Categories
Gaming

Everquest 2: Time-Locked Expansion

2004 was an odd confluence of games for the Massive Multiplayer Online Game user. In the fall of 2004 I was actively playing Everquest after having retired and returning. Found a new guild who was excited about Everquest 2 and it had my attention more so then the other game on the radar World of Warcraft. I also had my older game friends who I did fun stuff with 1-2 times a week.

At the release of Everquest 2 I was splitting time between Everquest and Everquest 2. I played enough to get a late 20’s or early 30’s Inquisitor and then the grind wore on me and some of the early game bugs detracted from my enjoyment.

Shortly after the release of World of Warcraft I picked that up and the great server migration games of login queues.

Long story short I dabbled in both games and by the same time the next year I was back into the Everquest max level raiding pretty hardcore.

It was not until the impending release of Wrath of the Lich King that I actually got hooked into World of Warcraft and the raiding scene that lasted until Cataclysm and the release of Dragon Soul when my work required me to move cross country and give up guild and raid leadership.

Variously through the years I have tried to play Everquest 2 and gotten a high level of 35, but never really felt the hook because it was so lonely in the leveling zones. I was also confused on what released when and how the game progressed.

I heard of the original Everquest Ragefire server which was classic Everquest server. There was entirely too much rose colored glasses for me to seriously consider going back and trying to pick this up.

While I had not heard much about it I learned after the fact that they did a similar server set on Everquest 2 where each expansion is released based on a vote by the player base.  I enabled my subscription to access the progression server and I am honestly surprised how much the game is interesting me. The game feels new to  me and I do not feel overwhelmed by the game content because it is released over time. There are tons of players and interest on the single server. Some of the original annoyances are removed in favor of player convenience.

Longevity might be an issue, but right now it is fun and really giving me the Evercrack feelings. There is challenge and actual fun to the gameplay. Taking my time through it all and enjoying the quests and content.

 

Categories
Politics

Planned Parenthood

With the litany of undercover videos coming out about Planned Parenthood I think I will discuss my philosophy on Abortion in general and the specifics of the discussion of fetal remains for research.

I think that at the moment of conception you have a unique genetic code of an individual. That genetic combination could potentially be the next Einstein or the next Hitler, but honestly I think the larger defining factor will be the nurturing of the child and their life experiences. That is where Life begins and an abortion could result in that unique genetic code ever being reached again.

Additionally I think that abortion should be avoided as much as possible through responsible family planning. So while I would advise against abortion as much as possible I recognize that is my personal opinion and that only goes as far as my own body.

A pregnant woman has different priorities and rights and could reach different decisions or philosophies. While I vehemently oppose the Roe v. Wade for how it was accomplished by creating rights out of thin air instead of the constitution the actual outcome of abortion being legal I can actually support. I believe that the decision is one that needs to be reached between the family and their doctor. If there was a severe situation such as rape, incest, or life threatening conditions. Each family might have a different outcome and some mothers might value the life of their child over their own and others feel the opposite.

So each family needs to find the medical practitioner that offers the choices they want to have available to them. However that medical practitioner should not have a financial benefit to influence your decisions where that decision could end in a life.

Planned Parenthood has certainly failed to avoid the perceived conflict of interest in the situation of Abortion. Despite a law making it illegal to profit from the remains of abortions they were so inept that they cannot properly document their fetal remains and accounting for the “refunding” of transporting the remains to researchers. The lack of competence convinces me that Planned Parenthood is unable to effectively implement a “Chinese Wall” to separate the medical advise to the patients with those who perform the abortions. Even if a such a separation existed if the individuals performing the abortion change their procedure at the risk of the patient in order to harvest viable organs from the fetal remains.

The conflict of interest is so compelling I can support the efforts to suspend funding to Planned Parenthood (temporarily) until they can be investigated. If the evidence proves they are illegally violating federal law then I would transition that support to permanently remove federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Though if that occurs I would support transitioning the funding they are receiving to other institutions that can follow the laws as written.

Conversely if the evidence shows there was not criminal action funding for non abortion activities could be restored if proper oversight keeps them separate. If Planned Parenthood actually commits to reforms to resolve this perception then with the proper oversight I could even see the funding restored, but their current public relations campaigns make this seem very unlikely.

 

Categories
Gaming

Sunset Overdrive

Finally came back to Sunset Overdrive and knocked this one off of the backlog list. This game is an Insomniac game (makers of Ratchet and Clank) and it tells from the plethora of guns you can use, the amps you can customize your combat with, and overdrives that give you gimmicks to use.

The game is a movement platform/gunner where it is more about flow and keeping moving instead of a cover shooter. The game specifically says “If you are looking for the sprint button, its called grinding”.  Guns range from a Record Skeet Shooter, a TNT Teddy Bear launcher, “The Dude” a bowling ball thrower.

The best part of this game is the humor and the endless snark. It is light hearted with geek references as well as punk/rock influences. The costume customization is comical when you start making some horrid combinations.

The snark is strong with this game. Simply put if you like the sarcasm of a show like Dead Like Me you will love the humor of this game.

Completed 8/1/15

Categories
Gaming

King’s Quest: A Knight to Remember 1

The revival of the glorious Sierra days of point and click adventures of the games of my past.

It certainly has the puns, the feel, and the vibe of King’s Quest games. The art is very beautiful with gorgeous painted back drops and a water colored feel that is reminiscent of the recent Tell Tale episodic games (Wolf among us, Walking Dead, etc). I am honestly surprised that this game was created using Unreal engine because it pulls off a look that is nothing like what I mentally think of unreal engine games.

The voice acting is excellent and the adventure feels good for a first episode of a 5 episode adventure. I am unsure if it has the TellTale typical choices events, but at least it does not have the typical anything that bad that can happen will happen as well as it is a happier game.

The puzzles and gameplay though I would honestly describe as too easy. The old King’s Quests were hard until you figured them out, but these felt largely simple. There was wandering around to figure out my options for sure, but putting them together was too simple. I blame that on the newer game environment we are in and easy being to common.  However I will admit that since this is an episodic game there is a chance for them to scale up in difficulty and I will wait for that opportunity.  While there are a few pieces of inventory that will hold over to the next episode, the episodic nature feels so much shorter.

Probably the biggest complaint about the game is that there simply was not enough comical deaths as you flail around trying to combine the various items and puzzles. The King’s Quests of old were comical with their myriad ways to die horribly in new and unexpected manners. I died a few times, but it was immediately obvious how to correct that. The nostalgia in me honestly wished the difficulty resulted in more gory deaths.

Episode 1: Completed 8/1/15

4 out of 5

Categories
ASP.NET Programming

iTextSharp

I was looking for a shortcut to avoid having to rebuild an entire document again that is currently being displayed in an ASP.net Panel  and instead just export it to PDF. This lead me to iTextSharp library which is used in Java, .NET, and Android.

First problem is that there is zero documentation for this library. Free tool but apparently they want to sell a book about it.

The concept was relatively simple to parse the panel as html and then write to the PDF, but it just starts to choke quickly. Using a grid inside the panel requires an override of the VerifyRenderingInServerForm function to avoid an exception.

Using my test environment it breaks on path access issues to images in the panel.

Then you have to remove all of the css styles that control fonts – larger, smaller, etc. You have to specify the exact point size for the parser to handle it.

Then when you see the final result it is just horribly manged by the formatting it does to the document.

This might be a decent tool in other circumstances, but today it is just not worth the effort to figure out what they want to get it to work properly without any proper documentation.

 

 

 

Categories
Gaming

Rain

A small indie game from Playstation Plus free games.

Very artistic with some gorgeous environments and fun gameplay. Feels like a cross between Ico and Never Alone in description, but gameplay never felt like the level changes dragged it down. It found the right balance to avoid being stale in the levels, but still fresh as they moved to the next.

A few fun surprises and highly recommended.

Completed: July 19th, 2015

 

Categories
Gaming

Strider

This game was sitting on my playstation since I downloaded it as a free PlayStation Plus game. Finally put some time into it and it was a fun adventure. Very much like the metroid of old or the more recent Shadow Complex.

I cannot claim to be good at this game, but it was a fun day to play it through even on easy.

Memories came back as a child I was playing with friends trying to find the mysterious double jump, or was it triple jump to progress in the game.

Completed: July 18th, 2015

Categories
Gaming

Never Alone

A short and sweet adventure of a lost girl in the blizzard and her new companion. Delves into the story of Alaska Native Storytellers, their culture, and their lore. Plenty of vignettes and cultural points.

The first half was more fun to me then the second, but this was for story reasons.

Reminiscent of Two Brothers and Limbo at times.

Completed: July 17th, 2015

Categories
Gaming

20 JRPGs you must play

The list of 20 RPGs the everyone must play from Kotaku.

Here is my progress on the list.

1. Final Fantasy VI – So agree, played at release, but did not finish.

2. Illusion of Gaia – Played and completed.

3. Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete – Played and completed on Playstation, sorry Sega CD.

4. Ni no kuni – Played and completed.

5. Phantasy Star IV – Played but not finished.

6. Chrono Trigger – Played and beat, but only some of the endings.

7. Persona 4 – Have not played, but added to backlog.

8. Final Fantasy VII – Played but not finished.

9. Xenogears – Played but not finished.

10. The Legend of Heroes: Trail in the Sky – Have not played, but added to backlog.

11. Earthbound – Have not played.

12. Radiant Historia – Have not played.

13. Lufia 2 – Have not played.

14. Suikoden 2 – Have not played.

15. Super Mario RPG – Played but not finished.

16. Final Fantasy IX – Played and finished.

17. Dragon Quest VIII – Played but not finished.

18. Final Fantasy Tactics – OMG yes, but not finished.

19. Kingdom Hearts 2 – Played and finished.

20. Secret of Mana – Played and finished.

 

So my rank is 14 out of 20 played and 7 of 20 completed. The completionist in my hurts on RPGs before final dungeons. (Screw you Chocobo breeding)

The few games I think might have deserved mention on the list:

Tactics Ogre: Let us cling together

Disegea

Jeanne D’Arc

(These might just be variations of Final Fantasy Tactics which I can respect)

Fire Emblem

(Never played myself, but so many of them figured they must be doing something right)

Shining Force

 

Categories
Excel

Excel – LDAP authentication

The beauty of Excel is the ubiquitousness of the program or support for the file formats. When adding business logic and power to these tools however it can be necessary to restrict access due to company confidential information.

Trying to accomplish this in Excel using VBA is basicly a curse due to the horrible developer environment, lack of debugging, and a fractured reference resource.

While with any programming process there are many ways to accomplish the goal and this is just one.

Assuming a userform that prompts for username and password it will add the domain name if necessary.


 

Const ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICATION = 1

Const ADS_USE_SSL = 2

 

Dim conn As New ADODB.Connection

Dim rs As ADODB.RecordSet

Dim oRoot As Object

Dim oDomain As Object

Dim sBase As String

Dim sFilter As String

Dim sDomain As String

 

Dim sAttribs As String

Dim sDepth As String

Dim sQuery As String

Dim usern As String

 

 

On Error GoTo ErrHandler:

 

Set oRoot = GetObject(“LDAP://rootDSE”)

 

‘work in the default domain

sDomain = oRoot.Get(“defaultNamingContext”)

 

 

Set oDomain = GetObject(“LDAP://” & sDomain)

 

sBase = “<” & oDomain.ADsPath & “>”

‘Only get user name requested

sFilter = “(objectClass=*)”

sAttribs = “AdsPath, cn”

sDepth = “subTree”

 

sQuery = sBase & “;” & sFilter & “;” & sAttribs & “;” & sDepth

‘Add the domain to the user name

If InStr(1, txtUser.Text, “domainname”) = 0 Then

usern = “domainname” & txtUser.Text

Else

usern = txtUser.Text

End If

 

Set conn = CreateObject(“ADODB.Connection”)

conn.Provider = “ADsDSOObject”

conn.Properties(“User Id”) = usern

conn.Properties(“Password”) = txtPass.Text

conn.Properties(“Encrypt Password”) = True

‘Set Flags to ensure secure authentication is used instead of simple

conn.Properties(“ADSI Flag”) = ADS_SECURE_AUTHENTICTION + ADS_USE_SSL

 

conn.Open “Active Directory Provider”

 

Set rs = conn.Execute(sQuery)

GoTo ExitSub

 

ErrHandler:

 

On Error Resume Next

If Not rs Is Nothing Then

If rs.State <> 0 Then rs.Close

Set rs = Nothing

 

End If

 

If Not conn Is Nothing Then

If conn.State <> 0 Then conn.Close

Set conn = Nothing

 

End If

 

Set oRoot = Nothing

Set oDomain = Nothing

MsgBox “You are not authorized to use this application, please contact an Administrator.”

Application.Quit

 

ExitSub:

Unload Me

 

End Sub