Evan Sims

A Look at Warhammer’s Preview Weekend

Last weekend Mythic Entertainment opened it’s doors to everyone who preordered the forthcoming Warhammer Online, an MMORPG based on — what else? — the long standing Warhammer franchise. I’d been playing WAR in closed beta for a few weeks prior to this, so I figured knew what to expect more or less. What I didn’t expect was just how much the influx of people would change the game’s world, and my perspective of it.

Much of WAR revolves around Realm vs Realm combat; that is, PvP campaigns that pit armies of good nd evil against one another for the glory and honor of their homelands. These campaigns take place in either instance scenarios or, my personal favorite, in open world battlefields. Each battlefield has a different landscape, and different objectives, but the rules remain the same: kill enemies, capture objectives, defend your captured objectives, siege keeps, lock a region for your realm. I had played RvR before Preview Weekend, of course, but the new flood of people took the battles from fun to truly epic.

So, besides RvR, what else went really well? I was impressed with the overall server and client performance. The servers have never been hit with near this many people, and they managed to stay up and responsive the vast majority of the time. The client, likewise, ran very well, even in the intense battles that took place in RvR. I’ve been super impressed with the amount of polish the game receives each patch.

What went wrong? Not a lot, but a few big problems arose. Pathfinding was borked, which was unfortunate. They had fixed the pathfinding issue in a previous patch, but the issue was regressed into the Preview Weekend patch somehow. Well, that’s Mythic’s story anyway. I got stuck on sharp edges and weird objects a whole lot more than I previous had as well… my guess is Mythic disabled some CPU intensive checking on character collision detection to ensure the servers performed well. Nothing wrong with that… in fact I’d applaud them for having the foresight to do it… but whatever the cause, this needs to be fixed before launch.

There were also quite a few crash to desktops (CTDs), far more than I remember there being in previous builds. Those issues aside, I couldn’t have been happier with the way WAR handled the Preview Weekend masses, and I have to applaud Mythic for doing such a fantastic job in preparing for it.

I’ll be giving Warhammer Online a full, overall review after Open Beta closes. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a great group of buys to play with, give my guild a look. We’ve love to have you.

NVIDIA releases PhysX-enabled graphics drivers

Having purchased physics processor manufacturer PhysX last February, graphics card manufacturer NVIDIA has been hard at work porting system to run natively on the GeForce GPU rather than the dedicated chipset PhysX had been selling. Today, NVIDIA’s labors came to fruition as they released ForceWare 177.83, the first WHQL certified driver package with PhysX support included.

NVIDIA’s newly embedded PhysX runs on any GeForce 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series desktop graphics card, and simply require the new drivers to work. I imagine all future ForceWare packages will contain PhysX support.

The original PhysX system saw little support from the game development community, with only a handful of studios actually implementing the system into their games. The reason for this was obvious: it required a relatively expensive specialized hardware component to work, and how much of the marketplace would drop $200 on top of their system just for fancier physics? NVIDIA’s integration of PhysX into the heart of their GPU means an instantaneous surge of user base with hardware physics rendering support, which in turn means more game developers will start looking at integrating advanced physics systems like PhysX into their games.

I shouldn’t forget to mention that ForceWare 177.83 also supports CUDA, or Compute Unified Device Architecture, which allows software developers to execute code on the NVIDIA GPU just like they would a standard CPU. The performance advantage of running code against a GPU is staggering, and we’re just beginning to see the real world advantages of this technology with tools like the Folding@Home client.

If you own a GeForce 8 or newer, you can grab the new ForceWare drivers and a whole slew of demo games that take advantage of PhysX at NVIDIA’s new “ForceWithin” site.

Alternatively, you can download the drivers directly from here:

• GeForce ForceWare 177.83 XP (32-bit)
• GeForce ForceWare 177.83 XP (64-bit)
• GeForce ForceWare 177.83 Vista (32-bit)
• GeForce ForceWare 177.83 Vista (64-bit)

PHP is dead, long live PHP! (Finally.)

8/8/08 marked the final day that PHP4 would receive support from it’s developers, and 4.4.9 marks the final update it will receive. It’s an end to an era, really; the first version of PHP4 was released in 2000. Even while PHP5 was released 4 years ago, and PHP6’s release is looming on the horizon, web hosts have been slow to adopt the new versions due to concerns of compatibility issues. I don’t think they’ll have much option, now.

That’s a good thing, in my book. PHP5 introduced a whole slew of great new features, and PHP6 is shaping up to be a wonderful upgrade as well. The only loss over PHP4 is limited compatibility with old scripts, but to be quite frank the scripts that break under that upgrade are ones you should be concerned about using in the first place. Namely, much of the methods PHP5 revokes that breaks those PHP4 scripts are due to security and performance concerns.

PHP5 has improved OOP support, better security and better performance. Do yourself a favor and upgrade already.

Pineapple Express

I’m a huge fan of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen’s films. Anchorman? Classic. Superbad? Awesome. Step Brothers? Pretty damn great. The duo have proven themselves to be true grandmasters in the mysterious and forbidden art of making me pee my pants. I get as giddy as a little school girl when a new film is released, and rarely am I disappointed when I exit the theater. Pineapple Express was no exception, and indeed it may be my favorite film from the guys so far.

So, what’s the premise? Dale Denton (played by Rogen) is a mild mannered process server with an affinity for weed, and an apparent self esteem problem. Bored by his job and stressed about his girlfriend (a high school student, no less), Denton turns to his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) for some relief. Denton clearly isn’t a fan of the guy, but Saul thinks the world of him so he gives him a “exclusive sneak peek” at a new crop his supplier calls Pineapple Express. One thing leads to the next, and in a twist of divine irony, Denton is unwittingly sent to serve papers to Saul’s source (Ted Jones, played by Gary Cole), where he is the unfortunate witness to a murder. In a panic, Denton drops his joint of the rare Pineapple Express, leading Jones and his cohorts straight back to Saul and Denton.

Most of the film revolves around Dale and Saul fleeing from certain death, getting stoned out of their heads and trying to get out of the murderous predicament their in. Throw in a Chinese drug cartel, an impending drug war, a cop on the villain’s payroll and an abandoned military experimentation facility and you’ve got yourself Pineapple Express.

It’s decidedly an action-comedy flick with a strong “buddy movie” undertone, and at it’s core deals with Dale’s self esteem and the relationship between Dale and Saul… and it does it wonderfully. To be honest, I’m not a fan of stoner films. Most films either try to politicize the issue too much, or just make the topic so tedious that it ends up being painful to watch. Leave it to these guys to make one that I not only didn’t loathe, but actually loved.

Rogen, as always, is hilarious in his part. The man is a great comedy actor, without question. I think what makes Rogen great is that even he’s so normal and so familiar, it’s like watching a friend you know on screen. He’s also somehow managed to make his characters throughout his films unique enough that you don’t feel like you’re watching the same guy over and over again.

When I saw the first Express trailer, I was surprised to see Franco cast for the second-chair role. He just never came off as a comedy actor type to me. It wasn’t until I caught some of his stuff over on Funny or Die that I realized how great he was for the part. Franco really elevated the role of Saul from a fairly uninspired stoner archetype to a character you care about, and even as a secondary character feels just as important as Rogen’s Dale. The duo did an awesome job, and I’m not sure Pineapple Express would have been half as enjoyable with anyone else cast in those parts.

I give it a 4.5/5 — — Great acting, hilarious story, top notch comedy. What more do you want?

My Top 10 PC Games of All Time

I know, I know; I’ll well known for my hatred of top 10 lists on blogs, but I was personally asked to do this one so I couldn’t refuse. My pal Ryan recently his list in response to a PC Gamer special. I can’t miss a web meme, so here we go.

1. Ultima Online — This should be a no brainer for anyone that knows me personally. The first true MMO I played, and it really changed my life. I met so many great friends, and it really focused me on what I wanted to do with my career.

2. Monkey Island — The classic, and the first game I ever bought myself. Grog Grog Grog!

3. Loom — Intrinsically linked with Monkey Island, I bought and played Loom at the same time as MI. It’s lesser known I think, but it used the same version of the SCUMM engine that MI did. So original, so much fun. I wish they’d do a reboot/sequel with a modern engine.

4. Myst — Another no brainer for me. I’m a huge fan of Cyan’s Myst series, but the original is still my favorite. I don’t even want to know how many hours I spent on it, let alone the sequels.

5. WorldsAway — The first online “game” I played, WorldsAway was 2D virtual world where hundreds (if not thousands) of CompuServe customers gathered using customizable avatars, talked, traded items with oen another and played games together. So far ahead of it’s time. It’s a pity what’s become of it.

6. EverQuest 2 — A relatively recent addition, I wasn’t so hot on EQ2 when it first launched. It took several years and some urging by the guys to get me to try it, but I ended up really loving it. One of the few MMOs that held my attention long enough for me to reach end game.

7. Final Fantasy XI — I played FFXI solid for a few years, and it was definitely one of the best MMO experiences I’ve had- mainly thanks to the great group of people our guild managed to put together. It’s a pity things broke down as they did, but it was a blast while it lasted. I still revisit FFXI every once and awhile, and it’s still loads of fun, but it’ll never be the same.

8. Battlefield 2142 — I’m not a huge FPS fan, and I really kind of hated Battlefield 2 (though I did love 1942.) Battlefield 2142 is a masterpiece, quite honestly; it’s one of those games just never gets old to me. Playing with close friends makes it all the better, as strategy and team work pay off in the field.

9. Uru: Ages Beyond Myst — Admittedly I think the idea of building an MMO around the Myst world was misguided, but I’ve loved every second of Uru. I managed to score an alpha account in the early days, and played on through beta and it’s retail incarnations (Ubisoft, GameTap, and in between on Cyan’s own servers.) A massively multiplayer 3D puzzle game is a difficult concept to pull off, but Cyan did a masterful job of it, and I don’t think there’s an online title out there that has a stronger community.

10. Team Fortress 2 — Like 2142, it’s one of those games that doesn’t get old. We end up playing a couple times a week, but I try to sneak an hour in everyday. Pyro, engineer and medic are my favorite classes, though I’m admittedly a pretty awful healer. :)

So, there you haven’t. Not so different from Ryan’s list I guess. No surprise there. So, what are you favorite games of all time?