Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Cyrana Jones, Kidona, and Selene Aecil morning mining

(Click for zoom.)  Cyrana Jones near the camera, with Kidona mining in the background with Selene Aecil running the orca.

http://www.bk.com/en/us/campaigns/star-trek.html

Only Burger King could get away with making fun of themselves and Star Trek, at the same time.

The Kingons may be an advanced race developed after intercepting BK commercials.

Awesome ship names:

• Captain Akbar of the USS It’s A Trap
• Captain Joseph Stalin of the USS R
• Captain Saxton Hale@NinJarate

Today’s bug:

• After finishing one of the missions, I warped out.  The game then decided to send me back into the instance, but luckily realized that I had completed it… and I didn’t have to do it all over again.

Cryptic is offering a Lifetime subscription for $239.00.  Unfortunatly, they want you to buy it before it launches.  I don’t know if I can (1) rustle the cash that fast, or even (2) if I want to yet.  With any luck, they’ll run the deal a bit longer than “launch day.”  Heck, I’m ALREADY spending $80 for the game’s installer disk. That puts the total price for a lifetime membership of the game at about the price of an XBOX 360 with games.  I don’t know if the game is that good yet, you know?

Still a lot of lag here on Day 3, but it’s getting better.  And there’s more people on as well.

My personal Star Trek Self Insert: Cameron SanAntonio

So, I finally have my grubby mitts on Star Trek Online… I’ve been waiting so long for this.

This post will contain first impressions, a bug and recommended update thread, and some stuff I’ve really enjoyed seeing in the game.

I downloaded the game, installed it, then went to work!

Really.

But then I got off, went home, and spent the next hour and a half struggling for a Newbie Slot (apparently the number of slots available for newbie mission runners is finite… and so is the patience of all the screamers on the forum pissed that they have to wait for their turn during launch-hour of early Open Beta.

First Impressions

Star Trek Online is going to sap all my free time, for months to come.  The game is well designed, nice to look at… it’s a ton of fun, even with the buggy beta.

The first (and main) complaint I hear from people who, frankly, haven’t given STO a second look, simply writing it off as a loss before it launches, is something along the lines of “the graphics look like the old PlayStation.”  I don’t know why, but Cryptic seems to have taken their screenshots with a cell phone camera or something, because the art looks mighty fine to me!

A view of Spacedock's interior; Club 47 to the left.

A view through the windows of the observation lounge. Only missing spaceships in orbit. What dock doesn't have ships sailing around it?

Alas, the first impression of most people trying to get into the beta was the game dumping out to Login every time you attempted to join in due to a lack of Newbie instances.  This makes the game look unstable… once you’ve got your account running… or at least once I had MINE running… and have left the Newbie area, you’ll have little trouble getting into the game.

The sound effects are authentic, and very well done.  The instance sound ambiance is also very well done.

The user interface is a nice combination of Star Trek LCARS and an actual usable computer interface.  It also has some design pointers from the consoles of the Classic Star Trek Movies, which is a good thing.

So my ship's called the U.S.S. Beeblebrox... you have a problem with that?

Kitbashing is fun.  The standard Star Trek practice of taking bits of various consumer-grade models of Starships, slapping some new pant over the bunch, and calling it the USS Pride of Fort Worth and making it a backdrop starship for the Enterprise comes into it’s own in this game.  At first, I thought mixing and matching kit pieces for starships would end up with decidedly ugly ships.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  Took me the saucer of a Miranda, and the pylons and nacelles of a Centaur and ended up with my own personalized ship to call home.  My only complaint here is that the color tones allowed in the color picker for ship paint jobs are somewhat… bland.  So far they’re all dull colors, and on the Miranda saucer, the paint covers over the registry numbers.  No sweat… I just fly paintless.

A note about Betaness:

We have become spoiled when it comes to the word “beta.”  The open source community’s refusal to ever call anything “release quality” in addition to Google’s never ending Betas, have given people this concept that “beta” means 98% working with absolutely no showstopper bugs anywhere.

That’s not Beta.

This game… is Beta.

GASP! I CAN'T BREATHE!

There’s a lot of rough edges and mistakes, typos, bad baked textures, etc.  Some are humorous, some are frustrating… all are livable… except for the lack of Newbie instances.  If you can’t even get INTO the game, you’ll never be able to see how fun it is to be able to survive the bumps.  Unfortunatly, in Cryptic’s rush to get as many people on the open beta as possible (I had to put cold hard cash down to get my beta key (preorder) and I saw an announcement that some keys are now being handed out for free… D:) they’re failing to ACTUALLY GET PEOPLE INGAME.  It’s like the difference between “access” to health care and actually talking to a Doctor

In fact, I just recently had a crash while attempting to set my paint job on my ship.  Happy Beta Day!

Bugs and Annoyances!

The motion prediction for away teams sucks, and sucks hard.  There are many times when I’ll suddenly slide 100 feet to the right, or spin in a circle, or jump over something, or just otherwise simply not go where I was intending to go.  I know that the server has to keep state on my location to ensure I’m not cheating, but it would be nice to be able to walk a straight line in a somewhat complex instance without jumpin’ around like a drop of water on a hot skillet.  Games had to handle lag for decades;  this is the worst I’ve seen in a long time.

Really, it makes the away missions all but impossible to navigate.  Ship battles, luckly, don’t suffer with this.

Getting kicked to the Login Prompt.  This one will make you scream.  It seems that each and every error in the game, from losing a list of items to having the connection with the server jiggled, causes the game to give up, dump core, and throw you to the Login screen.  There’s no queuing for resources or error timeouts.  Just SPLAT!

Expect to see this during Beta. Alot.

The progress bar on the game launcher… never progresses.  At least the numbers let me know how long I’ll be waiting for the game to start.

Suggestions

I’d like to see Eve Online style helm controls, centered around whatever object you have targeted.  A small control panel that allows me to (1) approach, (2) retreat, (3) keep at weapons range, (4) orbit left, and (5) orbit right would be so full of awesome.  This isn’t too hard to imagine… Captain Kirk had Sulu to micromanage the helm.  I enjoy having manual control over helm, but on the other hand I’d like to sometimes focus on tactics or manipulating power levels or whatnot.

NOTE!  I don’t recommend ditching the manual helm controls.  Just having somebody who can handle the boring bits (intercept that, orbit this, etc) would be a nice bonus.

Speaking of things Eve does right:  Overview.  Kirk had Mr Spock who could look into his little hood and tell him where things are.  I was constantly getting lost flyin’ about, unable to find some location I was supposed to be at.  Overview combined with a “Helm Officer” would make flying in space rock my socks.

Action timers, also known as throbbers.  None of the in game dialogs have any signal that anything is happening.  You just assume that because the game is still RUNNING that it’s still WORKING.

When you get rewards after ending a mission, it’s itty bitty font printed on top of whatever noisy background you’re currently looking at, in the center of the screen.  This makes it impossible to read what it is you just got before the words fade away.  Simply draw a transparent user interface box, similar to what’s used in chat, behind the words.  The UI disappears quick enough… I just can’t READ THE WORDS.

Better dev communication, especially during Beta would be nice.  An official Twitter feed that contains status updates, or a web based ticket system (the ingame one is OK, but another route to handle my bug reports would make me want to do an even better job at my job as a beta tester), perhaps a single page which contains ALL known, reported issues being worked on, all issues queued, etc.  There’s a huge amount of threads in the forum, making it less useful for somebody just trying to get back to the game.

Try again on the EMH’s recorded dialog.  Especially the line “I’m an Emergency Medical Hologram, not a..” whatever the line was.  I mentally blocked it.  Put some emotion into it.  Watch more Robert Picardo.  I can tell you’re going for that “Stiff computer simulation” feel, but… it’s just not there.  Too bad you couldn’t get Picardo himself to reprise his role.  I ended up turning off the sound and reading the EMH’s line in my head with Picardo’s voice.

I’d like a few alternative “Going to warp” camera angles… the first 50 times you jump to warp, the camera position is neat, but it just gets monotonous.

Take that, Canada!

Awesome Stuff

• Spacedock’s bar is named “Club 47“
• Commander Akira Sulu.
• The launch button in the launcher starts with “Make it So” and ends with “Engage.”
• Tribbles multiply in your hold.
• You can visit Deep Space Station K-7

One of them is AWN, the Avant Window Navigator.  It’s a small dock I use to replace the bottom bar of the Gnome desktop for applications;  I find the icon-centric display to be more useful than the wordy buttons of yore.

On Ubuntu, AWN automatically detects my NVidia Xinerama configuration and sets itself in the center of the left hand monitor, as I want.

On Gentoo… not so much.  It plonks itself right in the middle of the dual monitor, becoming quite annoying.

Per the FAQ entry here:  http://wiki.awn-project.org/FAQ#How_do_I_reposition_AWN.3F  I was able edit gconf key /apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/bar_pos.  Set to “.15″ it’s at least mostly set correctly.  It’s not perfect, but it’ll do until I figure out how to make it work correctly.

In this post, a very special SoftLayer entry pulled from history for this holiday season, I discuss the folly of gift cards.

I live in America, and as any American knows, we pipe Christmas Music and Christmas TV and Christmas Movies directly into the brains of as many people as possible to attempt to keep everyone safe during this difficult shopping season.

Admit it: when you and your neighbor are running to Electronics in hope of getting the last Wii from the shelf, sometimes the only thing stopping you from dumping a bag of Skittles in front of him or knocking over a Lego display is the constant barrage of Rudolph and Frosty and other Christmas cheer over the PA.

Unfortunately, unless you are content to give everyone a copy of Dryping for Dummies (By Steve Kinman, SoftLayer Press), you will have to wade into the shopping rush to eek out your Santa sized bag ‘o goodies.

Never fear, however! The Retail Industry is there to help! For those who don’t want to dive head first into the excitement of Christmas Shopping (which can make even a foray to pick up some toilet paper from Wal*Mart into an exciting 2 hour adventure), nearly every retail outlet is willing to give you a 2″ x 3″ credit card like piece of plastic stamped with their brand. Yes, the Gift Card.

It’s been said that over 60% of American adults have either bought or received a Gift Card, this year. It’s a very convenient device. For example, if I figure out that Lance really likes Outback Steakhouse, I can buy a $10 gift card from Outback Steakhouse, wrap it in a $1 Hallmark card (although, sometimes the retail outlets already have such cards (stamped with their logo) available), and give it to Lance. “Merry Christmas!” Sometimes you can even get the card gift wrapped.A gift-wrapped credit card!

We’re to the point, now, that simply handing somebody a plastic card is actually considered a thoughtful gift. On the way to work, I heard that any fishing lover would prefer to receive a Bass Pro Shop Gift Card over, say, that Bassomatic ‘76 they’ve been talking about.

But, lets be honest… it doesn’t take much to choose a gift card. I overhear Lance say he likes steak, I see a Outback Steakhouse card, and bam! Before you can say “Impulse Purchase” I now have an instant gift! Sure, it’s not as fulfilling as, say, a box of prime steaks… but this way you can give him more gift cards! And more is better, right?

But the comedy doesn’t end there. Have you ever seen a gift card in a usable denomination? Usually I find cards with a value between $10-50. Can you even get a steak meal for $10 at Outback Steakhouse? (Don’t forget to include the State and Federal Wallet Excise Tax.) And I’m not talking about that free bread, either. No, what happens is you end up either leaving a trifling amount of money on the card (Your balance is … twenty five cents), or you end up wrapping your card in a sizable amount of cash. See how neat this is? I bought a $10 card, and Lance will pay the balance of the meal… AND STILL THANK ME FOR IT!

Retailers make MILLIONS of dollars off the trifling amounts that just sit, unused, on gift cards. And gift cards aren’t usable at another store, so if I want to buy a $20 book, but I only have a $10 Half Priced Books gift card (and a $10 Outback Card Lance gave me as a Thank You), I’ll use the card + $10. You can almost never just spend what’s on the card.

Here’s some friendly holiday advice: If you know what your friend wants, buy it for him. If you don’t, ask people close to him. Even Aunt Myrtle’s sweater contains more holiday cheer value than the sweater’s monetary value in McDonalds Gift Cards.

Is there a way out of this trap of value-locked slivers of plastic? Indeed there is! If you wish to transfer value to another person without locking them into one choice, give them… CASH! Yes, greenbacks, bucks, dead presidential portraits, green… whatever you call it, United States Federal Notes are accepted by all retailers, in any denomination. Value not used by one retailer can then be spent at another. This value can also be stored up where it may earn interest and combine with more legal tender until a large item can be bought. The best solution for any gift giving problem where “Gift Cards” are suggested as a solution is CASH, such as when you absolutely can’t think up something to buy. And it makes a great stocking stuffer. In Bulk. Hint, hint.

Yes, you in the back? What does this mean for SoftLayer? Just because this is a SoftLayer Blog doesn’t mean it has to have a SoftLayer moral! But lucky you… I’ve got one right here: (this weekend only, special holiday financing available!)

Like Gift Cards, each SoftLayer server comes with a bloc of value attached: bandwidth. This valuable commodity makes the servers work. You can have all the processing power in the world, a RAID 75 array with 100 petabytes of space, 40 terabytes of onboard memory, and if you don’t have any bandwidth… it’s all moot.

Unlike gift cards, however, SoftLayer attaches some real value you can actually use. For many users, even touching the top of the 2 Terabyte bandwidth pipe is a real exercise.

However, sometimes, like gift cards, a customer buys a server with value attached… but simply cannot use it all. Or they put the server 100% on the private network and never use the bandwidth at all (Like that $20 gift card from Sludge Emporium your Granddad gave you last year). Is there any way to salvage this value?

Indeed! The SoftLayer Secret Labs rolled out a new feature a while back: Virtual Dedicated Racks. These VDR’s (as we cool SoftLayer Secret Lab Technicians like to call them, because TLAs are cool) allow you to virtually rack a group of servers behind a virtual bandwidth meter. All the attached bandwidth value of those servers are lumped together, like a good ‘ol pile o’ cash, and the aggregate amount attached to the rack. An example:

Each server comes with 2T bandwidth (generally).

Without VDRs, if server bassomatic.76.example.com only uses 1T of bandwidth, and server auntmyrtle.sweaters.example.com uses up 3T, you end up with a full 1T overage on Aunt Myrtle’s site, even though you have a full 1T worth of value on the other server not being used!

With VDRs, the two servers pile their value together, making a 4T rack. Bassomatic.76.example.com uses 3T this month, while Aunt Myrtle’s site only uses 1T. Combined, their “rack” uses 4T of 4T, so 4-4 = 0!

Like cash, but unlike gift cards, with VDRs you are able to pool your value to allow the usage of more value at one time. Now how awesome is that?

If you would like to experience the excitement of pooling your bandwidth, talk to your SPS (as we cool SoftLayer Secret Lab Technicians like to call our SoftLayer Professional SLalespersons, because an acronym is still a cool TLA as long as only three letters are capitalized), and get yourself a Virtual Dedicated Rack (make sure to call it a “VDR” when you order it to sound cool).

And let ‘em know this post by Shawn got you interested. If I get enough referrals, I’ll get the December SoftLayer Referral Outback Steakhouse Gift Card!

Sadly, I never actually did get an Outback Steakhouse gift card from the CEO.  *sigh*  Such is life.

Originally posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at http://theinnerlayer.softlayer.com/2007/avoid-gift-cards/

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