Hi guys! Christian here, and I am avoiding doing real work, so I'm writing a blog post. As of this blog post, I have only beaten the 4th gym leader in Pokemon Y, and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about this game, thus far. PS, probably spoilers ahead.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
When life gives you lemons...
Hi all, Christian here, for those of you who don't know me, I am the webmaster for the UIUC Social Gaming Club. For those people, and people who know who I am, but not a lot about me, if I get left to think, I think on tangents. My thought process would go something like: "I have free time, I should catch up on How I Met Your Mother, I saw a commercial on TV with Neil Patrick Harris about the Emmys, (I think) I wonder when that is, Survivor starts on the 23rd, I want to be on a gameshow, I'd probably have the best luck on The Price is Right, Bob Barker is better then Drew Carry..." Then I start rambling about Whose Line, ect ect, I hope you guys get the point. These thoughts will eventually stop at something for me to google, or youtube (like Whose Line clips), but this time it's a blog post, I cannot remember how my thoughts got here, but that's not uncommon for me.
WARNING: Not video game related, just thought I'd let you know right off the bat, to not waste anyone's time.
WARNING: Not video game related, just thought I'd let you know right off the bat, to not waste anyone's time.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
League VS Dota
Note: I will mostly try to take an
unbiased approach and lay out the facts, and then I will give my own
personal opinion, this is in no way saying which game is better. Both
games are great, and are targeting different audiences. Heroes =
dota, Champion = LoL.
Intro:
This is something I have personally
been wanting to do for awhile, and thought that it would be neat to
share with the general public my thoughts. I will compare these two
games by champion/hero roles, and how I believe they are
different/similar, and then talk about some of the specific game
mechanics.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Et in BioShock ego: References of Religion and Objectivism in BioShock
"Even in BioShock I exist"
References to history as well as many other types exist throughout video games; BioShock is no excuse. Through the game based off the concept of Objectivism, a philosophy by author Ayn Rand that one should follow their own self-interest and profit from their own abilities and ambitions while being virtually uninhibited by others, one is expected to find may references to her works within the game. However, as amusing enough, there are quite a few religious and historical themes hidden and included quite cleverly through the game. Today I'd like to take you all through these [spoiler-free!] references.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Elo and the mathematics of skill
Warning: my statistics background extends not much beyond AP Statistics in high school. So its completely possible that this thesis has no real mathematical backing, but I think it is an interesting concept nonetheless.
Introduction
Whenever there's discussion about game X being superior to game Y, there's always some sort of discussion about which game is "harder". But the problem is that when both games are multiplayer games, its considered rather silly to say that one game is harder than another, simply because, in my opinion, the game is as hard as your opponent is good. Its not something inherent about the game that makes it hard; its simply a measurement of how good your opponent is. I always consider these discussions to be rather trivial and impossible to resolve for two reasons:
1. Because a value criterion of game difficulty does not necessarily fit the thesis that a game is actually "better", and
2. Because there's no objective way to quantify a game being "harder"; even if your own experience says that a given game is harder, its based on a subjective experience and doesn't necessarily mean that its the same for everyone else.
The first part is a subjective statement that I make from my own opinion and its not something that can really be discussed beyond the surface, but the second one is always considered to be a factual statement. But I've always wondered if it is, in fact, possible to quantify game difficulty in PvP games.
Well, if I didn't have a working theory, I would be writing this blog post, wouldn't I?
The thesis is based on the following concept: A more "difficult" game has more ways for a "better" player to differentiate him/herself from a "worse" player. Unfortunately, this is a statement that has to be taken as an unprovable axiom, but I believe that it is a statement that is intuitive enough that it doesn't need to be proven. So I will leave it at face value.
But how do you determine how many ways a game has for players to differentiate between each other? Well, you could count them, but that's rather silly, and it doesn't correctly capture the measurement we're trying to make. But once again, anything that measures the game based on the game mechanics is guaranteed to be subjective and not mathematically or logically rigorous.
Introduction
Whenever there's discussion about game X being superior to game Y, there's always some sort of discussion about which game is "harder". But the problem is that when both games are multiplayer games, its considered rather silly to say that one game is harder than another, simply because, in my opinion, the game is as hard as your opponent is good. Its not something inherent about the game that makes it hard; its simply a measurement of how good your opponent is. I always consider these discussions to be rather trivial and impossible to resolve for two reasons:
1. Because a value criterion of game difficulty does not necessarily fit the thesis that a game is actually "better", and
2. Because there's no objective way to quantify a game being "harder"; even if your own experience says that a given game is harder, its based on a subjective experience and doesn't necessarily mean that its the same for everyone else.
The first part is a subjective statement that I make from my own opinion and its not something that can really be discussed beyond the surface, but the second one is always considered to be a factual statement. But I've always wondered if it is, in fact, possible to quantify game difficulty in PvP games.
Well, if I didn't have a working theory, I would be writing this blog post, wouldn't I?
The thesis is based on the following concept: A more "difficult" game has more ways for a "better" player to differentiate him/herself from a "worse" player. Unfortunately, this is a statement that has to be taken as an unprovable axiom, but I believe that it is a statement that is intuitive enough that it doesn't need to be proven. So I will leave it at face value.
But how do you determine how many ways a game has for players to differentiate between each other? Well, you could count them, but that's rather silly, and it doesn't correctly capture the measurement we're trying to make. But once again, anything that measures the game based on the game mechanics is guaranteed to be subjective and not mathematically or logically rigorous.
Kogan's (Personal) Top 5: Most Difficult Things in Games
Video games aren't just all fun and games, I can give you that. Video games make you work for your reward. However, we come across some games that perhaps take "work for your reward" and take it to the extreme. No matter what case, hardcore games nor "casual" games.These cases can sometimes ruin a games experiences, other times the rest of the game eclipses that part and makes you forget about it. Today I will be talking about these instances of what I believe are to be the top five. Also no, Water Temple is not anywhere in this list, I didn't think it was hard.
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