wah wa wah wah wahh

interesting bit:

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

wah wa wah wah wahh wah wa wah wah wahh wah wa wah wah wahh. wah wa wah wah wahh………………..

OK, lets break it down so the dung beetles can carry it away easier.

‘Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.’

1. ‘many instances‘, this means that the iPhone 4 has been released in a number of different models, using different code… something that should be reflected in any kind of version output on the device or the serial number or some other way of identifing it. If the device cannot output different version/model numbers, then it can in effect, never be updated with software fixes… So apple could in theory, release a list containing the affected versions of the device, if there are indeed, different versions.

2. ‘Our formula,…, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should‘, errrr. Isnt that the point of a fomula, its a constant, more a set of rules for working out any given number of results by applying the same rules to the input values. Either thats bollocks, or your trilby wearing iDevelopers are shit at math.

Try again apple, we aint eating your gone off fruit and stop treating your customer base like iDiots.

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One other thing that really got on my tits was how the reporter was attacking the local police force for not being able to catch Bird. It is pretty apparant that as a taxi driver, Bird would have known the local roads better than almost anyone. The poor police officer was stumbling to explain why an unarmed lone officer (who probebly had no more than a stab proof vest) did not give chase or try to arrest a man who was known to be armed and killing at apparent random, outragous.

Stop sensationalising this stuff and give our police force a break!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm

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Just as long as its using one of your Apps that begin with the letter ‘I’ eh steve….

Hopefully, this randomly selected picture below will summarise things without entering into some kind of slanderous situation…

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1. Stone Temple Pilot – core
2. The Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream

Discuss

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-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-

www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

>>>
(Venus, Florida- May 12rd, 2010) On the Gulf Coast of the United States the shock is now setting in for millions of American citizens as we now realize the true extent of the damage caused by our desire for obsolete and dangerous fossil fuels, and our perpetuation of an outdated monetary world society, where the bottom line has always been profit at all costs, be it human or environmental. It is time for a viable solution to deal with a system hardwired for self destruction.

It is with that very unfortunate introduction that we, The Zeitgeist Movement, now must enter the international conversation to express the need for true change. That word is not some jingoist slogan devised by a focus group, but the evident desire of the public for a meaningful transition out of the destructive legacy, the burden of our past mistakes as a maturing civilization. We only have one Earth; there is no reset button here.

We must break out of our established ideologies that have prevented progress. Ending the political duality, economic stratification and false divisions is key to overcoming our apparent historical bondage that says the future we were promised must remain an elusive dream. We must now rethink our society and outgrow those parts of it that serve to paralyze us.

As of Friday, April 30th it was reported by CBS News (US) that the spill had spread to cover 2,100 square miles and was still spilling at a rate up to 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day. As of today, there has been no progress in stopping this catastrophe. This did not have to happen. It happened because we continue to use an obsolete technology for the sake of maintaining a profitable establishment. An establishment that perpetuates vast inequality in its wages to its employees versus its core owners, destroys fragile and vital eco-systems, and pollutes our air.

It is time for real change, not empty promises. No amount of socialism or free market ideology will save us from ourselves, there needs to be a fundamental re-write of what we think we know, to achieve a sustainable human enterprise.

Our generation has stood and watched as our planet has been raped and pillaged, yet we do nothing. Our generation has stood and watched as our government bailed out the very people who created this economic crisis, yet we do nothing. Our generation has stood and watched as our rights have been stripped away from us, and yet we do nothing. Our generation has stood and watched as we have been handed the problems of the countless generations before it, and we are preparing to do the same to the next generation, and we do nothing.

Let us be the first generation to hand solutions to our children and our children’s children. But we can’t do it alone. Let us break down the barriers we have created amongst ourselves. We need all of you, every last one, to say enough is enough in one voice. Not as Americans or Russians, Christians or Muslims, but as fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. Let us destroy the lines between us and work to create a world where our children are truly safe and free. Let us create a world where we can tell our children that they can be and do whatever their heart desires, and know deep inside us we are telling them the truth. Let our generation be the one.

We have the tools, we have the knowledge, we have the technology. It is time we make the transition to a world, an economy, and a future we all deserve regardless of geographic location or economic disposition. As long as we rely on legacy systems defined in a 19th century mentality all we will do is spin our wheels while a parade of economic and ecologic disasters visits us again and again. It is time to pull the plug on this charade because as you will find out, there is a better way.

We, the Zeitgeist Movement representatives, reach out to you so that we can all work together to do what must be done. Every man, woman and child has a voice, but together we can create one voice so deafening that no one will have a choice but to listen. But it requires you. It requires you put away preconceived notions you have been told about “the way things are” as if it is the only way, because it’s not! Our way of thinking will no longer sustain us. We can either remain in the house of cards we have built and watch it collapse all around us, or we can, through the best our society has to offer, begin to construct a stable mature and thriving society so that the Gulf Coast Oil Spill, the Exxon Valdez and many others are nothing more then an embarrassing footnote in history.

The choice is yours.
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

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Who really, honestly cares if you just spent 30 minutes trying to get into the office, or if you saw some famous person while travelling to work on the peasant wagon…

Get a life, read some books or something, but dont pollute the internet with your short, snappy, dynamic twoddle…

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Note that what you download is far from what you would call a game, its just a collection of graphics and a ship you can zoom around the play area. My development version allows you to change the ship you fly and the weapons it has with a couple of variables, this demo does not allow for that, instead you are stuck with a small fast ship armed with a couple of shotgun type weapons. I do have working machine guns and missile salvo’s that follow the mouse and detonate after a preset period or when an object is hit.

I have decided to re-assess where I want to go with this game and how to get back into development. Its been some time since I did anything due to time constraints and lack of energy. I have been rethinking how I would like this game to work. As soon as I get my mojo back I will get back into development.

Download it here.

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Editorial: The Modern Warfare 2 controversy

I personally think that everyone involved in censorship should hurry up and die so that people who actually understand the modern world and media formats can start to make informed and accurate censorship and rating systems.

Games are no more the devils bible that books, films, porn and music.

Music isnt censored or even rated, nor are books. A small child can walk into a shop and pick up a book about a serial killer, about rapists, dictators, nazi’s, horror, pornography, yet absolutely no rating system exists for books.

pathetic

If you dont understand something, dont try to censor it, leave it to the people who DO understand it.

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Top down view

Cant wait to see this when its finished

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The start of the Far Trader mkII ship

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 The premise goes something like this:

1. The player object in Far Trader creates a background image that is attached to the player object itself which gives an illusion of a rad projection.
2. Each AI ship instance spawns a radar contact object in its Create Event with the x and y value of the player. This will make a radar contact sprite for each and every spaceship object in the room appear at the players location.

Example of radar system

The code looks like:

Each AI ship instance has in its Create Event

scannerRange=2000; // distance in pixels that objects can be detected
radarContact=instance_create(obj_player.x,obj_player.y,obj_ship_contact);


Then in the AI ship instances’s End Step Event add:

dist = point_distance(x,y,obj_player.x,obj_player.y);
if(dist > scannerRange) {
// hide the sprite
radarContact.image_alpha = 0.0;
} else {
// set sprite alpha as a % of dist from scannerRange
alpha = 100 - ((dist / scannerRange) * 100) ;
radarContact.image_alpha=alpha / 100 ;
}
if(dist < scannerRange) {
if(dist < 390) {
radarBlip=dist;
} else {
radarBlip=390;
}
pDirection=point_direction(x,y,obj_player.x,obj_player.y);
radarContact.x = obj_player.x - lengthdir_x(radarBlip , pDirection);
radarContact.y = obj_player.y - lengthdir_y(radarBlip , pDirection);
}

The above code will pull the radar contact instance away from the player object back to its creator instance, up to a maximum of 390 pixels. The 390 pixel limit is to match the background image attached to the player object, it can be any distance you desire, as long as its visible on the screen! All radar contacts that are greater than scannerRange pixels away have there alpha set to 0.0, which means they are not visible. Once the contact is in scannerRange, the code will set its alpha value to a % of the distance, to give an impression of range, the further away the contact, the more transparent the contact object.

The above is just an example of how I implemented the radar, code. In my game I actually have the code in a script, so that its easy to apply do a number of different object types. I hope someone finds it of use.

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Additionally, I have created a test system for changing the players ship. Object inheritance and changing is possible in Game Maker, but not something that I have found easy (until I finally started to read the GM Manual!), so now you can switch between 2 different ships that have different stats on the fly.

Docking has been a complicated affair as im still learning GML, but It has forced me to restructure a lot of the code in the process, producing a more organised application structure.

Wont say any more at the moment, but heres some screen grabs:

the HUD display with docking ring active

More ship sprites

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The idea of parents and inheritance is pretty simple. Lets set an example using a car as our ‘object’. Our car will be a Trebant. In Game Maker, you would create an Object in the usual way and call it for example ‘obj_trebant‘. You would then set code and actions for obj_trebant.

Now, lets say your creating a game with a number of different cars, so you go ahead and create a bunch of objects to represent different cars, applying Events and Actions to each. This could turn into a long process depending on how many car objects are in your game. You could just duplicate the first car object and change Actions for each new object you create, that will save you a bit of time. But what happens if for example you need to change a variable or action for each car object further down the line. You have to edit each object in turn, manually changing Actions and Variables.

There has to be a better way, and there is. Using parent classes and inheritance…

In order to use parent classes and inheritance to good effect, your going to have to work out what each of your cars have in common. Using our car example above lets say that all cars have headlights. You might have a piece of GML or some other Action in your obj_trebant object that defines headlights. As we want all cars to have headlights, it would make sense to create a parent object and add the headlight code into that, lets create a new object and call it ‘obj_car‘. Now, we have two objects: obj_car and obj_trebant. In your trebant object set its parent object to obj_car. Jolly good, you have now created an object with a parent.

If you test your code, you will probebly find that any code in your parent class isnt being executed, why is this? This is down to object inheritance. If you have a Create and Step event in obj_trebant, it will by default override the Create and Step events in obj_car. To combat this you need to ensure that you add the ‘call event’ action from the control menu to each Event that you want to inherit code or Actions from. If you add Action > Event Call to your Create Event of obj_trebant it will execute the code in the Create Event of obj_car, then execute the code in obj_trebant.

principles like this can be very handy in games where you create a number of objects (cars for example) that you want both the player and AI to use. Think Grand THeft Auto, where the player can get in any car, the cars are also AI controlled. So by using parents and inheritance, you dont have to create player fixed object. Your player can simply be an object that can inherit its visible object from something else obj_trebant for example. This is an easy action in Game Maker with the GML function:

object_set_parent('object to change','object to change to');

Lets say we create our player object: ‘obj_player‘. By default, lets say hes a Subaru (create an object called obj_subaru) with a parent of obj_car. If we wanted to change the type of car the player is, add a code event with the following code:

object_set_parent(obj_player,obj_subaru);

I hope the above goes a little way towards explaining how parent classes work in Game Maker and helps you to create more interesting and efficient games.

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Finally, some in game action

I now have the basics for:

• Ship movement
• Inertia on movement
• Particles to represent the ships engines
• Collision between objects
• Working projectiles
• A very basic object health variable
• object damage based on damage value in projectile object

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A selection of ships from far trader

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Game Maker
That’s where Game Maker 7 comes in, I discovered this little gem while trying to find good XNA 3 tutorials and after only 2 – 3 days of light reading and playing around with it I already have some decent results. Game Maker takes a WYSIWYG approach, anyone who has spent some time using Flash and action scripting will feel right at home with the Game Maker interface. Developing a game centres around a number of Objects and other items such as sprites, backgrounds, fonts, sounds effects etc and rooms. A room is a playing field for your game to play out on. You place objects in the rooms and set actions and events on each object, these events can be predefined items or you can simply script them using whats known as GML (Game Maker Language).

Far Trader – my game in progress
The games ive always fancied putting together always seem to centre around space and sci-fi. As a kid I used to play a lot of pen and paper RPG’s like Megatraveller, Space Master and other sci-fi games. Megatraveller always appealed to me due to its hard fiction approach rather than the space opera of star wars. So there it is, I now have something to base my game on, Megatraveller the game of intergalactic trading and warfare. I do not wish to infringe on any copyright’s with this game so it wont be directly based on Megatraveller, just loosly influenced by its setting and attitude to sci-fi.

A lot of planning has and will go into this game and I plan to document it here, but for now I will show some images from the planning of the game and a couple of mini screen grabs from what I have so far, but before the images here is a VERY brief overview of the game:

Far Trader will be a top down 2D space trading and combat game, with an emphasis on the trading. As the player you will be able to trade goods by travelling from one system to another. Trading goods will net you profit, with this profit you will be able to purchase different ships, some ships will be more combat oriented, some more biased towards trading. The initial aim of the game will be to make xxx money in yyy time frame, more of a sandbox challenge initially, but over time i would like to add other ways of making money; pirate bounties, people courier tasks etc, then finally I would like to add some kind of over-arching storyline which would bring you to end game.

A small selection of the ship design templates

Some sample in game shots of the first ship moving

I will give more details in another post.

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