I recently got an HD video camera. I’ve been very happy with it other than getting video off of it. It records to an SD card which is great. But it records as a AVCHD thing which requires extra steps to use it. 

Like in the days when I had video cameras that used tape, I have quickly rediscovered how annoying it is to mess with video. It seems like no matter how powerful the computer is, the software is still just crap – at least on the PC. 

Why aren’t these programs multithreaded for instance? They seem to be written to be as unresponsive and inefficient as possible.

Then there’s the whole AVCHD thing which seems incredibly unnecessary. Couldn’t they have done it as some MPEG4 type thing where it’s a single file?

My other digital video camera records to a mini DVD and I have to say, that is the best way to go. You end up with a DVD you can pop into a DVD player or easily turn into a DVD image if you want to store it on the computer. The only problem was that it’s not HD.

You can see part 1 here.

This journal entry outlines how the user manual is being created. Ever saw a manual you thought was weak or lame? Now is your chance to provide your own feedback on a manual before it goes out to the printer.

Getting Started

You have been chosen to compete in the Arenas of Rokkur in a contest against your rivals to ascend from the mortal places into the Pantheon of the Gods. You shall battle alone as well as be on teams of convenience with and against your fellow Demigods. These Demigods have come from different realms, different worlds and different planes of existence to win the favor of the Gods and ascend to Godhood.

Each victory in an arena provides you with favor points that you can use to move closer to ascension, drive an opponent further from ascension, or acquire special items to aid you in future battles.

Installation & Updating

Installation requires approximately 3 gigabytes of disk space on your hard disk drive. After running the game for the first time, press the “Update” button from the main menu to make sure you have the latest version of the game.

The update button will open Impulse which will require you to create an Impulse account if you don’t already have one. This account will be used if you play the game on-line. Impulse will allow you to update to the latest version as well as re-download the entire game should you lose the DVD in the future. You will need your game’s DVD key to register the game to your Impulse account.

The Arena

The Arenas of Rokkur do not exist in the mortal realm. They are a manifestation of the ancients with the sole purpose of helping prove which Demigod is the worthy to ascend. This means that while Demigods can die in Rokkur, it is not permanent so long as they die in the arena. Similarly, the items, weapons, armor and other tangible constructs only exist within the Arena in spiritual form. Thus, Demigods who recognize this can stack different types of items together that could not be in the mortal world (the only hint the Gods provide is that the items, when equipped, cannot be visually seen by observers or other Demigods).

Anatomy of an Arena

Each Arena is made up of several key elements:

1. The Great Citadel. This is the base of your side’s power. If it is destroyed, your side loses. You can use money to upgrade the Citadel.

2. The Item Shop. Weapons, armor, potions and other items are purchased at the item shop.

3. The flags. Scattered across the arena are several different kinds of flags. Controlling flags is absolutely crucial to victory. Control of flags earns your team war points which provide access to better types of reinforcements, upgrades and more. The types of flags are:

a. Flag of Experience. Controlling this flag will result in your team gaining experience at a substantially greater rate.

b. Flag of Celerity. Controlling this flag will result in spells having much shorter cool-down times for your team.

c. Flag of Brilliance. Controlling this flag greatly increases the mana pool for everyone on your team.

d. Flag of Fortitude. Controlling this flag greatly increases the hit points for all Demigods on your team.

e. Flag of Valor. Controlling this flag greatly increases the strength of your reinforcements (hit points, attack, defense, etc.).

4. Special Structures. There are several special structures available in the arenas. When captured, they can provide more reinforcements, more gold, access to artifacts and more.

The Types of Contests

The Gods have arranged a number of different types of contests to take place in the arena. In all cases, destroying the opponent’s Citadel will win the game. The types of contests are:

· Conquest. Destroy the enemy’s Citadel to win.

· Dominate. Control the flags for a certain amount of time for victory.

· Slaughter. Attain victory by killing a set number of enemy Demigods.

· Fortress. Destroy your opponent’s fortresses to attain victory.

· Protect. Keep your opponents from taking and escaping with your War Idol back to their Citadel.

..

What other elements of the arena would you like to see discussed? What questions would you like to see answered still?

This year's CES is going to be incredibly exciting.  Windows 7 is on the way, some awesome new hardware is about to be released, and lots of cool electronic gadgets are making their debut this year.

Stay tuned to the CES 2009 category for our live blogging from the show. It'll be like you're there!

Excerpt from "Guardians of the Telenanth"

Appendix D: The Tragedy of Draginol & The Arnor

Draginol the Mithrilar was not wholly ruined in the beginning. Unlike the other 4 Mithrilar, Draginol was not created in the beginning. He was once mortal and like all mortal men, he sensed the passage of time which, ultimately, would be his undoing.

Where Draginol came from and who he was is covered elsewhere. What is relevant is that for a long while, he found himself alone. The other Mithrilar had no concept or understanding of a physical form. They existed as spirits and did not view time and space in the same way a mortal man would.

In time, Draginol came to understand the Telenanth. This immense crystaline object was the source of all energy in the universe. As the tool of creation, it was the ultimate source of power and Draginol came to yearn for the ability to control that power such that he could order things as he saw fit.

With the Telenanth, Draginol created the Arnor. As powerful as the Telenanth and Draginol were, however, creating a form of life was beyond Draginol’s capability, even with the Telenanth. The Arnor were and still are, merely mechanism that are aspects of Draginol himself.

During the creation of the Arnor, Draginol strove to make them truly alive. It was only after nearly a hundred had been made that he came to understand that he could not truly create lives but merely mechanism that were reflections of himself. As a result, Draginol changed his objective from creating life for the sake of life to creating tools that would do his bidding in help order the universe to his liking. To that end, Draginol created a legion of other Arnor without putting in the time and effort he had put in to the first 5 score of them.

This distinction in how the Arnor were made led to a rift between the two groups. The first group, like Draginol, sensed the passage of time and were filled with a need to right the wrongs of the universe. The second group, unlike Draginol, did not sense the passage of time and were far more passive and malleable to strong leaders.

However, there were a few Arnor that existed in the transition between the two groups. Like the first, they were filled with a need to right the wrongs of the universe. But, like the second, they did not sense a passage of time. Of this transitionary group the best known is Tandis the Arnor.

For a time, it was good. The mightiest of the Arnor, the first group, led the second group to building a great civilization. As with Draginol, however, time was their enemy. The passage of time on a mortal consciousness is a great destroyer.

Eventually, the need to do right led to the need to control. They knew that other life would be appearing in the universe relatively soon but had no way to leave their world. Because they were immortal in body but mortal in mind, they lacked the capability of growing in mind indefinitely. They reached a peak of understanding and could never grow beyond that. As a result, the Arnor were slow to develop technology, to leave their world.

But these Arnor did understand the power of energy very well. The dark energy (what some might call “magic”) that resided in themselves they harnessed extremely well. With enough of it, they could build a device that would let them travel anywhere.

With the only source of this energy being the Arnor themselves, the mightiest of the Arnor began to subjugate their weaker brethren. This caused the irrevocable split between the two groups of Arnor with the former becoming the Dread Lords and their minions, the Dread Knights.

In time, the Dread Lords had nearly wiped out all of the other Arnor in an effort to take their life force and place it into an orb-like object that would contain enough power to let the Dread Lords do virtually anything they wanted.

But the Dread Lords were ultimately defeated. Tandis the Arnor led the other Arnor in a last-ditch defense of their people but the ultimate downfall of the Dread Lords came from Draginol himself in the ultimate act of betrayal.

Draginol had used the Dread Lords to create the orb so that he could take possession of it when the time was right. His path of ruination had begun before the Dread Lords had been created and thus had fallen far further than the Dread Lords had in their rationalization of using other sentient beings for their own ends.

The Dread Lords would bide their time and rise again once sentient beings began to take shape and would scatter across the universe. That tale, however, is told elsewhere.

Demigod is designed to be a game that is very easy to learn but has a great deal of strategic depth.  This journal entry begins a series of entries that will outline what is in the user manual (and by the end of it, give away the features that so far have been kept hush hush).

Regarding “The Events”

Near the end of the 87^th migration, when the minions of Hel-Gorgath were in rebellion and the balance between light and dark was under threat, the Ancients convened a Gathering. The Gathering found that one of their own, the so-called God of the Progenitor, had intervened by sharing Names and WAys with his underlings and allies on the other side of the Veil.

In punishment, the Ancients cast down The Progenitor from the Deep Places and all of his beings in his ken were laid low and destroyed utterly.

The Ancients, known as Gods to mortals, therefore sought a successor. It was known that the Progenitor that some of his many offspring, begat by mortal consorts, retained sufficient divinity to stand for Induction. But not all agreed for some were offended by the obscene co-mingling of Essences and crude flesh and the rank perversity of The Progenitor’s dalliances. For this reason, a game was proposed for the offspring to prove themselves worthy.

So it was made to be that messengers were sent to the Dark and Light Places to summon the pretenders to Rokkur. There, they would throw down their brothers and sisters in the arenas to win the favor of the Ancients and ascend to their ranks.

The introduction is kept short and is designed to give players a brief insight to the world that exists behind Demigod.  Feel free to comment, suggest and critique and we will look at what is commented on and see how we can incorporate that into the manual.

In the beginning...

There were 13 colonies, each considered themselves a sovereign independent state (what we would call a nation today). Virginia and New York, for instance, considered themselves as sovereign as England and France.

The peace treaty between Great Britain and the United States was between Britain and the 13 specifically named independent states.

As a means to largely defend themselves from powerful colonial powers as well as to discourage warring between themselves (Virginia, for instance, claimed the territory today used by Michigan, Ohio and numerous other future states), they created what was effectively a neighborhood association.

They first tried out the Articles of Confederation but it proved to be too weak. Many veterans of the Revolutionary war remembered darkly the starving men in their ranks because congress was too weak to get them the food and resources they needed.

To this end, we got the constitution. Originally, it had no bill of rights. Its authors didn't consider it necessary because this new federal government didn't have the power to do anything other than what was expressly mentioned in the constitution. They feared that even having a bill of rights might imply to future politicians that the federal government had the power to enact laws that could somehow violate such a bill of rights.

In compromise, the bill of rights included the 10th amendment that made clear that the federal government did not have any powers that weren't expressly given to it in the constitution. All power would rest with the individual states and the people of those states.

The problem was the Supreme Court. Being a federal institution appointed by the federal President, the Supreme Court would constantly find new powers given to the constitution.  The states responded with the 11th amendment which as designed to slap down the Supreme Court in making clear that the states were the supreme authority, not the federal government.

...

Time Passes...

Of course, today, the federal government has managed to get all kinds of power. The federal government provides a retirement plan to citizens of the states, it has a minimum wage law (where did that power come from -- states have that power, the federal government does not but still does it).

So how did that happen? The answer is the supreme court.  The founding fathers were brilliant in most respects but could have used some experience in game theory.

The federal government is made up of 3 branches:

1. The executive which was picked by the states via the electoral college.
2. The legislature which is picked by the citizens of the states (now anyway).
3. And then... the judicial branch which isn't picked by the states but instead by the federal executive and conformed by the federal legislature branch.  Oops.

Not surprisingly, the federal government is naturally biased in favor of power being with it rather than the states. As time passes, more and more power gets concentrated into the federal government from the states. There is no question of if this will continue to happen but only the progression of it.

What the founding fathers should have had is the judiciary be appointed/elected/whatever by the states instead of the federal government.

In the next few weeks, we'll be close enough to release to start talking more about all the cool stuff that we haven't had in the betas so far. Stay tuned.

When looking at the graphics in Elemental as we show them, there are two things to remember:

1. We're over a year away from release so we're talking very preliminary artwork.

2. It's a strategy game not an RPG so the units aren't going to have the kinds of detail that an RPG has because we have to display thousands and thousands of these units on screen.

So the other day we discussed how equipment being added to your units would work with the Intel Havok physics engine. The idea is that when you add armor to a unit or  other equipment that it wouldn't just be some sort of texture blend as seen in most traditional 3D games but rather the equipment mixes and matches with physics being applied.

The trick here is performance and obviously this would not be displayed on lower end machines (the graphics would just stay together like in most games). But the idea is to future proof the game and provide some visual candy and greater immersion as people see their created units doing their thing.

It's worth noting that one could just play the game zoomed out in the cloth map and never even see an actual unit so people who don't care about this kind of thing don't have to look at it.  But people (like me) who really like seeing their units in action can watch the units go into battle.

For this video below, we took a horse and equipped it with horse armor to show how it worked together.

Video: http://draginol.stardock.net/videos/physics.wmv

Healthcare includes Medicaid, Medicare, and other stuff.

Pensions includes Social Security and pensions for government workers.