Electronic Space War Video Game Epilepsy

It would be a great name for a rock album, but its actually the formal name for what causes some video games to have seizure warnings as part of the loading process.   I learned it from this fantastic article.  In case you were thinking it was a dry medical article, here’s a snippet:

The reason, is that only year before, the first ever case of epilepsy triggered by a video game was reported. It was named ‘Space Invader epilepsy’ because it was triggered by the arcade game Astro Fighter and the neurologist clearly didn’t know the difference between the original arcade classic and one of the cheap knock-offs.

 

The article goes on to argue that the idea that video games can cause seizures is a bit misleading.  In fact, the medical science now knows that what really happens is that certain sequences or lights, sound, or even emotion, can trigger a seizure in those who have a pre-existing condition call reflex epilepsy.

 

One commenter does bring up a good point though – just because the condition is pre-existing doesn’t mean the person knows about it, and suggests that the onus is sill on the game developer to avoid triggering a reaction.  (Something I would think is difficult if its as individualized as it seems to be from the initial literature I read). 

 

Anyway, what do you think?  Are early medical journal articles like this the beginnings of video games bad rap sociologically,  or a reminder of real problems that the industry needs to be working on?

 

 

I Heard You Want to Write a Blog

So get to it.  I’m too lazy and already a member of too many forums, so I’m not joining the ones over at NBI.  But yes, you should start a blog.  And there is really only one piece of advice you need.  Write steadily, somewhere between 1 and 3 times a week.  Do it for a year, and people will find you.  Do it for two years, and people will recognize you.   Do it for three years, and you’ll be a veteran like most of the people on those forums giving advice.

 

But if you are going to do it, do it for yourself.  If blogging only makes you happy when you have a dozen comments at the end of each post, you’ve probably missed the point of blogging altogether.

BF3 8-bit Win!

Salem Beta Taking Sign Ups

Sandbox with permadeath and multigenerational character/families?  Yes please.

If you decide you want in, please, use my custom URL.  If three of you sign up, I’m guaranteed a spot…which means you are guaranteed coverage of the Beta on this blog!

Catching Up

So I’ve been a busy boy, between stuff at work and a week out of town and the stomach bug.  So lets do a little recap roundup shall we?

 

TOR – I have both my characters in the mid-20′s now.  I grind out about a level a week, which is pretty normal for me.   I just hit Tattoine for the first time last night and it felt…weird.   Landing on Tatooine as an Imperial Agent just felt so *not* Star Wars.  In fact, the whole Empire thing is starting to wear on me a bit.  I may have to let one of those two Imp characters lay idle for a bit so I can scratch the Republic itch.  I will wait until update 1.2 though – the Legacy system means that my Republic alts, all at level 10 on another server are basically useless to me.  And I am not running through Tython for the umpteenth time without Sprint if I can help it.

 

World of Tanks – I’ve spent the last week doing my runs on the Test Server, which has been a breath of fresh air.  The Russian players are actually quite nice, and much more skilled than their American counterparts.  I have wondered lately if I was just bad at WoT or if the teams were so bad it was hard to excel, and its definitely the latter.  In all the matches I’ve played on the test server, I’ve only once seen the team deploy poorly, without watching the map.  As one EU player said after a match, “we didn’t get beat because we made bad choices, we just got beat because they were better than us.”  I don’t get many of those matches on the regular server.   Much as patch 1.2 for TOR will turn it into what it should have been at launch, patch 7.2 will certainly do for WoT.  The new tanks are excellent, and the graphical and game updates are all well done.  The M18 Hellcat is almost all that we wanted it to be (it can’t quite hit 89 kph, and the option of the 105mm howitzer is missing).  Time to learn some Russian and make an account on their server I think.

 

Sandbox Vistas – I’ve shelved this for the time being.  The remaining options just don’t appeal to me all that much, and the announcement that Dawntide was shutting down, while somewhat expected, was ultimately very disheartening.  At this point, unless I get the itch to try Ryzom or Wurm, I’ll probably just keep a keen and interested eye on ArchAge instead.

 

Star Trek Online – Yeah, I know.  But a friend has been begging me to run some missions with him since it went F2P, and I was just a few points shy of my Akira and Nebula.  So I logged in last night and did one mission.  And I have a few things to say:  one is – who killed the graphics?  Its like a whole new engine in there, and it looks like crap, even with all the settings dialed up to max – which, by the way, is something I could not do with the original game.  Balancing that out though – praise the Alpha Quadrant, they actually fixed ground combat to make it manageable, and the skill system to make it less of a headache of WTH, and changed the progression to the point I breathed a sigh of relief.   I did one mission to finish up the jump from 19 to 20.  That same amount of skill points would have required me to do 3-4 missions when I was in the game before.   So now its time to claim that long awaited Akira and learn about that whole “duty officer” thing.  Its like the bizarre crossbreeding of TOR’s companions with your Bridge Officers and a far future version of Pokemon.  I feel like I have to catch them all!

 

And decide if I want to shell out some real bucks for that Nebula.

Sandbox Vistas II: Leaving Istaria

This is a short post.

Let me just say that, I like Istaria. I think I could get past the required pacing change, and would even enjoy “slowing down” my expectations and taking up a bit more of a grind in exchange for being able to set my own goals and so on. I could even get past the fact that the roleplaying server has players with the creativity of a head of cabbage, and thus can’t seem to play anything *but* dragons.

And who, I might add, ignore people. I ran through the starter village naked just to see if I would provoke a response from the gathered dragons…nope.

And, I can easily handle the dated graphics, because I’m not a graphics guy. I’ll play 8 bit games all day long and be perfectly happy.

But when you send me on a starter quest to gather wild boar snouts, and *forty* dead boars later, I have *one* snout, that is not a problem with design philosophy, that is a problem that should not exist in an eight year old game.

Sorry Vitrium, that’s a deal breaker for me. Onto the next vista…

Not sure which one though. Thoughts? Wurm Online or Ryzom or Xyson or something else?

Ever Wondered How Video Games Are Made?

Watch one being made live this weekend, an “FPS with a steampunk of Ancient Egypt theme” as it was explained to me!

 

And since its being done for charity by the good people at Mojams (and Wolfire it looks like), throw a few bucks in the hat!

TOR NDA Lifted.

Bwahahaha….

Let’s talk some TOR shall we?

Folks,

As of now, the non disclosure portion of our Game Testing Agreement is officially lifted. While all players must still accept the Game Testing Agreement, from this point on testers may now freely talk about their experiences this past weekend in the game, as well as post screenshots and gameplay videos of their testing experiences. We encourage you to come join us on the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Forums to share your experiences!

The Star Wars: The Old Republic community site will have a copy of this message on the forums and it will also appear in the Patcher. Players may not talk about nor reprint posts from our testing forums as they are still fully covered by the confidentiality portions of our Game Testing Agreement. And all players who want to participate in the upcoming Beta Test Weekends still have to accept all terms of the Game Testing Agreement. So, other than that, free feel to talk about and share your experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

My thanks go out to everyone who has beta tested and continues to beta test the game. It has been with your help and feedback that Star Wars: The Old Republic is where it is today. We really appreciate your efforts.

May the Force be with you!

Greg Zeschuk
VP, Electronic Arts, BioWare Austin, General Manager

Of course, the NDA expressly forbade the taking of screenshots and video. So nobody has any of those, right?

Patch/Update of the Year Award

Goes to Battlefield 3 for fixing the ridiculous “Tactical Flashlight/Nuclear Flash Blinder” issue. Did I mention I bought Battlefield 3? Yeah, it was time to return to some console action, and I haven’t bought a shooter in four years. Me likey.

And for the curious: I play Support almost exclusively. Not because its awesome (thought it is), or because it gets mortars (though it does), but because I can’t hit the broadside of a barn, and so I need a gun with a) a huge clip and b) serious damage potential.

 

Someone Help Me, Its Sucking My Life Away