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So… I was lucky enough to get a beta key for the closed Cities XL Beta.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s supposed to be a MMO SimCity game. So far it’s starting to shape up to be a badass game.  First, lets hit the bad stuff.

Picking the right location.

I didn’t know how to actually “create” a city when I started.  In turn I decided that a quick review of the tutorials might help.  Well, they weren’t finished so it never actually took me to how to “create a new city”. I ended up figuring it out.  Right now there is only 4 servers to choose from to create your city, and since I got on the beta bandwagon a little late, all the good places are taken.  Once a spot on the map is taken, no one can take that spot, and theirs only so many spots available per world (server).  So, I ended up choosing a medium difficulty location that wasn’t “that” great.  Mostly desert… bums.  I expect that in the public release there will be several servers opened up with several locations available, but I don’t know.

This game is complicated and difficult.

This is a very intricate game with several different options, things to track/monitor, build etc.  I was a little overwhelmed at first, and if you’ve never played a SimCity game before it might be a little much too take in.  The tutorials provided a good overview, and were completed relatively quickly.  A few were missing, so I’m not sure what else their going to add.

Not really an MMO.

I was wondering how they’re going to make a SimCity game an MMO.  Well it turns out, they don’t really know either.  All of the locations on the map only have certain resources available, so you have to trade with different cities in order to get good prices on everything.  This seems more of a hassle than fun.  I don’t want my success in a game to solely rely on other people.  What if no one else is on?  There is only 3000 spots.  What if everyone else is new, and there’s no resources to go around.  I don’t know, I just don’t like the idea I guess.  The only MMO like feature was the chat bar that was located at the top left, which displayed what everyone was saying (server wide).

The Good?

Well the good news is that there’s a shit ton of good stuff in this game.  I just don’t think that I’m far enough along enough to explain it all… but overall the gameplay is very addictive. I started at 9PM and a few minuets later it was 1AM… oops.  Time flies.

There is defiantly more to this article, this is just a part I.  I will be posting more stuff as I progress in the game.  If you want to know anything specific, please let me know via comment(s) and I will try and take care of you.

Thanks for reading!

Here is a preview that I put together for your watching pleasure.  It’s HD, so please make sure you select it.

Mozilla Firefox released their 3.5 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) today, and has added several highly anticipated features to the brand.  I’m particularly looking forward to some Private Browsing *nudge *nudge

• This beta is now available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
• Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 and elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

Private Browsing Mode

Private browsing mode is a big deal.  Apple’s Safari has had it for ages, but for some reason Firefox and IE are just now getting around too it.  IE released it in conjunction with their new/revamped Internet Explorer 8 (which in my opinion, is still a pile of shit).  That means that Firefox is the last major browser to get this upgrade.  For those of you who are not familiar with private browsing, it basically allows you to browse the web with absolutely no trace left on your computer.  All the temp files, cache and cookies get deleted at the end of your session.  Great for surfing porn so when your spouse checks the history it doesn’t show up, or isn’t completely deleted.  This is all good and dandy, but it might create somewhat of a god complex with some users, which is ill placed. Just because it doesn’t keep a record on your computer, doesn’t mean that your router, server, IP isn’t keeping track of what you’re doing on the web.  Keep that in mind next time you decide to participate in illegal activities online.

Tracemonkey

Tracemonkey has been around since Firefox 3.1, but it seems that they stepped it up in the newest version.  You can expect reasonable speed and performance increases.

Location Aware Browsing

Yet another slight against your privacy.  These have been around for some time, mostly using 3rd party programs, but now their integrated directly into the browser for any developer to use!  You normally saw these on the Adult Friend Finder advertisements.  Something like, “Find these single local whores in Austin, TX that want to sleep with you, after meeting you on the internet, so they can stab you in your sleep and cut off your dick to fulfill their deepest fantasy”.  The point is, they knew you were in Austin, TX.  This could be useful, because as it stands, when you type in pizza, it brings up a nation wide search of pizza restaurants.  Now, it will show local results which I’m O.K. with. Maybe.  Jury is still out on that one.

Native JSON & web worker threads

Took you fucking long enough.  I’m sure this is their response to Google’s Chrome, which revolutionized the way browsers are going to be made in the future.  Firefox is a little different.  It uses different worker processes to execute different bits of JavaScript.  The way it used to work  is load one JavaScript, wait for that one to be completed, then move on to the next one.  For a good read, and to understand more about this issue, you can refer here.  Layman’s, it’s superbadass.

HTML5

HTML5 is going to be some wicket sick shit.  HTML & the internet in general was developed way before we thought we would be sharing videos/pictures/maps, so Google maps was created as a series of “workarounds” or “hacks”.  HTML5 aims to change that by creating a development environment that allows those programs to run more efficiently in our browsers.  With the advent of Cloud Computing, HTML5 is inevitable, and much needed.  If you want more information, you can visit it’s Wiki page here.

All in all, it contains some pretty good features, but don’t make the switch yet.  There is no need too.  The benefit’s it provides aren’t quite enough to lose all of your precious plug-ins, because they aren’t compatible with 3.5 RC1 yet.

Well… Opera Unite was released this morning, and I’ve got to say, I’m sadly disappointed.

This isn’t groundbreaking web 3.0/2.0, this is a web server integrated with a web browser.  Hold on, let me bust out my paper hat, and put on my celebration gear.  Whooptie freekin do.

With Opera 10, we are introducing a new technology called Opera Unite, radically extending what you are able to do online. Opera Unite harnesses the power of today’s fast connections and hardware, allowing all of us to help define the future landscape of the Web, one computer at a time. Read about how Opera Unite is going to change the way we interact on the Web on labs.opera.com.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go turning my computer into a web server anytime soon.  Pointing anyone to my public IP address, through my shitty (just like the rest of residential service) router is a recipe for disaster.  Granted that I have a webserver already running at home, but it’s a little different.  Linux headless box, AND I KNOW SECURITY.  Seems like Opera wants to turn every mindless computer user into Tech GURUS!

People are going to install, and no one is going to go to their stupid shitty website, because they have no idea how to run a stupid shitty website.  They are going to use more processing power, and leave their computer on overnight, so anyone can access their stupid shitty website at any hour.  Which in turn, will use more energy, which in turn will produce more pollution.  Way to contribute to Global Warming, OPERA!

NOW THEN.  After I got that out of the way.  There is one AND ONLY ONE feature that I would actually use.  For example, The Media Player. It would probably prove useful if I had access to the web @work, but couldn’t store any files on my computer.  That way I could listen to all of my music, the way I want to hear it and don’t have to wait for Pandera to pop up the correct song.

Most NAS devices already support over the web File Sharing, so this feature is nothing new by a couple of years. There have been several solutions to this in the past (some free, and no so free) but who the fuck cares that it’s in the browser now?!

Fridge
A fun place for people to leave notes on your computer.

Will you write on my fridge?  NO, because no one will ever see your stupid fucking site!

As this project moves along, there might be some cool “services” added onto the project that currently aren’t there.  Currently, it can function as: File Sharing, (share files across the Internet) Fridge (people post comments about your crappy website), Media Player (actually kinda cool), Photo Sharing (no one wants to see your poodle doing backflips, actually I do want to see that, so if you have a picture of that, please send it to me), The Lounge (chat room, you have no friends, so it’s going to be empty all the time), Web Server (allows you to host real websites).

The groundwork is there, and maybe that’s all they wanted out of this release.  I can see the potential for awesome services to be released, so only time will tell with this new shiny shit pile.

If you want to make a super shittastic website you can visit their page here.

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