Sunday, December 4, 2005

Wi-Fi is cool. I've only had Mario Kart DS for a couple of days and I'm already pretty addicted to it. On every level, it seems to get things right. The controls are basically flawless, the new tracks are mostly incredibly good and the changes to multiplayer (including bots in battle mode and the inclusion of teams) injects significantly more depth and replayability into the game. I also set up Wi-Fi Connection and it seems to work beautifully through my modem. The set-up process was ridiculously simple (even on manual set-up). And in general, I've been able to play the game without any real lag issues. It's fair to say that Nintendo could have added a couple of things here and there (slightly better match-making and a few more options for Wi-Fi Connection racing), but in general I'm extremely impressed. There really hasn't ever been a handheld game like this before - the way it utilises Wi-Fi Connection is simple and seamless, to the point where I can't imagine people being very intimidated by the whole thing. Having this experience with Mario Kart actually makes me all the more excited about Animal Crossing: Wild World. Recently, N-Sider listed all of the enhancements and changes that Wild World will have over its predecessor. And I was definitely happy to see that it'll be more than "Animal Crossing with online additions". It's actually like a fairly large expansion pack, with some very significant changes to the raw game itself. So I'm pleased. And I think that this game will be absolutely ideal for online play. I really can't wait to see what other games receive online play in the future. There are several franchises that would work really well with this kind of technology. Other than that, I've spent the last few days rounding off some stuff related to Art of Otaku. My end of the CD stuff is now complete, so Adam and Justin will now take over and finish everything off. I think that people who are waiting to buy the CD version will be pretty happy with what they get, especially if they liked the quickie sampler. And now, that pretty much leaves me open to focus on NGL, OtakuBoards and myOtaku. I am really excited to see what we can do with OtakuBoards in particular, because I'm very keen to begin with a blank slate on that. SugarCone: I think it's very admirable that you spent so much time trying to make a site for your grandma. I may actually be in a similar situation soon. When I move, I'm going to want to use MSN a lot more to talk to family. But both my parents don't know how to use it. So I will probably have to try to show them. It's very intimidating for a light 'net user though. But don't give up! I would like to see some of the things you've done. Practice is the best way to improve. But I understand that sometimes you can go through a period of having no ideas. I feel as though I've been in that period myself lately, where I've had the web designer's equivalent of writer's block. CosmicSailor: I think that what you said about HTML is a very clear demonstration of why sites like myOtaku are useful. There are a lot of people who are in that light-to-intermediate level; people who can't build entire sites themselves, but who are advanced enough to know about colour codes and things like that. For such people, a place like myOtaku is ideal. You can modify your site and make it your own, without actually needing to understand all of the code required to build an entire web site. That is precisely the kind of person we are trying to target with this site. I think that's the key strength with other places like MySpace as well. So I think the big challenge for us is to give that group of people even more power. We have to keep trying to simplify complicated tasks so that anyone can do them with very minimal knowledge of code and so on. RaR: Yeah, it's very hard to get visitors when you are just starting out. Once you build a site that attracts a lot of people, you can use it to keep springboarding from one site to another. So that's kind of cool. But starting from scratch is definitely very difficult. John: Yeah, that's the challenge. It's very difficult to make something that strays from the conventions without being too confusing for visitors. This is partly why I've had such difficulty with my own portfolio site. I keep bouncing back and forth between ideas and I've found it difficult to settle on something. Sometimes I just want to do something more basic and effective...and sometimes I want to do something really crazy and different. Finding a good balance is tough. Annie-chan: It's interesting that people can understand fairly sophisticated machines (ie: aircraft) and still not even know how to put a song on their phone! That's exactly the type of situation that a lot of people seem to find themselves in. I think it's the responsibility of web designers to find ways to make sites more intuitive, so that people don't have such difficulty learning how to do these tasks. SunfallE: I think the example you bring up is something that a lot of people who make sites don't think about. Usually we are designing something for ourselves - if we like it, we tend to assume that others will too. But I find it amazing that if I come across a site that seems very easy to navigate, other people can find it confusing and difficult. The key - and the most difficult thing - is to try to think about how other people are going to view your site. Knowing the audience and catering to them is really, really tough. I definitely think that you have a good attitude about things. I'm very sorry to hear about your parents, but I think it's great that it reminds you about what's important in life. It's very easy to get swept away in small trivial things, but sometimes events in your life bring your feet back to the ground in a major way. Having complications in your family is definitely one of the things that puts life in perspective in general. Best wishes to you. ^_^ Aaryanna: Ah, well, CSS means "cascading style sheet". It's a way of designing web sites. It basically means that you create a style sheet for your site and all pages are edited under that style sheet - this way you don't have to format the design of every single page, one at a time. It's basically a more efficient way to make a site. But as a result, a lot of CSS-based sites have popped up and they tend to advance the idea of simplicity and accessibility. I think that these sites are a very healthy example for the Internet in general. Oh, and yes...packages to Australia! I forgot about your PM. I will have to respond to that today. ^_^ Sen: Yeah, that's a good point. If someone can use Windows, they can probably basically use the Internet. But people like my mother and father only understand Windows in the most basic manner (ie: they can get on the 'net and they can make a Word file and that's about it). For those people, it's very challenging to create content that gets them interested in using the 'net regularly. Ah, Smash Bros. Revolution. Well, you may have read some of the latest news about that. NCL is setting up an entire studio in Tokyo specifically to develop this new game. Development began a couple of months ago and the team consists of people who have worked on the series as well as people who are entirely new to it. Apparently the new members are all extremely hardcore Smash Bros. fans, having racked up thousands of hours in the game. And of course, Sakurai is the director. Considering the tremendous investment that Nintendo is putting into the one title, I think we can expect something very special. Nintendo do not have a tendency to set up entire offices just for single games, so it seems to me that Iwata is taking the game very seriously.

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