platypus
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The Daily Grind: Should WoW's garrisons count as 'housing'?
Every time we cover World of Warcraft's upcoming garrison feature -- the one that will grant an upgradeable town to every WoW player -- someone scoffs that it's not housing and shouldn't be considered such. And to the extent that it isn't a house or a zone that you can customize tile by tile or object by object like some of the more epic housing systems in MMOland, I'd agree. Even WoW Insider's Matt Rossi wrote that the garrison system seemed more like "bringing the RTS [genre's] whole 'construct a base, generate resources, use them for battle' gameplay into the MMO" than like the game's farms, let alone like traditional houses where you can stash your loot. Still, I have to wonder how that's so different from a housing system like WildStar's, which also attempts to create a private and mechanically useful space for players rather than offer a purely creative, mercantile, or social space. What do you think: Should WoW's garrisons count as MMO housing, or are they just upjumped farms? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Butlers, lunar rovers, snakes and airboats: the best of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute
How was your week? We got to spend a couple of days trekking around the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh, PA to check out some of the latest projects from the school's world renowned Robotics Institute -- a trip that culminated with the bi-annual induction ceremony from the CMU-sponsored Robot Hall of Fame. Given all the craziness of the past seven days, you might have missed some of the awesomeness, but fear not, we've got it all for you here in one handy place -- plus a couple of videos from the trip that we haven't shown you yet. Join us after the break to catch up.
The Perfect Ten: Stages of returning to an old MMO love
In my illustrious career of sitting on my butt and mashing the 1-4 buttons over and over, I've returned to many MMOs like an addicted boomerang. I learned early on never to say those immortal words of, "I quit and I'm never coming back! This is it!" because that was only setting myself up for major pie in the face later. Better to return with a head held high than to slink through the doors of the account page, hoping that nobody sees me. We return to MMOs a lot, don't we? There are so many reasons we do it and they're mostly boring, so I'm not interested in talking about them here. But what I do want to chart is the progression I've seen in myself and others as we've come back to an old MMO flame. I've identified 10 stages (well, 11 really) that the returning gamer goes through, and in the interest of SCIENCE, I want to be the first to write the defining document of this significant process.
Platypus airboats have a Nexus S for a brain, we go eyes-on (video)
Here's another extremely cool offshoot of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. Platypus LLC build autonomous robotic airboats that can be deployed for a wide range of usages including environmental data and monitoring hard-to-reach spots after natural disasters like flooding. The hull of the boat looks a good deal like a boogie board, built from polyurethane. On top, you'll find a propulsion fan assembly, just behind a hard plastic electronics compartment that houses internals like the Arduino board. That microcontroller communicates via Bluetooth with a smartphone that sits in the front of of the boat, safely cocooned inside an Otterbox case. The models we saw this week were carrying Nexus S handsets -- relatively cheap solutions bought second-hand off of eBay. Just about any Android phone should do the trick, but in the case of this project, where phones can get wrenched loose or just outright pilfered, cheaper is certainly better. Platypus' proprietary app helps control the boat autonomously, using the handset's camera to provide situational awareness. Sensors mounted on the boat, meanwhile, offer up information on oxygen and PH levels, temperature and more.%Gallery-169017%
GDrive test page pops up in Google search, inches closer to an actual product
The GDrive leaks and rumors have started up again in earnest, really for the first time since 2007. The service seemed to destined for the dustbin when Docs started accepting any type of file, but in September hints started dropping that Drive may be resurrected. The latest interesting, if not entirely telling development, is a link to a "test page for Platypus (GDrive)" that pops up when you Google "Writely," the online word processor that eventually became Google Docs. Those with more robust memories may remember that Platypus was the codename attached to Google's cloud storage solution back when it was originally being dogfooded. Clicking on the link takes you Google Docs, just as any Writely.com URL would, but that does line up nicely with what we've heard about Drive being a rebranded Docs -- potentially with a file syncing component. Hopefully the Mountain View crew will take the covers off this bad boy soon -- we can't take much more of this mystery and intrigue stuff.
Platypus: create Mac applications from Ruby, Perl, shell scripts, etc.
MacResearch has posted a nice two part tutorial on using Platypus, a neat utility that allows you to "create native, flawlessly integrated Mac OS X applications from interpreted scripts." This include shell scripts, Perl, Ruby, Python, etc. With Platypus you can turn command-line only tools into full fledged, free-standing Mac applications that support drag and drop and even basic graphical feedback. Obviously this isn't going to make for a full GUI application, but it will allow you easily to create self-contained OS X applications that you can double-click to run. Especially for those in the science fields, and even for beginning (Ruby) script programmers like myself, Platypus makes it possible to get basic (and even not so basic) Mac app up and running very quickly.Platypus is a free download from Sveinbjorn Thordarson, and donations are requested.[Via MacResearch]Update: fixed headline
PSP Fanboy review: Platypus
The shooter genre is easily one of my favorites: classics like Ikaruga and Gunstar Heroes, demonstrate how much fun it is to blow up lots of stuff with rapid-fire lasers. The aforementioned games have brilliant simple controls, utilizing just two buttons, but they feature great gameplay mechanics that challenge the gamer considerably. Platypus, however, features none of these attributes.You know you have to be a little suspicious when the promotional quotes on the packaging don't actually praise the game. Unlike Ikaruga's notorious "frothing" quote, Platypus' box notes that its "graphics are made entirely of clay." Huh? Yes, that's true. But does that say it's good? (No, it doesn't!)
Platypus game creator exploited, ignored
The popular mass-market game Platypus apparently has a long history of scandal. The original was created by the work of indie game developer Anthony Flack. Licensing company Idigicon seemingly exploited Flack's inexperience in the world of game publishing, and purchased all the rights to the game for chump change.Now, publisher MumboJumbo returns with a remake/sequel of sorts for the PSP, and it appears that Anthony Flack has been completely ignored, even in the credits, although the game reuses many of the same gameplay mechanics and assets of the original PC game. He stated in the Indiegamer forum, "I thought I was through with this game making me feel bad, but to see a whole bunch of people listed in the credits but not me, the actual creator, just feels like a deliberate attempt to hurt me. And it does. Why would they do that? It's not like listing my name in the credits would have cost anybody anything."[Via GameSetWatch]
MumboJumbo brings mass-market games to the PSP [Update 1]
Have you ever played LUXOR? I haven't, but according to Pocket Gamer, over 40 million people have! Yikes! I guess casual gamers really ARE an important demographic for companies to target. Well, it looks like two casual games are coming to hardcore PSP owners: Luxor: Wrath of Set and Platypus. Luxor is one of those marble games, akin to DS's Magnetica. Platypus looks to mesh the shooting action of Gradius with the classic look of Clayfighter.Both games are coming to the US in November for the "mass-market" price of $30.[Update 1: Yes, made a boo-boo on the names. And Platypus is a weird word to spell.]
