Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing
Archive for June, 2009
Australian Defense Force Recruitment
Jun 18th
Today I attended a YOU session at the Defence Force Recruitment centre in Adelaide. The day included waiting, aptitude testing, waiting, informal interview, form filling, more waiting and finally a basic medical interview based on the previous form filling. The aptitude testing was a very basic multiple choice affair. First you take a general test which asks simple questions like:
Which of the following words does not belong:
Dog. Cat. Bird. Tyre. Fish.
After completing the first test or running out of time (the tests are timed), you have a short one minute break before doing the second maths based test. The maths test is a little bit more involved but overall the questions are simple like:
Plane A and Plane B are 500 kilometres apart and flying towards each other. If plane A is travelling at a constant speed of 240 k/m and plane B is travelling at a constant speed of 360 k/m when will the planes meet?
The informal interview afterwards is nothing special. You’re asked a few questions to sum up what you know about the ADF and are then presented with the results of your aptitude testing and the roles you can join. I chose Communication Electronic Technician and due to being a job in demand had an interview set up on the spot.
Communication Electronic Technicians maintain and repair the Air Force’s vast array of radar, radios, satellite and computer systems to ensure the Air Force has an accurate view of the airspace around it.
Three hours had passed and I spent a fourth hour doing some form filling and confirming some of my answers with a nurse before heading home. My job interview is scheduled for Tuesday the 23rd.
Anno 1404 Demo Now Available
Jun 18th
The playtime of the demo is limited to 1 hour per game mode. Two game modes are accessible:
- Campaign chapter 1 and 2 (each chapter playable for 1 hour max)
- Continous Game (with predefined settings – playable for 1 hour max)
In the Demo the civilization levels are limited to Peasants, Citizens and Nomads. The attainments are limited to level 1 only, No online functionality and No achievements.
You can grab the demo here.
Anno 1404
Jun 11th
In the fascinating world of ANNO™ the player will sink into a unique building strategy game, where he sets sail in a beautiful island world to master the tricks of trade, diplomacy and economy, building up his own monumental cities. Continuous careful and elaborate planning will help fulfil his citizen’s needs and let his empire flourish. The upcoming ANNO 1404™ will bring this award-winning building strategy series to a new level:
Discover a strange and wondrous land in the uttermost East: the Orient! This highly civilized land will provide you with endless opportunities, and with the help of your new allies your occidental cities will prosper and become mighty metropolises!
Anno is one of my favourite series of games. Enjoy the trailer.
Let the Cleansing Begin!
Jun 11th
I’ve made a few changes around these parts.
- Fewer plugins.
- Theme changed to Arclite.
- Removed garbage posts.
I didn’t think it was entirely necessary to run as many plug-ins as I had been. Being new to WordPress meant I spent many a time trying out new things and exploring the plethora of extensions available. The amount of plug-ins has now been reduced to a more reasonable level for such a small blog. The themes of old have been replaced with what you see before you. The new theme is far more colourful and matches rather nicely with Rurisu’s website. Finally a few rather useless posts have been removed regarding a certain level design project that is now in limbo.
Doug Lombardi Explains Need for Left 4 Dead 2
Jun 4th
The guys over at Rock Paper shotgun spoke to Valve’s VP of marketing Doug Lombardi about Left 4 Dead 2. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say:
Doug Lombardi: …we didn’t sit down and say, “We need to ship a sequel next for next Christmas, what features do we need?” That wasn’t the way it happened, that’s not the way Valve works. What did happen was, the team sat down and said, “We’ve got a bunch of ideas of stuff we want to do.” People were really fired up when the game was finished, and there was a lot of feedback and ideas that came from watching people play – on the scale of millions of people, as opposed to hundreds of people that we went through during the playtesting sessions. So we put a lot of those things on the board and said, “What can we do quickly? What’s going to take more time? What’s the best way to get stuff out to customers?” And part of that plan ended up with L4D2, with things like changing the way the finales worked, introducing some new Survivors, giving new dialogue, telling more about the story, introducing new Specials. We said, “Wow, that makes for a nice sequel.”
Doug seems to do a good job of explaining things but what gets me is this:
Doug Lombardi: L4D2 is a response to what players were asking for after the first one shipped. That’s really how it came about. I think if folks spot us a bit more time, they may see where we’re going with all this. The more they learn about how much there is in L4D2… I mean, twenty new weapons isn’t DLC! Three new Specials, and twenty weapons, and five new campaigns: that starts to feel like a sequel.
I completely agree with you Doug but what do we have as DLC?
The Survivor pack added a new game mode Survival. Survival is playable on the new lighthouse level and a bunch of cornered off parts of the original campaign maps. All campaigns are now playable in versus mode, something that should have been possible from the games launch. Lastly we got a plethora of bug fixes and a few slight changes in the games mechanics. Not one new weapon, not one new campaign, dialouge and story could have easily been added as part of an additional campaign. All the Survival pack does is make the game a finished product it doesn’t add anything I’d really expect from Valve.
Doug was questioned about the addition of content for Left for Dead:
Doug Lombardi: …we’re not announcing any of the specifics of that today. Like I say, stay tuned, there’s more coming.
Stay tuned? That sounds awfully familar to when you were questioned about Episode 3 in a seperate interview here.
Doug Lombardi: [laughs] Don’t have a new date. Since we missed the last time, I’m not gonna put out another one. I’ve said this before, but Freeman’s not done with his adventure. Stay tuned for more.
We’ve been staying tuned for two years now Doug.
You can read the whole thing here.
