Live Dev Blog – Fallout

So I sat in on a Live Dev Blog today. Well, what can I say? It was an exercise in futility. Coupled with the fact that t0rfifrans, our designated CCPian for the blog (and a hotly anticipated one at that, given his up-front and no-bullshit remarks surrounding ghost training), had to miss the blog due to his wife becoming hospitalised (thankfully for minor issues); this and Zulupark’s neat dodging of questions and Mindstar’s neat choice of questions lead me simply wanting more.

Maybe it was the way Zulupark touted ‘new gates’ as a major part of the next expansion. Let’s be honest- new gates are hardly shocking. Shiny, sure. Important gameplay change or vitally needed rebalancing? Nope.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Both Zulupark and Mindstar did a fine job in what was rapidly becoming a tricky situation. But CCP is in a rut right now, especially if you ask the playerbase what they think of recent decisions. CCP has been dodging the real questions and, while doing a great job occasionally, tainting the perceptions of players with decisions like disabling ghost training. Continue reading Live Dev Blog – Fallout

Processing – Obsessive Camera Direction

Processing is awesome, and what better way to improve a sketch like a map viewer than to give it some juicy mouse/keyboard controls?

The Obsessive Camera Direction library for Processing lets you do just that quite easily. Simply install the library and follow the guide for easy, awesome controls.

Continue reading Processing – Obsessive Camera Direction

Processing again

I’ve gotten back into Processing for yet another attempt at creating an out-of-game EVE Online map. So far so good.

Sort of working!
Sort of working!

I’ve ended up creating a custom database to run the app off based on the Empyrean Age 1.1 data export from EVE, and that’s hooked into Processing using the MySQL library. The systems (and jumps, now) get loaded into the sketch on load, and are stored in two arrays as classes. As a first Java project it’s interesting to note the differences between Ruby, PHP and Java. I think I’m going to look at Processing on Ruby soon.

Hopefully this will run smoothly enough to get some data hooked in with XML feeds off EVE Metrics to provide a nice way to visualise things outside the browser. OpenGL is a bit iffy when used in the browser with Java, but I’m not really that fussed about making this a part of the site, more of a cool tool if you want to tinker. I’ll throw it all up on Github once it’s gotten halfway decent.

It’s made me wonder, though- is there anything akin to Processing out there that isn’t Java? I’d be really interested to see anything either C-based or Ruby-based that goes for more of the ‘visual programming’ angle rather than the more generic frameworks that tend to flourish these days.

So very tired, but tomorrow brings rest, a fresh Stargate Atlantis episode, and the potential for loads of lounging about for a week of holiday. Bliss.