is another reason I prefer IHW tbh, I think it’s more tension building than Dorian’s), Corypheus, crawling through the snow. Capping it off with The Dawn Will Come and the journey to Skyhold idk, it’s just such an emotional high point in the series that every time I replay I get goosebumps.

25. Favorite DA:I place? | asked by @fatefaulted

It’s a tie between the Frostback Basin and the Emerald Graves. I love the lore in both, as elf trash I prefer the lore in the graves especially if I can include the Din’an Hanin into that category. But the Avvar lore and Ameridan is also Very Good, and while I adore the giant trees of the graves the Frostback Basin clearly was able to have more resources poured into its design, and as a result the different sections of the map have so much more character.

A close runner-up is the Hinterlands, as I think the quests there are fun and it feels like home. I enjoy returning to it. Which is good, b/c I’ve played through it... a lot... I think loving it might be a coping mechanism, but also I love the vibe of the early game that’s best captured in the Hinterlands.

32. Favorite DLC mission overall? | asked by @fatefaulted

Trespasser is up there with Shivering Isles as my favourite DLC ever produced. Its hits every emotional beat I think it needed to hit, set up the next game with greater detail and intrigue than the initial epilogue, and I’m honestly dying to get to replay it again on Thora despite what it does to my nerves. The first time I played it I could feel my heart beating faster like wtf me.

37. Blood magic: yes or no? | asked by @hopewrought

Would I use it myself? No. Morally I think it can be reprehensible but also neutral, much like any other magic in the game. In certain characters I think even if used for good it may encourage unhealthy habits, but I think it can be learned to be engaged with in better ways.

59. Who was written really poorly? | asked by @theshirallen you can’t hide behind anon I know it was you

Oghren fucking Kondrat. When I think about the reasons Origins is my least favourite game he is among them. With Oghren there was a really good chance to portray an alcoholic abuse victim, suffering from severe mental health issues, and still mourning his wife, with the respect it deserves. Instead he just... is a gross sexist dwarf and his alcoholism is mostly played for jokes. And then he comes back in Awakening and... continues to be a gross sexist dwarf whose alcoholism is mostly played for jokes.

There could have been some really interesting stuff with Oghren, the Warrior caste of dwarves I think would suffer from issues similar to qunari warriors, where when they can no longer fill the purpose society has dictated they must serve, what then? They can’t do anything but fight. There could be comradery with Sten, or perhaps Zevran or Alistair, or any of the companions who have had the path their lives took dictated to them by societal forces they had no say in (even if they are happy with that direction). There are snippets of good stuff in here, the line “let us show them our hearts, Warden, and then show them theirs” is one of the best of the good-byes the game offers us imo. It’s a shame about what came before.

Like there are other characters, such as Sera, who I think were done dirty by their writers, but Sera at least got some growth in the DLC and there were attempts to address criticism of her character. Oghren in Awakening was just kind of a take two of an already poorly-done arc.

60. Who do you wish had been given more story? | asked by @hopewrought

I wish Briala had more, like that she had some impact on the story in universes where Gaspard isn’t crowned with her as his puppetmaster. She and the elves reappears in that but not if you reunite her with Celene or exile her, and I think it would’ve been neat. I also wish she’d had a chance to interact with Solas in some small way given how many parallels were drawn by one of his own agents during Masked Empire.

I also wish we had more about dwarves in general in 2 and Inquisition. We get some great lore in Inquisition that was set up in 2, but with our only dwarf companion being Varric, who honestly has a relationship with his race that at times is comparable to Sera’s, it pulls a few of its punches. I really think they have dwarves set up to be important players in the next game, with their architecture featuring heavily in the dev diary, buuut no dwarves to be seen. So who knows. Just give me dwarves in the next game who aren’t Varric Bioware pls. Let me kiss one maybe.

61. Favorite NPC? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

I’m not going to count advisors even though they kinda are NPCs and I’m going to answer one for each game so uhh...

Origins - Anora

DA2 - Feynriel

DA:I - Krem

Bonus - Lord Woolsley, the only unproblematic DA character

63. Best story moment? | asked by @ghilannainguideme

It’s a tie between the journey to Skyhold and the talk with Solas at the end of Trespasser and the resulting disbanding of the Inquisition (if you so choose). I really can’t separate them because I think the reason Trespasser works so well is how it calls back to the very beginning of Inquisition and that moment with Solas in the snow. It’s triumphant and sad, something’s ending, the fellowship is breaking, but you know all of you will continue to work towards a better world apart.

In DA:O I think it’d be saying good-bye before the final battle and in DA2 I think the moment where you can tell the Arishok he was right to take in the elves who killed that guardmen is good. Probably one of the reasons why I think Hawke-Arishok work so well as a protagonist-antagonist combination.

81. Favorite fanfic? | asked by @ghilannainguideme

I don’t read a lot of fanfic, actually. Save what I read on here, which I do count, but idk if other people do.

My favourite writers to read are @theshirallen, obviously. Joly wants to tweakIan’s personal quest but I think the version they have written now is still very good and you can find it here. I love reading Peace’s stuff and find their smut especially spicy in the best possible way, you can find a Merrill/f!Mahariel piece here! Gaia doesn’t write on Tumblr much these days, but she wrote a wonderful Tug/Sketch (the companions from Leliana’s Song) that you can find here.

I follow so many talented writers and I can’t list them all but here are a few I can fire off real fast: @theshirallen / @ghilannainguideme / @seahaloed / @sabraelin / @valorcorrupt / @mercysought / @hopewrought / @ofrevas / @skyheld have all moved me with their words at some point, be it in fic or rp.

82. Favorite fanart/fanartist? | asked by @ghilannainguideme

Again I just can’t choose jsdfks.

The easiest way is to just link my Solas fanart tag. Obviously this favours Solas artists, however, so also here’s a link to thedaswlw where there’s a boatload of amazing fanart all of wlw.

Of people I’m mutuals with I know @abracafockyou, @kaaras-adaar, @dalathin (currently inactive but I gotta link them), and @syntharts are all very talented artists. I’m also a big fan of destinyapostacy, nipuni, elbenherzart, starscollected (on twitter), and many more.

97. What’s your favorite DA mod? | asked by @ghilannainguideme & @hopewrought

I’ll chose one as many as I want to apparently from each game again, b/c why not?

DA:O - I have to admit I find this game hard to mod because nothing can really salvage the gameplay or look of the game. I need Better Dwarf Model so I don’t have to look at the odd dwarf proportions in the game (the women have arms for days). Mostly I have armour mods. I like Grey Wardens of Ferelden so I can match Alistair in the final batte and have everyone in uniforms in Awakening. I do like Kirkwall Exports because I can put Zevran in the robes of the notorious pirate tho. I haven’t used this mod yet but I also love this mod I retweeted this morning.

DA2 - Again, I don’t mod 2 very much. You could probably make some kind of chart for correlating my enjoyment of a game versus my urge to mod it, with the more I love a game means I want to mod it more. With 2 I enjoy the combat and overall design of the characters more so I mostly use a couple of tweaks, my favourite is Ishs Scarf for Merrill which just adds a cute blue scarf to Merrill and hides the fact that elves in this game have weirdly long necks. Oh and a mod to fix the weird hand dirt.

DA:I - Equal Opportunity Solas mod, I bought the game again on PC just to use it. Being able to play Solas/Ian for screencaps was everything tbh. Other mods I enjoy are More Banter, which while I have better luck with banter it is nice to be able to count on it. I installed it this latest pt and I have heard location comments that have never triggered before. Black Hair for Everyone has changed my life because finally Thora doesn’t have grey hair. No Dirt Buildup is also amazing, as the dirt can cause some really weird blotting on PCs that’s especially noticeable on dark-skinned Inquisitors.

99. Where would you live (Ferelden, Orlais, Free Marches etc?) | asked by @heysales

Probably Ferelden. It is fantasy England and hey if I make it past Inquisition maybe nothing will ever happen there again. Somewhere in the Free Marches might also be chill. Not Kirkwall. Maybe Starkhaven? Honestly tho I just want to live in the Frostback Basin. Have a spirit friend. Shake hands with nugs.

101. If you could meet your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor, what would you say? | asked by @dreamerlavellan

If I met Thora I’d tell her I’m proud of her. She’d be confused, but that’s ok.

#( munday meme )#( ooc )#( about me )#( asks )

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osmw1 · 5 years

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Dimension Wave Chapter 29 — Dimension Wave: Conclusion

—?!

It wasn’t clear who landed the final blow, but Cerberus let out as if he had been torn apart. At the same time, a flash of white light blinded everybody in the instance as they braced themselves for the next attack. The light dissipated and revealed white clouds on a backdrop of blue… just as the skies had been before all of this happened. White petals blew across the battlefield; we were now in a field of flowers in full bloom.

“We did it!”

Everybody was in high spirits and some were crying out from our shared triumph.

“Good job, team.” “Well done!” “That was a doozy.” “Hell yeah.”

A victory fanfare played in the background—this is an MMO, so of course it did. I sat down on the bed of flower as both my—as both Kizuna†Exceed’s body and mind were exhausted. The tension and anxiety I was holding back crushed me all at once now. It was extremely stressful avoiding getting hit as a Spirit.

—The first wave of Dimension Wave has been defeated!

The game popped up a message in my vision. There was also a ranking of who contributed the most. Let’s see where I placed…

—Overall rank #77: Kizuna†Exceed

Looks like I’m 77th place among all other players. There were a few other rankings as well.

—Total damage given rank #1: Tsugumi†Exceed

No surprise there. That scythe was great for crowd control.

Oh, there’s a ranking for resources contribution as well. Alto and Romina were in the top 10. They did a lot to back us up, eh?

Another category was “Everyday”. I assume that’s for like activities, like cooking and other roleplaying elements? I’m at #542 for that.

“Holy! Look! There’s someone who took 80,000 points of damage!”

That guy was #2 for most damage received, but who’s #1?

—Total damage received rank #1: Kizuna†Exceed

… hey, that name looks familiar! I fell prostrate on the ground. Now that I look at myself, my clothes had been unequipped, leaving me in my underwear.

Name/ Kizuna†Exceed Race/ Spirit Energy/ 19,550 Mana/ 8,100 Serin/ 46,780

Skills/ Energy Production X, Mana Production VII, Fishing Mastery IV, Hate & Lure I, Gutting Mastery IV, Cleaver III, Speed Gutting III, Naval Combat IV, Transmutation I

… well, that makes sense.

“Required level to equip… Energy, in my case…”

I never knew there was a level requirement for my clothes. They got unequipped because I don’t have enough Energy now, I assumed. Guess I don’t have much of a choice but to use my old equipment. I’m glad I kept everything in my inventory. I clicked out of the rankings and looked through other information.

—Buffs and item usage

There were patch notes for new skills, equipment, and other changes as well. More weapon types were added too. Something I was just talking about is the new specialization for scythes, called war scythes; dual blades derived from one-handed swords; and katanas from two-handed swords. I can’t tell for sure unless I check with the next one, but I’m sure there are new items and skills that are affected by each Dimension Wave.

Oh, hey, it said that fishing rods can now be equipped with reels. I’ve gotta get me one of those. I kept scrolling through the notes.

“Racial powers unlocked?”

That line caught my attention while I was skimming. First off, lemme see what’s in store for Spirits.

—Stone of Mediation implemented.

A crystal that allows its user to project their soul. Or, at least, that’s what this Spirit-exclusive rock claims to be able to do. Every Stone of Mediation has a different effect. Some may shorten the amount of time needed to produce Energy or reduce skills’ Energy usage.

Finally, it looks like we all get something from participating in Dimension Wave. Ranks 1-5, 6-100, 101-1,000, 1,001-5,000 all get different items.

And since I’m number 77, I should be getting something pretty decent. I clicked Yes on the dialog box asking me whether I’d like to receive my reward. Then, a slot machine with numbers and fruits on its reels popped up in my vision. After a quick spin, three icons of souls lined up in the center.

—Energy Blade obtained.

It looked so fitting for a Spirit like me, though the description looked far from normal.

Energy Blade Weapon type/ Not applicable Attack/ 0 Prerequisites/ Must be a Spirit User must have at least 2 Energy to equip this weapon. The user charges up the blade with Energy then unleashes all of it in one single blow. Beware that all charged Energy will be expended upon making an attack, regardless of its success.

All that’s there to the weapon is just its handle. It’s reminiscent of old movies and anime, like how the blade part would only appear if the sword chooses its wielder. It sounds cool and all, but I’ll hold off judgement until I try it out. Personally, I don’t have strong feelings either way. Since it’s a Spirit-exclusive weapon, it’s quite the oddball. I bet it’ll be tricky to use as well. At the very least, it’s not an option for me in my current state. It won’t be long until I’m back in business, so I’ll just keep it safe for now.

“Kizuna.”

Shouko showed up just as I had finished stowing away the Energy Blade into my inventory. Just like everybody else, I congratulated her with a “Well done out there”. But even though we’ve defeated the Dimension Wave, she looked less than happy. I couldn’t help but worry about her.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” “No, it’s just that… I overdid it out on the battlefield, causing you to suffer such terrible damage…” “Oh, that’s what’s bothering you? Don’t worry about it. The true winners in games are ones who enjoy themselves, isn’t that right?” “Still—”

Shouko seemed to be bothered about me losing my Energy. I had been swarmed by the mob, hurt myself in trying to protect Tsugumi, and nearly lost my life when I was drawing the boss’ aggro. Even if I had voluntarily done all that, she must be feeling guilty about all of the damage I faced. But I knew. I knew Shouko had tirelessly used her counterattack skill to protect me. Still, the fan-type weapon needs to be charged so, of course, she couldn’t block 100% of Cerberus’ attacks. Nevertheless, it was touching to hear that she had been thinking of me the entire time.

“More importantly, the sea! I mean, I’d love to head back out onto the water, but with the little Energy I have left, I’ll just be dead weight.” “Nonsense. I will help you reach… no, rather, I wish to be by your side and reach beyond the horizon together.” “I couldn’t ask for anybody better. I knew that before, but seeing you out there today, I’m even more sure of it.”

I can’t forget how graceful of an acrobatic Shouko was when facing Cerberus. And frighteningly, she’s as skilled as Tsugumi. Even though her prowess suits the frontlines much better, knowing her and her personality, I’m sure she’ll choose to stay with me. But I know better than to outright ask her to return to the frontlines.

“It’s been a long day. Let’s head back to the First and get some rest.” “Oh, but…” “Hmm?”

Shouko pressed her index finger to her lips, cueing me to stay quiet. Then, she looked over at Cerberus’ corpse. I get it now… gutting, eh? I was going to tell Roz and his party about the power of gutting-type weapons, but I didn’t get the chance to do so. I definitely had a hard time keeping cool back there. I mean, it’s only natural to get mad when someone insults you and your friends, right?

We made our way over to where Cerberus fell and eyed the other players. Many of them were already teleporting out of the instance since the raid was finished. The thriftier ones were walking home while the frontliners didn’t even bat an eye when they used their Tomes of Returning. Some of the braver ones were even saying how they’re headed off for the next battle. There were still too many people around for me to start gutting—that is if I still wanted to keep this a secret.

“Shall we stay here for a while? It’d be a waste to not enjoy the scenery.” “… yeah, why not?”

The bed of flowers was simply fantastic—both in the sense that it was beautiful but also unrealistically so. It’s almost as if the devs put it in here for us players to relax after the raid. Well, Cerberus’ corpse lying there kinda spoils the view though.

“Miss Kizuna!” “Oh, hey, Yamikage. Good work back there.” “I thank ye, but I bear exciting news.” “Ooh, what is it?” “I am now the highest ranked Spirit!” “Number one in the Energy rankings, eh?”

It’s no surprise for someone who has accumulated a total of more than a million Energy. I bet Circle Drain contributed a lot to her growth too.

“Where’s Sheryl anyway?” “… I have been here the whole time.” “Agh! Don’t scare me like that.”

Sheryl suddenly spoke up from behind me. I had no idea she was with us. It’s almost like she concealed herself or something. Well, I’m probably unperceptive because I’m just too tired.

Near the end of the raid, Sheryl was still fighting the mob to not get in our way. It’s boring, but someone’s gotta do it. Or rather, it shows exactly how considerate and attentive Sheryl is. Like that time with the bird-type monster who tried to run from us. She’s always there to back us up and to take care of loose ends. Anyway, it looks like we’re all back together now.

“I don’t think I need to explain much, but let’s enjoy the garden here while we’re waiting to do that thing I always do.” “‘Tis a splendid idea!” “‘kay.” “Yes, let’s.”

I’ll be honest. I’ve never sat around in a park to enjoy the cherry blossoms or anything like that in real life. But perhaps I’m still feeling the adrenaline rush from the fight, this was a little exciting. … I mean, as exciting as looking as flowers can be.

“It’s a little boring to sit around with nothing. I’ll make sure I take up cooking next time, so we can have a picnic or something.” “Will it not be straining your Energy reserves, Miss Kizuna?” “You’re right, but it’s something I should learn sooner or later. It’ll be useful for our voyage on the seas.” “That would not be a bad idea. We bring some food on board, but if we run out, we can rely on cooking.” “Since we have Shouko and Yamikage as specced purely for combat and Sheryl for crafting. I guess that leaves me as the team’s cook.” “… only if you’re okay with it.” “It’ll synergize well with my weapon type too.”

I’ll catch and cook our meals. Now that I think about it, I don’t do much with the fish after I catch them. Why didn’t I take up cooking sooner? The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Hmm? It sounds like someone’s running up to us. It was Tsugumi and Roz’s party.

“Big brooooo!”

She barreled towards me and squeezed me tightly in her arms. Maybe because I’m low on Energy, but I didn’t have the strength to pry her off of me.

“That was some amazing support there, Kizuna.” “You too, Roz. Almost all of you are ranked in the top 100, right?” “Ah, we were just lucky.” “You guys wanna join us? We were just about to celebrate our victory.”

Roz looked like he thought about it for a quick second. Well, I don’t blame him for being hesitant in front of total strangers.

“I hate to say no, but we’ve got to get going.” “You guys heading out for more grinding?” “Nah, but we’ve gotta figure out our equipment and skills.” “Frontliners sure have it rough. Well, good luck with that then.”

They’re throwing themselves back out onto the battlefield right after a huge raid battle. Honestly, I’m ready to pass out already. Frontliners are just so impressive. Well, I mean, I’ve been in their position before too. I know just how addictive games can be. Roz didn’t look like he was here just to say hi.

“Anyways, I was hoping to talk to the girl with the fan.” “Yes? What is it?”

Shouko looked at him with suspicion. He’s gonna ask her to join their party, I bet. Well, after seeing Shouko perform like that during the raid, everybody should be begging her to join their parties.

“I was wondering if you’d like to join—” “No, thank you.”

She cut Roz off before he could even finish his sentence. Yamikage and Sheryl looked like they wanted to say something but judging by how quickly she rejected him, I don’t think anyone could change Shouko’s mind. It was a bit of a shock, frankly speaking. I wouldn’t have expected her to flatly reject him like that, given how considerate Shouko is. She was quick to understand what he wanted as well. But even for being such an upright and proper lady, Shouko has her brash moments too, I guess. To refuse him like that is not unimaginable. Rosette seemed a little taken aback as well.

“But with your skill, you’d be perfect for the frontlines.” “I will follow Kizuna no matter what.”

… I’ve knew from the get-go that Shouko is like that, but still, that’s super embarrassing for me. I can still remember how politely she bowed to me when we first met.

“I see… sorry for trying to poach your party member like that, Kizuna.” “No worries. That’s just how Shouko is.” “Yeah, I can tell… those bastards have no idea what they’re missing out on.”

I’m guessing he’s referring to Shouko’s previous party members. It’s easy to judge us Spirits by the rumors that surround us. A lot of people fall into a bad habit of blindly listening to whatever strategy sites or wiki pages instead of seeing it for themselves. It really is a shame for them. I’ve really hit it off with Shouko. Not only is she a great person, she’s real skilled at combat too.

“Alrighty, then we’ll be heading off.” “Gotcha. I can’t wait to fight alongside you guys again.”

Roz and his party waved goodbye before teleporting away. But my sister, Tsugumi, is still clung onto me like a koala.

“Listen…” “What’s good, bro?” “Your party’s gone already, y’know?”

Tsugumi looked over her shoulder to see no traces of her teammates anywhere. Then, she shook her head and looked at me.

“What’s up?” “… big bro, are you guys going to sit here and chill for a bit?” “That’s what we’re planning to do. What about it?” “…”

For some reason, Tsugumi was staring straight into my eyes. She only looks like this when she’s really concentrating at her games. She must be thinking long and hard about something. No one—not even Kanata—can break her concentration. It’s like Tsugumi gets into some sort of a trance. Shouko gets into a hyper-aware state like this sometimes too. But Tsugumi? She only gets like this when she’s doing something she likes… that is to say when only when she’s gaming. And seemingly as if she’s figured it all out, she beamed with a smile.

“Alright! I’ve made up my mind! See ya, big bro!”

Then, she disappears after using a Tome of Returning. What was that all about?

“Anyway. Let’s go enjoy the flowers, shall we?”

We sat around chatting until everyone around us had left.

contents: /prologue/ /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /ch029/ /next/

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nekodracones · 4 years

Text

The castle-focused Atlas economy: How it’s contributing to Atlas stagnation by rewarding the wrong achievements

When Atlas first launched, it was presented as a high-octane conflict rich battle royale. Seen here:

The reality is, of course, far less exciting. While Atlas conflict still occurs in the form of an occasional raid or sniper jaunt and even the rare large-scale castle battle, the average team is unlikely to see any serious castle battles on 5ta castles, or conflicted castle turnovers within a typical month. (Unless, of course, said castle was poorly manned and an obvious target. Then you’re just asking for it.)

When asked for an assessment of the above excerpt in the context of our current reality, my friend Titan commented as such:

20:09 Cat I need you to describe this (the photo above) in the context of our current Atlas situation 20:09 Titanium it appears to be describing a much better game than the one we get to play.

Indeed. But why is reality falling short of expectations such a problem?

...---...

Expectations vs. Reality

It wouldn’t be a problem if PG devs could admit that their Atlas reality falls short of their ideal Atlas and adapt their season ranking method to suit the current state of Atlas.

This is the scoring system for the Lotusbloom Atlas season. (here) A quick read shows that the leaderboard is based on the most valuable 20 castles. In any competition, something has to be competed for. This leaderboard reads like it was concocted in an ideal environment where castles are fought over, and the longer a team holds a castle or the number of castles a team conquers within a season are a valuable measure of their competence.

This is fine...if castle ownership and conquering were actually based on any sane standard metric of performance and activity.

In real Atlas, they are not. How so?

...---...

1. Basic Economics 101

I’ve spoken to a lot of people in my time playing this game. A shocking majority of people didn’t even know you got team rewards for completing an Atlas season, beyond a few Cat-triggered realisations that that’s where they got so-and-so portrait from.

Why? For said majority of the atlas-playing population, said rewards are marginal to the point of being unnoticeable, to the point that for most, there is no incentive to go past 3.6m glory and waste troops fighting for castles.

Here are the rewards for the Lotusbloom Atlas season. Notice how rewards drop off dramatically after the 26th-50th bracket, arguably even after the 11th-25th bracket. Don’t forget that such highly-ranked teams are likely to home players who probably won’t even notice such insubstantial rewards for completing a three-month long season.

When your competition rewards are irrelevant for 95%+ of your atlas population, they’re badly scaled and you probably shouldn’t be surprised when your competition ends up being irrelevant and ignored.

...---...

2. Shooting Yourself in The Foot to Kill a Fly

The following mechanic was intended to encourage conflict and incentivise getting one over your opponents via retaining castles all while conquering theirs, but in reality, this actually backfires.

Given how difficult and costly conquering castles actually is, it’s better to sequester yourself away on castles and maintain peace with your neighbours once you have the castles you want, to prevent getting attacked. Conflict isn’t rewarded enough to risk a conquer; when infrastructure bonuses are far more significant than any benefits the paltry Atlas season prizes (for most teams) could provide.

Below rank 25, there’s also no reason for teams to make conquer attempts on rivals’ castles in order to reduce their victory point potential, as it is unlikely to put them into a new bracket on the leaderboard, to get more prizes.

All in all, this mechanic just reads like a cruel, ironic joke in the context of how Atlas really is.

...---...

3. We came, We saw, We (did not) conquer

Conquering castles is an extremely costly time and troop investment. With the existence of mega alliances, any given team has a limited number of viable castles that could be conquer targets, and it’s perhaps more costly than PG might expect to conquer a single castle. To expand on this, as part of a mega alliance, teams within the same mega alliance are socially contracted to not target each others’ castles, even though they may be vulnerable, or strategically easy conquers. This reduces attractive conquer targets for individual teams drastically.

On top of this, mega alliances tend to send lots of teams to defend castles from conquer; the better positioned the contested castle, the more teams are summoned. This is a point that has been belaboured multiple times in multiple channels, so I won’t expound too much on it: hitting ten times and only having one hit land is not fun. Castle conquers are not fun.

Furthermore, the work needed to conquer castles is not worth any advancement made in team prizes unless you’re on the brink of the next bracket, which is...again, a marginal increase in prizes. Season ranking honestly only really matters to the people already at the top (within the top 25 ranks), and at that level you probably already got all the castles you wanted in previous seasons and decided that further advancement via conquer wasn’t worth it. Don’t forget how a majority of the people ahead of you are from your very own alliance, and you can’t conquer from them.

Social factors aren’t fully PG’s fault, but it’s irresponsible for season design to not consider these factors’ effects on player behaviour.

...---...

4. One Atlas Season, Disguised as Many

Castle ownership isn’t reset between seasons, and the churn is so low that it makes no sense to pretend that we expect any changes to the castle ownership-based leaderboard in each season.

Before some of you pick up your pitchforks and run me through for blaspheming and suggesting seasonal Atlas resets (which is an entire different discussion that has seen a lot of sane discourse on both sides, and deserves a whole series of posts)- that’s not what I’m saying.

Without touching the issue of whether castles should be a resource that carries over between seasons, it makes little sense to me to award discrete seasonal rewards for achievements made in past seasons that carry over into new ones, with such a low loss rate that basically all most teams need to do is ‘don’t fuck up’.

If you’re not doing much beyond maintenance work between and during seasons, and possibly expending less effort on expanding and maintaining your territories as compared to smaller teams that actually see significant/insignificant changes to their real estate holdings within a season, should you really be rewarded prizes that are tens of times as valuable?

(Cue the pitchfork mob coming @ me to tell me how much they worked for whatever castles they have. Sure. That’s a whole other debate, and I’m not going down that hole yet.)

Point being, the static nature of a team’s castle holdings throughout different seasons make them a poor metric as an assessment of seasonal ‘team performance’, and trying to pass them off as a good ranking system for discrete seasons is a Bad Idea.

...---...

5. Easy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

Last but not least, we must consider how alliance plays a big part in terms of the castles teams have the ability to hold. Amongst the 25 teams on the castle ownership-based leaderboard, PaleHorseRider is the only longtime non-Dread Friendly team. (EXITIUM/ theMovement is politically relatively new on the scene, and the ownership of castles involved with them are still shifting, so let’s not talk about them yet)

Before this season, all the teams that were on the top 25 leaderboard were Dread-friendly teams. We can probably thank(?) theMovement for PHR’s move up the ranks.

By virtue of having a stronger alliance behind them, Dread Friendly teams are less likely to lose their castles as it is more risky for opposing teams to make conquer attempts on them. Conversely, it is more attractive for their stronger alliance to go after attractive castles that teams with weaker alliances own. Certainly PG devs could argue that this is intended. But to what extent does PG want heavily influential social factors to play into a team’s individual leaderboard ranking, which one could argue should mainly be a measure of a team’s individual competence, performance, and activity within a season?

Just as PG’s castle ownership-based season scoring system assumes the setting of PG’s ideal Atlas world, is that same ideal Atlas world as heavily influenced and bound down by politics as the reality of the game we actually play is?

...---...

6. Ships of Theseus

If one were to gradually repair a ship and replace every single component of it as time passed, would the ship with all parts replaced still be the same ship? Similarly, if one were to replace members on a team as time wore on, would the team, with a majority of players replaced, still be the same team?

Castles, however, follow teams, not individual players. Would a mostly-replaced team with a wealth of inherited castles truly deserve the seasonal rewards that said castles would grant them, when the goal of each season should arguably be to reward competence, high performance, and high activity in teams?

When you use a castle ownership-based seasonal ranking, how do you differentiate grandfathered advantage from true competence?

You don’t.

You choose a better metric to measure seasonal competence by.

...---...

Data Analysis: Elementary, my Dear Watson

Let’s take a look at the Atlas seasonal team rankings from past seasons.

It’s been the same since the first Atlas season, and these results could have been predicted long before the first season was even announced. You may notice that this ranking also matches the current influence ranking.

I’ve made a point about how the castle ownership-based leaderboard seems like a single season arbitrarily divided and rewarded as many. Arguably, the castle ownership-based leaderboard assumes that gaining and keeping castles = activity, so, as a general guideline, these top teams’ castle holdings should align with their all time troop kills, no?

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ ATK / ATK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 2.21B / 1 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 1.96B / 2 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 1.02B / 19 ]

Clearly these are all top teams who have consistently performed well since the release of Atlas. While I regrettably have no way to obtain the full season’s worth of data on these teams, let’s check out their monthly troop kills.

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 45.7M / 5 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 22.8M / 105 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 33.2M / 32 ]

This is unfortunately less valuable data than the last set. As it’s the last month of the Atlas season, most players on top teams have finished their seasons and wound down their Atlas activity, having most likely finished it within the first month, specifically within the first two weeks of double glory.

(This is actually indicative of another problem within the Atlas season, this one about personal glory- there’s very little incentive to go past 3.6m glory; the atlas chest return on troops is paltry. This is another factor that has discouraged conflict this season- it’s more worth it to save for the next season than make an attempt to change one’s team Atlas ranking by attempting to conquer castles for the reasons provided above.)

While the data comparison above doesn’t really prove anything beyond proof that atlas seasons are really a sham and it’s just all one season arbitrarily chopped up into three-month durations, the following data will hopefully demonstrate how the castle ownership-based season structure fails to reward high-performing high-activity teams for high seasonal activity.

In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] [ ATK / ATK rank ] 22. PaleHorseRider [ 40.0M / 14 ] [ 1.40B / 8 ] 27. RoyalRoad [ 31.4M / 39 ] [ 1.51B / 7 ] 30. ButWeAreBetter [ 39.7M / 15 ] [ 1.71B / 3 ] 46. ProjectGhost [ 33.3M / 31 ] [ 0.56B / 73 ] 71. ANGELSnDEM0NS [ 66.2M / 1 ] [ 1.25B / 10 ] 113. WarEnforcers [ 64.5M / 2 ] [ 1.05B / 18 ] 346. UnitedinHonor [ 32.0M / 35 ] [ 0.46B / 110 ]

The first three entries are the three non-Dread teams with the highest power ranks in the game. One may notice that while they’re well ranked and comparable to LD, Dread, and NeeeeZE both in terms of monthly and all times troops killed (they’re consistent!) their influence ranks are significantly lower than teams higher-ranked than them on the seasonal leaderboard that have killed fewer troops in both areas. Is this truly fair?

As the largest team in Arachnid, ProjectGhost holds their own troop-kill wise and surpasses many teams on the seasonal leaderboard. Their all time kills are lower; they seem to have come into their own niche more recently. Nevertheless, their influence ranks are similarly noticeably poorer than lower-performing Dread Friendly teams. On top of this, the juxtaposition of their ATK vs their MTK highlights how teams can adapt and change and increase their performance seasonally instead of simply maintaining the same standards throughout their Atlas careers.

ANGELSnDEM0NS and WarEnforcers make for an interesting comparative case study. The former is a Sine Nomine team, arguably the crown jewel in the Dread Friendly empire of alliances. The latter is a founding team of the Libertas alliance, a semi-independent anti-Dread alliance. They beat out 70 and 110 higher-influence ranked teams respectively to rank as the top and runner-up in terms of troops killed this month so far. In terms of all time kills, both are ranked higher than a majority of teams occupying the top 25 seasonal leaderboard. Clearly both teams have been demonstrating consistent, long term high-performance atlas activity, and yet both of them are comparatively low on the seasonal leaderboards. It’s also interesting to note the disparity in team influence, which can probably at least be partially attributed to their political allegiances. I can’t definitively speak for why either team never chose to attempt to break into higher ranks, with their activity, but I suspect that their reasons are varied, can probably be derived from my previous points, and will likely culminate in the conclusion that the effort just isn’t worth it.

Finally, UnitedinHonor is personally a fascinating team to me. At rank 346, if the seasonal leaderboard was an accurate judge of a team’s activity, one would expect their performance to be solidly middle-of-the-pack. Instead, they come in at rank 35 on the monthly kills leaderboard and 110 on the all time kills leaderboard, which puts them ahead of certain teams on the seasonal leaderboard itself. This is no small feat for a platinum team with a lower power rank. Additionally, noting the lower comparative ATK, we can make an assumption that this team has come into its own more recently, which would easily explain why they don’t have as many castles- they likely haven’t been prominent for a long enough time to receive gifted castles, as many higher influence-ranked teams have.

Of course, all these specific analyses are pure conjecture. I cannot pretend to understand fully every team’s situation, but I will suggest that these stats shed a light on the veracity of my points. These teams’ individual situations and positions on the seasonal leaderboard can all at least be partially attributed to a few of the points I’ve made in this post.

If PG would be willing to consider using a better metric to measure team competence, performance, and activity next season, I’ll be a happy Cat.

#long post #opinion #catpost #atlas #season rank

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t-baba · 4 years

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A guide to data attributes, plus defining CSS 4

#429 — February 26, 2020

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

Let's Define CSS 4 — It seems whether CSS 4 should be a “thing” is a hot button issue right now, with most of the chatter seemingly around branding it as such for marketing reasons. Here’s Jen Simmons with her take, and the position of the CSS Working Group. This GitHub thread is open to comments from developers and designers for their thoughts.

World Wide Web Consortium

A Complete Guide to Data Attributes — Everything you ever wanted to know about data attributes in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Chris Coyier

2021 Reasons to Use Clubhouse.io — #1 Clubhouse encourages collaboration. #2 Using it isn't a slog. #3 Your team will get more done. #4 It's free for up to 10 users. #5 You know what, we really should have considered character limits when we came up with this idea.

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▶ Making Things Better: Redefining the Technical Possibilities of CSS — In this excellent hour-long talk Rachel Andrew explores what recent advances in CSS layout have given us, what things are on the horizon and how they may change the way we see web design, plus a bit on what she hopes to see in the future.

An Event Apart

oldweb.today: Browse Old Web Pages The Old Way with Virtual Browsers — An impressive browser-based tool that allows you to browse public web archives in a recreation of a legacy browser of your choice.

Rhizome

Web Font of the Week

Crimson Text

Certainly one of the classier options available on Google Fonts. Even if you don't like to use serif fonts for body text, it can add an interesting touch to headlines and sits well alongside neutral sans serifs.

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📙 News, Tutorials & Opinion

Styling The Good Ol' Button Element — A thorough look at the finer details of the button element, plus how to style it to ensure it works great on all browsers.

Ahmad Shadeed

Introducing the Page Visibility API — Modern browers generally handle page visibility stuff on their own nowadays, but you can do a little more with the API, which has excellent browser support.

John Au-Yeung

How to Create a Diagonal Layout with CSS — View an interactive demo of the effect. Uses transforms, pseudo-elements, and custom properties to achieve the layout.

nils binder

▶ UX Tips to Avoid Losing Users' Attention — A look at a variety of design principles for drawing attention, complete with examples (covering both the web and apps), in a 40 minute talk.

Chris Atherton

How to Setup Webpack and Babel 7 for React — If you’ve learned to get a React project up and running using create-react-app, this is a nice detailed tutorial to take that to the next level using two popular tools.

Ismile Hossain

MDN Browser Compatibility Survey — This survey from Mozilla is looking to find out what your pain points are in regards to browser compatibility.

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Google PageSpeed Insights: The Truth About Scoring 100/100

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ImageCon: Great Media Experience for U and I

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Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 101

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🔧 Code, Tools and Resources

Blisk: A Developer-Oriented Browser for Faster App Testing — Has a number of built-in testing features including multiple device views, URL and scroll sync, auto-refresh, screenshots, and screen recorder.

Blisk Team

Paged.js: Formats HTML Content Suitably for Creating PDF Output — I think this project’s site could win an award for sheer elegance, but it’s not just elegant, there’s tons of well formatted documentation too. Or.. if you prefer, the GitHub repo.

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Svelte-grid: A Draggable and Resizable Responsive Grid Layout for Svelte — The on-page demo works really nicely. You can easily resize the elements to fit after dragging them around. It’s basically a customizable masonry layout.

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Axe Pro: Free Accessibility Testing Tool Created for Dev Teams — Unique mix of guided & automated tests. Manage multiple tests, limit the scope of your testing, export results, and more.

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Lion: A Library of Performant, Accessible & Flexible Web Components — From ING, known for their work with components, this is a set of feature-complete web components for kickstarting web projects. Announcement post is here.

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Hex Engine: A Modern 2D Game Engine for the Browser — Still in early development. A TypeScipt- and Canvas-based game engine designed to feel similar to React.

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monica.css — A really tiny set of helper classes to make it easier to work with flexbox layouts.

Monica Dinculescu

🗓 Upcoming Events

ConveyUX, March 3-5 — Seattle, USA — This West Coast user experience conference features over 65 sessions across three days.

FrontCon, April 1-3 — Riga, Latvia — A two-day conference that focuses on front-end concepts and technologies. This year, there will be 23 speakers, 300+ attendees, and four workshops.

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#HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly

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apkrich-blog · 5 years

Text

Boom Beach MOD Apk Download + Free Unlimited Coins + Diamonds

New Post has been published on https://www.apkrich.com/boom-beach-mod-apk-download-free-unlimited-coins-diamonds/

Boom Beach MOD Apk Download + Free Unlimited Coins + Diamonds

Boom Beach Apk mod latest version is a popular Strategy game where you must Fight the evil Blackguard with brains and brawn in this epic combat game. This updated version has unlimited coins, diamonds, everything you want. The offline version is very cool. Just Download this special version and ready to play!

Boom Beach Latest Version Features

You must create a special task Force with players around the world to take on the enemy together. This game has:

1. Strong Opposite:

You’ve to play with millions of other strong players, raid hundreds of enemy bases for loot. All the players have a strong base, guns, etc.

2. Control your Upgrade:

The battle for control of precious resources to upgrade your base against enemy attacks and save your kingdom.

3. Blackguard Bosses and evil plans:

This game has face fearsome Blackguard Bosses and uncovers their evil plans. So you can Explore a huge tropical archipelago and discover the mysterious power of the Life Crystals.

Here are some user reviews:

ooka *: so much fun!! great game for when you have some time on your hands! easy to learn, and the strategy of this game is incredible as you can target your troops to attack any building you want, or you could send a barrage of missiles at that building! the only thing I dislike is having one builder, and having to pay monthly for another one. overall good game😀.

John Imber: Great game, on it for 4 years! After maxing, starts to get a little boring. In an out of TF groups because players start losing interest in the overall game. I occasionally have spent $ on instant troops and have bought diamonds a couple of times over the years, glad to support an awesome game. Raising the level cap would be the best choice IMO, WS addition takes way too long to train troops and really isn’t that much fun because of that. I play and spend more when it’s fun.

Isaac Vidal: This review is honestly to let you guys know what’s going on (Boom beach Devs). I love the game but this is to let you guys know that I’ve been experiencing this bug on the new warships update. It’s saying that to refill my warriors and tanks it will take 416 days and the so on hours minutes and seconds. This is denying me of pushing when I run out of reserves on my other troops and it’s a weird bug. Other than that the game is fantastic.

boxing76ful: Experience, is great BUT on the Warship part it has been twice that I finished FIRST, But the enemy gets it, he got the Victory, but when I destroyed the last Engine I’m seeing it gone then his side, it has happened to me twice in the last 24hrs😠. Staff can yall tell me what’s going on???

Baby Girl: I love this game! but the Battleship we will lose a fight when we actually won. if there is another way the winner is determined then plz we want to see. if this is fixed I will change to 5 stars. love this game so I hope yall can fix it.

Daniel Hyman: I absolutely love the warships update. except for the abundance of bugs not only in warships but the main too. none are as irritating as the timer not working on the chests, especially when they are your main source of upgrade tokens besides ranking up. My next major issue is that your progress this bug ridden season will affect you in the next. Don’t get me started on the cheaters who have magically completed the tech tree when i remember being told that most likely you won’t reach the end.

dapsapsrp: I’ve been playing Boom Beach for about 3 plus years now and liked it, for the most part, play it daily and until recently found it interesting. The warship feature is a disappointment for several reasons. Also, I’m prompted to update more than once which is a time-consuming pain. The game is getting stale and I understand why so many others are giving up on it.

Will Chewning: Well done boom beach developers. All you managed to do in this one shot at reviving the game was an attempt to push that instant troop subscription on us. No one wants to wait for 40 some minutes to start another battle on the warships. Really anticlimactic when the game is dying out and we’re forced to choose between long wait times or expensive subscriptions.

orion olson: I like boom beach. I’ve played it on and off for a couple of years. but the new warships update is fun(broken but fun) I think its a better change in pace for the game. yet the hooka and bombing engines strat is too strong it makes games only take 45 seconds to a min. plus for some dumb reason, you are limited to how strong you can get by the level of your normal base. so I’m stuck at a point with no new unlocks and close to 300 unlock tokens. fix these 2 problems to make it a better game.

Destroy HD: I’m very happy with this game. Usually, I really hate Supercell games like Clash Of Clans and Brawl Stars and will ignore them. But when I saw this on Play Store, it really caught my eye. I’m having so much fun. But I only wished that more gems could be found in chests.

Randy Bren: Have been playing BB for 5 years and love it. However, with the Warships update, it is saying it will take 414 days to train troops. this is in one of 3 bases I have, with the other two working properly, so it is not an issue with the app, but only one ID. Any ideas?

Josh Zuppo: really like the game especially now that if my phone breaks I can still have my game saved and upload to a new phone. I have had 2 of my other phones in the few years that I have been playing this game and before I would have to start back from level 1 …. not anymore. also really like how new weapons are always being created and the game its self is always getting better . the creators did a great job.

Natures Calling: Been playing BB for five years and now that they brought in this warship to the mix, it actually made me want to STOP playing even BB all together. make these games fair play for all players. watch how much real money you spent with these folks because the 500 plus I spent DID NOT GET ME ANY FURTHER IN THIS GAME.

Craig Clement: I really enjoy this game. The only one that is on my phone. I especially enjoy the new Warships mode. Great update! Keep up the good work. Only thing I noticed is lag occasionally on a victory even when the enemy has retreated, been defeated, or I beat them on time. Never lost any victory loot so I’m still good.

Marcus Brooks: I love the new ship battle addition to the game only problem I have is I win the first five matches level up everything like I’m supposed to and then can’t win nothing have lost the last 15 in a row for no apparent reason and I’m stronger than at least half of those.

Earl D Spicer: I love boom beach, I’ve been playing for 3 yrs now. I think this ship battle new update is stupid and not thought out. I wish I could remove it from my game.

Daniel Cronk: The game is fun I wish clash of clans had the same features such as directing your army with flares.. but sometimes when u direct them they go glitchy and run through what you try to escape but other than that I wish there was the revenge feature for someone who attacks you. I personally haven’t found it if there is I would like to know how to find and use it.

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williamsjoan · 5 years

Text

Ten pieces of friendly VC advice for when someone wants to buy your company

David Frankel Contributor

David Frankel is a managing partner at Founder Collective.

More posts by this contributor

Startups should read this checklist before they go ‘whale hunting’ for big partners

You earn a million dollars a year and can’t get funded?

1. Understand the motivations of your acquirer.

2. Don’t “Test the waters.” Pass, or fully commit.

3. Manage your team.

As soon as you attract interest from an acquirer, start socializing the idea that most M&A deals fall apart — because they do. This is important for two reasons.

4. Raise enough money to stay flush for a year.

5. Hire a banker.

6. Find a second bidder… and a third… and a fourth.

The hardest bit of advice is also the most valuable. Get a second bidder ASAP. It’s Negotiation 101, but without a credible threat of a competitive bid, it is all too easy to be dragged along.

7. Start building your data room.

8. Keep your board close, your tiny investors far away.

Loose lips sink startups.

9. Use leaks when they inevitably happen.

10. Expect sudden radio silence.

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

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symbianosgames · 7 years

Link

Street Fighter 2 is one of the only games that truly deserve to be called "genre-defining" -- today, 25 years after SF2's release, we can see that practically every fighting game out there has adopted its core game design principles as industry-standard gospel, with only a few tweaks here and there to stand out from the crowd.

If you're the average consumer or dev, or even if you're an experienced fighting game competitor, you probably aren't all that familiar with all the games that have tried to make major changes to the fighting game template.

So, in celebration of SF2's 25th anniversary, I'm going to walk through some of the fascinating deviations and beautiful experiments that fighting game devs took to try and change SF2's fighting game formula. Studying these games may inspire you in your own designs, or may suggest ways to tinker with the paradigm you're currently wokring within.

I'm going to try to avoid the other well-known franchises (if you know Street Fighter, you probably also know Mortal Kombat and Tekken) and focus on the weird stuff... for education's sake!

A quick note about me: I've written a (free) book that teaches fighting game fundamentals using Street Fighter, as well as educational fighting game streams and videos, and I'm the community manager for a free-to-play PC fighting game currently in public technical alpha called Rising Thunder. You might also like my previous Gamasutra article, Street Fighter for Designers: Top 8 Lessons from Evo 2015.

Asuka 120% Burning Fest (Fill-in Cafe, 1994): Clash system and simplified inputs

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SF2 may have set the foundations for the 2D fighter genre, but there are several notable games that have poked and prodded at some of the genre's conventions while keeping a similar format.

Shoutouts to ex-Game Developer magazine editor-in-chief Brandon Sheffield for introducing me to Asuka 120% Burning Fest, a Japanese 2D fighter from the post-SF2 boom. Not only did it swap the standard martial-artists-from-around-the-world fighter cast with high school girls representing their various club activities (including the chemistry and biology clubs), but it also made two notable system changes.

One was the "clash system": in SF2, if two attacks collide simultaneously, both players take damage and go into hitstun, but in Asuka 120%, both characters will just go on into the next hit-phase of the move. The second was a significantly simplified input system -- pretty much everyone has the same special move codes, meaning that if you could perform one character's moves, you could perform all of them.

Combined, both systems made for a fascinating permutation of the SF2 standard. With the clash system, the number of hits in a move are relevant for determining who wins a clash -- and since the window to cancel a move into another move is fairly lax, players can clash across entire combo routes before one of them wins out and takes damage. All told, Asuka 120% does a lot with these relatively simple system tweaks to make a traditional 2D fighting game more accessible and less intimidating without feeling like a lesser SF2. The developers of Asuka 120% Burning Fest eventually went to Treasure, where they reused some of the core concepts in their fighting games.

Weaponlord (Visual Concepts, 1995): An online fighting game in '95

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Others have done good work unearthing Weaponlord's history as an interesting-but-ill-timed attempt by early American fighting game devs to challenge SF2's success, so if you want to know the whole story, check out the GameSpy interview with James Goddard and Dave Winstead, GameSpot's Forging Weaponlord, and the Hardcore Gaming 101 writeup.

From a modern game design perspective, the most notable contribution Weaponlord made to fighting games the active defense system called the "thrust block" -- a versatile parry that served as a high-risk, high-reward defensive option. This a relatively new innovation for the time, but more interesting to contemporary devs is this tidbit from the GameSpot interview with James Goddard, where he mentions that the thrust block was designed with zero-frame startup specifically as a concession to online play via the XBAND dialup peripheral.

That's right: A Super Nintendo game in 1995 was designed around internet play. Personally, as someone currently working on a fighting game built around online multiplayer over broadband, I can't imagine designing a 2D fighting game for ~250ms travel times, yet there they were, handling sync timing and tweaking frame data to make the game playable over a modem. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that Goddard is currently design director on Killer Instinct for Microsoft, a game which has been lauded in core fighting game circles for having better-than-average netcode.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Capcom, 2000): The best team fighter

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Capcom had found plenty of success doing crossover fighting games during the late '90s, as their concurrent work on Street Fighter Alpha, Darkstalkers, and various licensed Marvel fighting games gave them plenty of readily reusable assets to keep the games coming. This peaked with Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, a three-on-three tag match slugfest so chaotic that even genre veterans could barely parse what is happening on screen at any given time.

Capcom's earlier crossover games (X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel vs. Capcom) had treated tag-team two-on-twos much like a similar pro wrestling match: You had one character on the field responding to your controls, and certain moves would allow you to tag them in, summon them for a brief assist attack, or perform a joint hyper combo together. MvC2 largely kept the same basic structure, but the addition of a third team member shifted the emphasis toward developing teams that synergized effectively between the three.

The ideal MvC2 team must take into account how well any given character can use the other two assists; how much super meter the team needs to build for each character to do its job, and how long it'll take to generate that meter before the opponent does; how well the team can recover from opponent-inflicted forced tag-outs (called "snapbacks"); and several other factors before even considering how effective the player is at controlling any of their characters individually.

It's a strange testament to MvC2's design that even though competitive play revolves around roughly 1/5th of the 56-character cast, the dozens of permutations available with just those characters are enough to have kept the game interesting for over a decade. The net effect is that MvC2, by virtue of its three-on-three format, has gotten the closest out of any fighting game to a compelling competitive 'build-your-own-character' mode.

Guilty Gear (Arc System Works, 1998): The 2D fighter for people who love 2D fighters

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As Guilty Gear is still very much alive and kicking, I'll keep this brief. With GG and its sister series BlazBlue, Arc System Works has forgotten more about traditional 2D fighting games than most studios will ever begin to explore. Each GG character is practically its own fighting game at this point, often with resources and mechanics that exist only for that specific character -- and they're bound together by a set of core shared systems and mechanics that would be enough to populate five Street Fighters. If you're ever trying to design a character for pretty much anything, it's worth your time to dig through the GG library, because ASW probably did something like that way before you did.

Highlights include: Bridget, a young boy dressed as a nun who fights with a yo-yo that must be carefully placed and moved across the screen; Zato-1, a blind assassin who fights by summoning his shadow (which responds to the player's joystick inputs and button releases, meaning the player must simultaneously handle two characters with one controller, and time their button presses and releases appropriately); Venom, another assassin who lays pool balls across the screen to create intricate setups off their chain collisions; and most recently, Jack-O, whose minion-summoning mechanics draw more from a MOBA than a fighting game.

Bushido Blade (Light Weight, 1997): Real-enough samurai duels

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One frequent criticism of traditional fighting games is that they don't look or feel like a real fight does, leading a handful of developers to build games aiming for a more realistic experience without getting into the sporty nature of a Fight Night or UFC game.

When I put the call out on Twitter for suggestions for this list, Bushido Blade was hands-down the most frequent response. Instead of street fighting, Bushido Blade aimed to recreate the thrill of a samurai duel by breaking out from the 2D plane into free-roaming 3D environments and designing a realistic damage system; you could block or parry, but if you ate a clean hit it was either going to injure a limb or kill you outright.

When most fighting games were going for more systems, more characters, more stylized graphics, more combos, and generally digging itself deeper in a hole of genre esoterica, Bushido Blade felt simple and clean. Interestingly enough, its legacy is best felt not in any major triple-A fighting game, but in indie games Nidhogg and Divekick.

Fighters Destiny (Genki, 1998): Point-sparring in a fighting game

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Of all the core design elements to mess with, Fighters Destiny arguably picked the most-core element to change. Rather than determine a victor using health bars, Fighters Destiny implemented a point system inspired somewhat by competitive karate, where players would fight until one scored a point by inflicting a ring out, knockdown, or other specific conditions, at which point the action would reset and the fight would resume.

Fighters Destiny certainly didn't leave any lasting impacts on the genre overall, but it's certainly an experiment worth considering further. Contemporary fighting games built around life meters and the best-two-of-three rounds system make it easy to snowball early advantages into a victory, because players have to earn a mid-round reset by doing something to get the opponent off their back and into a neutral state, at which point the defending player is forced to play aggressively and make bigger bets to win the round from a life deficit. With the point sparring model, you get to emphasize the players' jousting for superiority from a neutral state over their ability to snowball a small advantage into a bigger one, leading to more exciting matches for competitors and spectators alike.

Buriki One: World Grapple Tournament '99 in Tokyo (SNK, 1999): 2D MMA

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Buriki One is a curious one. Where SNK's core lay in their 2D fighter pantheon (King of Fighters and Fatal Fury, among others), Buriki One was an attempt to tie the outlandish characters of a typical fighting game into a game that felt more like Pride, the Japanese mixed martial arts event promotion that swept the country in the late '90s and early 2000s. (Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting actually shows up as a playable character!)

What we end up with in Buriki One is a game that looks like a sports-fighting game, like any pro wrestling, boxing, or MMA game, but plays on a 2D plane. Part of this change entailed swapping the attack controls to the joystick (up for a heavy, slow attack, down for a quick, light attack, and toward for a medium attack) and the movement controls to two buttons that move your fighter left or right.

Given the realistic setting, this actually makes a certain amount of sense, especially if you think of Buriki One as an attempt to convert Pride fans to fighting games. If your goal is to simplify a core fighting game experience, it makes sense to try focusing less on the importance of positioning in a 2D plane, which is often hard for new players to learn and understand, and more on interactions between the different attacks.

Virtua Fighter (Sega, 1993): Welcome to the third dimension...kind of

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Bringing fighting games to the third dimension is not a trivial task, particularly because the established genre conventions call for the arcade-standard eight-way joystick and buttons to be used for both inputting move codes and navigating space. Once you've solved those problems, though, you still kind of need to figure out how to use the third dimension to, well, add depth to the actual fighting experience.

Sega's Virtua Fighter was the first fighting game to try 3D -- though when it comes to the actual gameplay, the devs kept it to fighting in a 2D plane until Virtua Fighter 3 introduced the sidestep mechanic to the series. VF's biggest contribution to the genre was arguably designing movesets around three buttons (punch, kick, and block) and a simpler set of motions -- usually combinations of single-direction inputs and button presses, often used in preset chains.

This made learning a character's moveset less about complicated joystick execution and more about memorizing a wider set of context-specific moves, which later turned out to be useful for freeing up the joystick so players could use it to more easily navigate a 3D space. Also, Virtua Fighter added ring-outs as another win condition; knocking your opponent off the platform immediately wins you the round.

Battle Arena Toshinden (Tamsoft, 1995): Sidestepping

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Battle Arena Toshinden was another one of the early 3D fighting games -- and that's usually the main thing people remember it for. However, it is generally recognized as the first fighting game to work in all three dimensions via the sidestep mechanic, where players can use the L and R shoulder buttons to dodge projectiles without sacrificing position. Most 3D fighting games now use different permutations of a sidestep, though DreamFactory's Tobal No. 1 was notable for using more of a free-roam style navigation system.

Soul Calibur (Namco, 1999): Full movement with eight-way run

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Namco had made a splash in 3D fighting games with both Tekken and Soul Edge, but the difference between the two games was mostly thematic (contemporary martial arts vs. fantasy weapon fighting) until its sequel Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur was arguably one of the first games to truly embrace all three dimensions; in addition to the simple sidestep, many attacks often included Z-axis movement as part of the animation, and players could actually shift into an eight-way-run movement stance that gave you access to a different subset of moves. The end result was that Soul Calibur felt like an excellent compromise between the samurai fantasy of Bushido Blade's free-roaming duels and a traditional fighting game.

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On (Sega, 1995): Mobility in sustained projectile fights

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When we look back at the fighting game canon, one thing stands out about SF2 and its numerous sequels: Projectile attacks are very, very important. Indeed, most of the subsequent Street Fighter series are largely defined by the systems they implement in order to avoid non-stop douken-fests. However, many later games decided to double down on projectiles, space control, and precision movement as the focal point of a one-on-one duel while feeling closer in spirit to a classic fighting game than, say, a first-person shooter.

At first glance, Virtual-On doesn't look like it has much in common with a classic fighting game; yes, it is one-on-one and uses health meters, but it's about robots dashing around in an arena blowing each other up, not people punching each other in the face. Spend some time with any of the Virtual-On games, though, and you'll find that it fits in far better with fighting games than any other genre. It doesn't emphasize aiming or weapon selection enough to feel like a shooter, nor is it about tactical positioning and attrition like a typical mech or tank sim.

Instead, the game is about attacking to force your opponent to dodge by dashing or jumping, then punishing your opponent for dashing or jumping while they're trying to counter attack and force you to move. When it comes down to it, Virtual-On is basically the Ryu fireball/Dragon Punch trap expanded into a 3D robot dueling game.

Touhou Suimusou: Immaterial and Missing Power (Tasogare Frontier / Team Shanghai Alice, 2004): Bullet hell 2D fighter

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In 2004, Japanese doujin devs took bullet hell series Touhou into 2D fighter-land with Touhou Suimusou: Immaterial and Missing Power (commonly abbreviated as IaMP). While the game appears to resemble any other anime-styled fighting game, it's actually built largely around projectile attacks (hence the bullet hell roots) and the "graze" mechanic, where most projectiles can be dashed through -- meaning that the traditional attack-block-throw triangle in fighting games is instead largely replaced by ranged attacks, mobility, and physical attacks.

Senko no Ronde (G.rev, 2005): Even more bullet-hell than IaMP

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If IaMP and Virtual-On gently push projectile combat to the center of the game, Senko no Ronde goes full-on bullet hell, complete with a change in perspective to a flat top-down 2D plane and the ability to temporarily transform your robot fighter into a giant boss form. The combat mechanics draw from a similar pool as Virtual-On, as well -- it's largely about using projectiles to force movement to open up more opportunities for damage.

It's worth noting that lots of other games have played in this space, to varying degrees: Taito's Psychic Force, Sunsoft's Astra Superstars, the Dragon Ball Z games by Dimps, and the Naruto: Clash of Ninja games by Eighting are some of the more notable examples.

Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Makyou Touitsusen (Treasure, 1994): Four players, two layers

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One-on-one is great, but what happens when we try to add more players to the party? These games open up the action to more players, which introduces control challenges, since you no longer can rely on the opponent-relative movement scheme that traditional fighting games use.

Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Makyou Touitsusen was another one of those Treasure games that was way better than anyone ever expects from licensed anime games -- unfortunately, since Yuu Yuu Hakusho didn't have a whole lot of clout in the U.S. at the time, we never got it here. The game was built around two-to-four-player combat, which they pulled off by borrowing Fatal Fury's two-layer stage design -- players can hop between a foreground plane and a background plane. Of course, this gets a bit tricky if you're working in the SF2 template.

Since Yuu Yuu Hakusho was designed for the Genesis, Treasure had to build a compelling fighting game around a three-button controller (which was more than Capcom was able to do; the Street Fighter II: Championship Edition release on the Genesis was meant to use a special six-button controller, and if you had a three-button controller you had to press the Start button to alternate between punches and kicks). They started by opening up the movement system so you could freely look in either direction, and simplified the input codes to only use down and forward in special moves, meaning that players didn't have to worry about facing the wrong direction in the process of executing a special move. Also, the three buttons were mapped to Light Attack, Heavy Attack, and Guard -- after all, SF2's hold-back-to-block system doesn't really make sense if you have an opponent on both sides of you.

The end result is a game that feels much better than you'd expect a four-player SF2 to feel. Fortunately, it wasn't just a one-off; the core design work was later recalled in Treasure's Bleach DS games, which are also excellent and worth checking out.

Super Smash Brothers (HAL Laboratory, 1999): A platforming fighting game

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In 2016, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tournaments are routinely topping the Twitch stream charts, so it can be easy to forget that Smash's status as a fighting game was contested for a long, long time. After all, changing the static 2D box arena out for levels that feel more like the original Mario Bros. and losing the health bars for the damage percentage mechanic essentially pull out two design elements so core to fighting games most players never even thought to question them.

It's fair to say that the standard four-player party mode, with items aplenty and stages that kill you rather often, don't really feel consistent or rigorous enough to encourage players to play it competitively. That's why the truly defining innovation in Smash isn't the levels, or the movement, or the simplified controls -- it's the way the team created a play space that is rich enough to sustain both party play and serious competition, and made the options available for the players to determine for themselves what they want out of it. Honestly, Smash wasn't a fighting game until the players made it a fighting game.

Power Stone (Capcom, 1999): Like Smash in 3D

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I'd be remiss in including Smash in this list and not also giving Capcom's Power Stone a shoutout; it was another party fighting game with items, engaging levels, and simplified inputs, but unlike Smash, it featured a free-roaming 3D arena. While it's certainly fun to hop around the various levels beating up your buddies, the tradeoff to free-roaming 3D in a party fighter is that the devs relied on a rather high level of auto-targeting in the attacks, which kind of diluted the player's feeling of mastery after a certain point.

Rakugaki Showtime (Treasure, 1999): If dodgeball was a fighting game

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Shoutouts to Ian Adams for pointing me in the direction of an interesting, obscure contender for the party fighter throne: Rakugaki Showtime, by Treasure. Like Power Stone, it takes place in an open 3D arena, but the combat is built more around projectiles, leading to a game that feels like dodgeball without the center dividing line. Play it to admire the scribbly, sketchy aesthetic and see how Treasure used targeting lines to visualize aiming projectiles in a 3D space.

***

Patrick Miller is a writer, fighter, and community manager for Rising Thunder. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube. Or just sign up for his monthly mailing list.

Special thanks to Brandon Sheffield, Ian Adams, Andres Velasco y Coll, Bellreisa, Chris Pruett, Luis Garcia, and everyone else who suggested not-SF2 fighting games. Also, shoutouts to the poverty FGC for keeping this knowledge alive and kicking.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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askagamedev · 5 years

Text

What does it mean to be junior, mid-level, or senior?

I crowdsourced today’s post with this question to devs on this [twitter thread] and on [discord], and I got some pretty good responses. Some were more broad, some were pithy, and some were concise. The entire thread is worth a read, but here are some selected takes from the thread:

QA:

In the context of QA and responsibility though I'd probably be:

Junior: Largely executing testing delegated towards you

Mid: Have specific ownerships and areas of responsibility that you drive test strategy for

Senior: Considered an authority on probably several systems.

Designer:

As a content designer, I think the short answer is the difference is in trust and scope.

A junior level designer can be trusted to implement content for a small section of the game, with oversight from a mid or senior. Let's say a dungeon's boss or bosses.

A mid-level can be trusted to implement content for a larger section and probably just needs a brief sanity check/review with a senior or their peers to make sure they're not doing anything too crazy. They'd be responsible for making an entire dungeon, including theming, the monsters, the bosses, etc.

Senior I think falls into two sub-categories. You've got the person that you can lock up in the west tower with a feature and know that they'll knock it out of the park. They pioneer/prototype new features, large-scale design decisions, etc. You've also got the one who does more of the producery/wrangling stuff. This person would be in charge of overseeing large chunks of the game and making sure that they're all adhering to the core pillars, following best practices, hitting all the right checkboxes, etc. As an example, the senior would be in charge of all the dungeons

Designer:

A junior designer does what he’s told but you have to check the results. A designer makes problems you give him go away. A senior designer makes problems you didn’t know you had go away.

Programmer:

Programmer. I’ve heard from a (good) manager that, junior is a - sign (you take productivity away from someone), mid is a + sign (you produce more than what you take away from others), and senior you’re a x sign (you make everyone around you more productive).

Programmer:

Junior: - Able to code in some fashion - Willing/able to learn - Work on well defined tasks with mentoring to provide guidance/knowledge

Mid-level: - Able to handle defined projects/tasks - Self-reliant, able to produce trusted results - Starts to get involved in design/architecture

Senior: - Experience in proper design/architecture to guide projects - Is a resource for other developers - Able to handle most difficult tasks (technology/logic/etc)

Programmer:

Junior: Mostly asks questions

Mid: Split between asking and answering questions

Senior: Mostly answers questions.

Artist:

Junior artist: has zero context on what to expect in the pipeline, tasked with low priority assets, like floor tiles

Mid-level artist: can be trusted with some responsibility, has an idea of how things work, CRUNCH

Senior level artist: numbed by their experiences, dead inside 0

lead artist: takes care of the babby artists and shows them the ropes to prepare them for the ritual known as CRUNCHING

art director: sort of like the lead artist except they are the tanks trying to keep the team away from the deluge of to do lists

freelance artist: doesn't matter what professional experience, constantly in survival mode, on fire, varying degrees of being able to interact with people, will melt in the sun.

Animator:

Junior: not autonomous, needs mentoring and to be shown the rope.

Mid: semi autonomous, still needs mentoring but grasping and applying more complex things at work.

Senior: Fully autonomous, can mentor, high work standard, feature owners. oversimplification 101

Basically, your peripheral vision of the project gets wider. As a junior you're in your own bubble, as a lead/principal you are looking at everything.

VFX:

VFX. It's a young discipline with a broad variety of expertise. Junior: up to 3 years Mid-Level: 3-5 years Senior: 5+ years But honestly, as our field changes, so do my opinions. Our toolset/technologies expand every day. My definitions should expand beyond years of experience.

[Join us on Discord]

The FANTa Project is currently on hiatus while I am crunching at work too busy.

[What is the FANTa project?] [Git the FANTa Project]

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

#junior vs senior #Working in the game industry #collected knowledge

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t-baba · 4 years

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A frontend performance checklist for 2020

#422 — January 8, 2020

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

👋 Hey, it's good to be back in your inbox with the very first Frontend Focus of the new year. After the holiday break, we're back on our regular schedule, so you can expect this digest each and every Wednesday.

As it's the new year, here's a little PSA to kick things off: don't forget to update the copyright year in your footer. 😅

If you missed our last issue of 2019, it took a look back at some of the highlights of the past twelve months in all things HTML, CSS and browsers — that roundup is now available on the web, and you can find it here.

Finally, I just wanted to extend a thanks once again for reading this newsletter. If you've ever got any comments or links you want to share, just hit reply.

— Chris Brandrick

Front-End Performance Checklist 2020 — This superb, detailed, front-end performance checklist has been updated once again for 2020 — it’s filled with everything you need to consider for creating fast web experiences. Available as a PDF or as an Apple Pages/MS Word document.

Smashing Magazine

Firefox 72 — Our First Song of 2020 — Version 72 of Firefox is out now, introducing various DevTools improvements, support for CSS features such as the motion path spec, and a number of JavaScript and WebAPI updates.

Chris Mills (Mozilla)

New: Our 'Most Loved' JavaScript Course 🧡 Gets Updated — Take your JavaScript to the next level. Gain an understanding of callbacks, higher order functions, closure, asynchronous and object-oriented JavaScript.

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Relearn CSS Layout with 'Every Layout' — A growing resource to help you learn (or relearn) CSS layout, using simple components (primitives) and a compositional approach. More layouts have been added since the last time we posted it.

Heydon Pickering & Andy Bell

▶ Why Are There Four Firefoxes? — Jen Simmons runs through the differences between the regular, Beta, Nightly and Developer versions of Mozilla’s browser, and explains how they can offer devs an insight into what features are coming down the line.

Mozilla Developer

Understanding CSS Grid: Creating A Grid Container — A new series breaking down the CSS Grid Layout spec. This first entry is a detailed look at what happens when you create a grid container and the various properties that can be applied to the container to shape your grid.

Rachel Andrew

Microbrowsers Are Everywhere — Gets into the minutia of microbrowsers - the small previews of your site that are pervasive all around the web, search and through social media apps (like a link preview in a messaging app), and how best to treat them.

Colin Bendell

💻 Jobs

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📙 Articles, Tutorials & Opinion

Raw WebGL: An Illustrated Guide to Starting with WebGL — A well presented tutorial on getting started with WebGL, what key data structures you need, and what each of the main elements (of which there are quite a few when it comes to WebGL!) are and do.

Alain Galvan

Multi-Line Ellipsis Is Now Possible in CSS — You can now make use of the -webkit-line-clamp property in most browsers.

Josh Comeau on Twitter

Google Chrome to Hide Notification Spam Starting February — Chrome 80, scheduled for release next month, will block notification popups by default.

Catalin Cimpanu

Right-to-Left Styling 101 — Over 290 million people worldwide speak Arabic. Here’s an extensive guide on just how you can build your sites to support both left-to-right and right-to-left reading styles in CSS.

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How to Create Printer-Friendly Pages with CSS — We’ve linked to this before, but it’s been updated for 2020 with the latest best practices.

Craig Buckler

Chrome to Show Error Codes, Similar to Windows BSOD Screens — The codes (currently being tested in Chrome v81) are intended to make debugging crashes easier.

Catalin Cimpanu

Getting Started with Web Performance — If you’re looking to explore how to go about tightening up your sites performance for the new year, this is a good place to start for grasping the basics.

Karolina Szczur beginner

Self-Hosting Third-Party Resources: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Anthony Barré

Adding Dynamic And Async Functionality To JAMstack Sites

Jason Lengstorf

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Using Easing for More Than Just CSS Transitions

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Seven Chrome APIs You Should Know

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🔧 Code, Tools and Resources

VoxelSpace: A Terrain Rendering Algorithm — A performant, lightweight (less than 20 lines of code) terrain rendering algorithm that fans of 90s flight sim Comanche will no doubt get a kick out of. Demo here.

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A-Frame 1.0 Released: Framework for Building VR Experiences — A-Frame handles the 3D and WebVR boilerplate required to get running across numerous platforms quickly. Version 1 boasts full WebXR support.

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Optimizilla: Online Image Сompressor — This tool claims to be the “ultimate image optimizer” for compressing JPEG and PNG images down to their minimum possible size.

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CSS Diner — This is a neat little browser based game that teaches you what you need to know about CSS Selectors.

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#HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly

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