An update on the knee...

I mentioned earlier that I had a damaged knee. It's currently not as damaged; I can put weight on it, I can get around well enough to do what I need to without too much pain. It's still not right, though, as any activity out of the most basic causes it to start feeling like it's coming apart. So clearly, this is not a problem I can ignore and have it go away.

Which makes it distinctly vexing that my health insurance providers have denied my doctor's request for non-invasive diagnosis. Apparently, an acute joint injury isn't worth properly diagnosing on someone with chronic joint problems. I am getting an orthopaedic referral, but I'm still annoyed at the refusal to cover any of the cost of an MRI. Not that they'd cover it ANYWAY, considering my deductible (or excess, for the UK folks), but if I just go ahead and get it anyway, they don't count the expense incurred towards said deductible.

And on the subject of deductibles, mine refreshes at the start of each calendar year. That means my best policy right now is to delay, in case the knee turns out to be expensive; and of course delaying makes it more likely it will be expensive.

Planning ahead

Lately, there's been a lot of discussion about sequels in the computer games business. Claims have been made that "New IPs don't sell", that people gravitate to what's familiar, and that, with the economy shakey, companies should retrench and stick to what they know.

I call all of that rubbish. While it's abundantly clear that sequels to well-known games can do very well (witness the Call of Duty phenomenon, with I have no idea how many sequels because it's split into so many, many different lines of cover-based shooters that I can't tell apart), it's also clear that slapping a respected name on a donkey of a game won't convince buyers it's an Arabian (the current example being Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which carries the critically-acclaimed name of the game that gave rise to Call of Duty, and is tanking) and that some of the other sacred cows of the industry are, shall we say less than prime beef at this point.

Let's look at multiplayer. A common sentiment in recent years has been that games need multiplayer modes to be successful. However, some of the most critically-acclaimed games have been strictly single-player (Half-Life 2; Bioshock; Deus Ex: Human Revolution; Dishonored; Skyrim; Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2; Mirror's Edge) and there are plenty of examples of games weakened by the addition of multiplayer (Bioshock 2; Mass Effect 3; Spec Ops: The Line). Frankly, it behooves any company pitching a game to examine whether multiplayer is appropriate, and stick to that. In the cases of Bioshock 2 and Spec Ops: The Line, the multiplayer modes were insisted on by the publisher, and the developers have in both cases stated that they would rather not have included that feature.

Now let's look at sequels versus new IP. Dishonored is the current poster child for "new can sell", and is reportedly doing better than expected; there are rumours of forthcoming sequels. That saddens me; while I haven't played Dishonored myself, I've picked up enough knowledge to get the very strong impression that while the universe it's in is interesting, it is a complete story in and of itself, and doesn't need a sequel. Admittedly, Bethesda, its publisher, is known mostly for its Elder Scrolls series which, while they are consecutively numbered, does not consist of a tightly coupled series of sequels. Each Elder Scrolls game stands on its own. The trouble with sequels is the need to go bigger and better than the previous installment; this has led to absurdities in one of the Call of Duty franchises, as setting off a nuclear weapon has become insufficiently shocking a set-piece. Not every creative endeavour needs to become a cash cow; while I'm glad of the success of the Dresden Files series of books, well into double digits by now, I can also appreciate the virtues of knowing when to stop.

Retrenching and sticking to what you know is a worrying strategy. While it may result in a reliable income stream, the average person doesn't tend to want to leap into a series in the middle, and it's a fact of life that the first installment is always the strongest seller. With a shakey economy, it seems to me that now is the time to take chances. Give that small studio with a nifty idea a chance; get lots of ideas out there, and while inevitably there will be failures, some will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. The current corporate culture is pathologically risk-averse.

Let's defy conventional wisdom.

The impression of durability

A friend of mine in Norway shared some anecdotes of his stint in the Norwegian Army as a tanker. Some of his other friends were surprised by how fragile tanks really are; I wasn't. Tanks are a very, very specialised vehicle, and for the thing they're designed to do, they're excellent. That, however, translates into a lot of weaknesses.

A leg down

Hopefully, sometime around the posting of this entry, I'll be at my doctor's office having my left knee poked at. On Friday evening, something went wrong, and since then it's refused to cooperate. Putting too much weight on it causes excruciating pain, flexing it too much likewise, and the overall impression is of a knee that's given up. So, rather than improvising with painkillers, braces, and the like, I'll be taking it in for an inspection and possibly repair, depending on what's happened to it.

I've avoided needing surgery for over 30 years. That's a decent run.

And for once, I'm actually happy about my car having an automatic gearbox. Trying to drive a manual with a bad left knee would not be pleasant in the slightest.

Compare and contrast...

Last Tuesday, the USA held its 2012 General Election. This was my first chance to vote in one, having been a US citizen for a little less than a year. It's instructive to compare it to the British elections I used to vote in.

Pushing myself

This is, to some extent, a personal post and a discursive post rolled into one. I had an idea yesterday, the full details of which I'm not willing to disclose at the moment. The reason I'm not disclosing them is I need to talk with an attorney about them, and while the LA was helpful, it's not her area of expertise and so she recommended I talk with someone whose area of expertise it is.

But be that as it may, I had an idea, and I believe I have at this point an achievable goal in making a computer game. This will primarily be a self-education exercise, but if the legal side is sufficiently easy, it may see the light of day. And if it does, it may even be successful. However, I'll keep you updated with my progress, because that's a good way to keep me honest. It'll also be a good way to help me learn; nothing clears your thoughts up like trying to explain things to other people.

"Why can't I use his medkit?"

Yes, it's another XCOM post. Last night, my Twitter stream exploded with frustration at the inconvenience and immersion-breaking of one particular mechanic that crops up a lot. My friend JPH has already written about it on his site, but I wanted to look at why it happens and why we expect it to behave differently. That frustration is caused by the inability to pick up and use medkits carried by other soldiers.

There's always a need for a medkit, because your soldiers in such a brutal tactical game WILL be shot, and if you don't keep their health topped up they WILL die. The trouble arises when your soldier with a medkit goes down, critically wounded, and needs to be stabilised. You need a medkit to stabilise a critically wounded soldier, but you'd expect that that would be no problem - after all, if the medic's down, they have a medkit you can use. Easy, right?