Game News

You may be wondering why there hasn't been any ColourFire news. I don't think anyone actually reads this, but that's OK! Soon there will be a blog for SPG rather than for me, and this one will fade into obscurity! But for now, in case anyone does read this, here's what we've been working on.

Well. That's what one screen of the tutorial looks like at the moment. The game itself is playable right now! And it's hopefully under a year from being released. Before that we'll have an indiegogo campaign to get the funds to get onto Steam's Greenlight system and such. Stay tuned! Once we're closer, the new blog will be started and then we'll try our best to keep people updated on progress weekly.

I made the item storage page that I was talking about before

And you can access it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1467119/TF2IIS.html (pertinent info is on that page)

It's on Dropbox because that makes it much easier to update it quickly! I assume people would want to see the results of their payment as soon as possible.

Happy Philosophy Time

I just thought it might come in handy in the future to have my feelings on yoomanity written down somewhere, so here they are! Note that these are only my beliefs; I acknowledge that my views may be inaccurate. Sorry that it's long.

To put it simply, I believe that humankind is wretched, abominable, and boundlessly cruel. I'd say that describes a perfectly ordinary human, as well. Some people really enjoy being helpful and feel bad about hurting people/things, but they are rare. However, they are common enough that you are HIGHLY unlikely to go through your life without at least hearing someone talk about someone who happens to be like that.
I think most people are very stupid, because they have a predisposition toward being so, or they didn't have the opportunity to realise their potential, etc. Most people are evil, too, because of a predisposition or because they were raised to be, etc. The rarest type of person is the one that is neither stupid nor evil. I have no idea how common people who are evil and smart, or people who are dumb and not evil, are, but each is somewhere between the "evil dumb" and "non-evil smart" people. Of course, nobody is purely good. Some people are probably purely evil, though. And then there are amoral folks and all the various shades of these things, but the main distribution is clear.

Everyone is fallible. Anyone can make mistakes. A good person can do something evil by accident, and a bad person can do something good while trying not to. A smart person can mistakenly do something dumb, and a dumb person can do something smart that was not what they intended to do! So on.

Overall, I consider myself evil. HOWEVER! While I may view a person that I see on the street as likely to go on a killing spree for fun, I try to be nice to everyone. I would like for everyone to get along with each other, and to be friends with me. I hope that anyone I encounter will be friendly, while fully expecting them to harbour desires to stab everybody that they see. That said, I have noticed that my compassion is not given very freely at all. It is difficult for a person to rank beyond "dangerous bag of water that talks." If someone dies I'll probably think it's terrible (as my certainty that they were NOT evil increases, so does the probability of me thinking it was terrible for them to die), sure, because I think life is a cool thing and it's a shame to have it cut short. However, beyond that, I'll just think of them as a resource that's been wasted, instead of a person for me to care about. If I've known someone for a while and they seem to check out, THEN I'll care about them as a person. I was slightly disturbed to notice this, but there it is.

More video game news soon maybe!?

Rope, Lamp oil, Bombs?

Actually just a rope and a lamp.

You can't see the cursor in the above image, but it's holding onto the rope, right next to the word "circle."
And here the rope is partly resting on a circle. The lamp itself is not being simulated in this case, so it passes through said circle.

For ColourFire purposes, I'll mostly keep the ropes from interacting with things in that way (although nearby explosions will jostle them). Too much computational strain for barely any gain except in special cases.

Download here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1467119/HangingLamp.rar

You can actually use any model made in COF as the lamp or the rope. Some will have much better results than others.

The Worst

The person launched TF2 before I could get to them. The crate is lost forever! D':
*cries manly tears*
It would have been so cool...
Let me know if you find that anyone somehow still has one. I'm willing to make a webpage to feature such transient items, and who owns them, while storing the items on the account I made to store the one that just got away. That way people can say they have the items, but can also launch tf2 with impunity after trading them to the storage account and at the very least not be completely certain of losing them.

Plan #2: safer bet?

Here's a different tack: I store an item in another account's inventory limbo. This account will NEVER launch TF2 and the item will remain in limbo until I can determine whether or not I can get it out without losing it. The trouble is that the person who currently holds the crate has it in their ACTUAL INVENTORY, not in their limbo, and limbo may be a more volatile state to put it into. But if I don't do something before the person launches TF2 themself, then the item will definitely be lost. A stressful day for SCIENCE!

I have a plan

Game-development-related posts will come later! Right now it's time for a scheme I have cooked up.

If you're not familiar with Team Fortress 2, this might not interest you. If the former is true and you're still interested, there's a wiki right here that can clear things up.

According to the TF2 wiki, Every series #22 crate, "Refreshing Summer Cooler," expired on 11 July, 2011 and was removed from player's backpacks.

But I know that there is at least one player who still has one.

I don't know if they're willing to entertain my plan, but I sincerely hope that they will, and not try to gouge me on a price when there's no guarantee that this will work. Here's the plan: I fear that if they should launch TF2, it will detect the item and delete it. IF I can contact them before they do that, we might be able to trade it over Steam. According to the plan, I will have TF2 already open, so that it will not immediately disappear from MY inventory. If it does not get deleted immediately once I click on the "new items" notice, then I should be able to gift wrap it and store it in my inventory indefinitely in that state. All crates should be gift-wrappable...

There are numerous places where this could fail. If it works, I could be the only person on the entire planet to have a stable series #22 crate! The only other crate I'm missing is Series #6, the Festive Winter Crate, which had a similar expiration condition. My goal is to get one of every possible item. If I can get one that should be impossible... well! That alone is practically boastworthy. Not that I'm one to boast. Wish me luck!