Category: Promoted

Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.

  • Magic, Part One

    IMG_1795

    There’s this thing at PAX called Pinny Arcade, right, and it’s wonderful. It’s like a little subculture of PAX attendees who are obsessed about collecting and trading lanyard pins, almost kind of like Pokémon. You can buy many of the pins at PAX events or from the online store for little effort, but the most coveted ones are the ones that you have to trade other collectors for: Penny Arcade staff, some easier to find than others. Some, like the Sarkhan pin you see above, can be earned through a series of events. This is the story of how I came to earn the Sarkhan pin at PAX Aus 2014.

    At first, I wanted to trade someone for it, it being the Sarkhan pin. I was wandering the area for panels with a few friends; they were searching for PAX Aus XP QR codes, I was mostly just killing time until the next panel I wanted to see.

    An enforcer was standing outside one of the panel rooms, and I was drawn to his glittering lanyard of Pinny Arcade pins. After a quick glance, only one caught my eye: Sarkhan. I asked him if he wanted to trade, and pointed towards the mean-looking dude with flames. He seemed momentarily confused, as if this was the first time anyone had ever asked him that question before, before answering with a question of his own: “you know it can be earned, right?” I asked him where, and he said downstairs, at the Magic exhibition.

    My companions at the time had heard about this, and informed me three tasks had to be performed before the pin was awarded. This being day two, one of them said the pin was actually easier to earn yesterday, on day one, as only two of four tasks had to be performed, but now, it was three out of five. Feeling a little like Hercules and his labours, I parted ways with my companions and wandered downstairs, passing through the many glittering attractions of the expo hall before arriving at the tabletop area, just past the console and PC free play areas.

    Upon arriving, I made my way to one of the Magic areas, as they were cordoned off into various sections. I must have had a lost and/or confused look on my face, because I was soon approached by a guy who asked me if I needed any help. I asked him where I could perform the deeds to earn a Sarkhan pin of my very own. Looking pleased I was not there to collect his firstborn and merely after a collectible pin, he directed me towards another desk, currently staffed by a man and a woman. I thanked him for his assistance on the matter and moved on.

    At the desk, I was greeted by the woman, who asked me what I was after. I stated my intentions on collecting a Sarkhan pin, and with a knowing look in her eye, she handed me one of the cards that contained the instructions for the five tasks. I only had to perform three, and from memory, I could choose from learning Magic, taking a photo, duelling, spell-slinging, and one more that I can’t quite recall.

    Being the non-nerd that I am, I opted for taking a photo as that seemed the “easiest”. The goal was to get the pin in the shortest possible time, and I was thankful that PAX was such an inclusive place: they knew that a lot of people wouldn’t be up for the nerdery of learning to play a collectible card game, so they had an all-inclusive activity that everyone could enjoy. I donned a silly hat, picked up a sword, and stood in front of the camera as it took a photo. Looking at the photo now, and I wish I hadn’t chosen such a girly pose…

    With the first of three tasks completed, I had my card punched. One down, two to go.

    Wow, two PAX Aus posts in one day? Yeah, it happens when you’re six days behind in daily blog posts for the month of November.

    These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I’ll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

  • Critique

    For the longest time, I’ve wondered why it’s hard for those who are merely average — myself included — at Dota 2 to improve at the game in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

    My own theories revolve around improving at Dota is hard because a lot of the time, you don’t recognise your own mistakes. Whether you’re playing in the so-called “trench-tier”, stuff that wouldn’t work in the pro scene works, and stuff that works in the pro scene doesn’t work in your trench-tier games, mostly because people do (and don’t do) things you wouldn’t expect. It never ceases to amaze me that people who have literally no idea what they’re doing or how the game works can be playing the same game as those who play Dota 2 professionally. It’s completely insane, and totally a topic for another time.

    We can probably blame Dota’s “fair and balanced” matchmaking for slow improvement, too. Maybe people just don’t play enough games to notice any real rise in skill, but a lot of the time I feel as though because Dota tries to match you up with and against people who are at the same skill level as you, you often don’t see when you’ve climbed up an MMR bracket, because people will still be, relatively speaking, the same feeding bastards they were when you started out.

    Now that I know a little about the game, I’ve often wondered if I should be starting a new Dota 2 account and playing ranked only to see what kind of MMR I end up at. To be fair, it’ll probably be around the same MMR that I am now — how do I know? Because even though I often perceive myself as better at Dota than my teammates, I can’t seem to carry myself out of the rubbish tier I’m in. It’s kind of sad, and is mostly the reason why I don’t play much ranked.

    But forget perfect last-hitting mechanics. Forget perfect decision making. If I could choose to be insanely good at just one aspect of Dota 2, it would be in the critique of my own gameplay.

    Analysing where you’ve made mistakes is a truly underrated skill, in my opinion. By looking back on games you’ve played and identifying where you could have been more efficient in farming, or where you should have gone through the jungle instead of walking through the river, or where you should have just TP’d out of Dodge as soon as you saw all the other lanes missing, you can learn to improve you own game much more than if you had perfect last hitting mechanics. Perfect decision making would probably help, but if you’re bad at the game to begin with, there’s only so many good decisions you can make, you know?

    This ability (or more accurately, lack thereof) to self-analyse and identify mistakes is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. My favourite pro player at the moment asked about this in relation to Dota 2, and got an answer from Dr Dunning himself. You can check out Aui’s questions and Dr Dunning’s answers over on Reddit, but long story short, the DKE probably explains why people can’t improve at Dota as much as they might like, and sadly, there’s probably no real way to combat the DKE when it comes to improving in Dota 2.

    I know I’m incredibly mediocre at Dota 2. But if I want to improve, it’ll take more than just playing games. Analysing games where I played awesome will help as much as analysing games where I played rubbish, but overall, it’ll be a real struggle.

    These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I’ll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

  • Smurfing

    I probably could have taken an actual screenshot instead of a photo of the screen, but again, not my computer.
    I probably could have taken an actual screenshot instead of a photo of the screen, but again, not my computer.

    Continuing the list of things I don’t understand: smurfing. Otherwise known as the act of playing on a Dota account with a visible or invisible match-making rating lower than your own, in order to see how you fare against players below your skill level (or those also playing on smurfs).

    Up until last night, I didn’t really see the point of smurfing. In my mind, the only two legitimate uses of it were either to play Ranked match-making with friends with a vastly lower MMR than yourself, or creating a new account in order to re-calibrate your MMR now that you know how to play the game, thus hopefully getting a higher MMR. Apart from those two reasons, there really isn’t any other reason to smurf — most of the other games I’ve played with or against smurfs have been very similar (or perhaps slightly above) to my kind of skill level, so what’s the point? Some people expect smurfing to match them with other completely new accounts, but Dota matchmaking is smarter than that, for the most part. After stomping a few games, you’ll start to get matched with harder and harder opponents. Eventually your invisible MMR will be the same as your “true” MMR, so the point of smurfing in the first place has been completely negated.

    But last night, I played Dota on an account with one game played (plus a whole bunch of lobby/bot games), and it was, in a word, glorious.

    I wasn’t really sure what to expect. It could have gone one of two ways: either I’d get matched with other people smurfing and subsequently get wrecked, or I’d be matched up against players who had a similar number of games played (i.e. they were just starting out) and completely steamroll them. It’s fairly safe to say I felt more than a little trepidation as I hit the queue button for All Pick.

    Of course, there was no other hero to play other than PA, my current favourite carry. I wasn’t sure how the laning stage was going to go at this totally-unknown MMR, but I told myself I’d just play my own game, farm up as best I could, and then try and carry as hard as possible. Like other carry games, basically.

    Continue Reading

  • Pyramid Scheme

    This is actually one I’ve been saving up for a while now, only as part of another post. I’m splitting it out and re-publishing it here as part of Blogvember 14 because why the hell not. Enjoy!

    Did I tell you about the time I was approached to join what I would later know to be as a pyramid scheme? One day an acquaintance approached me and thought I’d be a good fit for a business proposition he had. I was curious, so I said yes and we ended up meeting with this acquaintance’s business partner. At first we just talked about this guy’s work, and he made a point of emphasising how he travelled a lot and spent lots of time overseas, etc, etc. Then we got to the nitty gritty of it, and he told me that if I joined his business, I’d eventually be making money without lifting a finger.

    I don’t remember much of the details of how it all worked, but as with all pyramid schemes, this one involved some sort of partnership with a manufacturing/distribution company where you would buy products, and then get rewarded based on how much you spent. Those rewards were how you were paid — the idea was that you could recruit other people to buy things from you, thus earning you rewards (money) without you having to spend a single cent. Those people could then recruit other people, who could then recruit other people. Profits were then kicked back up the chain; to their recruiter, to you, to your recruiter, and so on.

    The way it was positioned all sounded pretty lucrative. The guy I met up with said I’d be earning money even when I wasn’t explicitly recruiting people, and the more people I recruited, the more I would be earning (because those recruits would eventually recruit people of their own, and continue the trend). But in reality, it would have been pretty hard work to get to that stage — not only would I have to have my own little network of recruits, but then they’d all have to have their own little network of recruits, and so on. I think you get the picture.

    And, to be totally honest with you, I was pretty tempted by the idea. The potential was there to make a bunch of cash for little to no work, but there were pitfalls to the scheme, as I had learned a few years before.

    Continue Reading

  • xkcd: Photos

    via xkcd: Photos.

    Remember when I used to be heaps into photography? Yeah, me neither.

    I still kind of am, but not as much as I used to be. I don’t know about you, but photography was always a “make an effort” thing for me, for the kind of photography I wanted to do (i.e. mostly street photography). I still want to take photos of random people or things on the street in order to tell a particular story, but that involves actually leaving the house — something that doesn’t happen every day because I’m a hermit used to the comforts of working from home most days.

    Take today, for example. There was an elderly couple standing outside my work today, looking up at the construction across the road. I glanced up, and the way our glass sliding doors framed them, just gazing up at the construction work going on, was kind of nice. For a brief moment I considered taking a photo, but decided not to because it would have been a little strange.

    I’m drawn to couple photography particularly, which probably says plenty about me personally. There’s stories to be told for inanimate objects and individuals, but couple photography fascinates me. One of the best shots I’ve ever taken was a quick spur of the moment thing, like most street photography, depicting a young girl in a school uniform sitting with a guy, also in school uniform, on a bench in the Hobart mall. You don’t know what they’re talking about, or why they’re sitting there, and you kind of feel like an intruder on their private time, but it’s a nice photo. At least, I think so.

    It reminded me of the times when I carried my film rangefinder as an every day carry kind of thing. Some people lug around DSLRs, but my Bessa R2A is compact enough to not get completely in the way or be too much of a burden. I mean, sure, I always have my iPhone 6 with me and that takes some seriously good photos, but digital photography has always felt kind of cheap, like it’s too easy to achieve good results without even trying. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but when you can fire off a single-shot HDR photo just by tapping a button, it kind of cheapens the experience a little.

    On the above XKCD: I’ve never understood people who criticise other people for taking photos of things that mean something to them. Why does it matter how other people choose to enjoy a particular sunset, or a bunch of fireworks going off? Just looking is nice, but there are some that want to capture the moment so they can come back to it later and then there are some who recognise the technical challenges of capturing multi-coloured explosions in the sky. Either way, that’s their prerogative. Who are you to say otherwise?

    These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I’ll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

  • Blogvember 2014? Sure, let’s do this.

    Those were the words I opened with as I sat down with the person who was going to teach me how to play Magic: The Gathering at PAX Australia 2014. Not the “Blogvember 2014” part, but the “let’s do this”, after I threw down the gauntlet, informing him I knew how to play Magic but might have been a little bit rusty at it. A story for another time, I’m afraid.

    It feels like so long since I’ve written regularly on ye olde blog. I’m not really sure what happened — it’s not that I’m not writing, because I do that every day and get paid for it, but it’s been so long since I’ve written about personal interests. Not that those have changed drastically, either: I play Dota most days, I’ve been really enjoying Shadow of Mordor lately, and I could probably write at length about those, but every time I’ve told myself to write about something other than Apple or consumer technology, hitting that new post button just seemed way too daunting.

    So, here’s what’s going to happen in my return to blogging. Every day in November, I’ll be publishing something on my blog. Since I’ve just returned from PAX Australia 2014, a tonne of these stories will be related to that even — little anecdotes from things I saw/did/experienced at the show. Like many others, too much of my writing has gone into Twitter, and while I won’t go as far as saying “Twitter has killed my ability to write”, it’s definitely had an impact on the greater-than-140-characters content I’ve produced, especially on my blog.

    The reality is, there’s plenty of stuff that could be written about. Twitter is great for brevity, but loses in terms of permeance. Twitter is too fleeting, and people tend to live in the moment. That’s fine, but I think the opposite is important too; having somewhere you can come back and read something substantial about what you were doing/living six months ago.

    Jason Snell at Six Colors sums up the problem nicely:

    If you had something interesting to say, but it really couldn’t bear more than a few paragraphs, you had two choices: Just swallow it and not write anything, or fluff it up with empty filler until it seemed more substantial than it actually was.

    Plenty of stuff is bigger than a tweet, but there are times when you just don’t feeling like tapping out an 1800-word essay on the Nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor. It’s not that the Nemesis system in that game isn’t worth discussing to the tune of 1800 words, it’s that you could say “it’s bloody awesome” in a tweet and leave it at that.

    I thought about imposing an upper word limit on the posts, to prevent me from going overboard and over extending my efforts on any given day, but we’ll see how we go. I have no posts in the queue currently, so all the content will be hot out of the oven, so to speak — sometimes it’ll just be a photo about something that happened at PAX, other times it’ll just be a paragraph or two about downright unrecognisable cosplay, or the differentiation between TF2 players and those with fancy hats for the Melbourne Cup.

    At least I’ll be writing on the blog again.

    These words part of Blogvember, a thing I just made up right then about getting back into blogging. You can read more words about Blogvember right over here, but the gist is that I’ll be attempting to post something up on the blog every day in November 2014. Read other Blogvember posts.

Benny Ling's Bling

Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.