Android Wear is Flawed and Here's Why

Android Wear is Flawed

Here’s why

     RIP smart watches. The reality is that both iOS’ wear and Android wear operating systems have a core mistake that make us misuse technology, unless we find a real use for the monstrosity we pack in these accessories. We have to rethink the reason we buy smart watches – or ordinary watches - from the very beginning.

they look nice

     This all started when I was giving a speech to new people on what the watch I am using is, since many people are curious about “the mini-phone toy watch” as they call it for having the three buttons and Sony on it, also having no depth unlike real watches. Despite not many people fully understanding it, they have mixed reactions on how useful it will be. I find it very useful because at least I can call and not lose my phone, with my Bluetooth headsets, I can call and do almost everything remotely, and thanks to the updates of the SW2, I can prewrite custom messages in different languages too, and the new watch faces are a lot better in features and customizability.

my watch I've had since launch

    But when I looked at the next generation of watches, and the present one, sure some of them look fantastic, but there are two big mistakes with all the next generation. The first is the insane processing power, and the second is the insane price tag. Read on to know why.



   As I mentioned in the second paragraph, smart watches are not for everyone. Some people find it unnecessary, some people just don’t have arms big enough (it’s true) and some people would rather buy gold or Swiss watch rather than a computerized watch. In fact, even though I am dependent on my watch, I don’t pull it out all the time, and to be honest it sometimes attracts attention when it beeps and shines thanks to the application ( Notification for SW2 ) . And when I call from it/answer a call, people think this is my phone rather than a watch. And when I use it to time someone, or set the timer, people think it is an advanced watch. It does almost everything I need to do while outside except make internet calls. There is no notification I miss, etc.

 variations are unique

    But with the phone disconnected, my options are limited. It is a Bluetooth accessory after all, so I can mainly only open to read texts, use the calculator and all the time apps, etc. Sony limited the options of third party apps to work without the pair. This is because the watch is inferior in processing and memory than all its peers, but with all you see above, does one really need more processing to do this? And when you consider the battery, and the open-source OS that Sony made?



    Android Wear is an OS that requires 4GB memory to exist, and a lot of RAM to run. Does that sound familiar? This is the reason why the price tag will keep it too high to be a popular item, and too low for a luxury item. It is the price of a high-end phone back in the days of 2011-2012. History is repeating itself!

image copyrighted not mine

    One more reason why I do not like the standard Android Wear is that it is also Google, and thanks to Google’s experiments on Google play services, with the introduction of Wear and L developing is made easier on the part of the GUI. Obviously, that is a good thing, but the worst part about this is what I wrote in a previous article that if the Google version of Android is the most dominant then alternate OS and Android Stores will not help this Linux-based OS we all know and love when each takes a different path. Luckily, there are many alternatives, and there are phones that run Android without Google, but how many of us are willing to switch to that? 



    Personally, I am using a different store than the Play Store, and while I can never live without the Google backup services, At least a watch should have reasonable price, a variant OS, and all the features I need. Like the fitness and camera variants, not all watches are suitable for everyone’s needs. So I believe that an OS with minimal hardware requirements is a beneficial OS because it allows the watch to have more important features like battery life and water protection.



   I admit, The LG Watch R looks fantastic, but I am still proud of buying the SW2 and do not believe it is outdated yet. 

Reality of Minecraft Servers

Reality of Minecraft Servers

   So much has been going on, and I lost all the partial files of my texture pack, so I fell into playing Minecraft for a while, and so on. I noticed there are a lot of unsaid things about Minecraft, so I decided to say them here.

 protect it already!

   Minecraft cannot fit only in the sandbox or indie genre, it is also an MMO, a MOBA, survival horror, RPG, FPS. You name it and Minecraft is that genre. Bukkit was really the best mod experiment to be created and used by servers. But sometimes, servers limit the game so and it rarely looks like a game anymore just a gallery of images.

some people..

   I am looking at you overrated factions PVP servers. You need to walk for an hour in order to find unclaimed land, and nothing is fun in that. If you are lucky, you get one of two people at spawn. Type 1 are the dreaded noob callers who think they have the right to spawn kill you just because you are new to the server. Sure, there are safe zones but they don’t really prevent that much. It’s kind of like that episode in Log Horizon where the cat and the red girl were walking out of town and seeing the spawn killers unable to do anything until they cross the safe line. Not helpful.

  The second type are the charitable giving type. They stand at spawn and throw 5000 stacks of diamond and act really friendly to the new comers but they do not realize how giving an unfair advantage to the ones currently online could be trouble to the rest, because you are saving trolls and spawn killers the hours that would otherwise make them give up. Coming from an ex-troll, mark my words, trolls are impatient. If they don’t climb their way through the server’s economy by “kind” people or bullying kids on chat to have them forfeit their items, cheap killing, and verbal abuse, they’ll leave the server and forget about trolling in it. Don’t help people until they prove potential. I only mean this in video games, not real life!

Monetised MOBA everywhere.

    Other than faction servers are the MOBA games, which start out very creative. MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, popular servers include Uberminecraft, HiveMC famous for its Blockparty. They are extremely creative, but it sucks to see a game die out, like spleef :’( and replaced with other laggy games (splegg I’m looking at you ). Sure, the new plugin introduction to games is cool, some games have potential, but these servers are all increasingly competitive and player-heavy, where the plugin developer is the one who makes the rules to the game. Good to kill time sometime, but may be the next Call of Duty online phenomenon.

some people... x2

    That said though, I do not feel addicted to MOBA Minecraft. Most modern servers (not exclusive factions) mix a global economy, some MOBA/ minigames, and some MMO games, like prison, factions (again) or something special like My little pony, Breaking Bad (mafia craft) or Skyrimcraft (which didn’t satisfy me, by the way). These servers try to mix in a lot and manage so many minigames at once. One has got to be appreciative of these amazing feats of holding the server together, always having a mod online.

don't hate the game hate the player. what?

   But for once, I longed for a real Minecraft experience. You just spawn in a random place and there are no claimed lands. I am not saying no bukkit entirely but the real McMMO needs to let me edit terrain as I please. Kill as I please. Live dangerously as I please. Don’t protect me from PVP, but at the same time, allow me to protect a small amount of land, not huge chunks of factions. I’ve tried Skyblock, but that doesn’t seem right (and again, I was trolled) so I finally found survival, NOT survival games (Hunger games MOBA). And one where I got a good chance too. Lichcraft has real survival that works, even though the servers are full half the day, and in next month, I won’t be online until the time where it’s full. I am in no way advertising servers, but these are all just suggestions for you to find your perfect playstyle. If Skyrimcraft fixes the skyrim part, I’d play it. But for now, I changed my top server.

i am having deja vu here for some reason..

   If you know of any worthy servers that entertain you/take all of your free time? If so, mention them in the comments! I am looking for the perfect server, and might video the best server. Until then, Play More Zelda!

Anime Review: Aldnoah.Zero

Aldnoah.Zero Review

   “Another weird anime with punctuation marks in its name” is the first thing that came to mind. I liked .hack but still, it was different but lacked unique. If you are ready to watch an anime that you don’t really know what to expect, then Aldnoah.Zero is for you.

Story: 7/10
   I was surprised by how good this was. First the characters don’t seem very well developed nor do they relate to the viewer, and that is what makes them a lot more realistic in the fact that all characters have a deep emotional side story, and even if it didn’t get covered on the screen, it actually happened. The way characters act in the time of crisis should be unpredictable, but this random flow of emotions is really well portrayed here. 

  Also, despite the main protagonist being a guy, there is a surprisingly huge number of female cast in this anime, but not enough to completely erase all romantic aspects of the main lead. This is both good and bad, but again it failed to pull me in towards the protagonist’s inner struggles, if he had any.

Music: 4/10 
  Taste in music is a personal opinion, but I find the opening annoying, but including the ending theme in some cutscenes – er, I meant climax scenes? - makes it worthwhile.

Artstyle: 10/10
   Come on, this was made in 2014. Not much senseless censorship like Black Cat or Tokyo Ghoul, and the world was very inclusive. Some scenes had cliché camera angles which really give the retro feel of the old anime, while not looking boring at the same time. The animation was smooth, the boring robots had smooth motion cycles, etc.

Overall: 7/10
   There are many points that do not make sense (such as the infinite repair supplies, anyone?) but overall this is a good anime to watch if you want something that tries to be unique like Code Geass did, and didn’t fail nor succeed, like Code Geass did as well. That said, it is quite from everything else you’ve watched, and if you like tactics, Aldnoah stresses on points never explored in anime and difficult to find even in a video game.

  I wish they make an action-RPG with this, because seriously this anime if filled with things comparable to video games. Play More Zelda!

Zelda Month: Let the Selfies Begin

Zelda Month: Let the Selfies Begin

  Since it is Zelda month, as inspired by PBG, it seems logical that I write an article about Zelda, considering that I didn't write any article since a very long time. For that I apologize, but I have another alternative. My youtube channel is becoming populated with more videos, so you might want to check it out for my fail at gameplay. If I ever start doing a Zelda Let's Play, I'll mention it here too.

  That aside, instead of leaving this post empty I got a fantastic idea to make a competition between Zelda fans on Twitter using the hashtag #windwakerselfie. Post the funniest selfie you got and the one with the most retweets wins! isn't that a cool idea? I might even post all the entries on my blog at the end of the month, and the winner gets.. well honor and glory, my friend, honor and glory.

   Also, I am planning to make a Majora's Mask gameplay series this month considering that the 3D remake is confirmed, but just when I  figure out how to capture the full screen of it... Also, the Wii is not with me right now so I cannot record the awesome Skyward Sword for now.

   But please check out my youtube channel! It's a gaming channel that took away most of my time that I used to post on this blog, but in no way am I planning to forget my blog! You are my real audience, my real viewers, and the youtube was just because of lack of time, that I need to game and post on the internet, so I thought, why not both? However, when I get a good time to write (I am actually hesitant to show you a really good idea that is unrelated to technology aka the theme of the blog) I will! Thank you all for supporting me this far.

Voxel Racing Game: Android vs. iOS

Voxel Racing Game: Android vs. iOS

It's time, android fans, to prove your worth and make your mother proud. Voxel Rush, a racing game, is testing your skills, pitted against iPhones, iPads, and iPods in our endless tilting game. Will you let your device down? Will you let us all down? You won't, so grab every smartphone in the house and make sure you beat my score. I am competing with three android devices, including this one that I am blogging with. I won't share the names of the other two. Competition starts on 1 pm EST so practice well before then.

As a motivational picture, I drew a little poster. Since this is my first drawing on the World Wide Web, I'll go with the initials B.C.Z. just as my youtube channel.

iOS users: make sure you download the game too. Don't go easy on us either, so that you get crushed fair and square.

Spectators: Watch the twitch stream. Make sure you tell everyone about it, and also, if you are android user, stop watching and get your head in the game!

Dear iPhone 6 haters

Dear iPhone 6 haters

  Oh you Android fans throwing tomatoes at iPhone for copying Android very late because it’s out of ideas. How dare you insult iPhone 6 like that?

  Actually, you should direct more hate on it, but this time the obtuse iPhone zombies might wrongly accuse us of being jealous on the iPhone 6. Of course, nobody has the right to insult the users themselves, so we just start pointing out how slow-paced the iPhone series is, right?

  Ron’s joke was good, but when Samsung and HTC gang up like that, we don’t look very good at making fun unless we are innovative. So let’s spread our innovativeness by sharing these kind of user-generated jokes along social media. Android fans should always remind the rest of the world why supporting open-source products is the only thing that is saving humanity from destruction (by titans!)

  Initially I also thought of comparing an iPhone 6 with the Motorola Nexus 6, because since Google bought Moto and the Nexus series is closer than ever to being Google’s perfect realization of the Android OS, but it has not yet been revealed completely.

   What about initial thoughts on the Apple Watch? It’s probably going to be a total rip-off, however with outside looks it’s almost on par with the Samsung Gear models, I’ll give it that. It does look glossier that Sony’s previous retro edgy looks on the sides. But with their surprisingly bulky buttons, it barely feel like what I expected the iWatch would turn out to be.

   What do you think about the misleading title? Be honest. The rest of the articles aren’t so misleading.

September Smartphone 2014

September Smartphone 2014

thanks to this blogger for transparent eyes

    
   Every beginning of an academic year, and most people do a back to school shopping spree, nerds do their own hunting. This year we’ve got a lot of smartphones that just load more numbers and more digits into their processors but what we really need to limit ourselves with here is functionality.

  Although I say that and here is a specifications comparison of the four flagship native KitKat phones, namely the LG G3, the Sony Z2, the Samsung S5, and the HTC M8.

  Before the comparison tables, I was actually reluctant to include the HTC, because their model numbers are simply confusing, and they always try to remake every model they have. They are going to make a Windows Phone model out of this too.

  What’s special is that all these phones were released in 2014, which made me drop the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 out of the list although it should be worth comparing.

   This year around I shall consider the budget phone of the year, which, surprisingly isn’t an android. Let’s introduce it first: The Nokia Lumia 525. As any living human being, I always advise that the RAM of a smartphone have to be => 1GB and no less. Nokia loves to trick you into not getting one of these, and their apparently well-sold Lumia 520 is very similar with the exception of RAM.

   Budget phones are not just about the initial price; it’s also about the lifespan. Generally dual core 1 GHz phones should have a good life span if the OS allows it. iPhones degenerate quickly, and so do Android phones if used extensively, or connected to shady networks. Nokia’s version of any software is usually the safest to go, however it’s best to have a full experience on any phone, so steer clear from the Nokia X and Nokia XL as they do not have proper Google Play stores, while the Windows phone does. Microsoft also has some cool cloud and other services, and if you are an Xbox fan it’s a bit of a plus.

click to enlarge

*=two different models exist with 16GB,2GB RAM and 32GB, 3GB RAM respectively


   Now that Sony decided that increasing phone resolution is not worth the battery life drop, I am really considering waiting for the PS4-game enabled Xperia device. Hooray for smuggling video games into study areas!

  As for the table, this time I’ve went on to do something new and almost completely try to omit the extremely similar features and repetitive ones. Since these flagship smartphones are directly competing with each other, the main focus will be on the differences rather than similarities.

  The CPU, GPU, Chipset, etc., are exactly the same for all. The native OS is as well as Bluetooth, so I only included some of them because they are more important. Mainly, all these Quad-core processors are of equal caliber, and there shouldn’t be a great difference in there, but the LG sure has stepped up its game by including two models, and one of them (the 32GB internal storage one) has a whopping 3GB RAM. 

   Most people consider this a “Shame on you, Samsung” because the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 had 3GB of RAM, and the S5 looks like a downgraded version released in the wrong order of time. But compared to every other manufacturer it doesn’t lose much ground.

  Apparently HTC M8 is planning to rob iPhone of its user base, with no need to change the SIM card or try to fit it into a small adapter in order to use an Android device right now. Speaking of the odd measures of HTC, they have a phone with a dual 4MP? What does that mean? It means it is essentially 4MP, but with better brightness and faster focus on images and videos. If you already have a digital camera, then trying something new is not bad, but it sure is a little bit of a risk to get a flagship phone with the inferior camera. However, for selfie enthusiasts, this phone is better than your iPhone for taking a front-camera selfie with back camera iPhone quality. Have you ever seen a phone with 5MP on the front? HTC really targets the iPhone users this time.

   A sad point to note is that Samsung is using the new charger, which is why I colored the USB field black to contrast. Version 3.0 of the micro-USB is actually something like a micro-USB version 2.0 with a smaller version stuck to it. The micro-USB v2.0 is just the normal one we use on most android and even old Nokia and Samsungs. Of course the Samsung Galaxy S5 is backward compatible, but that just means one more sophisticated cable in your house. You’d want to need it for faster transfer speeds on your laptop, as my 1TB hard drive really goes smoothly with that cable as well, so it’s not a lie, but personally, I believe it’s not worth it unless you live alone. Most people who live in a family probably store their old mobile phones for headsets and chargers, or even other family members are likely to buy from the same manufacturer. Generic Nokia phones had a standard, newer iPhones now have a standard, most Android devices have always maintained their unspoken rule about standards, so why now, Samsung? You were the early adapters of micro-USB v2.0, why are you selling it out now?

  Both Sony and Samsung were competing really hard with the camera specifically. The Xperia has the higher MegaPixels at 20.7 which is magnificent, and the resolution is probably better (more square-ish) than Samsung’s. It is amazing though, that you can record a video on a phone with a resolution higher than the screen itself. Playback is a waste on the cell phones now!

  Things I forgot were that the Galaxy S5 and the Xperia Z2 are both waterproof.

  LG is quite spectacular with the screen this time, completely winning in the pixel density war as well as the resolution. Having a lower brightness on one of the earlier adapters of the Corning Gorilla Glass series is a plus point. Most people assume that brighter is better just because it is a word that mathematically refers to a positive change in a variable, but actually a screen with lower brightness is a lot less stressful on the eye, and also heats up less. Of all my experience, a Samsung phone with an AMOLED display would heat from the front extremely, to the point where the “dust” on your hand would electrostatically become released from your fingertip. An LG device normally heats up whenever the 3G or the screen are on and white light is displayed, but only the upper part where the upper speaker and wifi are positioned. Glad that Samsung is using Gorilla Glass 3 this time around.

  I almost went through everything, and I did not really intend that, but for now I will delay all the other points regarding general phone issues to a later date. Which phone appeals to you most, and are you actually planning to buy a flagship this September? It is the beginning of the academic year, so I’d love quick responses in the comments below. Play More Zelda!

Is the gaming community oppressive?

Is the gaming community oppressive?

   The internet may be known for its trolls, heated debates about religion and politics, but gamers also use the internet, even if in a different way. Here’s what I think gamers, me included, do wrong in the world we are building. They may be wrong, so feel free to judge.

   With game developers and server owners limiting the control and creating non-existent rules on the internet, it is quite surprising how so many of gamers still think that they are the cool rule breakers and the dangerous ones on the web. Nowadays, a lot of gamers know a little bit of coding, or they can just have a cheat engine, and think hacking in-game can also make them the top elite of the gaming community, when in fact, admins can just ban them and these “hackers” won’t work their way back with the same username. 

  On the contrary, I’ve seen a lot of people kissing up to sys admins and in-game admins to the point of slavery just so they can get perks like own a land close to spawn or get to use military grade weapons, secure a place in a tournament or even (not saying names) work their way up in the hall of fame for no reason. That’s lame. Sure, admins should get some thank-yous for their long hours of coding (I’ve once had to take care of two servers for a week) and trying to juggle all the problems in real-time, but some admins just buy a server from a hosting service that does all that for you. Maybe at the beginning of time admins were nerds who wanted total power over something, but now they are social animals like us too and do not need to be worshipped.

   Then there are the people who like to play with a twist: mods everywhere and all these complicated registration rules on servers. I’d rather study calculus than know the history of your father’s father’s father, and how in 1888 there was a guy who changed your life forever that’s why I need to change my skin to enter this lobby. Really, thank you for making matchmaking possible, and for having a good playerbase, but make it easy and quick for me to go anywhere! Also, I do not like the “wait for admin” button that people use when they are angry at my attitude.

  Now onto developers, and their three new discriminations: region, internet speed, game rep. They hate and love people based on these three factors more than they should hate cheaters, or how we hate griefers.
   
Region restriction is the new racism, and not just for games: for any downloads. In a world where it’s easy to travel anywhere, and where anime such as Log horizon portray gamers as people who don’t like classification, how ironic is it that we cannot download certain software simply because of our IP. It’s really turning down a lot of potential customers to anything and extremely frustrating for travelers or people with friends in different countries that can’t all use the same service at once.

so much real time

  The game reputation is probably the only way developers recognize and eliminate griefers and bad sports. It started out entirely based on the community so it does require people who report are unbiased, and gladly, it works miraculously. However, it does kind of mean that if in GTA 5 you are a “bad” person and then went to the “jail” servers for two weeks, you are more likely to friend “bad” people (seriously who is “bad” and “good” in criminal game) from the bad people’s servers then when you can go back to ordinary lobbies you will end up going back to the bad sport lobbies a lot more frequently because even if you want to start a new life, you kind of can’t. It’s worse than fearing to put your real name online because now your game name that you cannot change since you paid a lot of money for all the virtual game library you own -cannot start over - are now stuck with these labels. Permanent ban from Minecraft servers are kind of the same thing. Your name is now something you must protect, which kind of reduces the fun of hearing people rage. 

 no can do

   Then the last type of “discrimination” which is a silent suffering, and that is internet speed and lag. You’ve probably suffered lag before, been kicked from a lobby once, but believe me some people have it way worse. Servers with anti-cheating code kick people with significant lag for suspected teleportation. If people are around, you may get reported and eventually banned forever.

from otakudaydreams.wordpress.com

  “I’m scared to make friends and promises on skyblock servers because I can’t use the internet.” My friend, who only plays skyblock, once told me I never understood what she meant until I joined a skyblock server with her. She takes the emeralds and then can’t buy with them because the villager’s trading HUD doesn’t open.

  Apparently, Microsoft hates people with bad internet speed. If you’ve played the console version of Happy Wars, you’ll see an entire team rush out to build towers and completely annihilate the enemy with epic meteor showers while one guy with the speed of a snail is going to build a ballista in the main tower. Even though this is under the excuse that other players don’t lag, but occasionally the game suddenly ends or does these PC version bugs like towers not responding thing. Most people would think that this is a claptrap argument, and that other players don’t have to deal with this, but losing league points because your DSL doesn’t connect is too much. Penalties are good motivators, but they should be smarter in their penalty system.

 who's happy now?

   Going to the title, is the gaming community oppressive? We only pretend there is no rules when there is too many? We pretend there is no kingship when we are participating in making people look more important than us? I don’t know, and this is kind of why I only join servers for minigames in Minecraft. With the exception of Watch dogs’ online feature (you’re all notoriety points thieves anyway), most online games do have worrying issues like griefers and cheaters, but does this really mean that all of our gameplay is affected and all of us suspected of being bad people just because of a high internet traffic on a few days? Tell me your opinion in the comments.

Did you see My Facebook Page Yet?

   This is a little bit of a short post, because I'd like to draw attention to my new Facebook page. If you are on the web version of the blog, then you can probably see the like button at the side, right? Well, a huge percentage of my viewers use phones, and I respect all my viewers, but Blogger's design will not allow me to add a Facebook mobile Like button to its template so simply.

   The Facebook Page is www.facebook.com/HylianGamerBlog and has more frequent posts than the blog because I do not need to follow any format or add "quality" content (a long revised article takes time), and with Facebook I have more room for picture posts and flexibility in posting my opinion on things unrelated to the blog's theme. While that may seem successful, it is my first time talking to my blog's audience on a social network, so I'd like your co-operation in gaining the first wave of Likes. I see a lot of G+ likers in many of my posts, and that makes me happy too.

   A Twitter profile is up too, which is @BlogHylianGamer , which will have like campaigns and new blog post feed. I'd appreciate any follower (Twitter sounds like a religion with bird gods) but I am not really too comfortable with Twitter's 140 character "essays". After all, I started a blog because I am a talkative person with a sore voice, so I had to write it down somewhere, and here we are now!

   That was a joke. I don't have a sore voice. And I probably didn't start a blog because I'm talkative, although I do not recall a time when I was being silent except while sleeping.

   I wish I could write a success story and a brief How To Blog series, but I am only one step away from success, and that is writing about it. Not really if that would fit the theme, but it's almost time for the blog to grow and metamorphose, hopefully. That's why I started entering the social media world: not to reach a bigger audience, but to have more podiums to speak through.

   Anyway that's all for now, as this is a pretty rushed post. If there's anything else I may add it's that Shiki is not a gore anime, but it can draw you into it even though it's very boring. And the ending is disappointing if you are on the village's side. No spoilers here. For more anime related posts, check the anime label, and the previous post, which is about Attack on Titan. www.myanimelist.net is a great place to track your progress, in case you lose history, and find similar anime to your likes. Play More Zelda!

Why Oculus opened RakNet

Why Oculus opened RakNet

image from digitaltrends

   My predictions were right on the spot, again as expected. Allow me to use this entire paragraph as proving that my fortune-telling skills were right and to celebrate this yet again.

   Now that boasting is over, let’s get right back on topic. Why did Oculus make RakNet open source the moment they bought it? Well, the obvious benefit is encouraging more developers, which would bring indie developers, more attention from developers’ fans and novice developers, and more importantly, modders. These are the groups of the gaming society that usually come first, then gamers come hurrying along, but only a good bunch of them have gathered like bees on nectar.

  Expanding the games library is very crucial step towards actually becoming the new Xbox or DS. Speaking of Xbox, RakNet is also what Sony’s Virtual Reality headset, Project Morpheus uses. Cross-platform online games could become more powerful, more interactive, more always online. This would also mean ease in cross-platform releases, so that Oculus can reach Sony’s fanbase too, since developers will be encouraged to make games for Oculus they’d also be willing to make it compatible with Japan’s dominant gaming console (even if VR doesn’t catch on now, by logic, there is a huge existing dedicated gamers for Sony more than Oculus). Xbox has a lot to catch up on now!

  Here lies a question that only you can answer: can Oculus be trusted? After Facebook bought it, Facebook probably want to expand its test subject base to a group that will not escape so easily. After Facebook’s famous psychology experiment involving two colleges, can we really trust them?

  It is a shame to admit, but we gamers have problems with “escaping” a game, because most people who play games at some point say they use it to escape reality. If you begin to play this virtual reality game, you escape reality even more than just the screen. Even without the screen, gamers can go to extreme levels just to make sure that at the end of the day, they’ll have 4 hours of gameplay uninterrupted, even going into fire to save one’s Xbox. A single player life simulation game can easily let me lose track of time, but multiplayer is worse, because it involves real human rivals for resources.

   Simulations were always used in special training, pilots being one good example to test these equipment, thus assessment criteria was obviously well established a long time before we even heard of virtual reality. Consequently, it will be so easy to test your reactions, train you for more puzzle solving, or just simply make a gigantic maze game that is the exact replica of a lab rat’s and measure the differences in speed of figuring out that you needed to push the ball uphill or something (bonus points for fMRI).

   Even in an MMO, everyone eventually passes by the same quests, and it is easy to draw a pattern in the sequence of these quests, and from them give a conclusion on what kind of test would suit this user more than the next. It would also say a lot about behavior, cleverness (been so long since I used that word) and potentially expose you to be “sold” to other scientists who only want a certain group for testing (e.g. people with higher IQ, people who didn’t flee the first time they entered the boss room, etc.) or more realistic stuff, like whether you are fit in real life, real life depression, age group, smoking, sensitivity to loud sounds (that’s actually a thing) and so on. 

  The best part of this to the scientists is that they can zip through all the legal stuff and test. Gamers are like real prisoners now, because they are actually there in real time, with all external factors excluded. Imagine this: would you look away when you see something twice your size, or did you accidently click on the controller because your brother threw his toy at you? Most probably the former, because your parents won’t even leave you disconnected so much for you to even get that far in the game to become worthy of holding the title of Test Subject in the first place. Unlike social media, logging out is not so simple. There will probably be so much to lose when you do that: hourly events such as Bonus Time in Happy Wars, penalty for death.

I am using the word test subject for a reason!

   These little little candy are what keep us continuing on and on, because in online games, it’s a race, and usually the one with less life wins, gets to spawn kill higher level monsters all the time and boss around a group of midgets to PK anyone who gets close to his hunting grounds. Then when he’s done, he PKKs them and comes back to town as the rich hero of high reputation, and anyone who says the truth are just haters who will be treated like mute criminals forever.

  Other players are aware of that, and won’t give up the race so easily. That’s why they’ll grind and grind in a real time system that would feel like labor and go on for real life days. These people are the most vulnerable to testing, because we all know that even when they realize that the game is messing with them, they are not ready to log off and check the forums, because they are willing to forgive the game for this “bug” and that “glitch” just because he’s grown attached to his new toon and has to make it stronger as soon as possible before surprising others.

   Going back to the original question, will we really trust Oculus after Facebook acquired it? Let us know your opinion in the comments. Don’t forget to read the last choose-your-death article, because there might be more. Play More Zelda!  

Google I/O, what does this mean for 2014?

Google's plans for the future

Google's I/O conference in 2014 rather had a hidden message that was hinted on several times. Google revealed many pleasing OS updates, so let's get to them first.

First, Google started with new changes and additional new software on cars, TV, and wearable devices. Only wearable devices sync directly with the smartphone OS.

 from TechRadar

Android L, or 4.5, is the new operating system from Google, said to be the first to support 64 bit, has much enhanced performance and another great addition is the unified UI that optimizes speed. Google also stressed again on speed of apps, and assured that the new UI has shorter lines of code to use but easier and gives a good result. (That's good because I'm secretly and lazily making an android app and wouldn't bother with the UI)

 really looking like a good watch OS even if not square.

Another OS announced is the Android Wear, the OS for your watch. This OS will, like Google Glass, rely heavily on voice recognition, and prioritizes speed of loading text over complicated swiping techniques. Android Wear so far makes every wearable device before it seem like a slight disappointment, as notifications are not to be seen twice on Wear. Overall, it's simple and looks good, also the defaults don’t look too plain so hopefully developers will use them since they do require much processing from the smartphone side. This would also allow low powered and lower priced smart watches to gain an advantage. As I wrote before, wearable devices market shouldn’t get too shiny, fancy, or expensive.

Google really thought this OS through. There is room for customisation but the defaults are not bad.

From these two paragraphs, there is a lot to be implied on Google's future plans. An operating system optimizing performance and speed left gap for heating, heavy battery usage, and overpowered background processes. Google countered that by having a battery safe mode similar to the one the Samsung innovated to limit the number of apps with high system requirements. But what's the point of having a good processor and not using it?

Clearly, Google no longer wants you to make such an investment in a smartphone. Google plans that you use a tablet instead, so you would never take it outside and worry about the battery. This is a step up for smartphone gaming, but not for smartphones. Google does have a plan that tablets advance faster than phones and get more priority in marketing.

Bitstrip about when gaming catches on to wearable devices

Your phone, on the other hand, will not be ignored. It will turn into a peripheral Bluetooth device to connect to Wear and/or Glass. Google may not be expecting much from Glass, but it is certain of watches and fitness bands to go into style. Then at the end of the day, you go home and sync all your notifications with your tablet again for no reason, and then you charge your phone for another day to use with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in the street, but you won’t be using your phone for actual applications, just notifications and sync, and call of course. Your tablet will be the real android device to host the heavy applications and games, and with the introduction of phablets thanks to Samsung, why not even call through it? Although that won't be a necessity.



This prediction is backed up by Google's I/O itself, and also by some of their videos on Google developers. Samsung really paved the way for them on Wear, and their unique UI shares some history with windows phones but without looking plain, dull, or ugly. Material Design and Google Now look really good, and I hope they allow older phones to get the OS minus the hardware. Google is aware of performance = gaming math and even introduced a DIY virtual reality kit for your smartphone, making it appear like they do not plan to let go of smartphones yet.

Overall this is good news and also rather peculiar. I am curious to what the future may hold. However, they aren’t fascinatingly positive. In the end, developers will just make their own UI to be considered innovative and waste a lot of processing power on background processes, and no matter how all the regulations that google does on their Bluetooth connection, battery consumption, etc., all the apps will ignore all that and attempt to suck the life and mobile data of your phone. A better processor gives more room for that too.

This is not the first time I make predictions, and they've also not been wrong before, and this one isn't apparent but backed up by what Google said itself. Do you believe that Google will focus on tablets in the near future? Let us know in the comments. And Play More Zelda!

Nintendo's E3: Captain Toad announced

If you are not familiar with who captain Toad is, then allow me to explain. In Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, he used to be a person with his crew (all different colours and personalities) that appear in certain levels to give you hints. In the first Galaxy game they could move into the observatory. However, in 2 they became a lot more interesting, with the Captain of their iconic ship being a big coward. It's coming December 2014. Yay! I can't wait to control an even more bigger coward than Luigi.

A complete new Zelda in 2015 is announced, which is cool. Hyrule Warriors is more exciting for me, because I like Techmo's games in general as well. The new Zelda has a new graphics and possibly a wider area. Just look at how everyday Link has a plastic surgery!!

Apparently they got bored from Mario, and they are making a Mario Maker on Wii U for 2015 as well. It has a cool switch between retro and new, and the grid looks really versatile, allowing a lot of room for creativity.

All in all, I am not excited about the Wii U. At first, I wanted it, but only when there is an extensive library of games that I want. This might change my mind, but I also want Final Fantasy and Elder Scrolls to change my mind as well. I hope this E3 changes my mind.

Don't forget to watch the whole stream of all E3, here.

Apparently, a new character is in Super Smash Bros. I won't ruin it because it's cool. By the way, are they planning to make an anime?

best 2 characters for potentially best anime

Apparently they are inviting people for a tournament in real life. 

Watch E3 now

It's E3! I can't wait to watch everything and talk about it. I was watching the stream of EA from their own twitch, but you go ahead and watch all the E3 twitch streams from one video channel.

Watch live video from Twitch on www.twitch.tv

I was watching EA and they were talking about battlefield. They had a #BFhardline (not sure) hashtag going on. They said you can download the beta? They had a rooftop and people playing under the sun. They announced Dawngate after that, a PC MMORPG such as aria games style and bastion artsyle. Just like the ones that anime uses. 

Everything looks nice so far. I find it weird that they will enter the online games market, because it's really different than shooters, sports games, and everything else they've done so far. These games don;t focus on quality but tend to have trumendos amounts of mesh to take up you PC usage anyway, which makes them bland. If it had 1st person view then I'd understand the seemingly useless attempts in quality, but I am very excited to see what will they do.

Real Life

 BF on PS4

I don't have much time to talk about the whole E3, but I might soon. Keep Playing Zelda

What Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus Rift really means for gamers

What Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus Rift really means for gamers

    Facebook recently bought a virtual reality company called Oculus Rift. Bad news. Really bade news.

it'll be worse with VR, but it'll be cooler

    I’m sorry for being so pessimistic. Let’s look at the future in another way, if there is a future. I could write a Choose Your Death article on this, but it’s too typical. So, why did Facebook purchase VR headset designers? To control their minds? Because glassholes aren’t enough to cause a zombie apocalypse, and Facebook wants to rival G+ on the fate of humanity? That VR headset is obviously for anything other than walking casually. Then again, maybe the Oculus Rift didn’t have a design cut for Virtual Reality games that much.


This was amazing though.
 I'm impressed!

    Remember that Rift is almost like a pioneer in trying to make VR enter every normal household. Making something mainstream doesn’t go right from the first try. It’s like trying to light a campfire when it’s your first time. They need all the resources they can get their hands on, including the soaked branches. Facebook’s support will most certainly allow more research in VR to consumers, maybe it’s the wrong step, but it’s a step nonetheless.


    It’ll all be the problem of that they’ll enable the hardware to know stuff about you that you didn’t want, such as GPS all the time, heart rate, mood (I mean, come on, it’s on your brain, surely they’ll be able to detect your brain waves in an instant). Probably, they can also tase you, deafen you, blind you, etc. but on purpose. The risk of brain cancer and all these stories related to using computers on your head, such as phones, will not differ in this case, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that if Facebook suddenly decided to help the poor thieves out and make you blank out for them to sneak into your house and take that new 4K smart TV you just bought. Or if some hacker managed to do it.

Photoshop is just not my thing, but I'll keep trying anyway

   The weird thing is that Facebook might actually do those things. I read once that they save all the deleted posts, before they were even published the first time, without your consent. Why? Because they wanted to know why you deleted and understand what people want, or so they said. I don’t anyone seeing that I deleted “i gpt an new headsey” and typed in “I got a new headset.” instead; it was just that I was typing on my smartphone with the wrong hand, and there is no reason to investigate the trend of trying to correct spelling mistakes. However, Facebook wants to have CONSTANT pulse of feedback about you, and your location, and what phone you use. Emphasis on location.

   But now Facebook can now your iris shape, and maybe that’ll be the new password. So, when thieves come to steal, they’ll amputate your finger for the iPhone 5S, and enucleate your eye for the device. Great, now all we need is a skateboard that unlocks with your weight or socks that power on with your toe prints, so you’d end up with only your left side healthy. We really need a better system, like DNA marking by GPS so we’d all be doomed into slavery, but at least nobody can steal that device from beneath our skin… oh… wait.

more technology relying on that it can only be unlocked by you, not by memories of PINs

   Either way, say goodbye to gaming on this model of the Oculus Rift. Facebook has plans to redesign the logo, thus it’s safe to conclude that Facebook wants to make a slimmer model to be able to rival Google Glass. I’m not sure about allowing real life visibility though, because that would ruin the purpose of VR. It could be like shutters or blinds so they’d be “safe” for street roaming, but not losing at the VR side. That may look like a bad idea, but that will spark better ideas that will define what VR will ultimately be used for.

Imagine playing a zombie shooting game in HD?

   Whether its real screens, to holograms, to VR, social media should not come in before games. MMO games should not be first, despite all the anime in Japan about that VR must be MMO. First, it’s actual solo games laying the carpet, preparing the core gameplay elements. Then social and MMORPGs can follow. If we start the other way around, the internet will be experimenting with our minds. Yes, I watch too much anime, but who doesn’t? Play More Zelda!

15000 views! UPDATE DOWNLOAD NOW

15000 views! UPDATE DOWNLOAD NOW

That's right folks, after 3 years the blog finally reached 15,000 views all time. thank you all so much for making this possible. I've got a lot of things to say, but let's first go with chronological order:


Watch live video from BluecometZola on TwitchTV

The Twitch about the little thank you lamps wasn't that clear, so here are pictures.

look at the quick tools bar. yep, an update

But pictures won't express my happiness, so I decided to publish what I still haven't finished, which is the wool blocks. I've been working to try to make them look complex but at the same time fit in the cute and cell-shaded style of the rest of the texture pack, all while keeping to the harvest moon sunshine island presets. This game has a lot of carpets. Just take a look yourself

yellow wool based on diner

hmm

more yellow, much choose

 red?

 this cream colour is nice, maybe I'll make it a rare colour

 this green is like leaves in MC! no way I'm adding that

 carpenter

 nice too

 red?

 I wanted this but it wouldn't fit the MC world

 orange

 the cyan, nice pillow on the floor thing

 see why I'm confused?

 even the plaza! I did the gravel for this but still

But minecraft is made for using many blocks next to each other, and if I copy-pasted the harvest moon ones it would easy bore out and feel like only one block should ever be placed in the whole chunk. This is why this took a longer time than I imagined. So far I made five:

 the yellow and green are diner and carpenter shop

 I did this for the carpets

from left to right: orange, lime, yellow, green, cyan, and white.
White resembles the sheep, yellow and green both resemble shops, thus the tools (yellow is rake and sword or a fork and knife) while the green is for the carpentry shop, so hoe and pickaxe (hammer) it is. Cyan is what I wished to have for the stone slab, except that it doesn't make sense. I shall make a map to celebrate this!

What are you waiting for? DOWNLOAD NOW! DOWNLOAD NOW NOW NOW NOW

One more thing I'd like to mention, is a method to make nice street lamps, all branching from one daylight sensor. It's on twitch. With no voice.

And tell me what you think? I already have over 100 downloads so I think there might be some suggestions, right? Tell us in the comments. Watch a twitch about my calculator here, and if you liked the texture pack but don't feel like you want to download, here's an extra push:

Changelog:

• Added more GUI
• Added 5 wool blocks
• Fixed coal ore
• Fixed rotten flesh