Recently with my career, health has become a thing I’ve been a lot more conscious of. Physical, mental, etc. So I’ve made the decision to move to 3 days per week, leaving Thursday and Friday available to me for health care and rest.
I’d like to eventually transition to a career in which I can work more independently as well, and the career options are pretty simple:
- Come up with a product – build and sell it (SaaS, etc.)
- Come up with a service – promote and sell said services (Contracting, etc.)
I have a couple of projects and things that I do which fall into the second category – I do some web hosting and consulting on the side, which produce some income for me. So I feel like I could certainly return to pushing those paths a bit more if need be.
Games are a passion project…
– me, now.
However, I’ve always wanted to build a game. Since I was a kid playing Super Mario Bros. on the NES back in the 90s, all the way through my adult life – I’ve always been a gamer.
In my mind, games aren’t something you build to make money – sure there’s that one in a million opportunity to build a Minecraft, or the next World of Warcraft. But that’s both extremely rare, and extremely difficult to achieve. Games are a passion project, and if you’re lucky, you get a financial reward if you find something that strikes a chord with the gamers who try your game out.
I’m at a stage in my career where I can afford one last hurrah at a passion project beyond the gaming events and marketing adventures of yesteryear.
Time to give it a go!
Do you have a plan?
I’m not quite sure about the games I’d like to make yet. But I think the plan is to build:
- Some basic indie games to learn games development, and;
- learn some basic art creation (2D – Aseprite, 3D – Blender) to flesh out said games, and;
In terms of sound creation and audio design – I may just leave to 3rd parties, if I’m honest – Audio is always and will forever be a dark magic for me
Okay…
So why am I blogging here about something I haven’t even started?
To keep myself publicly accountable. I’ve already told my mates on Discord, now I have to just execute 😂
So, it’s no secret that I’m very much into PC gaming; and with it, the hobby of essentially running LAN parties or gaming communities.
Recently, with the growth of the pandemic, I’d been able to grow my own little community to about 120-odd people on Discord. There’s a core group of about 15-16 of us that play games together, and the rest sort of float in and out of discussions and various gaming releases.
September’s been a pretty crazy period; and I’ve started taking stock of the hobby I call “Only Snacks” and gaming. Not only is it a gaming community of close friends and family, it also ties into an enterprise level server rack, and internet connection. Granted I get benefits out of it in terms of business and capabilities; but it opens doors for our small group that didn’t exist before.
It’s pretty expensive. I don’t mind, there are others out there with wackier and (far) more expensive passions. I’m still within my means, but I did note today that it eats up almost all my time and energy.
The group is something I consider close friends – and among them a circle that I’d consider family. They honestly saw me through a rough time (that I think everyone went through) yet here we are, still together and thick as thieves.
So what’s going on? Nothing really, I’m actually just putting down some musings into the blog to keep things going.
So the new Minecraft version is out, and with it I’ve created a new Vanilla server for my friends to play on.
Over the weekend, I wrote a service loading daemon for my Minecraft server that essentially allows me to interact with players to create custom, scripted actions and dynamically run commands – all tied into a Database thanks to the comfort of PHP!
I’ve aptly named the system the Minecraft Assistant Interactive Daemon (MAID for short). So far things have been working wonderfully but we’re still exploring the possibilities with this tool; from gathering player positions, to inventory security, and more! The system is based around a PHP script running in a ‘daemon’ mode that never times out, and monitors the console of the server – it reacts to things that then happen via the console (picks up commands, events, and so forth) – and updates as needed – be it via a website, database, or otherwise.
A big benefit of how I’ve implemented MAID is that I can run a Vanilla based Minecraft server, that still allows for the latest versions released by Microsoft to run – without essentially affecting functionality.
The current plan is to have:
- Custom vault control – players can protect valuables in a web-managed inventory/delivery system
- Production of materials – a “maid hiring” system, where players can pay an amount of emeralds for various maids that’ll help them acquire resources
The system is essentially a PHP based plugin wrapper on Minecraft – it doesn’t directly interface or interfere with the Minecraft client’s functionality, but instead runs as a parallel service alongside the server. So the only real drawback is a lack of real-time in-game interaction and even then, some degree of interaction can be created via the command-block system; all the features of Command Blocks are directly accessible to the MAID system.
I’m keeping it in a private repo for the time being; but in the near future I might look into releasing it 🙂
Well now, over the last month or so; I’ve been running a Minecraft server that I’ve tentatively called Northrealm, after a dear friend, Claire Northman. Claire passed away in 2012; and it’s an event that I’ve carried close to my heart ever since.
It’s been a complicated run for this ‘server’ of sorts – over the last near-decade, I’ve been tinkering with a variety of Minecraft servers that are modded, in various levels of interaction – in an effort to build the ‘ideal’ fantasy world that would represent everything Claire loved about Minecraft.
Finally, I settled on the idea of just running a plain, standard, Minecraft server. One that my friends and I can play on, and build upon using only the unmodified, basic installation of Minecraft. Luckily for me, the game’s reached a point where a lot of features that were once mods, are now doable within the confines of standard Minecraft!
Anyway, I’ve started by opening the gaming/Minecraft section of my site – it’s completely bare, except for an interactive map that gets generated at about 4:34am UTC every day. The map has zoom/drag capabilities, and should be fairly high res enough for people to use. It’s powered by Overviewer!
You can view a larger version of the map by visiting https://minecraft.jtiong.com as well. (NB: these links don’t work anymore! – JT, 29/05/2022)
Coming features over the next few days will include:
- An ability to create an account, and apply to join the whitelist for this server
- Some rules and regulations on this
- A materials pipeline that somehow interacts with players online and offline
The third point in particular, is of interest to me, because I’d really love for players on the server to be able to “build” something on the site, which then generates an amount of materials over a time period, which can then be deducted from a player’s inventory. My initial thoughts on the flow of such a system would be:
While a player is online – they will have the ability to:
- Construct basic workshops – these can refine raw materials, create basic components
- Recruit workers, these workers affect the speed a workshop functions at
Eventually, I think, I’d like to increase the functionality – but that’ll require some more thought! A post for another time 🙂
Previously one of the projects I mentioned in my last blog post was Project Stronghold – where I build basically something akin to a games room/home office. I quite enjoy retrogaming – and a good deal of modern gaming (on consoles or PC, or in VR) as well.
I just thought I’d post here to present an inspiring picture of how I’d like to attach most of the controllers in this situation:
Obviously, the cabinetry in my own home is not like this – with different shelving and configurations to consider. But I’d like some form of storing these controllers in the room I intend to utilise, for the next few years.
So, as of tonight I managed to complete Shadow of the Tomb Raider (just going to call this Shadow from now on for this article). I was a huge fan of this most recent Tomb Raider reboot, and happily played through the first two instalments of this trilogy (Tomb Raider, and Rise of the Tomb Raider). They detail, tombs being raided, and artefacts being ‘restored’ notwithstanding – the character growth and development of Lara Croft.
I have to say that I’m both a tad relieved I got to see the conclusion of the trilogy (perhaps not of this Lara’s tale though) but also slightly disappointed at the way the story was told, the writing it had and the overall gameplay. In terms of gameplay, I was a little bit more forgiving, it’s the third game in the trilogy, they were pretty much stuck with the whole same-same-but-different play on things; and quite literally it was a lot more of the action which did make the first two games a hit. There were a lot less QTEs which was great; but I found the game super buggy, and almost every time I died, it was because of the camera-angle-meets-movement-to-a-random-tangent syndrome.
What got me was the writing and the story. Shadow is very evidently, a game of forced passion. From the very beginning, you can tell the team starts out strong with some production values, which seem to peter out and it’s as though they ran out of steam at the 90% mark. There’s some incredible attention to detail displayed in the game’s language settings – NPCs can speak their native languages, the subtitles are nicely coloured and even with multiple characters speaking I never lost track of who was talking. Animations for the most part were good, but Rise of the Tomb Raider’s animations seemed to be so much better than this game’s – Lara’s facial expressions, the overall polish of it, felt much nicer than Shadow‘s efforts.
Environments, truly they were stunning, but adding in glitchy movement, with a camera I had to fight with on a few occasions – only a few, but they were memorable (probably due to rarity, but just frequent enough to be in recent memory) – as well as a confusing underwater enemy element at times due to their glitchy animations – I found myself dreading having to deal with water parts of the game.
I find myself constantly saying that there’s great things… but etc. And the negatives are almost on par with the positives. This game is still a worthwhile play for anyone invested in the story or whom completing a storyline is quite important. But I can’t find myself recommending people play this game over the other titles in this reboot. You can see that there’s so much promise there in the game, with the way certain things are told, how key plot points are revealed and the way the characters interact. But… they just left them. You can see the gleam of a fantastic game underneath the muddy, crappy covering that Square Enix has somehow managed to leave coated all over the game.
I love the effort that has been put into the game. Single player games with big stories, and production values are a dying breed. It’s clear though, that even more effort than the (most likely outrageously) big budget this game had could provide. There were all these changes I saw along the way that I thought could have made this game superb, but knowing a little about the coding side of things, I can imagine it would’ve been pain staking to fix, and difficult to catch from a developer’s perspective.
I find myself constantly saying that there’s great things… but
I want to say this is a great game, but sadly I can’t. Perhaps, the campy writing was an excerpt from their dev blog (see the line in the opening picture at the top).
6/10 from me. Get it on sale, if you’ve got the other games.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m going to be launching a Conan Exiles server personally for friends and family to play on. As a fan of the survival game genre – Conan Exiles offers a pretty unique blend of resource gathering, adventuring, and exploring a wilderness filled with monsters, animals and gods.
Just for my own reference – the server settings (in their unedited form) are below. An explanation of the settings is available here:
MaxNudity=0
ServerCommunity=0
ConfigVersion=9
BlueprintConfigVersion=19
PurgeNPCBuildingDamageMultiplier=(5.000000,5.000000,10.000000,15.000000,20.000000,25.000000)
PlayerKnockbackMultiplier=1.000000
NPCKnockbackMultiplier=1.000000
StructureDamageMultiplier=1.000000
StructureHealthMultiplier=1.000000
NPCRespawnMultiplier=1.000000
NPCHealthMultiplier=1.000000
CraftingCostMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerDamageMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerDamageTakenMultiplier=1.000000
MinionDamageMultiplier=1.000000
MinionDamageTakenMultiplier=1.000000
NPCDamageMultiplier=1.000000
NPCDamageTakenMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerEncumbranceMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerEncumbrancePenaltyMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerMovementSpeedScale=1.000000
PlayerStaminaCostSprintMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerSprintSpeedScale=1.000000
PlayerStaminaCostMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerHealthRegenSpeedScale=1.000000
PlayerXPRateMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerXPKillMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerXPHarvestMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerXPCraftMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerXPTimeMultiplier=1.000000
DogsOfTheDesertSpawnWithDogs=False
CrossDesertOnce=True
ThrallExclusionRadius=500.000000
MaxAggroRange=9000.000000
FriendlyFireDamageMultiplier=0.250000
CampsIgnoreLandclaim=True
AvatarDomeDurationMultiplier=1.000000
AvatarDomeDamageMultiplier=1.000000
NPCMaxSpawnCapMultiplier=1.000000
serverRegion=0
RestrictPVPTime=False
PVPTimeWeekdayStart=0
PVPTimeWeekdayEnd=0
PVPTimeWeekendStart=0
PVPTimeWeekendEnd=0
RestrictPVPBuildingDamageTime=False
PVPBuildingDamageTimeWeekdayStart=0
PVPBuildingDamageTimeWeekdayEnd=0
PVPBuildingDamageTimeWeekendStart=0
PVPBuildingDamageTimeWeekendEnd=0
CombatModeModifier=0
ContainersIgnoreOwnership=True
LandClaimRadiusMultiplier=1.000000
BuildingPreloadRadius=80.000000
ServerPassword=
ServerMessageOfTheDay=
KickAFKPercentage=80
KickAFKTime=2700
OfflinePlayersUnconsciousBodiesHours=168
CorpsesPerPlayer=3
ItemConvertionMultiplier=1.000000
ThrallConversionMultiplier=1.000000
FuelBurnTimeMultiplier=1.000000
StaminaRegenerationTime=3.000000
StaminaExhaustionTime=3.000000
StaminaStaticRegenRateMultiplier=1.000000
StaminaMovingRegenRateMultiplier=1.000000
PlayerStaminaRegenSpeedScale=1.000000
StaminaOnConsumeRegenPause=1.500000I’m a bit of a purist and don’t want to detract too much from a vanilla experience. Likewise, I may also work towards doing a server reset on a fairly long schedule (unsure yet, but I’m thinking every 90 days).
Before we begin, I should point out that I’m writing this article because I love Factorio, the game. This isn’t a review, more an article documenting my impression of the game.
I’m a huge fan of base building and management sim games. They occupy a lot of my ever-constricting gaming time, especially games like Rust, Conan Exiles, Minecraft, and such. The problem is while I enjoy a peppering of PvP for some spicy gameplay moments, I’m always enthralled with the tech trees of these games, building them up, and finding the ‘best way’ to do things to survive and thrive in these sometimes harsh games.
24 hours of gameplay time in the space of 3 days, this game has its crane claws sunk deep into me… I see conveyer belts when I close my eyes!
Enter stage – Factorio. I’ve actually seen a number of people on my Steam Friends list enjoy this game for many many hours, and yet I never thought to take a look, until Dan (the “Wee Scotsman”) from my Final Fantasy XIV Guild pointed it out to me.
The game starts with a top-down view, of your little engineeer, and a simple premise. Build a factory to produce enough technology, and components to launch a space shuttle to get you off the planet; while surviving waves of hostile aliens. This game is complex despite its overarching goal.
Factorio’s gamplay, is deep. The technology tree is huge, it’s nuanced in how each step affects gameplay, and there’s so much to discover, research and learn that it can extend the lifetime of a single play-through exponentially. For example, Inserters (Cranes which move things from point A to point B) are customisable, they have their own set timings, different models have different movement speeds and create different “rhythms” of items on conveyor belts. A true master of automation could get the timing right between their orchestra of inserters to create a symphony of whirring and dancing to move items at the perfect speed for their production facilities, and maximise that item output.
For a game that does away with the AAA graphics, and ‘polish’ of those titles, it’s incredibly functional and the game’s mechanics, design and artistic direction don’t hold back with letting you control the flow of information you receive.
Factorio also supports the operation of a headless dedicated server, a huge bonus in my book, and in fact, I operate a private server for myself and close friends to connect to and play with. It’s been the most fun I’ve had with a building based game since… well, ever.
You can get Factorio on Steam and despite the $30 USD price tag, it’s well worth the price of admission. I can’t recommend this game enough to anyone who prefers technical, puzzle-like games, with a casual element of PvE.
So, primarily to get away from my desktop (see my previous post below) – the solution appears to be resorting to Cloud computing in some shape or form.
Gaming Entertainment
The biggest issue currently, that will dissuade me the most from becoming a citizen of the cloud is that I won’t be able to play games with my low-spec terminal (in this case, in my room, it’ll be a 2012 Mac Mini).
Luckily for me; I actually stumbled across a wonderful solution! Parsec.tv – an amazing, free, 1080p 60fps cloud gaming application. Steam In-Home Streaming has never worked well for me, but this evening I gave it a go with a brand new release Sea of Thieves!
The experiment worked spectacularly – the quality of the game is more than adequate. My Laptop (off-site) reached on average about 40fps; and the input lag was more than acceptable for adventuring, fighting the undead and firing cannons to deal with opposing pirate crews.
The image quality was great – it was slightly higher than an average 60fps 1080p Twitch stream. Here’s a couple of example screenshots:
The strange blue ‘honeycomb’ icon in the top-left, is Parsec’s hot-spot; you can click that to disconnect/connect with the host machine; or you can recalibrate your gamepad controller – which gets input into the host machine as an XBOX Controller.
There was only one real concern – my laptop reaching 95 degrees in CPU temperature (Speedfan told me it was 88 degrees, but NZXT Cam monitoring told me it was 95). It looks like I’ll need a laptop cooling pad 🙁
Movies & Media Entertainment
The other thing I’d like to do, is somehow migrate my personal media collection, into the cloud. Something that’ll let me stream no matter where I am, should I be on holidays, or working.
Cue, Plex Media Server – a system so consistently awesome in delivering movies and shows across both a network and the internet, with built in media conversion and on-the-fly media management, I can’t really see myself needing any other system to deliver access to my collection of media to friends and family.
Whilst the quality isn’t terribly awesome (it’s slightly worse than Netflix is), it delivers a more than watchable result provided the source files themselves are of a high quality.
Here’s an example of one of my favourites, Kingsman: The Secret Service:
As you can see, it’s a little murky, but still delivers on the visuals enough. The source file isn’t in a 1080p resolution, but it is still clear enough to watch!
So, all in all – we got through all the fun stuff; being a netizen of the Cloud is a doable thing in Australia – provided you have a 1Gbit internet connection, I suppose.
I’m aware that I’m in an extremely fortunate position to be able to do this; and will continue my experiments and foray into being more integrated into The Cloud™ in time for when the NBN reaches (if ever) my residence.
I’m going to be updating this blog again shortly with some thoughts about being both a “Cloudygamer” and a “Low Spec Gamer” to better handle and optimise my graphical usage; so please stay tuned!