Originally, I thought about post a rant about Facebook. But then I saw and read this:
Source article: The US schools with their own police, from The Guardian
Video from The Young Turks.
At Fulmore Middle School in Austin, 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes has attention-deficit and bipolar disorder and is overweight. And because middle school kids are complete bastards, she was being bullied during class. While not ADD or bipolar, I can relate to the whole being overweight and bullied during class thing. And of course, showing that despite the PSAs such as "Stop Bullying: Speak Up" and programs such as "It Gets Better" and the "Be A STAR Alliance" (all worthwhile efforts that I hope one day will actually gain ground), the teacher does jack shit to stop it. The kids were taunting her about how she smells. So, she sprays two burst of perfume on her neck, hoping that it makes the kids stop. Of course, now they say it's the "most terrible smell [they] ever smelled". So the teacher finally has enough, and calls one of the cops in the school.
12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes was then charged with a criminal misdemeanor and ordered to appear in court for disrupting class. A student, who was being bullied and trying to make the bullies stop, was charged with a criminal misdemeanor. Due to her disabilities, a disability rights group took up her case and had the charges dropped, but they never should have been given in the first place.
Another example includes a 16 year old boy with an IQ below 70 (meaning, by definition and law, he is considered mentally retarded) was pepper-sprayed in the hallway because he didn't understand what the police were saying. He began swinging his arms in pain and hit one of the officers while his eyes were shut. He has been charged with two counts of assault of a public servant and could be thrown in prison for this. A 15 year old student, while doing something incredibly stupid (point a realistic air gun at police) was shot and killed, including a shot aimed for the head. No trying to disable him and no tasers. Just a bullet to the head.
In 2010, 300,000 misdemeanor charges where given out across the entire state, to kids as young as six. Over the period of six years, 1,000 of these were given to children under the age of 10. While for kids under the age of 10 these don't actually have any legal standing, the fact that they do this is insane. More and more school districts since the 90s are hiring their own private police departments, increasing 20-fold during this time.
Examples of things that can get you arrested include "disruption of class", "making unreasonable noise", throwing paper airplanes, being late, swearing, offensive gestures, pouring milk on each other, and fights on the playground that aren't enough for assault charges. These fights can often have trumped up charges for the use of weapons, despite only using fist. While police might be necessary for breaking up the fight, charging people for those other things when in the past detention, suspensions and alternate schools were the way to go is insane, nor trumping up charges about the use of weapons in a fist fight. Possession of drugs (legal or otherwise) and alcohol are also grounds for being arrested, and 20% of all the fines handed out are for these. Admittedly though, these actually are considered crimes for minors, and for all in the case of illegal drugs.
I know for a fact that I would have been fined several times, especially when I once got into a fight in 8th Grade, Because I didn't start it and only defended myself, I didn't get into much trouble. The vice principal had to suspend me for the day for policy reasons but that was it, because I didn't start it and was only defending myself, a claim all my friends (pre-AP or IB students) backed up. Nor did I get into any trouble with my parents. If that was to happen now, I'd be a criminal, even if it was self-defense (because in these situations, teachers and administrators usually don't give a shit, you could be beaten and bloodied and never throw a punch and still be viewed the same as the attackers). These things are not criminal charges. If an adult did these things, no charges would normally be filed (unless you're part of an Occupy protest).
Now, for those that don't get pepper-sprayed, tasered, have guns pointed at them or get shot in the head, what happens? Well, if found guilty, they can be charged with a fine up to $500, or sent to juvie. If in a poor family and then fine doesn't get paid, the second they turn 17 they are thrown into full on jail. Imagine that for a second, being thrown in jail because you received a fine you or your family couldn't pay for swearing at someone. As well, because these are criminal charges, if found guilty, now you might have a hard time finding a job, be denied entry into a college or university, or denied loans. For something you did when you were 12, you could be lose any chance for a high paying job.
I'm not saying police shouldn't be on campus. In case of an actual serious incident, having police on the scene might actually save lives. But for most of these charges, no lives are being save. Lives with many years of potential are being destroyed before they even begin. This has to stop.
I wrote about this, instead of my rant about Facebook (I plan to do that later) for a couple of reasons. The first is because of the story of Sarah Bustamantes. I think it illustrates the lack of compassion for victims of bullying, and how a blind eye is turned when it comes to bullies, allowing them to get away with this.
The second is because I'm from Texas. My entire family lives in Texas. I have two cousins in elementary school, and this is the kind of world they are going into. They are good kids, but they also have ADHD, asthma, and you know how much of pricks kids can be to other kids. Add this to the fact that we are charging kids for even minor things. If this kind of thing keeps up and gains more ground in other school districts, one of them is bound to be charged at some point in their lives. Hell, almost every kid will be. While I despise how this state is run and wish those who run it (like Rick Perry) would get kicked out, as someone wanting to get into video games this is a very good state for me to live in. As such, if all goes well I will at some point be raising a family here myself, and I don't want this to happen to my (hypothetical future) kids.
The building of the "school-to-prison pipeline" has to stop.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Achievements, Trophies, and Their Design
First thing I want to mention is the change in the name. Considering how I will probably just kind of rant here, and that I am a big time insomniac, the new name seems fitting.
So, this idea came to me yesterday as something to talk to, but I seem to wait until 3:30 in the morning to write it. Actually fell asleep at around 10 PM, so that tells you a bit about my sleep habits, especially when I don't have school. That topic is Achievements in video games. On the PS3 these are called Trophies. I will be referring to them as Achievements through the article (because that's what they are called on the Xbox 360, Steam and iOS Game Center), but PS3 exclusive owners, feel free to replace Achievement with Trophy. As well, I will be using examples on the Xbox 360 as I don't own a PS3. Can only speak from experience you know.
I will admit right now that I am what you would call an "Achievement Whore". In games I really like I will try to get all of them. Hell, in some games I don't really like I'll try to get all of them as well. The best example of that is my 1000/1000 in Sonic 06. That game is a beautiful disaster, broken on all belief. But it does have good music. Since I have gotten my 360, my thought of Achievements went from "whatever" to "MUST HAVE THEM ALL!" It's kind of like Pokemon in a way (which I have all of them from Gen I-IV, and really need to play more of Black). I even got a Windows Phone and sat there one day playing bowling over and over as fast as possible on a game called Shuffle Party (it was free) just to get all the Achievements! And then there was that Dash of Destruction game. However, I haven't gotten desperate enough to get Avatar: The Burning Earth for a day just to get all 1000 for that game. I do have SOME standards.
But there are people who are the exact opposite of me. Some people absolutely despite Achievements and everything they stand for. These people believe that they are completely pointless. And to us as gamers, for the most part, they are. However, Achievements actually can be quite useful to developers. They can actually inform the developers how many people have done certain things. This is why you see so many Achievements placed through the story, as well as for finishing the game, as well as finishing the game on different difficulties. It's a way to see how many people in your population got there.
For example, in Halo: Reach there is an Achievement called "A Monument To All Your Sins", which is earned by beating the campaign on Legendary by yourself. Now, this sounds like a daunting challenge, and it can be. It took me two days to do it, although I slept a bit during that time. As it turns out, the most recent number I heard is that only 1.5% of the entire player population of Halo: Reach has ever done this. Halo: Reach is an incredibly popular game, consistently at the top of the most played 360 games, usually only behind about three version of Call of Duty. As well, in Gears of War 3, only 4% of the population has completed the game on Insane, co-op or otherwise. Doing this gets you the Achievement "That's Just Crazy". The only reason we know how many people did this is through Achievements.
Now, I'm not going to say all Achievements are good. Quite the opposite actually. Launch games, such as Perfect Dark Zero, have some of the worst Achievements ever. For example, the first Achievement I got in PDZ was for beating the game. Yeah, I had to go through the entire game to get one Achievement. And how much was this one Achievement worth? Exactly 10 points. To note how crazy that game was, in order to perfect it, you had to beat the story four times solo on each difficulty, four times co-op on each difficulty, play at least 1000 Deathmatch games, 1000 DarkOps games, get 1000 melee, explosive, headshot, and sniper kills, infect 1000 players in Infection, capture 100 flags in CTF, survive 100 minutes in Onslaught, destroy 100,000 credits of property, survive 1000 rounds of Eradication and play 1000 matches in both Killcount and Team Killcount. That's a lot. And each of those kills and multiplayer game types only give you 60 points. So you have to play 1000 games just for 60 points. As you can imagine, that's one I wouldn't even try to perfect.
But that doesn't mean modern games aren't exempt. While most single player Achievements usually involve sidequest, or doing something out of the ordinary and usually completely possible, it's the multiplayer Achievements that get on the path of insanity. When it comes to multiplayer Achievements, there are examples of good multiplayer Achievements, bad multiplayer Achievements, and multiplayer Achievements somewhere in between. And Gears of War 3 and Halo: Reach have them all.
First, we will look at some good multiplayer Achievements. These Achievements are those that will either come to you naturally as you play, with maybe a little bit of skill involved. An example of this is the Achievement "The Versus Sampler Platter" in Gears of War 3. This Achievement requires you to play one of each of the six main gametypes in Gears 3. This is good, and will come quite naturally without any planning, outside of just playing all six game types. Another is "Wait, What Time is it?", which involves playing 10 game types in a row. This comes naturally if you really like the game. On Halo: Reach, a more skill based one is "Yes, Sensei". This one requires you to get a First Strike medal. While not a gimme like the Gears 3 Achievements, it will come in time. Similar is "Knife To A Gun Fight", which is kill 5 Spartans as an Elite. This happens in the Invasion gametype, and will come naturally over time.
Now there are Achievements, which while not awful, are kind of bad. One that is bad for two reasons (and one of the reasons sometimes infect single player Achievements) is "You Blew it Up!" in Halo: Reach. This Achievement is gotten by placing the bomb on the map Breakpoint in an Invasion gametype. This Achievement will come to you eventually. This is why it's kind of good. How it's bad is that you have to first hope you can get into a game of Invasion with Breakpoint, which requires everyone in your game to have the Nobel Map Pack, or hope in a DLC playlist a lot of people play this. The other is that it's worth 13 points. I hate Achievements that don't end in 5 and 0. They just make things weird. A Gears 3 example is the Achievement "The Host with the Most". This isn't a hard Achievement if you got 4 friends who are willing to help you get it. This is a hard Achievement otherwise. It's one of those weird ones where you either can or can't, or have to know where to look.
And then there are Achievements that are just god awful. These Achievements usually involve either planned coordination (boosting, which in some games can either get you reset or banned), or pure dumb luck. An example in Halo: Reach is "Totally Worth It", which is obtained by getting a Double Kill from the Grave. That means seconds before you die, you have to chunk a grenade and hope it kills two people. As you can imagine, this doesn't happen a lot. Single kills aren't too bad, but Double Kills and higher from the grave just take pure dumb luck. And when an Achievement is more luck then skill, you have a really bad Achievement. Another is "Foreshadowing" in Gears 3. This Achievement requires you to play as General RAAM (pronounced rham, not ram) and execute 10 Kim's in multiplayer. The problem with this Achievement is first you have to get on the Locust side. Then you have to hope that someone is playing as Kim on the COG side. And then you have to execute them. Which can be a pain because if you down them, there's a good chance someone on your team will kill them instead. This is made even worse considering the fact that almost no one plays Kim. This is a terrible Achievement. I only got it by pure luck at 5 AM in an Alphas game where I just happened to land in a game with only bots, on the Locust side, and one of the bots was Kim. Pure dumb luck. And I hate that.
So, to recap (also known as the tl;dr version). Many Achievements are useful for developers to track how many people did something in a game. Even some multiplayer Achievements are good, some are a bit wonky, and some are just terrible. But overall, I enjoy them very much, and think that it was one of the best additions to Xbox Live with the Xbox 360.
But please, to any developer reading this, stop making bad multiplayer Achievements that encourage boosting or Achievements that don't in in 5 or 0. No one likes them.
So, this idea came to me yesterday as something to talk to, but I seem to wait until 3:30 in the morning to write it. Actually fell asleep at around 10 PM, so that tells you a bit about my sleep habits, especially when I don't have school. That topic is Achievements in video games. On the PS3 these are called Trophies. I will be referring to them as Achievements through the article (because that's what they are called on the Xbox 360, Steam and iOS Game Center), but PS3 exclusive owners, feel free to replace Achievement with Trophy. As well, I will be using examples on the Xbox 360 as I don't own a PS3. Can only speak from experience you know.
I will admit right now that I am what you would call an "Achievement Whore". In games I really like I will try to get all of them. Hell, in some games I don't really like I'll try to get all of them as well. The best example of that is my 1000/1000 in Sonic 06. That game is a beautiful disaster, broken on all belief. But it does have good music. Since I have gotten my 360, my thought of Achievements went from "whatever" to "MUST HAVE THEM ALL!" It's kind of like Pokemon in a way (which I have all of them from Gen I-IV, and really need to play more of Black). I even got a Windows Phone and sat there one day playing bowling over and over as fast as possible on a game called Shuffle Party (it was free) just to get all the Achievements! And then there was that Dash of Destruction game. However, I haven't gotten desperate enough to get Avatar: The Burning Earth for a day just to get all 1000 for that game. I do have SOME standards.
But there are people who are the exact opposite of me. Some people absolutely despite Achievements and everything they stand for. These people believe that they are completely pointless. And to us as gamers, for the most part, they are. However, Achievements actually can be quite useful to developers. They can actually inform the developers how many people have done certain things. This is why you see so many Achievements placed through the story, as well as for finishing the game, as well as finishing the game on different difficulties. It's a way to see how many people in your population got there.
For example, in Halo: Reach there is an Achievement called "A Monument To All Your Sins", which is earned by beating the campaign on Legendary by yourself. Now, this sounds like a daunting challenge, and it can be. It took me two days to do it, although I slept a bit during that time. As it turns out, the most recent number I heard is that only 1.5% of the entire player population of Halo: Reach has ever done this. Halo: Reach is an incredibly popular game, consistently at the top of the most played 360 games, usually only behind about three version of Call of Duty. As well, in Gears of War 3, only 4% of the population has completed the game on Insane, co-op or otherwise. Doing this gets you the Achievement "That's Just Crazy". The only reason we know how many people did this is through Achievements.
Now, I'm not going to say all Achievements are good. Quite the opposite actually. Launch games, such as Perfect Dark Zero, have some of the worst Achievements ever. For example, the first Achievement I got in PDZ was for beating the game. Yeah, I had to go through the entire game to get one Achievement. And how much was this one Achievement worth? Exactly 10 points. To note how crazy that game was, in order to perfect it, you had to beat the story four times solo on each difficulty, four times co-op on each difficulty, play at least 1000 Deathmatch games, 1000 DarkOps games, get 1000 melee, explosive, headshot, and sniper kills, infect 1000 players in Infection, capture 100 flags in CTF, survive 100 minutes in Onslaught, destroy 100,000 credits of property, survive 1000 rounds of Eradication and play 1000 matches in both Killcount and Team Killcount. That's a lot. And each of those kills and multiplayer game types only give you 60 points. So you have to play 1000 games just for 60 points. As you can imagine, that's one I wouldn't even try to perfect.
But that doesn't mean modern games aren't exempt. While most single player Achievements usually involve sidequest, or doing something out of the ordinary and usually completely possible, it's the multiplayer Achievements that get on the path of insanity. When it comes to multiplayer Achievements, there are examples of good multiplayer Achievements, bad multiplayer Achievements, and multiplayer Achievements somewhere in between. And Gears of War 3 and Halo: Reach have them all.
First, we will look at some good multiplayer Achievements. These Achievements are those that will either come to you naturally as you play, with maybe a little bit of skill involved. An example of this is the Achievement "The Versus Sampler Platter" in Gears of War 3. This Achievement requires you to play one of each of the six main gametypes in Gears 3. This is good, and will come quite naturally without any planning, outside of just playing all six game types. Another is "Wait, What Time is it?", which involves playing 10 game types in a row. This comes naturally if you really like the game. On Halo: Reach, a more skill based one is "Yes, Sensei". This one requires you to get a First Strike medal. While not a gimme like the Gears 3 Achievements, it will come in time. Similar is "Knife To A Gun Fight", which is kill 5 Spartans as an Elite. This happens in the Invasion gametype, and will come naturally over time.
Now there are Achievements, which while not awful, are kind of bad. One that is bad for two reasons (and one of the reasons sometimes infect single player Achievements) is "You Blew it Up!" in Halo: Reach. This Achievement is gotten by placing the bomb on the map Breakpoint in an Invasion gametype. This Achievement will come to you eventually. This is why it's kind of good. How it's bad is that you have to first hope you can get into a game of Invasion with Breakpoint, which requires everyone in your game to have the Nobel Map Pack, or hope in a DLC playlist a lot of people play this. The other is that it's worth 13 points. I hate Achievements that don't end in 5 and 0. They just make things weird. A Gears 3 example is the Achievement "The Host with the Most". This isn't a hard Achievement if you got 4 friends who are willing to help you get it. This is a hard Achievement otherwise. It's one of those weird ones where you either can or can't, or have to know where to look.
And then there are Achievements that are just god awful. These Achievements usually involve either planned coordination (boosting, which in some games can either get you reset or banned), or pure dumb luck. An example in Halo: Reach is "Totally Worth It", which is obtained by getting a Double Kill from the Grave. That means seconds before you die, you have to chunk a grenade and hope it kills two people. As you can imagine, this doesn't happen a lot. Single kills aren't too bad, but Double Kills and higher from the grave just take pure dumb luck. And when an Achievement is more luck then skill, you have a really bad Achievement. Another is "Foreshadowing" in Gears 3. This Achievement requires you to play as General RAAM (pronounced rham, not ram) and execute 10 Kim's in multiplayer. The problem with this Achievement is first you have to get on the Locust side. Then you have to hope that someone is playing as Kim on the COG side. And then you have to execute them. Which can be a pain because if you down them, there's a good chance someone on your team will kill them instead. This is made even worse considering the fact that almost no one plays Kim. This is a terrible Achievement. I only got it by pure luck at 5 AM in an Alphas game where I just happened to land in a game with only bots, on the Locust side, and one of the bots was Kim. Pure dumb luck. And I hate that.
So, to recap (also known as the tl;dr version). Many Achievements are useful for developers to track how many people did something in a game. Even some multiplayer Achievements are good, some are a bit wonky, and some are just terrible. But overall, I enjoy them very much, and think that it was one of the best additions to Xbox Live with the Xbox 360.
But please, to any developer reading this, stop making bad multiplayer Achievements that encourage boosting or Achievements that don't in in 5 or 0. No one likes them.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Welcome
Hello. For those who don't know who I am, my name is Justin Green. Also go by the handle Mechalon or Mechalon Drache (you can use this to find me on Steam and Xbox Live respectively as well). I'm a Computer Science major at the University of North Texas with a lot on my mind sometimes and not a lot of people to say it to. So I decided I'd try to do this.
So, expect me to rant about my life, talk about political stuff, video games I love and are currently playing, music, movies, school, and whatever else comes to mind. If I have something to say, this is where you'll find it. I'll probably change the look up for this later, but right now I can't really be bothered to make it look good.
So, roll with me here, I'll try and do something every now and then. See if I can cook something up.
So, expect me to rant about my life, talk about political stuff, video games I love and are currently playing, music, movies, school, and whatever else comes to mind. If I have something to say, this is where you'll find it. I'll probably change the look up for this later, but right now I can't really be bothered to make it look good.
So, roll with me here, I'll try and do something every now and then. See if I can cook something up.
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