mvalente.eu/mv.* Heavy Mental Stuff

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Found It: Dystopia, Jack In, Kick Ass
Date: Sat, 07 Jun 07 17:19:21 GMT

In my last post about the need to find a new game
to play in my spare time, I referred several games.

Well, none of them was the chosen one :-). I dont
know how it got through my radar (perhaps the fact
that it was released just last February), but I have
started to play Dystopia.

http://dystopia-game.com/

With the motto of “Jack In, Kick Ass”, its just as
close as it could come to a cyberpunk themed FPS.
There’s realtime/reallife battles going on, in a
“regular” 3D environment; but there’s also a second
level to the game which involves “jacking” into the
computer network of each level and hacking away at
servers (either to help complete the level, like
opening doors or disabling turrets, or to complete
the level itself, like destroying the data core)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia_(computer_game)
http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=HLMotw.Detail&id=9

Its a pretty cool game. Still very few servers and players; and
I still have to learn all the subtleties of classes, weapons and
objectives. I’m still going into WET a couple of times, but I’m
putting in some mind time into Dystopia; I even went so far as to
pay $9.95 for the HalfLife2 pack that allows me to run the
Dystopia mod.

Here’s some oficial and amateur footage of ingame ongoing
action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ez9-fGdS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwhO7aQguQ

Send me an email with your nickname if you also decided
to jack in…

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Asterisco.PT.2
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 07 17:18:21 GMT

Issue nr 2 of *.pt is out. Couldnt do it last
week because I was out of the country, so this
week’s issue has news spanning two weeks.

http://www.asterisco.pt/

There’s an archive now and hopefully an RSS
feed during the weekend (as promised)

— MV

PS – Its there already…

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Apple in Portugal
Date: Sat, 08 Jun 07 00:24:21 GMT

So everyone here in Portugal is going ape over
the fact that Apple is now a registered company
in the country and that an Apple store might be
forthcoming.

http://publicacoes.mj.pt/Pesquisa_Detalhe.asp?iID=366038

Me, not being an Apple switcher or fanboy (although
I do have a black portable G3 and a Cube; and, much
better than both, an original NeXT pizzabox) just
find it curious the uses that people are finding for
the recent availability of the companies register
online.

http://publicacoes.mj.pt/

I do have an interest in that. In my role as CIO for
the portuguese Ministry of Justice, working under
the political guidance of the current government
(in particular the Justice State Secretary, a lawyer
with tech moves and a reformist dynamo), I had the chance
to lead the team at ITIJ in putting into technological
reality the changes made to the underlying laws of the
commercial register, in particular the move from paper
based to electronic based publication and its online
availability. All done inhouse with no costly outsourcing
wasting taxpayers money.

http://www.itij.mj.pt/

And pretty soon those publications shall also be
available in english, for the benefit of transparency,
european membership and portuguese economy.

http://www.mj.gov.pt/sections/informacao-e-eventos/imprensa/ate-ao-primeiro/

Government propaganda, some say. Well, I’m well at ease
to mention these changes since I have no political affiliation
whatsoever; and, lets face it, the site works, that is a *fact*.

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Portugueses do Spectrum
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 07 23:47:21 GMT

So there I am, after dinner, listening to a couple
of CDs I bought today at FNAC (like Rui, I also brought
“Hunters of Dune” with me), reading the Expresso
newspaper, when I come across a small article in the
Unica magazine titled “Os portugueses do Spectrum”.
“Lets read it”, I thought, having been a Spectrum
teenager back in the 80s…

http://pesquisa.impresa.pt/search?q=portugueses+spectrum&btnG=Pesquisa
http://semanal.expresso.clix.pt/unica/artigo.asp?edition=1805&articleid=ES257111

Halfway through the article something caught my attention:
“[Rui Tito] assinou ainda Klimax, para a Hewson Consultants,
em 1990, em conjunto com M.F.Valente”

What the hell?! That last name did ring a bell; although
I dont remember ever having a game published with my name
on it. A quick search on the Internet brought this up:

http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/music_info.php?id_ele=MTE3Mjg=
http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/game_info.php?id_ele=MjU5NjM=

Now *that* I remember! Back then Rui Tito (game programmer)
needed someone who could both program and play music and
asked me for some help. He even lent me a 128+ for 6 months
and I created a small beeptrack for him. I didnt know that
the game had been published, that it was called Klimax and
that Rui had given me credits. Until today…

So off you go to get the MicroSpeccy AY player and the
.AY audio file so that you can ROTFL at my horrendous
effort at being a game musician.

http://bulba.at.kz/ayplayer_e.htm
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/projectay/gdmusic.htm

— MV

PS – From that to a 2 page spread on a national newspaper
harping about information systems; where did I go wrong?
http://dn.sapo.pt/2007/05/18/dnbolsa/justica_ter_so_sistema_informacao.html

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Gotta Find a New Game to Play
Date: Sat, 27 May 07 23:19:21 GMT

For about the last 2 years my main game addiction
has been Enemy Territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein:_Enemy_Territory

But for the last couple of months I’ve grown disappointed
with the game. Mainly because of the huge amount of cheaters
that now come into the game. Yes I also know where to find
Crushr2 and other stuff that allows you to cheat. But its
just no fun.

I was so pissed off that I went to play ICO by myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5KfNJsx8hs&NR=1

(I told you I like weird games…)

Unfortunately “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars” has been
delayed (I was very much into QuakeWorld and Quake III;
not Quake II though), and so I’m currently looking for
some new game to fuel my switch-offs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Territory:_Quake_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuakeWorld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_III_Arena

So while on the lookout for alternative MMORPG/MMOFPS
I came up with a few candidates which was a bit hard since
although I’m a fan of fantasy books, I dont like fantasy
MMOs very much (stuff like Everquest or World of Warcraft).

The current options are:

NeoCron
Cyberpunk based which is cool…its not ShadowRun, but hey…
http://ng.neocron.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun

PlanetSide
Sci-Fi based which is also cool…
http://planetside.station.sony.com/

City of Heroes
Comic-book based, one of the coolest of them all, even though I’m
not a comic book fanatic
http://www.cityofheroes.com/

Face of Mankind
This is the one that I would choose right now and even
started the registration process. The only thing stopping
me now is the thought of having to pay a monthly fee.
http://www.fomportal.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_of_Mankind

Of course there’s always the option of choosing something
opensource/free/whatever, although the options are fewer.
The only candidate was PlanetShift, which is much too
fantasy-y for my taste in games.

http://www.planeshift.it/

My relentless entrepreneurial mind at once started to
think of the possibilities of using one the opensource
MMO engines to create something to satisfy me, others and
my bank account ;-) I’m pretty sure I could come up with
a good cyberpunk storyline if I had the time, the money,
the programmers and the artists…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldForge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_Network

— MV