FredMcD.com

With zombies popular so recently, I began wondering why other types of enemy in games are almost always so uninteresting or often outright frustrating. While actual AI, a program that learns and modifies it’s behaviour based on interaction, is a long way off in all but abstract senses, giving enemies more than the typical run towards player shooting behaviours that ruined Farcry 2 and many other games, and jars against the complex physics and visuals in todays games, would be a start.

First and foremost, giving enemies a basic sense of self-preservation opens up a whole range of dynamics. In a basic form, the enemy is given a health bar and some kind of panic meter. As the panic meter increases, the enemy’s program is changed to respond differently.

What kind of events affect the panic meter?

• Death of a teammate with no player in sight (Stealth kills.).
  • Discovering a body.
• Taking non-fatal damage.
  • Could even take effect when enemies feel bullets hitting around them.
• Explosions, fire and destruction.
• Being aimed at (Mexican standoff.).
  • Seeing squad member being aimed at.
• Player neutralising or incapacitating either a number of the enemy squad and/or it’s leader.

Other factors to add in:

• Is the enemy facing towards or away from the player?
• Do they have their gun ready?
  • Can they hit the player reliably (Shotgun vs sniper situation.).
• How notorious is the player?
• How far are they from help or cover?
• Is shooting already happening (Calm before the storm.)?

What does this open up?

• No longer is gunning down hordes your only option.
• Enemies value their own survival over killing you.
• Scaring enemies away through shock and awe tactics gives the player a way to feel even better blowing things up.
• Being able to take on a much larger threat using thinking instead of just more force.
  • Feeling bad ass.
• No need to mop up after a fight. Killing the majority of a force will cause a retreat.
  • Giving you time to loot and go before reinforcements show up.
• For a real challenge, players can attempt non-violent resolutions.

Note: Enemies should probably drop their weapons when running away.

Leaving you with these things to think about (Feel free to leave a comment.), this is Fred, signing off.

Earplug mix arrived today and I’ve already got them curing away in my ears. The process was pretty straight-forward, though there were a few things I had to keep in the fore-front of my mind, coupled with some things I had to work out as I went along.
My main concern was the design of my ER6i earbuds gave the foam very little to hold them in, though ,worst comes to it, I can salvage the plastic tubes from the inside of the foam eartips and superglue them in place.

Method

Mixing the earplugs was simple enough, while the video posted only used 1/2 of the mix, due to the ER6i’s small size and my large ears (I’m big all over.) I ended up using about 3/4 and could have probably gone with the whole mix, providing some extra to cut away.

Before I started, I made sure to wash my hands and used some wet cotton wool buds to wash out my ears, and then some more to dry them. I also made sure to have on hand a mirror (Shaving mirrors are good for this.)

Kneeding was simple, though the mix starts hardening fast. I had to mix twice (Once for the first half and as second time for the extra quarter.) and by the time I’d done my second mix, the first had already begun to noticeably harden.

When it came to pressing, I started with most of the mix into the ear (With the aid of the shaving mirror.), followed by the earbuds and then pressed around with the rest of the mix filling up the top half area of the outer ear and covering some of the headphone. Given their small size, the earbuds are now mostly absorbed into the blue mass.

Once the 15 mins of waiting was over (Instructions say 10 but I suggest you also play it safe.) the mix had hardened nicely and it was just a case of slicing the in-ear section down to the opening, smoothing, re-attaching the filters (More on those later.) and testing.

Results

The biggest improvement over flanged ear-tips is in comfort, the light weight foam and ear-bud, combined with vastly improved weight distribution and no more pressure on the inner ear mean I should be able to wear these for hours on end without any dis-comfort. They do feel a bit strange, but I’m already getting used to that.

They hold in place very nicely, accidentally tugging in the cable no longer results in sharp pain but instead a gentle pressure. The foam, while not heavy in the ear, adds a lot to the size of the earbud, having it dangling from your t-shirt might no longer be a good idea.

The fit is very good, not on the air-tight level of the flanged tips, but that’s what you pay for comfort. The ER6is’ already somewhat weak bass seems to suffer, though this isn’t hard to ignore. The slight loss in attenuation is something I actually welcome, the flanged tips effectively render you deaf to the outside world, whereas these foam pieces block out background noise, while leaving someone talking directly to you at least noticeable.

Oddly, the fit seems to improve after you put them in and leave them for a while, probably due to some combination of heat expansion and them just settling in through small movements.

Filter Problems

One of the biggest reasons I’d recommend against doing this with Etymotic earbuds is the fact that the filters are now exposed completely and have long been one of my least favorite features; One dot of water or earwax and you have to replace them. The earbuds can’t be used without the filters as the earbuds are tuned specifically to compensate for the way the filters effect the sound (It becomes tinny without them.).

In short, use earbuds that don’t use filters.

Conclusions

I’d recommend using bigger, bassier headphones for this modification. As long as you make sure to read the instructions and think through what you’re going to do before you do it, you should be rewarded with the most comfortable earbuds for such a good price, offering good noise reduction and all in, a great project.

Before we start, I’m defining a communication game as a game where, in order to complete a task, players have to communicate information or instructions to each other. In these examples, I’ll be talking specifically about games where one player is presented with information that they need the other player to act upon. A good prior example would be Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicals when played with the GBA kit, as each player’s GBA screen would have things like a map or motion sensor that they have to communicate to the other players. Another example would be the ill-fated mod NeoTokyo which gave the flag carrier the perk of being able to see any nearby enemies through walls but at the cost of being able to use their weapon, requiring them to rely on their team for defense while aiding them with information.

Can you see them too?

My first example [Which ran a bit long so it's going to be my only one for today's post.] is a game that focuses strongly on this core mechanic (A mech-demo, if you will.) and ties it into modern action-horror games (Though it could be more old-style suspense-horror depending on how you set pace and atmosphere.). Set in your classic abandoned secluded village, Sarah has come across Morgan, who is unable to leave an area due to the ghosts (Or other apparitions.) in the surrounding area. As you may have guessed, Sarah is unable to see the ghosts, but, should she swing a stick at them, they disintegrate, leaving Morgan alone for a while. Morgan can also hurt the ghosts, but it is much more risky for him to do so, as being able to see him also renders him vulnerable to their attacks, of the disorienting, paralyzing variety. (more…)

I’d put the custom headphone project on hold indefinitely, after trying at two different audiologists and being told there was no way to get a custom mold done to take away but, after a recent discovery, I found this video.

The related guide in pictures.

As it stands, in the next week or so, I’ll be putting in an order for some Radians DIY custom earplug mix (Ebay search: “custom earplugs“.) and giving it a go myself, after which, I’ll post my results.
While I could use the earplugs for casting, I’m going to see how long I can use them in just their foam form. Unlike the video, I’m going to drill out a tunnel from driver to eardrum, reducing the amount of air being moved, just to see what the difference is.

I’ve spent the last two days dealing with a laptop, which, after replacing it’s ailing hard drive, would enter into a reboot loop once I’d reinstalled and updated Vista Basic (Dell OEM). The system would show the loading bar for less than a second, flash blue-screen, and then reset.
Running through startup in safe mode has the system get as far as crcdisk.sys, but, if you got here, you probably already know.

As no-one seemed to have found an answer to this problem, I wanted to post how I got around this.

The short of it is: Don’t install the optional Windows “Recommended” updates.
After reinstalling a first time, I got a chunk of the important updates installed and rebooted several times in a row to check stability. Attempting to install the recommended updates as a lot failed and, once again, I got the loop had to reinstall. On the third install, I didn’t install any of the optional updates and it seemed I got a lot more updates (I don’t remember seeing Service Pack 2 on the first time round.).

Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that what was happening was I was being allowed to install an optional update before it’s pre-requisite main update had installed (Linux people may know this as a dependency problem.) so installing them after all the main updates might not present the main problem but, I’m not risking having to install Windows again to find out.

In conclusion: Recommended Updates are optional and can break your computer. They may also be presented before it’s safe to install them.