SilentTalkie » Joel

Hattrick – for the Armchair GM (part 3)

Joel — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:00:35 +0000

How insulting. Again the previous article was cut before the important details were outlined. I wish you all to know that I have personally written an irate article to the editor in protest. My art is my life. Those who seek to edit my articles with their flagrant copying and pasting shall burn in hell for all eternity. I’m pretty sure that’s somewhere in Revelations.

Below is what a GM sees to describe the outcome of his match, minute by minute, as it ‘happens’.

Coseza – Bruce Powers 0 – 7
Date:     3/11/2007 at 23.00
MatchID:     108130950
Arena:     Rovito Monza Arena
Crowd:     12050

The weather was pretty good, and a crowd of 12050 had shown up at Rovito Monza Arena for the match. Coseza had chosen a strategic 4-4-2 formation. The following players took the field: Luster – Arsenault, Lamontagne, Silver, Sheard – Mark, Millard, Holloway, Godard – Barniville, Massegu.

A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Powers. Starters: Bailén – Ivey, Loomis, Boesak – Connors, Harrington, Titus, Forrest, Swabey – Hess, Hebert.

In the 15th minute, the visiting Powers scored the 0 – 1 goal after Lisimba Boesak made a perfect free kick. Nic Connors came close to extending the visitors’ lead when he found himself completely unmarked in front of the goal and lifted a ball over Feeney Luster, but it was a little too high and hit the bar. Seemingly due to lack of experience, Merle Ivey needlessly tripped an opponent just outside the penalty area, but the free kick that followed didn’t succeed. In the 22nd minute, Powers’s Mark Hess burst through the central defence…

Now note that had you been watching this in real time, starting at 6PM (EST) on Sunday, you would have waited 15 whole minutes before you saw an update which told you that a goal had been scored. Another 7 minutes of waiting in real time before another goal would be scored. I should probably note that the thousands of other Canadians who watch these matches do not sit there in front of their screens and watch the text pop up after great pauses in between. Hopefully they are doing other things and just drop in from time to time during the game to see what happens, or long after the match is finished. There is, once the game has started, very little for the GM to do but sit back and wait. The outcome becomes dependent on a combination of your player’s skill, random Luck and ‘the Game Engine’ – the computer that runs the matches and spits the results. Often this ‘Game Engine’ is spoke of with a reverent awe… but mostly it is just cursed in the Hattrick conferences where users vent, cajole and tease.

Eventually your team becomes strong and you overtake the team in your series. You promote up to the next series and work your way up to the top of that series. Eventually with great patience and skill, you become the biggest, baddest team this side of the planet. Winning the Canadian Cup, the Masters, Private Cups between your friends – they’re all an endless series of achievable goals to announce to the world your skill in GM’ing. I don’t expect you to try. I certainly don’t expect you to succeed. My only dream, is here and now, you see a small glimpse of the wonderful word that could be open to you, if you only let it.

Hattrick – for the Armchair GM (part 2)

Joel — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:00:56 +0000

Apologies to anyone who felt they were insulted as a reader, by having the first half of this article cut off before it could be properly ended. Blame the editor. I know I do.

In Hattrick, your ability to become the best soccer GM is hindered by a number of constraints. First off, your players on your new team suck. They’re weak and you’re expected to lose most of your games. You’ll probably be insultingly regulated down to a lower series until you find a league that really, really sucks, allowing your pitiable team to win a match or two. In this series, you are finally able to compete, win a few games, build up a fan base and get enough money to buy some half decent players all the while developing and executing a profitable training regimen.

Soccer players have skills that help them in the position they play. A goal keeper has what is called a Keeper skill. Forwards have Passing and Scoring. Defenders have Defending. Wingers have Winger. Midfielders have Playmaking and Stamina. For example, see below for member of my team:

Thomas Cooker Baker
TSI = 1 690 , 25 years, wretched form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina:     solid                  Keeper:     disastrous
Playmaking:     outstanding    Passing:     inadequate
Winger:     wretched             Defending:     poor
Scoring:     wretched            Set pieces:     passable

Now this fictional member of my team has disastrous Keeper skill. So naturally I’d avoid playing him in that position. As he has both solid stamina and outstanding Playmaking, he would benefit my team the most by being played as a Midfielder. Each player has a certain list of qualities that assist the team in winning matches. It is up to the GM to choose the best position for each player to play. Each GM has access to a screen like the one below:

In it, a GM chooses each player’s position. Above is one of the standard 4-5-1 formations (read: defenders-midfielders-forwards). You can set substitutes that ONLY play if one of your players are injured. Now I could go on and on about training regimens and the importance of this or that secondary skill (passing, stamina, set pieces) but all of that can be happily read at http://wiki.hattrick.org. Minor things like that are of little interest to those just starting out (or those not starting but wondering what is the big fuss). Like all sports, the exciting part is in the match:

Venus by Ben Bova

Joel — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:00:36 +0000

A book report of a Sci-Fi book named VENUS by BEN BOVA. It was written in the year 2000. How ominous. But even though it was a really, really long time ago, I bet you haven’t read it. So save yourself some time, read the summary and then decide for yourself if you want to read take the time to read it. Makes sense. In the meantime, MY articles look more popular.

Venus

by Ben Bova

Perhaps it is a little juvenile to write book reports when there isn’t any teacher to force me to write it. A history teacher in high school had suggested we always write book summaries whenever we read any book so that we can recall the content easier in the future. It was good advice that every single one of his students completely ignored. Well I for one will can see when I’ve made a mistake. If not 15 years later, then when?

Ben Bova is a rather prolific science fiction writer although I’ve never ever (until now) read any of his books. The problem with sci-fi and other types of magic/fantasy books is that the writing itself is usually rather poor. The authors become so wrapped up in explaining the world around the characters, they tend to completely neglect the characters and story. Michael Crichton and Robert Sawyer (authors of books I’ve read recently) are both horribly guilty of this crime.

So it was with some refreshment that I wandered into my local library (call me cheap) and pulled out a book written by Ben Bova. Although there were rows of his books available I avoided anything that appeared to be a part of a trilogy or a sequel of a previous work. Strangely, libraries neglect having the first novel of a trilogy written by an author, perhaps because it is the first that is superior to its literary siblings. I settled on Venus, which although others had a similar theme (named after other planets) each book was unrelated to the others and stood on its own.

Venus is a first-person narrative (which I find to be a riskier but a wonderfully overwhelming form of story telling) about Van Humphries, the rich, pampered son of one of the richest corporate CEOs of the solar system. His older brother died recently on a risky mission to explore Earth’s nearest neighbour. His brother went to study the impact of greenhouse gases and its possible relation to Earth’s own man-made climate problems.

His father puts up a ten billion dollar reward for the return of Van’s older brother’s remains. Despite his hatred for his morally bankrupt father, Van decides to try for the prize himself. His father, who blames Van for his mother’s death and has decided to cut him off financially, is happy to see the little runt go. His father even assists in financing the mission. Other competitors, however, desire the prize as well. An old arch rival of his father, an asteroid miner named Fuchs, is determinedly set on the prize as well. And Fuchs has more reason to hate the ultra billionaire than anyone else.

What follows is the story told from Van Humphries perspective: the father who never loved him, friends who cared only for his wealth, a blood disease that keeps him stunted and weak, and an planetary adventure no man has ever attempted. It is an interesting story of pushing limits and fighting for independence. And it tries to explore the pain and anguish of living under a horrible, unloving father. But from that perspective Venus fails. There is simply so much futuristic content and conflict from all sides that it squeezes out any attempt to really delve into Van’s pain.

The story is standard sci-fi with some twists here and there. A disaster would bring both Venus missions under the tyrannical rule of Captain Fuchs and his cold and calculating Asian crew. Mutinies and biological disasters pits Van’s strength to the test – a strength he never fathomed he had. Alongside is the beautiful biologist Marguerite who became involved in the project after fleeing Van’s father’s unwanted advances. They find Van’s brother’s ship decimated and succeed in bringing the remains back on board (after his brother had failed to escape in an escape pod). There is even life on Venus, biological bacteria that eat away at metal (and space ships) and monsters that hide beneath Venus’ hellish overheating rock. Bova finds time to quote Milton and often enjoys the comparison between hell and our planetary neighbour to the sun.

So would I recommend Venus or will I look for others by the same author? Well after reading several rather poorly written Sci-Fi novels centering around Neanderthals by Robert Sawyer (who lives in Mississauga somewhere), I must assure you I would. Ben Bova did his homework on the planet and kept away those annoying (and glaring) plot inconsistencies. Nor did he require a ridiculous suspension of belief to enjoy his work. But best of all, like most Sci-Fi novels (damn you War of the Worlds), this one is both an easy and interesting read.

4 stars out of 5

Hattrick – For the Armchair General Manager

Joel — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:00:44 +0000

Once upon a time there was a computer game called Empire. Empire was an addictive game that I found in the early 1990′s which ran on my 286. It was a turned based strategy game where you played a ruler who had several other neighbouring hostile kingdoms. Each round you could enlarge your army, set your income tax, invest in infrastructure and generally wreak havoc on your enemies with your army. They in turn would do the same thing and attack you. If you managed well, you would gain vast wealth and power and destroy all those who would oppose you. Manage poorly and a half-crazed mother would stab you on your throne with her dead malnourished enfant in her arms.

Fast forward to 2007 where the text based game Empire still remains essentially text based. But instead of armies you command vast legions (<50) of soccer players (though they call it football players for some reason). And instead of investing in Marketplaces and Shipyards you invest in coaches and train players to become divine. Not really, they’re just really, really good at playing soccer.

Hattrick bills itself as an online, browser-based, football management game (MMOG) developed and based in Sweden. You have players who vary in regards to skill, age, agreeability, and stamina. And just like their army counterparts in Empire, your armies are sent onto the field to score the most goals. New users begin with about 20 wretched players and a coach and it is up to the GM to manage the team to professional quality greatness. Money comes from ticket sales but also from training these players in a specific skill to be sold to your fellow General Managers who train alternative skills. You in turn purchase their players on a free-market Transfer Listing where you and other GMs can place bids.

[Editor: This article will hopefully commence soon... Joel is probably playing Hattrick.]

Blogging the Wiki on the InterWeb

Joel — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:00:32 +0000

A long, long time ago, perhaps 8000 years ago, a civilization created a writing system. This allowed members, who could read, the ability to record history that could be ‘remembered’ by future generations. Later, these written messages were used to communicate to people far away, spreading ideas across empires within months. The printing press allowed long messages to be mass produced in hours instead of years. An efficient courier system added alongside the printing press allowed the distribution of unaltered messages to thousands of individuals across the globe.

The Internet squashes these inventions like a bug.

It is estimated that over one billion people have access to the Internet. These people have access to the latest medical information, explosive information that undermines the power of military dictators, and up-to-the-second information on recent natural disasters. Local to International news can appear in your web browser instantly as it happens. At no other time has the general populace been so well informed on matters of importance.

And then there’s the porn. And the gambling. And the phishing scams and email spam. The online sexual predators. The online forums that deteriorate into calling one another Nazis. Websites devoted to letting people pretend to be pussy cats or medieval fantasy creatures with magical powers. The online games that provide us with a school, a shotgun and hundreds of scared digital students to shoot.
For everything wonderful, we have something equally vile and destructive. But it all happens extremely fast. Web 2.0 allows not just the rich and powerful to reach out and talk to everyone, but every single immature 14 year old with a hatred for immigrants. We stand on the cusp of a new era in collaboration and team work. Our society stands on the fence between greatness and utter filth.

But I propose to you that as the information grows, swirling around the world at light speed, if only a mere fraction of it is positive, if only an ounce shows progress against the tonne of stagnant, petty filth, the world will push forward at a breakneck speed, each day and every day, from now on.

Sure, most of us will roll in the mud of petty human existence, but if only 1 out of a million creates an idea, or gives relevant advice to a child, or finds a brilliant break-through that all others missed, it will make a difference. The rest of us insignificant information regurgitators will find it, link to it and forward it on. We might even digg it. It’ll go viral and within weeks, a billion people will know about it. And that’s power. Real power. The greatest power that’s ever been created by mankind.

Welcome to a brave new world. Watch your step.