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Monday 26 October 2009

Stop telling me so much about your personailty!

As anyone who knows me will realise, I'm on Facebook quite a lot. In fact, during the times I'm not, it's not uncommon to get a text asking where I am and if I'm ok. Sadly, most of my Facebook time is taken up by people 'fanning' pointless pages. Now I'm all for allowing your profile to show you more about who you are, since Facebook would become rather redundant if it didn't. But do you really need to let people know you're a fan of breathing? You're really a fan of basic bodily functions? What does that even entail? I really hope no-one comes across your page wondering if you like to breath, and find out you have so much in common when they find that you, too, share the same ability as the entirety of our lifeform. The day this happens is the day I voluntarily submit myself for a Darwin Award.
So many pages are set up just to get a high user base. It's like the creators of each page feel the length (Or depth. I don't want to be sexist.) of their genetalia increases with each member they've fooled into thinking "I should become a fan of Shiny Stuff!"
While I'm on the subject, many groups are created in the same vein. The only difference I can see involves a group having a discussion board, allowing you to tell people "Yes, I also enjoy this random thing you thought of one day and had to clog the internet with." There may be more to it, but since I'm not going to join any of these pages to find out, you can find it out for yourself if you dare.
This wasn't as much of a problem in the past, as Facebook never updated you with who was following what. At the time of Facebook's first layout, fanning and groups weren't much of an annoyance as nobody had come up with the idea yet, and half of it wasn't implemented. (I miss those days.) A short update later, and the highlight reel was made public. This had the advantage of hiding on the side of the screen, so that any fannings were sandwiched between drunken pictures of your friends to gawk over. This latest update is the bane of my existence, however.
It's not that I don't like the layout, because I do. I think I'm in a minority of people who either like the layout, or couldn't give a crap how it looks as long as I can talk to people and make plans. It's because of updates like "[Person] and [too many friends] have become a fan of [crap I don't care about]." It's because I can't see what's going on in my friend's lives because I'm too busy filtering though updates about groups which shouldn't see the light of the internet and their respective clones. It's because Facebook can't give me the option to hide these updates. I have to hide all feeds from the person. This wouldn't be a problem if I didn't care about what half my friends say. Sure, they've made a few mistakes, what with becoming a fan of "Mcdonalds Should Do Deliveries", but that doesn't mean I should miss out on what flavour soup people are eating each day.
What's so wrong with only becoming a fan of applications you want to keep up to date with? It's a useful service if done well. I'm all for becoming a fan of Firefox so you can stay in the know when they update to a new version. But I urge you, stop telling me you're a fan of laughing when people fall over. Its a pretty redundant statement, since if you don't laugh when people hit the deck, you're probably not human.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Damned memory.

If there's one thing I hate, it's creepy little girls in horror movies.  If there's two things I hate, it's that and forgetting the controls of a game.  The latter is our topic of choice for this evening.

So I fired up Infinite Undiscovery for the first time since the day I bought it at the beginning of summer.  I probably would have had a better time if I hadn't just been pressing A to attack everything which looked at me funny.  I knew there were other attacks, and I knew I could connect to characters.....somehow.  What i didn't know was the effects of each attack, how to equip it, how to connect to someone and how to use their skills.  I took one look at the menus to relearn, but I only learnt what a few moves did.  I have no idea what a trait or title does or how to unlock more.  Buying items was a hassle, as I had to select the amount of each item I wanted BEFORE I said I wanted to buy it.
This is in no way the fault of the game.  All the information is there, and has been told to me before.  It's in every way my fault.  I tend to do this a lot with games.

"This seems like a good game.  That's the tutorial over with, and I've all the information I need!  Bring on the first enemy!  Wait, it's 2am already?  Lectures in the morning I'd better go get some sleep."
*2 months pass*
"Wow, I can't remember the game being this hard.  Wait, I'm supposed to Press A here?  How do I heal again?  This move is too slow, I'm sure I had another attack.  How do I revive characters?  Why am I the only one lef-...oh I'm dead."

No matter what game it is or how addicted I am to it, I'm going to forget how to play it.  Something shinier or an assignment I'm being graded heavily on will makes it's way towards me and the obsession I've been wasting away on will start collecting dust on the shelf.  It's happened multiple times over the years.  The Sims, Tropico, Halo, GTAIII, Guild Wars, FEAR, and Banjo Kazooie to name a few. 

Hopefully I'm not the only one.  Until I can upload game mechanics to my brain, I'm going to keep forgetting them.