The Lust

"You were beautiful, but you are ugly. I didn't know it then, and I'm still not entirely sure now. You were always so good at covering that up. The bit of blood in every drop of bliss that flowed from your mouth. They say that ignorance is bliss. Not so, when you are filled with the doubt that comes with it. You were a vicious vixen, brooding and beautiful. Truly, a poisonous flower; too deadly to touch, too gorgeous not to. I came away with my life, but you have left your scars. No longer will I be the same because of it. I am paralyzed from the love that the bleeding hearts drown in. It is my wound, not my only, and not my last. I guess I can thank you for this. Maybe caution is what I needed, and you have delivered in spades."

- J. Davis

Changes...

I've made a few changes to the map since last writing about it. I've found a way to expand it beyond a mere 5 to 10 minutes to a good 15 to 20, I believe, but I won't be sure till I get it into a playable state. Unfortunately, it's still a ways off from that, but I've been making some, albeit small, progress. My biggest issue with it so far, and why my mapping progress has taken a nose dive is due to the fact that the story grew from something that was relatively simple, into something far more complex by trying to add in morality, a subject that has yet to be accurately explored by the medium up to this point. It certainly isn't easy to tackle for a single writer/mapper trying to write something that tackles a subject that the professional developers have yet to. Ambitious, sure, but not easy considering I'm trying to make this my first public release.

I will be spending the next few days going over and rewriting what I can, so that it will be a little more open ended. Perhaps I'll return to my original story arc, and leave this heavy issue for a later release, maybe after I've released some...

OneWebDay...

OneWebDay is a day when users of the World Wide Web are encouraged to show how the Internet affects their lives. It is held on September 22. The purpose of the event is to globally celebrate online life. The goal of celebrating OneWebDay each year is to create and make visible a global constituency that cares about the future of the Internet.

- Courtesy of Wikipedia

I would say, that the web has really expanded my life through providing me resources to learn, communicate ideas (regardless of other peoples value of those ideas), and share almost all mediums. In a lot of way, I think that last part is one of the best. Thanks to the web, people can access mediums and material that they might not have been able to access. I also know that not all are exactly happy about this ability, though I think that this ability will expand people's interest in the world, as it has mine.

Thanks to the web, I personally have read books I would have never read, seen classic films I might not have otherwise watched, and experienced and became involved in things that I would have otherwise be oblivious to. The web has changed the way I experience the world, and hopefully, I'll be able change the web for the better...

Progress...

What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

- Havelock Ellis

I can say that I finally, fully understand this quote. The shear amout of frustration that goes into making a seemingly simple map is mind blowing, as just making simple things like bathrooms, vents, windows that break when shot, exploding doors, areas of construction, etc. is a huge time sink. I spent the better part of my Sunday, adding the above, and I'm not even got a the *walkable sections* finished. I'm about 2/3 done with the walkable sections, but I've still got a substantial amount left to do, as the last third is the biggest, not to mention the detailing, texturing, and lighting that I've still got left to do on all of it. All of which will be for ~5-15 playtime on this map.

I am making progress on my project. I've finished the writing on one level, and a Prologue that I have added on to give some back story into the character and his past, as well as creating a "training" level to help learn controls. The level is almost presentable. I'd love to put some screens up, but I don't want to show anything publicly until I get done with the lighting phase, which is still quite a ways off. Then, when the level is in playable form, I plan on posting it on ModDB, and then start looking for a team. Honestly, though, I have to say I'm quite afraid to start looking for a team, due to issue that could arise when working with other people. I'm not sure if the slightly shorter development time would be worth the headaches and hurdles I'd have to overcome. I guess I'll find out when I get to that point.

*The walkable sections are all the areas of the map the player is able to travel to.

Entropy...

1. Formal lack of pattern or organization
“entropy increases as matter and energy in the universe degrade to an ultimate state of inert uniformity”
2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
5. Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.
(Taken From [nullpointer.co.uk]'s article " Entropy, performance and gameplay" without permission.)

For the sake of this post, I'll be using the 2nd, 3rd and 5th definitions. The system will be any and all types of communication.

It is impossible to communicate at 100% efficiency, to convey the exact thought in which you are thinking. An individual's mind is too complex to generate the exact same complex thought in another individual without some variance occurring. It could be said then that this variance is something I'm calling "thought rot". The severity of rot is determined by the amount of entropy of any given communication system.

There is a variant level of entropy depending on whether the idea being conveyed is a logical or creative. In creative thought, the idea is abstract. In the verbal communication of any creation, there occurs a form of thought rot that deteriorates the idea, and it deteriorates based on each persons level of communication skills, as well as the number of times the idea is communicated.

This is why I think mods and projects that are created using more than 2 or 3 core people tend to not be able to progress to a finish, or finish with a more convoluted idea than the original iteration. When you keep a close, tight team (from my observations, and I could be wrong) the mod tends to actually come out, and come out closer to it's original idea (Minerva is one excellent example done by a lone mapper) than if it was released using a larger team.