Approaching Geekdom

I’ve always found it interesting how different groups play different games at LAN parties. A group will often play the same games at party after party, but if you go to a different group, they will often be playing a completely different set of games. The choice of games depends on a number of different factors, not all of which are directly related to the quality of the game. As far as I can tell, some of the factors include which games the people in the group own, which games they’ve played and are good at, and which games will run on everyone’s computers.

I’ve gone to LAN parties with a variety of different groups, but there is one main group I consider myself a part of. This group has a very specific set of games that we play. Not everyone in the group has an amazing computer, so the games we play aren’t always the newest, most demanding games on the market. We have a wide range of interests, so the games we play come from a variety of different genres. Many wouldn’t consider them the best games in their genres, but they are all solid titles that are fun to play and hold up to the test of time. Here are the games we play the most often:

Warcraft III: Warcraft III is a very solid real-time strategy game, but that’s only part of its appeal. One of the main reasons we play this game is because of the huge range of custom maps available. From tower defense maps to games where you only control single hero, there are dozens of high-quality custom maps readily available for Warcraft III that completely change the way the game is played. Add in the games fairly low system requirements, and this is a solid game for our group.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy: Jedi Academy is a very solid Star Wars title. It has its fair share of issue, but it provides solid game play, decent graphics, and low system requirements. Plus, it’s always fun to run around wielding a lightsaber against your friends. Siege maps are also fun, but there are only three that come with the game, and they don’t support bots. That’s a place where improvement would have been nice.

Alien vs. Predator 2: Alien vs. Predator 2 is a really great game with a surprising amount of depth. The game offers three completely different teams, each with their own very different play style. Even within the alien team there are several choices that change the way you play the game. Aliens can be fast, agile, and completely unseen, or they can be juggernauts of force, smashing through anyone in their path. The wide variety of choices make Alien vs. Predator 2 a game worth playing with friends. One of my friends plays a runner alien incredibly well, constantly attacking from behind and leaping off of the ceilings. All of us have been very surprised to find we had just been killed by someone we hadn’t even seen. I, however, will never forget the time when, playing as a predator, i turned just in time and impaled him with a claw in midleap.

Diablo II: Diablo II is the classic point-and-click RPG. It really isn’t a vey complicated game, but it does offer a decent selection of choices, and will run on almost any computer. It’s a game where it’s easy to spend six or seven hours playing before you even realize what’s happened. Playing with friends really brings this game to a new level. The different classes complement each other exceptionally well: a barbarian with a sorceress backing him up is far more effective than a barbarian and a sorceress fighting seperately.

Serious Sam 1&2: The Serious Sam games are good games on a variety of different levels. They offer decent graphics without putting too much of a strain on computers. They have interesting weapons and exceptional game play. The real reason for their excellence, however, is the number of moments where you think, “Oh, crap!” as dozens of strange creatures assault you. You empty weapon after weapon on them, but they just keep coming. There’s nothing better than trying to take out a horde of oncoming enemies with nothing but your two pistols.

These games aren’t necessarily my favorite games of all time, but I enjoy each and every one of them. They are all great games that are even better when you play them with friends. That’s what a LAN party is all about, and the games that get played are far less important than the people you are playing them with.

Bookmark It

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Boffering is a sport that is known by many geeks. The sport involves attempting to hit your opponent with a padded foam weapon. It can range from individuals sparring with each other to large groups fighting in massive battles. Either in groups or as individuals, boffering can be a huge amount of fun. On the web, there numerous resources for boffering. I’ve included a few of the best ones here.

Weapons:
Boffer weapons are usually made with a core of PVC with foam padding glued around it. The foam is covered with tape to protect it from tear. Weapons can take a variety of forms, from swords to daggers to clubs to spears. It is possible to create a boffer weapon modeled on almost any realistic weapon. Here is a great, simple guide for creating boffer weapons. This guide uses pool noodles as the padding which I thought was an interesting use. I found another guide here. This guide had videos, tips on where to get equipment and several different designs of weapons. The weapons shown in the second guide looked more realistic than traditional boffer weapons.

Rules:
Exact rules very from group to group, but most of the time, the rules are pretty simple. The goal is to ‘kill’ your opponent. This is achieved by striking them in the body. A hit to the leg forces them to lose that leg for the rest of that combat. A hit to the arm forces them to lose that arm for the rest of the combat. Generally, most groups do not count hits to the head or to the groin. This is for safety reasons. Even with padded weapons, boffering can be dangerous, and groups want to prevent injuries. Many times, if players swing to hard, they will be asked to stop fighting so that they won’t hurt their opponents. More rules can be found here.

Games:
While fights between two people can be fun, fights between large groups can be even better. When large groups are fighting, they can play in a wide variety of different games:
Free-for-All: A free-for-all is a game where every player is out for him or herself. There are no formal teams, although alliances can often form in the field. The winner is the last player left alive.
Pair or Team Free-For-All: This style of game is similar to the free-for-all except that players work in teams or pairs to eliminate all the other teams or pairs. The last team with any players left alive wins the game.
Zombies: In this game, one player starts out as a zombie. Zombies have infinite lives. When they are killed, the must return to their base to ‘respawn.’ All the other players start as humans. Humans only have one life. When they are killed, they turn into zombies. Eventually, the zombies will kill all the humans. The last human left is the winner.
Captains: In Captains, the players are divided into two, even teams. Each team selects a captain. The goal of the game is to kill the opposing teams captain. Often, each captain is given multiple lives, requiring that the opposing team kill the captain multiple times to win. Non-captain players usually have infinite lives and can ‘respawn’ by returning to their captain.
There are various other games, and the games played and the names they are called can very from group to group.

Boffering is a great deal of fun, and anyone interested should give it a try. It’s fairly easy to get started making weapons and it should be pretty easy to find people interested in playing. If you already are into boffering, what games do you like? What rules are different in your group?

Powered by ScribeFire.

Bookmark It

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Lifehacker has a great post detailing some of the features of the update for Ubuntu that’s officially releasing this Thursday. I upgraded to Gutsy over the weekend, and it looks nice. There really isn’t much about Gutsy that’s different from Feisty Fawn. There are some improvements to the interface and some advantages in installing proprietary or restricted drivers. Several programs besides the main kernel also got upgraded, changing over from Democracy to Miro, and from Gaim to Pidgin. The changes I noticed are pretty much all improvements, but none of them are major. Someone upgrading from Feisty Fawn is unlikely to see a huge change, but for someone trying out Ubuntu for the first time, some of the changes will make a huge difference.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Bookmark It

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’ve always been a big fan of board games. In particular, I love strategy board games, but I’m always happy to sit down with my family or a group of friends and break out just about any board game. Board games are a great way to hang out together without just sitting around. They give you something to do while still allowing you to spend time together. Depending on your group, board games can be incredibly competitive, or they can just be relaxing fun. I doubt this list will be new information for any very serious board games, but it covers my list of the greatest board games.
Note: The list isn’t in any particular order.

1) Diplomacy:

Diplomacy is a game that takes a little while to learn and a long time to play. There’s no such thing as a quick game of Diplomacy. The time it takes to play the game is worth it, however. In Diplomacy, you control one of seven imperial European powers in the time leading up to World War I. As you play the game, you quickly learn the reason for the name. No player can win the game by themselves. The game requires forming alliances with your neighbors in order to prevail. The game has two phases: the diplomacy phase, in which all players talk amongst themselves and write down their orders for the turn, and the order phase, in which all of the turns orders are resolved simultaneously for all players. The game takes strategy, cunning, and great sense of diplomacy to master.

2) Axis & Allies:

Axis & Allies is a World War II board game for 2-5 players. Players compete on two sides: the Axis, including Germany and Japan, and the Allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.S.R. Each side is attempting to capture two capitals from the other. Both sides have infantry, tanks, and array of naval and air units at their disposal. The games rules are slightly complicated, and games can take a while to play, but each game is an interesting struggle between the two opposing teams. The Axis have an initial advantage in military strength over the Allies, but the Allies begin with a greater economic strength. To prevail, the Axis have to use their military might gain an advantage before the allies can pump out enough units to stop them. The game requires a great deal of strategy, but it’s always fun to match off against your friends.

3) Wise and Otherwise:

Wise and Otherwise isn’t really a strategy game. It’s similar to Balderdash. The game has numerous cards with the first part of an obscure saying on the front. Each player writes down their guess for the correct saying, while the reader of the card writes down the actual saying from the back of the card. The reader then reads all of the guesses, and players choose which they think is the true saying. A player gets points for guessing the correct saying, and also for having other players guess the saying that they wrote. It’s a great game to play with a large group, and some of the things people write down are hilarious. Of course, the sayings on the cards are so strange and obscure that the strangest answer could easily be the right one.

4) Settlers of Catan:

Settlers of Catan has been one of the most popular strategy games for the last few years. There are several good reasons for this. For a strategy game, Settlers is easy to learn, and quick to play. The board is dealt out randomly at the beginning of each game, meaning that every game is played on a different board. This keeps every game from being a repeat of the one before it. Another interesting aspect is that the game does not revolve around combat, but rather upon expanding an economic empire. This makes the game appeal to a lot of people who would not otherwise be interested in the game.

5) Apples to Apples:

Apples to Apples is a great party game. It works for pretty much any large group. Each player has a hand of cards with various nouns. These nouns can be anything from household objects to well known celebrities. Each turn, a judge turns over a card that has an adjective on it. Players must put in the noun that they think best exemplifies that adjective. The judge then looks at all the cards and decides which card they think fits the best. It’s simple, fun, and interesting. What more could you want in a party game.

6) A Game of Thrones: The Boardgame:

Based on the popular book of the same name by George R.R. Martin, this strategy board game captures the feel of the novel on which it is based. The game focuses on the chaos that ensues after the death of the former king. Five major houses each make their own play for their throne. The game has its own, very interesting system for resolving turns, and provides a number of interesting strategies for each of the houses. While the game centers around combat, several times in games I’ve played, the player who was least involved in combat was the person who ended up winning.

These are only some of the great games out there. What other games do you like? What games do you think I should try out? Let me know in the comments.

Bookmark It

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When I first started using Linux, one of the hardest things I had to do was to setup my wireless device. I use a Netgear WG111T USB device, which works well in Windows, but I had to make a significant effort to get it setup using Ubuntu. Doing so requires using an application called ndiswrapper which uses the Windows drivers for various wireless cards to make them work in linux. Most of my instruction will be geared toward my wireless device, but hopefully this guide will also work for other wireless cards. I’m also using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. The guide might work for other distros, but I won’t guarantee it.

The official Ubuntu support for ndiswrapper is here. I made use of this support extensively when writing this guide, but the instructions there didn’t work perfectly for me.

Step 1:
First, we need to install ndiswrapper. The Ubuntu support offers a method of doing this that might work for some cards, but the version of ndiswrapper that is installed in this method is somewhat out of date. Many cards, including my Netgear WG111T, don’t work with the older version and require the new version to run. In order to get the newest version, we need to compile the latest version of ndiswrapper ourselves. First, we need to remove all traces of ndiswrapper from the system. This ensures that we get a fresh install. To do this, open the Terminal (Application>Accessories>Terminal) and enter the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo apt-get –purge remove ndiswrapper
sudo rm -r /etc/ndiswrapper/
sudo rm -r /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
sudo rm /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper.ko

Note: When you compile your own ndiswrapper, you have to recompile everytime you update your kernel. With Gutsy Gibbon coming out next week, this might mean you have to repeat this process pretty soon. It’s also possible that Gutsy Gibbon will fix some of the issues with Wireless Adapter support. I’ll let you know about my experiences with it as soon as possible.

To begin installing ndiswrapper, type the following commands:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt-get install dh-make fakeroot gcc-3.4 build-essential

You then need to download the current version of ndiswrapper from here. As of the time of the writing of this guide, that was version 1.48. After you have finished downloading, use the Terminal to change to the directory where you downloaded the file. (If you downloaded the file into your home directory, you shouldn’t need to change.) Type the following commands into the Terminal:

tar xvfz ndiswrapper-[current version].tar.gz
cd ndiswrapper-[current version]

Replace [current version] with the number of the current version you downloaded.

Now comes the actual installation. Type the following into the Terminal:

sudo make uninstall
sudo make
fakeroot
sudo make install

This should install ndiswrapper.

Step 2:
1. You need to disable the free drivers that Ubuntu comes with by default. If these drivers aren’t working for you, the should be disabled because they will conflict with ndiswrapper. To do this, open a Terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and enter this command:

echo ‘blacklist bcm43xx’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

This won’t take effect until you restart your computer.

Step 3:
You should go to this list and find your wireless card. At the time I wrote this, the search wasn’t returning any results, and I had to go into the list to find my card. My card, the Netgear WG111T was number 19 under ‘N.’ You need to download and unzip the appropriate Windows drivers from the list. At the bottom of the entry for each card are notes. Pay attention to these notes, as they can be very important. For instance, the notes on the Netgear WG111T say that the driver comes with two sets of .inf and .sys files. Both of these must be installed to get the device to work.

Step 4:
Now we need to install the windows drivers. There is a graphical tool to do this, but I didn’t have much luck getting it to work. Instead, I used the Terminal. First, locate the driver file(s). This should be a file with a .inf extension. Type this following into the terminal:

sudo ndiswrapper -i ‘/drivers/drivername.inf’

Replace drivers with the directory containing the driver, and drivername with the name of the the driver.

For the Netgear WG111T, you have to repeat this process: once for athfmwdl.inf, and once for netwg11t.inf.

Next, you need to check to see if the driver was installed correctly. To do this, type this command into the Terminal:

ndiswrapper -l

If the driver is configured correctly, you should get a message that the driver is present and that the device is present. (For the Netgear WG111T, you should recieve a message for both drivers, but only for one device.)

Step 4:
If the drivers are loaded correctly, you now need to load them into memory. Type the following command into the Terminal:

sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

To test that the connection is working correctly type the command ifconfig into the Terminal. If the connection is working, an interface named wlan0 should appear in the output. If it appears, you should be able to configure the network connection.

Step 5:
Assuming that everything is working correctly, you’ll probably want ndiswrapper to start every time your computer starts up. To make this happen, you just need to type the following command into the terminal:

sudo ndiswrapper -m

That should configure ndiswrapper to start whenever your computer boots.

That’s everything you need to do. It’s a fairly long process, but I tried to lay it out as simply as possible. If you have any problems, feel free to ask here, or on the Ubuntu forums. Hopefully, the process will be simpler with the upcoming release of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. I’ll let you know when I find out.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Bookmark It

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!