Jeff's space

I don't know if I'm actually really quite ill or not. Generally, I feel ok. But some stuff has been happening recently that has me a little worried.

 

It all started at the end of January. I started having a problem swallowing, as if my throat was going over a speed-bump inside. It didn't hurt, but it was an unusual feeling. Then at the end of February I had an awful cold, and then the following Saturday Bell's Palsy. I lost complete control over the left side of my face. Even now, the left side of my tongue is still a little numb, and I don't have full control over some of my cheek muscles. That annoying speed bump was still there. And one Monday it felt like something hard burst inside my throat. Not the inside of the tube, on the outside of the tube. That hurt for a full week, and swallowing was very painful. The pain subsided, but the speed-bump was still there. When I had the pain, I went straight to the doctor's and I happened to see a student Doctor who made the smartest move yet. He said "I'm sending you to see a specialist" Thanks Doc Shirley, you are a star. The NHS took 3 weeks to organise an appointment for sometime in July. Well sod that! I got a letter from the local clinic and rang up the company health scheme I joined early last year. Got an appointment for the following week where the consultant poked a mini-endoscope up my nose and asked me to say "EEEEEEEEEEE" He gave me some reassuring words, prescribed some ant-acid tablet and organised a Barium swallow for the following week.

 

That was all done last week. I'm going to see the consultant tomorrow and get the results tomorrow. I'm wondering what he's going to say. I just don't know if I'm actually really quite ill, but I just haven't realised it yet.

Check out Captain Kremmen:

 

 

Considering how old this is, it's still absolutely hilarious! :)

The perfect MMORPG. Hmmmm...

Just a couple of thoughts on this. Let's take a sci-fi/Fantasy setting from the PnP (That's Pen and Paper) RPG's that are available. One that is just ripe for turning into an MMO is Palladium's "Rifts" game. The world is enormously varied, there's tons of source material. In a word... Juicy. You could just as easily pick some of the other games or genre's but I've always considered Rifts to be the FPS of the PnP world.

But creating the world is not enough. You need to keep adding new and improved content. So lets steal an idea from Second-life and add it to the pot. User definable areas. Second life does this with its built in engine for creating content from within the system. It's been so successful that the second life economy is, literally, making millions. What I would envisage here would be every Game masters dream. Build a city, add dungeons, cave systems etc... Basically you "Buy" a plot of land in the game world, and create a new adventure. Extend the plot into other plots and you have quests. This leads on to self-forming story arc's across the gaming infrastructure. The crap stuff will be avoided by the players, but if it's good everyone will play in that area. If you want a World of Warcraft Killer, this is probably the way to do it.

Graphics and GUI. That's where second life falls down. The graphics are second-rate (Although the Windlight preview looks to be addressing that) and the GUI sucks. Big time! Ease of use is paramount, and it has to be fun. EVE online is stunningly complex, but the UI is too complicated. LOTRO, DDO,COX,WOW are all very easy to use and to get into. The graphics hook the user into the world, the UI keeps the user in the world along with the story lines.

Just a few thoughts.