Ahhh, the inglorious reality of the internet is that where there is traffic, there's bots. YouTube is no exception.
I just want to clarify that first of all, I don't condone the use of bots for the purposes of being an ass on the web. And second of all, they shouldn't ever be given any sort of media credit. Unfortunately this post self-contradicts, but I'd like to briefly talk about it.
I never mention bots. Ever. They're like those posters you see on the side of buildings, people on the street briefly glance at them, realise they're not important or interesting, and move on. But this aside, I'll bear the facts: I probably get 2-3 messages in my YouTube inbox a month that are obviously bots. The grammar is off, they're sent to over 50 people, and they advertise a website you'll never visit.
They're all pretty 'run of the mill' and whenever I see this I think 'these guys are gonna need to start trying a lot harder. They're becoming a joke.' The affair ends with the 'mark as spam' button firmly clicked.
Do I mind the extra mail? Not really. It takes less than 30 seconds to get rid of it, and at least at this point in my YT career, I can afford the time. Of course the perfect situation would be not getting them at all, or at least having a spam filter built in. The messages are all laid out the same, it can't be hard to filter, right?
Anyway, I just got a unique bot message, or at least a new one. Still not perfect English, but extremely close. Mailed to only one person, and linked to a video, telling me how to get more views.
It's supposed to drive traffic to the company website. But as a regular YT viewer, I can comfortably confirm such measures do not work, at least not without near-crystal clear transparency, and have not worked for 5 years.
The title gave it away prettymuch immediately. Who has the time to write a 100 word title, that has the same 100 words as the start of the actual message? Again though, a first of this type of bot for me.
I guess this means my videos are getting more popular. Heh. Ahhh lol, just remembered the 'does it come with a free virus too?' comments that have started cropping up on YT. :D
This reminds me of yesterday when a friend received an email saying they'd won 300k. These guys immediately lost credibility on mentioning South America. :P If someone truly is stupid enough to fall for these bank hacking/virus thingies nowadays, they deserve it in my opinion.
So basically, bots are behind the times, and have laughably bad text scripting. Learn English you amateur hackers!
In other news, the Wool Warfare video took 7 hours to upload. No idea why. We passed 100k total video views, 400 subscribers, and Adsense is giving me the first payout at the end of this month. :D As usual, I write these just as I need to go, and I need to go to sleep.
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Corona: My Daydream
Hm, yes. This is basically a followup to the Corona video I posted on YouTube recently, where I gave a brief outline about 'my dream game.' Let's take a look at how this idea came about.
As I said, I was daydreaming, not so much about making a game, but features that I'd want to see in a game. Things like a single-player, perhaps 2-4 multi-player campaign, an actual multi-player, that could support dozens of people on one server, player customisation, etc. etc. Then, literally, my brain randomly said 'space racing game!'
As for the name itself, again, rather boring and not really related to anything, I was thinking of cool space words and corona was the first to come to mind. For lack of a better name, Corona is now the name of my daydreaming about this thing.
I still think about Corona a lot, and I'm constantly coming up with ideas. Like just yesterday, I thought that in multi-player races, if you can't join the game in time, you get to spectate, as some kind of ghost camera or something. My actual idea is that these spectators will be able to gamble in-game credits on who they think will win, perform the most stunts, etc. I know what you're thinking. This sort of thing isn't politically correct. And you're right, but remember:
- It's just an idea
- You don't have to gamble
- It's an indie game, and stuff like this is just part of what an indie game is.
What I thought of just this morning was being able to use the Q and E keys to rotate your ship while you fly, and also the camera.
In hindsight, it seems kinda weird that I say that first. It makes total sense to me, as it's all in my head. But for the reader, you're bamboozled. I guess we need to talk about mechanics.
Players are able to build their own custom ships to fly in the game. They can use the in-built stock parts if they just want to get into the game. Things like, I don't know, fins, engines, cockpits. Or if you're feeling particularly creative, you can create your own parts almost from scratch in a user friendly shape editor of some sort. I guess the game would need to calculate the various statistics of custom parts, based on shape, size weight, etc. You will be able to save these custom parts, and even perhaps custom ships, and sell them online for in-game credits. If you want an awesome ship, but don't want to spend hours making it, head to the player creations store and pick up something nice.
It's difficult to visualise what people would do if they had creative freedom over their own craft, as people are people and are therefore unpredictable. I imagine that some people would choose to ride around in men's genitalia, but hey, if you want to look like an uninspired idiot, so be it.
Again, just an idea, don't shoot me down, but feel free to unbiasedly critique, but wouldn't it be cool if the game used the Unlimited Detail technology currently in development by Euclideon, a small outfit in Australia. It's my game, so there's the daydream for ya. It's a completely different topic, but I just remembered those guys by chance a few days ago. I used to think that it was a hoax. I've changed my tune to a 'I hope it's real' attitude. The technology could revolutionise the gaming industry, people wont give it a chance because in their way of thinking, it's impossible. Remember that there's more than one way to solve most problems on Earth, and the gaming industry is no different. Just look at how successful Minecraft is, and it's made by a team of 10-15 people. Originally just one guy with a big heart. These companies in charge of the console world have hundreds, maybe thousands of employees spending millions of dollars and several years on their games. And it shows. For Minecraft to come along and make Notch and the rest of the Mojangstas millions of euros is both astonishing, and probably record breaking.
RANT! Woops. Anyway, yes, Corona! There's plenty more I would like to have said, but I will have to say it another time. Just before I go I'll talk breifly about credits. You get 'em primarily from racing, as kind of a score thing, which calculates based on time to complete the track, stunts performed, 'newbieness,' for multi-player, to keep things fair, and probably some other stiff I haven't thought of yet. As above, you can also make stuff for the shops, or gamble your way to riches also.
Perhaps I should seriously consider talking to someone in the industry. This is turning into quite the daydream.
As I said, I was daydreaming, not so much about making a game, but features that I'd want to see in a game. Things like a single-player, perhaps 2-4 multi-player campaign, an actual multi-player, that could support dozens of people on one server, player customisation, etc. etc. Then, literally, my brain randomly said 'space racing game!'
As for the name itself, again, rather boring and not really related to anything, I was thinking of cool space words and corona was the first to come to mind. For lack of a better name, Corona is now the name of my daydreaming about this thing.
I still think about Corona a lot, and I'm constantly coming up with ideas. Like just yesterday, I thought that in multi-player races, if you can't join the game in time, you get to spectate, as some kind of ghost camera or something. My actual idea is that these spectators will be able to gamble in-game credits on who they think will win, perform the most stunts, etc. I know what you're thinking. This sort of thing isn't politically correct. And you're right, but remember:
- It's just an idea
- You don't have to gamble
- It's an indie game, and stuff like this is just part of what an indie game is.
What I thought of just this morning was being able to use the Q and E keys to rotate your ship while you fly, and also the camera.
In hindsight, it seems kinda weird that I say that first. It makes total sense to me, as it's all in my head. But for the reader, you're bamboozled. I guess we need to talk about mechanics.
Players are able to build their own custom ships to fly in the game. They can use the in-built stock parts if they just want to get into the game. Things like, I don't know, fins, engines, cockpits. Or if you're feeling particularly creative, you can create your own parts almost from scratch in a user friendly shape editor of some sort. I guess the game would need to calculate the various statistics of custom parts, based on shape, size weight, etc. You will be able to save these custom parts, and even perhaps custom ships, and sell them online for in-game credits. If you want an awesome ship, but don't want to spend hours making it, head to the player creations store and pick up something nice.
It's difficult to visualise what people would do if they had creative freedom over their own craft, as people are people and are therefore unpredictable. I imagine that some people would choose to ride around in men's genitalia, but hey, if you want to look like an uninspired idiot, so be it.
Again, just an idea, don't shoot me down, but feel free to unbiasedly critique, but wouldn't it be cool if the game used the Unlimited Detail technology currently in development by Euclideon, a small outfit in Australia. It's my game, so there's the daydream for ya. It's a completely different topic, but I just remembered those guys by chance a few days ago. I used to think that it was a hoax. I've changed my tune to a 'I hope it's real' attitude. The technology could revolutionise the gaming industry, people wont give it a chance because in their way of thinking, it's impossible. Remember that there's more than one way to solve most problems on Earth, and the gaming industry is no different. Just look at how successful Minecraft is, and it's made by a team of 10-15 people. Originally just one guy with a big heart. These companies in charge of the console world have hundreds, maybe thousands of employees spending millions of dollars and several years on their games. And it shows. For Minecraft to come along and make Notch and the rest of the Mojangstas millions of euros is both astonishing, and probably record breaking.
RANT! Woops. Anyway, yes, Corona! There's plenty more I would like to have said, but I will have to say it another time. Just before I go I'll talk breifly about credits. You get 'em primarily from racing, as kind of a score thing, which calculates based on time to complete the track, stunts performed, 'newbieness,' for multi-player, to keep things fair, and probably some other stiff I haven't thought of yet. As above, you can also make stuff for the shops, or gamble your way to riches also.
Perhaps I should seriously consider talking to someone in the industry. This is turning into quite the daydream.
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