Asmor's Geek Blog

Got this email today…

Hi!

I’ve been trying to put together a random encounter generator for an IRC bot, and it’s been going well with one exception. Data entry. As it turns out, copying the monster name, level, type, page, and source from the monsters by level section of the manual is a lot of work, and my .pdf scans make the whole thing non-uniform so I can’t even parse the data as needed without going 1 at a time.

I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. You clearly have a considerable number of monsters listed in your 4e Random Encounter Generator’s database, and I was wondering if you would be willing to send me a copy of your monster tables.

Thanks.

(Emphasis added)

For those who weren’t aware, I actually input all the data manually from the actual, physical books. So I can’t say I have much sympathy for someone who’s having trouble parsing the data from scanned PDFs…

Sigrun Ironhew: “Oh no, we’re out of beer! This is a catastrophe! Hey, you, draenei!”

Me: “…me?”

Sigrun: “Yes! You’re one ‘o them do-gooders, ain’tcha?”

Me: “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

Sigrun: “Great! There’s a bunch of evil dwarves over the ridge. You should go kill them.”

Me: “Evil dwarves? How do I know you’re not evil too?”

Sigrun: “Because their skin’s black as coal. Black skin equals evil. Just look at Drow.”

Me: “Umm, I think you’re reading from the wrong canon…”

Sigrun: “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m with the Alliance, I wouldn’t steer ya wrong. So anyways, go kill a bunch of them evil black dwarves.”

Me: “Well, ok…”

Sigrun: “Oh, and while you’re at it, they got them some beer. Why don’t you do me a favor and bring their beer back here. No sense letting good ale go to waste.”

Me: “Wait. Are you asking me to murder a bunch of people so you can steal their booze?”

Sigrun: “…”

Me: “…”

Sigrun: “…”

Me: “…”

Sigrun: “…no.”

Me: “Ok. You prefer cans or bottles?”

- 10 minutes later -

Me: “Ok, here’s your beer. You sure those guys were evil? They just seemed to be minding their own business over at their digsite.”

Sigrun: “Oh, yeah, irredeemably evil.” Sigrun takes a deep draw from a mug of the freshly-procured ale. “Mmm… yeah… that’s what daddy needed.”

Me: “So, did they, like, jump your claim or something?”

Sigrun: “No, they didn’t. Actually, they were here first. Bastards stole all the good loot from the ruins when they opened up!”

Me: “Wait, so then you’re the one jumping their–”

Sigrun: “I’ll give you more experience if you go steal the artifacts they found.”

Me: “So they were here first.”

Sigrun: “Yes.”

Me: “And they found the artifacts before you got here.”

Sigrun: “Mmhmm.” Sigrun nods.

Me: “And you want me to go steal the artifacts from them.”

Sigrun: “That’s about the long and short of it, yep.”

Me: “And it’s ok, because they’re evil dwarves.”

Sigrun: “Right.”

Me: “… God. Dammit.”

I head out to ‘liberate’ the artifact.

I’ve been thinking of getting into the WoW TCG, and saw someone on Amazon offering 500 assorted cards for just under $14, including shipping. Promised good variety from all of the sets, a few rares, lots of uncommons, and a good mix of all the card types, emphasizing that heroes were included.

The 500 cards I received, however, were all from the same set (Dark Portal). Interestingly, Amazon sells Dark Portal booster boxes for $40 (for reference, to pre-order a box of the latest set costs around $60), leading me to believe that Dark Portal is the WoW TCG’s ‘Fallen Empires.’ There were no heroes, there were no uncommons, and there was a clump of 5 rares from a raid deck treasure pack stuck in the middle of the stack of commons.

I’m used to having issues with online retailers. A shipment missing something, or something getting damaged in shipment, etc. In these sorts of cases, I try to work things out with the retailer and in pretty much every case everything is fixed and everyone walks away happy. Mistakes happen.

This, however, didn’t strike me as a mistake. If it was a mistake, it was grossly negligent. Rather, this seemed like an intentional attempt to offload a bunch of crud without even paying lip service to the item description. So rather than try to work it out with the seller, I went straight to Amazon to leave some feedback.

My negative feedback prompted the seller to contact me, sending me this email:

Ian,

We just noticed your feedback and we want to make you a happy customer i am sorry the cards you recevied were not what you were wanting but we did not see any emails that you had an issue with the shipment we can offer you a credit for the items and keep the cards or throw them away. Let me know what you think is fair. Sorry again about the cards

jason

I replied

Hi Jason,

I understand that mistakes happen. However, the fact of the matter is, this wasn’t a mistake. Whoever it is that packed this box grabbed 500 Dark Portal, threw a couple of trash rares in the middle, and decided to call it a day. I could even see a lack of uncommons or a lack of heroes being a combination of poor distribution and a lack of attention, but the idea that every single card came from the same set (again, except the 5 trash rares, which were all conspicuously grouped together) tells me that whoever packed the box had no regard for trying to fulfill what was promised.

I didn’t contact you about this for two reasons. First, it’s just plain not worth the effort. The product is cheap enough that I wouldn’t even blink twice about not getting much value from it, if not for the distinct and near-insulting lack effort on your part. And second, I shouldn’t have to contact you. And I can only imagine how many other people have had the same problem, but didn’t bother writing something negative on Amazon and so never got a ‘generous’ offer to make things right.

So this is the picture I have of you, as a seller: you offer decent deals, knowingly don’t deliver on a large portion of them, and then grease the rare squeaky wheel so that you can maintain a good reputation.

If you wish to fulfill what was offered, that would certainly be the right thing to do. I don’t expect you to do it, though, won’t ask you to, and will not rescind my negative comments. Ineptitude is forgivable, negligence is not.

Him:

Wow, only thing I can say is your seem to know nothing about any listing on amazon. Any person at any time can change the verbiage that is in the listing that the is reason why I item did not have the cards you THOUGHT you were suppose to. I guess you think that you should get tons of really good cards for a whopping 12.40. If you read what the add states you got what you were suppose but I guess you thought you should have received hundreds of dollars of cards for a whopping 7.00 after shipping you paid 1 cent a card what did you expect. Good luck with your negativity.

And BTW all others that have bought this realize it is 1 cent a card and understand you get what you pay for.

Me:

I’d have been perfectly happen to have gotten what I paid for. If the verbiage is so mercurial that you’re unable to keep up with it, then perhaps you shouldn’t be selling things in such a way. I know that, were I a retailer, I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable committing to sell something that anyone could change the description of.

For the record, when I placed the order, when I received the cards, when I placed the negative comments, and as of right this moment, the description is:

“This item is for an assortment of 500 World of Warcraft cards. It contains a few rares and plenty of uncommons! The remaining cards are commons. Hero cards are also included. Cards come from Heroes of Azeroth up to the the most recent set! The majority of cards are in near mint/mint condition. There is a good mix of Horde, Alliance, Hero, Item, and other card types. Few cards have more than 4 copies.”

That’s what I paid for. That is not what I got. Let’s look at the description piece by piece.

• This item is for an assortment of 500 World of Warcraft cards. I didn’t actually count them, but it looked about right and I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
• It contains a few rares and plenty of uncommons! It had no uncommons, so that’s an outright lie. I have reservations about the rares, but that part at least is accurate.
• The remaining cards are commons. This, at least, is completely true.
• Hero cards are also included. Outright lie. There were no hero cards.
• Cards come from Heroes of Azeroth up to the the most recent set! Bit of a grey area. Arguments could be made that technically you’re not guaranteeing anything, but again it’s strongly implied that there’s a variety of sets included, and you only sent me cards from the Dark Portal set.
• The majority of cards are in near mint/mint condition. Fair enough
• There is a good mix of Horde, Alliance, Hero, Item, and other card types. Again, there were no heroes. There were also only 5 items.
• Few cards have more than 4 copies. Many cards had 10 or more copies. Completely false.

So, no, I did *not* get what I paid for. I did not get any heroes. I did not get any uncommons. I did not get a variety of sets. I did not get a variety of cards.

So I realize I probably come out of this sounding petty and dickish… But c’est la vie. The Twisting Nether hath no fury like a nerd scorned.

It’s well known that in America, land of ‘democracy’, the rate of people actually going out and voting is abysmal. I have an idea for one way to possibly improve that.

What it comes down to is that for many people, their vote just doesn’t seem important. Some are just plain cynical and don’t think it makes a difference due to the sheer scale of things, due to the electoral process, or for other reasons. Others might not vote because they’re happy with the status quo. If, for example, you’re a democrat in a heavily blue state, you might expect that your state’s electoral votes will go to the candidate you want regardless.

So we have the issue that voting is a relative hassle for very little perceived benefit.

Here’s my proposed solution: emphasize things that are locally contentious. It’s important that it’s a local issue, as that makes it feel more important to the voter and also makes the voter feel as though their vote carries more weight. Further, it should be contentious. If the voter cares strongly about an issue which is perceived as having a split opinion in the local area, this makes their vote appear to matter even more.

Rather than focusing on the candidates and the seats, and letting all the other questions on the ballots be left to the wayside for the odd commercial or liquor store marquee blaring ‘No on Prop 12!’, make those questions the heart of the ballot. That will get more people out to vote… and while they’re voting on that stuff, casting a vote for a senator or president is no more hassle than marking a box on the sheet of paper they’ve already got in front of them.

For those who don’t know, GearScore is a popular addon for World of Warcraft. As the name implies, it gives each character a score based on their gear. Better gear is a higher score.

It also has a fair amount of controversy. It’s nearly ubiquitous, and yet at the same time everyone decries it as being useless and terrible.

The issue is that GearScore is sometimes used by players to quickly evaluate other players, and that leads to problems where great players might have low scores due to for example playing a new character, while bad players might have high scores simply because they’ve been persistent or have been carried through content that they shouldn’t otherwise be capable of getting through.

It’s a perfectly valid concern, and it also misses the point. I don’t think anyone seriously considers GearScore the be-all, end-all of player assessment. What it is, however, is an excellent way to get a quick overview of someone’s achievement. When you’re assembling a pickup group for a raid, checking someone’s GearScore is quick and easy. Checking someone’s achievements is a bit more involved, not just in looking them up but even in evaluating them. And frankly achievement-checking suffers the same problems as GearScore.

Really, the only way to get a grip on someone’s abilities is to either interview them to some degree or to find someone else who can vouch for them. Neither option is particularly feasible when you’re just trying to fill the last slots in your raid and get the show started. GearScore isn’t perfect, but it’s fast and easy and good enough.

And frankly, even if you don’t use GearScore for anything else, scores are just plain fun. Everyone likes scores! And it’s fun when you reach milestones, such as breaking 4000, 5000, or 6000; or beating a friend’s score.

The recently deceased Martin Gardner was known for, among other things, his mathematical puzzles. Here’s one of them.

I have two children, one of whom is a son born on a Tuesday. What is the probability that I have two boys?

The alleged answer may surprise you. Knowing the child’s gender and day of birth does actually affect the proability. Allegedly. The answer is hidden below.

Show »

I’ll also say that the answer is wrong , and in fact your initial intuition is right. (continue reading…)

One of the things that always struck me as a bit… inelegant about 4th Edition is that leaders, who usually have powers which grant healing surges with bonuses, can basically use the healing powers as much as they want between encounters. I find this inelegant because there is at least an implicit–arguably perhaps even an explicit–expectation that players should spend their own healing surges between encounters to heal. (continue reading…)

As I’m writing this (early May), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is currently on a free weekend in Steam.

I’ve never played any Call of Duty game before. Traditionally, I’ve preferred so-called “arena shooters” like Quake and Unreal Tournament– fast-paced, twitchy games– as opposed to games which were slower, more conservative, and more realistic. In fact, for a long time, I refused to play any FPS where you had to reload.

Tastes change, though. Halo got me over the reloading issue, and Team Fortress 2 has gotten me past the anathema of the ‘realistic’ (cartoony, yes, but I still consider TF2 to be realistic, compared to the sci-fi FPSs I more commonly prefer).

And now with the free weekend for MW2, I’ve had my first taste of a Call of Duty game, and I like it. I’m not completely enamored with the gameplay. I don’t like how it often seems to come down to a hiding match where you try to spot them before they spot you, especially since the player models blend in to many of the environments so well (which, admittedly, is probably intentional).

I can get over those issues and enjoy the gameplay, but what really draws me in is the customization. You can create your own character class by selecting weapons, equipment, perks, and other things. There are also fun customizable elements like killstreak and deathstreak awards.

I dare say that if the price  came down a bit, I’d love to buy the game… But I won’t, and that’s a damn shame. I won’t buy Modern Warfare 2 because it is the poster child of something I really, really dislike: the console-ization of PC games.

An article on Ars Technica explains the reasons well enough. In short, there are no dedicated servers, no custom content, no mods, no control. They’re trying to take the walled garden of consoles and enforce it on PCs.

Let me be clear: I think walled gardens are perfectly fine on certain devices. Specifically, anything which is designed for a narrow set of uses, such as consoles and traditional cell phones. Something which is designed for general computing, however, should absolutely not (and this is the main reason I dislike the iPhone and iPad, but that’s a rant for another day…).

There are some who might argue that the loss of those features in MW2 isn’t a big deal. That I’m enjoying the game just fine without them. To those people, I say feh. This is a legitimate concern.

As I mentioned, I really enjoy playing Team Fortress 2. TF2′s gameplay is a lot of fun, and that by itself would have been enough… for a while. But what keeps me coming back is everything that Modern Warfare 2 lacks.

Dedicated servers are important because that’s how you meet people. A dedicated server is like a bar. You find one you like, you hang out, you get to know the regulars and build bonds with them. Compare this to console-style matchmaking, where at best you might friend someone after playing a quick game with them, and then you can either force yourself to play more frequently with them or just forget about them and let them join the huge list of other one-night stands.

Dedicated servers are also important because you don’t have to wait to get your group of friends together. You can just hop on, and they can join in when they want.

Further, TF2 is expanded by a huge amount of community content. Everything from maps produced with professionalism rivaling and even exceeding the stock maps, to gimmicky maps where you push a Mario-shaped cart up a Donkey Kong-inspired stage or try to capture points in a Pac-man world while avoiding the homicidal ghosts.

When you’re feeling silly, Sourcemod lets you play around with the gameplay itself. Make people drop presents when they die, or roll dice for good and bad effects, mess with gravity, turn people into walking time bombs. More dedicated mods completely change the gameplay, such as the Starcraft mod which gives you access to many different “races” with RPG-style advancement.

And the best part is that all of this is actively supported by the developer, Valve. They release regular updates, adding brand new content of their own creation but also folding in the cream of the community crop into the stock game, expanding the game even for those who never venture outside their little sandbox.

Last, but certainly not least, is the amount of customization available. Swap out the Razorback for a koala bear, or the Eyelander for a chainsaw sword. Turn the Heavy into an anthropomorphic bear. Write scripts to complement your gameplay, such as combining jump and duck into a single weapon.

All of this is what PC gaming is all about. This is why PC gamers are PC gamers. Console gaming is fast and easy; PC gaming is customizable and rewarding. And this is why, much as I like it, I will never buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I’ve always felt that skill challenges were one of D&D 4th Edition’s most egregious failings, in large part because I was so excited for them. At Encounter-a-Day, I’ve tried to come up with ways to fix them by completely altering the framework of skill challenges.

The more I think about it, though, the more I become sure that the idea of a skill challenge is fundamentally broken, and needs to be put to pasture. The inspiration is absolutely wonderful, but the idea that you can make a single framework, no matter how flexible, apply to any situation is misguided at best.

Even worse, the mere existence of such a framework encourages you to try and shoehorn things into it.

That’s why I think the idea of a skill challenge should be struck from the gamers’ lexicon. But retain the inspiration, the idea that skills matter. Actively look for places to add skill checks into the game, particularly during combat. Mike Shea’s Circle of Protection encounter is a wonderful example of making skills matter.

My problem here is that if I were designing the same thing, I probably would have tried to make it a skill challenge, when it clearly doesn’t need to be. I’d try to fit the situation into the framework, rather than trying to design a new framework to fit the situation. There absolutely are times when the skill challenge framework is appropriate, but I think having that framework in your mind ahead of time is counterproductive.

So really what my advice boils down to is this: look for opportunities to test the characters’ skills, and design a framework that suits the situation from the ground up.