When deciding on a linux distribution, its kind of like walking into Home Depot with the intention of hiring an immigrant. You don't know their quality of work, you don't know if they're drunks but you do know you must look for good ones to handle your business. This is not racist, simply a sad reality. With Linux You must shop around and decide what is best for you.
For me I have already tried ubuntu and fedora, both of which for some reason just down right crashed after a couple of months without being able to boot up again. And for me, I was not interested in trying to continueously dig deeper and deeper through the forums of the internet to try to find some sort of post from back in 2007 that would solve my problem. I was over it. However, recently my computer started acting up again on windows additionally it amazed me how Avast had turned extrodinarilly spammy. Constantly telling me I've updated my virus in a womans voice I don't really care about and when time was running out started putting popups on my screen. PopUps... Is this the 1990's? I thought we were over popups, behind us, done. To me, this means its not built for old people to get scared and buy. Its a shame but such is business. On a side note, I bought my computer from a mom and pop store which had a 32 bit version of Windows on a 64 bit computer. To me this seemed like a waste. So I started searching.
First one I looked into was CrunchBang I really really liked the concept. A simple distribution. Bare mimimums. Similar to how I like to program! Additionally, there were no fancy backgrounds, there was nothing fancy period. However it had one flaw that I really didn't want to get started on. The Main Menus. In fact all menus need to be updated by hand. Why? most likely because #! is not your standard Linux and they had no way of detecting new installs and setting an icon to a symbolic link. Or they are focusing on other things such as being compatible with wheezy. What this ultimately tells me is they aren't going to fix this issue. Which I see as a major flaw in the system they are designing.
That being said, Linux Mint has been given rave reviews for some time now so I decided it was time to install it. So here I am now. With an Instance of linux mint on my computer. My Screen now bugs out, though when switching to windows its perfectly fine. I'm installing ubuntu packages, which makes me feel like this whole thing is nothing more than a shell. Additionally setting up my theme is a pain in the ass. I truelly feel that Linux Mint should not be given rave reviews but simply catagorized as just another Linux Distro. Because thats all it is
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Flappy Birds: An Explaination for RocketCat
Flappy Birds has become a hit. Why is the question.
I'll give you the reasons up front and explain them later
1) Barrier to Entrance Is very Low
2) Gender Unbias
3) Success Breeds On success
Low Barrier to Enter
For any Game to be successful, this is one of the most important factors. As Mark Rosewater points out in this informative blog post barrier to entry can break a game. Who are games made for? This is Highly Generalized. But Truths can be found in generalizations
Men
60 year olds-yes, to interact with their grandkids
50 year olds-no, they're too busy providing for 3 children and a spouse (divorced or togethor).
30 year olds-no, They've just started a job and are plannig the rest of their life.
20 year olds-yes, They are still irressponsible, but often times are thinking about college and
10 years and younger-yes, they like to have fun
For Women
60 year olds-yes, to interact with their grandkids
50 year olds-no, they're out relaxing now that the kids are finally out
30 year olds-yes, possibly new born to show their children
20 year olds-no, Shopping, boys
10 years and younger-yes, they like to have fun
Right off the bat we see most games are centered around children. And If children are having a hard time, theres a problem. Flappy Birds is Extrodinarilly Simple, and in that way allows anybody to play.
There are sites with good statistics such as this one. However, we aren't looking at who plays games now, we are looking at who plays games generally. And Most people start off as children and either keep playing or eventually stop.
Gender Unbias
The Game is gender unbias, the protaganist could be male or female. But more importantly the game is not centered on roleplaying heavily, nor on twitch reactions. Its not based on keeping up with difficulty increases, nor is it playing off beauty and art.
The games art is playing off Nostalgia, where we were all kids once. Memories of super mario world. And Gives you a simple protaganist as a bird that could be male, could be female or even could be both or neither.
The games play is actually very similar to that of Dance Dance Revolution. Where you are told ahead of time what motion you must make, and so when you reach that point, you make it. It probably wasn't planned that way, however any timing, music or dancing is generally popular with women while twitch reactions are more male dominated. The Fast movements making it fun for males though as its like handling a bronco. You can't just drive a plane through the obstacles. There is a proper way to handle it.
Its also masked by a physical area which makes it appealing to children. It makes sense, like a maze makes sense.
Women in general are an untapped market. And when theres a game out thats simple and cute, thats kinda fun, it means that women might buy it. Also Important to keep in mind, women talk to eachother more than men. And If one parents kids are playing something, they are very likely to share it with others.
Success Breeds On Success
When you think of of the name Ugg I think of "ugly", "tiresome" and "dumb"
However, a name like Ugg becomes memorable when its everywhere and everyones wearing it. As Such, its no longer just a name. Its a lifestyle.
In the same sense, viral explosion becomes viral. But what makes somehting viral? A Gaming Magazine? People following a particular Developer? No, its people communicating. Celebrities are interesting in that if they are doing it, other people follow suit. Likewise when freinds are doing it, they they want to try it out also. Thats how I got into PunchQuest, otherwise I wouldn't care.
Then as things get bigger, more reviews come out. More people make media to Parasite off the initial success. And As More Media talks about something, it gets even bigger.
Flappy Birds in all is not a story of solid game development
Its a story about people and how what entertains ourselves isn't necessarilly best for everyone, however what can entertain everyone can be a huge hit
I'll give you the reasons up front and explain them later
1) Barrier to Entrance Is very Low
2) Gender Unbias
3) Success Breeds On success
Low Barrier to Enter
For any Game to be successful, this is one of the most important factors. As Mark Rosewater points out in this informative blog post barrier to entry can break a game. Who are games made for? This is Highly Generalized. But Truths can be found in generalizations
Men
60 year olds-yes, to interact with their grandkids
50 year olds-no, they're too busy providing for 3 children and a spouse (divorced or togethor).
30 year olds-no, They've just started a job and are plannig the rest of their life.
20 year olds-yes, They are still irressponsible, but often times are thinking about college and
10 years and younger-yes, they like to have fun
For Women
60 year olds-yes, to interact with their grandkids
50 year olds-no, they're out relaxing now that the kids are finally out
30 year olds-yes, possibly new born to show their children
20 year olds-no, Shopping, boys
10 years and younger-yes, they like to have fun
Right off the bat we see most games are centered around children. And If children are having a hard time, theres a problem. Flappy Birds is Extrodinarilly Simple, and in that way allows anybody to play.
There are sites with good statistics such as this one. However, we aren't looking at who plays games now, we are looking at who plays games generally. And Most people start off as children and either keep playing or eventually stop.
Gender Unbias
The Game is gender unbias, the protaganist could be male or female. But more importantly the game is not centered on roleplaying heavily, nor on twitch reactions. Its not based on keeping up with difficulty increases, nor is it playing off beauty and art.
The games art is playing off Nostalgia, where we were all kids once. Memories of super mario world. And Gives you a simple protaganist as a bird that could be male, could be female or even could be both or neither.
The games play is actually very similar to that of Dance Dance Revolution. Where you are told ahead of time what motion you must make, and so when you reach that point, you make it. It probably wasn't planned that way, however any timing, music or dancing is generally popular with women while twitch reactions are more male dominated. The Fast movements making it fun for males though as its like handling a bronco. You can't just drive a plane through the obstacles. There is a proper way to handle it.
Its also masked by a physical area which makes it appealing to children. It makes sense, like a maze makes sense.
Women in general are an untapped market. And when theres a game out thats simple and cute, thats kinda fun, it means that women might buy it. Also Important to keep in mind, women talk to eachother more than men. And If one parents kids are playing something, they are very likely to share it with others.
Success Breeds On Success
When you think of of the name Ugg I think of "ugly", "tiresome" and "dumb"
However, a name like Ugg becomes memorable when its everywhere and everyones wearing it. As Such, its no longer just a name. Its a lifestyle.
In the same sense, viral explosion becomes viral. But what makes somehting viral? A Gaming Magazine? People following a particular Developer? No, its people communicating. Celebrities are interesting in that if they are doing it, other people follow suit. Likewise when freinds are doing it, they they want to try it out also. Thats how I got into PunchQuest, otherwise I wouldn't care.
Then as things get bigger, more reviews come out. More people make media to Parasite off the initial success. And As More Media talks about something, it gets even bigger.
Flappy Birds in all is not a story of solid game development
Its a story about people and how what entertains ourselves isn't necessarilly best for everyone, however what can entertain everyone can be a huge hit
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Youtube Api 3.0: OrderBy???
A little rant while working on my website,
I was working on one of my old projects that I stopped taking care of since Youtube went from version 1 to version 2 amoung other reasons. And now googles on version 3.0 of the api.
Now let me start by saying the documentation is Spectacular
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/
One of the things I really like about the documentation is they tell you how each of the requested items are going to be returned
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/channels
And then shows you ways to retreive, put, remove, etc those for that specific item
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/channels/list
But one thing I need is ordering the elements
-The reason I can't do this on my server is because I would have to download every single video and then order them the way I desire.
Thats a bit intense considering apis are meant to be quick access to information
The big problem for me is that I need to access a users videos through their username
-certian users like the onion have a space in their title making the user title absolutely useless
A little experimentation and I've found you can use the channelID from 3.0 for 2.0 requests which is nice
That being said, its nice I still have the version 2 api available to me, however its still a bit upsetting considering how awesome the new Api is
I was working on one of my old projects that I stopped taking care of since Youtube went from version 1 to version 2 amoung other reasons. And now googles on version 3.0 of the api.
Now let me start by saying the documentation is Spectacular
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/
One of the things I really like about the documentation is they tell you how each of the requested items are going to be returned
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/channels
And then shows you ways to retreive, put, remove, etc those for that specific item
https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/channels/list
But one thing I need is ordering the elements
-The reason I can't do this on my server is because I would have to download every single video and then order them the way I desire.
Thats a bit intense considering apis are meant to be quick access to information
The big problem for me is that I need to access a users videos through their username
-certian users like the onion have a space in their title making the user title absolutely useless
A little experimentation and I've found you can use the channelID from 3.0 for 2.0 requests which is nice
That being said, its nice I still have the version 2 api available to me, however its still a bit upsetting considering how awesome the new Api is
Friday, October 11, 2013
The brain is a muscle
One aspect of my life that i think is incredibly important is my realizations
Amoung them the belief that: the brain is a muscle
What does that mean?
If you work it out it will get stronger
The stronger it gets the more capable it is
Now, since programming is a means to a decent lifestyle, i believe its important to try
I may not get everything right, but so long as im practicing, i will get stronger.
And once im solid, theres little stopping me
Amoung them the belief that: the brain is a muscle
What does that mean?
If you work it out it will get stronger
The stronger it gets the more capable it is
Now, since programming is a means to a decent lifestyle, i believe its important to try
I may not get everything right, but so long as im practicing, i will get stronger.
And once im solid, theres little stopping me
Monday, September 23, 2013
Websockets and.... Underscores? O_o
So... I don't write too much about my programming much recently, but that doesn't mean I haven't been experimenting. And the Current Experiments I'm conducting is setting up a game engine of sorts...
I know... Use libraries....
Why reinvent the wheel?
Because thats one of the things I love to do, and if you don't do what you love, what are you good for?
-doing what you don't love, I guess?....
ANYWAY
I'm currently working on intergrating websockets into my Java application so that I can run my game online. However I kept on coming up with the same issue "hostname is null"
I know... Use libraries....
Why reinvent the wheel?
Because thats one of the things I love to do, and if you don't do what you love, what are you good for?
-doing what you don't love, I guess?....
ANYWAY
I'm currently working on intergrating websockets into my Java application so that I can run my game online. However I kept on coming up with the same issue "hostname is null"
So what do I do?
What I do is go through the through each step to figure out what is going on.
That means going through the java_websocket source code Brought to you by an awesome group of people
So I went through it, step by step trying to figure out where things wrong.
Finally I discovered where the error was but I just couldn't figure out why it was being caused.
Why was the host null?
Take steps back, forward and 3 days and about 16 hours later google brought me to the answer
Now, this isn't truelly a bug, its actually part of the schematics, in a way
Underscores are improper for Urls, so it shouldn't register properly
However, it should at least produce a malformed URI error
That being said, I finally got everything working, web is able to interact with node.js, java is able to interact with node.js and everything is dandy in the world :)
It was a hassle to get there though, and got me pretty scared
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Theros lands: the start of something beautiful
Did anybody else happen to follow ymtc?
If not heres the latest vote. In my personal opinion this is one of the more dissappointing options.
To have a resonable effect, it needs to be played on turn 2, in modern turn 4 kills are kindof the norm and for discard spells were looking at blightning or wrench mind as the more desirable discard spells. From there the opponent has to think of what they discard to limit your gain. Or through thoughtseize or inquisition you get to choose whether you want to gain in a certain way or make sure you take out a card even if you dont gain too much.
Why would this be dissappointnimg? Its adding thought to the game, allowing oppressive synergy to exsist. Oppressive synergy at low mana isnt supposed to be one sided, it needs to come at a high cost if it is. This probably wont be turn one or two, maybe three but three is a bit late for modern playability. The more dissappointing part is we chose black enchantment instead of lands.
Aka #teamlands
Lands are the cause of mana screw, mana flood
They are the cause for unfun games or scary moments turned exciting opportunity
The lands are the ebb and flow, and theros lands allow you to control it.
My favorite lands thus far are fetch lands, new benalia and halimar depths. The reason for this is that they provide so much more than just a land, they provide prediction and hope. Fetch lands make sure you'll less likely to draw a land and if you know your top card, you can get rid of it. Halimar depths sets up you next three turns. Or lets you draw a good card then fetch away the rest. Halimar is indeed a favorite of mine. Land drops become more certain.
Now theros scry lands probably are not modern playable, and i am certain not legacy or vintage. However i could see standard and commander becoming a lot more fun. Where land screw or flood will become much much less rare (or possibly 1card less rare). Sure this means aggro decks dont have super lands for sick aggro draws. But thats why ravnica exsists, naya blitz has shocklands to enjoy. Scry lands are the begginning of something beatiful. Where magic no longer turns into a game of who gets land flooded or screwed first. Where lands can help you get lands, or possibly avoid them.
Now im not saying they will solve every problem and every game. But i will say acoiding 1 card is a lot. Similar to fetch lands except versitile in a different way. Statistically if you have 2 theros lands in your starting 7 and are playing first with a 24 land deck you have a 22/53 chance to draw a land. After playing a theros land that either becomes 100% or 22/52, on the next turn if it still wasnt drawn its a 22/51 after playing another theros land its either 100% or 22/50. Theros lands arent just durdling, they provide a lot of value. Essentially another card out of your deck for no card disadvantage, the only sacrifice is board pressence. But wraths and sweepers usually handle that pretty well.
I will say these lands are no halimar depths. You cant keep a one land hand and confidently find your second. However what they are good for is fixing and getting rid of bad draws early and late at the sacrifice of possibly not being able to make the plays youd like to
In all im very very excited about these theros lands. Even if they arent great, they are the beginning of what i hope becomes more common, fetches, scrys and indexing of you library to make sure you hit the cards you want and avoid the ones you dont.
Just wait for the pain scry lands. They may be single color producing. But they'll come one day, hopefully....
If not heres the latest vote. In my personal opinion this is one of the more dissappointing options.
To have a resonable effect, it needs to be played on turn 2, in modern turn 4 kills are kindof the norm and for discard spells were looking at blightning or wrench mind as the more desirable discard spells. From there the opponent has to think of what they discard to limit your gain. Or through thoughtseize or inquisition you get to choose whether you want to gain in a certain way or make sure you take out a card even if you dont gain too much.
Why would this be dissappointnimg? Its adding thought to the game, allowing oppressive synergy to exsist. Oppressive synergy at low mana isnt supposed to be one sided, it needs to come at a high cost if it is. This probably wont be turn one or two, maybe three but three is a bit late for modern playability. The more dissappointing part is we chose black enchantment instead of lands.
Aka #teamlands
Lands are the cause of mana screw, mana flood
They are the cause for unfun games or scary moments turned exciting opportunity
The lands are the ebb and flow, and theros lands allow you to control it.
My favorite lands thus far are fetch lands, new benalia and halimar depths. The reason for this is that they provide so much more than just a land, they provide prediction and hope. Fetch lands make sure you'll less likely to draw a land and if you know your top card, you can get rid of it. Halimar depths sets up you next three turns. Or lets you draw a good card then fetch away the rest. Halimar is indeed a favorite of mine. Land drops become more certain.
Now theros scry lands probably are not modern playable, and i am certain not legacy or vintage. However i could see standard and commander becoming a lot more fun. Where land screw or flood will become much much less rare (or possibly 1card less rare). Sure this means aggro decks dont have super lands for sick aggro draws. But thats why ravnica exsists, naya blitz has shocklands to enjoy. Scry lands are the begginning of something beatiful. Where magic no longer turns into a game of who gets land flooded or screwed first. Where lands can help you get lands, or possibly avoid them.
Now im not saying they will solve every problem and every game. But i will say acoiding 1 card is a lot. Similar to fetch lands except versitile in a different way. Statistically if you have 2 theros lands in your starting 7 and are playing first with a 24 land deck you have a 22/53 chance to draw a land. After playing a theros land that either becomes 100% or 22/52, on the next turn if it still wasnt drawn its a 22/51 after playing another theros land its either 100% or 22/50. Theros lands arent just durdling, they provide a lot of value. Essentially another card out of your deck for no card disadvantage, the only sacrifice is board pressence. But wraths and sweepers usually handle that pretty well.
I will say these lands are no halimar depths. You cant keep a one land hand and confidently find your second. However what they are good for is fixing and getting rid of bad draws early and late at the sacrifice of possibly not being able to make the plays youd like to
In all im very very excited about these theros lands. Even if they arent great, they are the beginning of what i hope becomes more common, fetches, scrys and indexing of you library to make sure you hit the cards you want and avoid the ones you dont.
Just wait for the pain scry lands. They may be single color producing. But they'll come one day, hopefully....
Monday, April 8, 2013
Magic Color Confusion:Green, Yellow and White
Now before i begin this article I want to state Cleary that when I speak about yellow, I don't mean Gold cards
When I talk about yellow I mean yellow as a color on the color pie
I'm not suggesting to add more colors since honestly, Magic has evolved to such a point that it is already to awesome and incredible of a game to start adding things that would advance complexity
But rather Yellow is its own seperate Identity
To Prove yellow as a seperate Identity let me go over what White and green are in the Real world
White
White in the real world is the color of childrens games, the hope of a great tomorrow and peace. Ghandi's color is white, a smiling face depicts white, hardwork is white, meditation is white, day dreaming is white. These colors promote more the idea that white is a color of happiness outside of being rich, intelligence, having freinds or really having any material goods at all.
That being said, white also has a problem of which their goal doesn't involve other people usually, and if it does its to make other people happy, or involve teamwork of some sort. Debating with conviction, where influencing other people to make a choice that would be in your best interest through words and feeling.
Green
What is green? Green is the color of the forests. Whats in the forests? A food chain of creatures far different from one another. Green shows variety but also shows a caste system. Worms eat the dead, grass and plants grows from the worms digestion, Moles and rabbits eat the plants and cats and wolves eat them. Theres also a secondary one where mice eat bugs and owls eat the mice. Pretty much Its a bunch of chains. Then as humans enter it we come in as observers. As we observe we may get consumed by it, because though we feel bad for the prey we respect the predators more. On top of that its amazing the kind of love that the animals give to their young. It feels safer. However its not. There are poisonous parts of each forest/jungle and these types of places are unforgiving. The weak die, the strong survive. This isn't a sort of hopeful idea but rather a reality.
So why do we as humans love the forest so much? I'd say the forest is like music to a cobra, it hypnotizes and makes you believe its the proper place.
A very good magic set that I believe depicts the forest as it should be is Lorwyn. The trees survive off of the dead. And if its not the dead it needs a caretaker. Someone that i provides food, water, shelter and everything else it needs. The Trees aren't evil, since they make no action. However it's natural hunger is to feed off of the dead, off of worms. And as a result it needs those things to die so it can continue to prosper.
Why make this article
Before I get into yellow, I want to write a little bit about why I wrote this in the first place. Over the course of my life i have been taught red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. If you add them togethor when they are flashlights on a wall, they make white. If you add them togethor when they are dyes they make a murky dark color (but would make black most likely if they were bold/pure red/yellow/blue)
So the three colors red yellow blue make the rest in one form or another
Magic however depicts a different color system; red, blue green
This isn't uncommon as we can actually see in computer programming that it works off of red blue green as well. And all the other colors are made from the combonation. Likewise apparently our own eyes are see in red/blue/green which means in ways that yellow is nonexistant. Though obviously it exists.
Why i made this article is more the unrepresentation of yellow in so many areas it boggles my mind. Yellow is unrespected most likely because it is the hardest things to depict. Red/Blue/Green was probably very simple to program, so why include yellow? Yellow isn't seen very much by our eyes, so why make it a color we register?
And of course: Color isn't seen very often Thematically in a magical setting, so why should we care to include this color over Green in Magic: the Gathering?
Yellow
Yellow. Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow.
What is Yellow? Yellow is................
Gold
Gold creates greed and a caste system
caste systems allow people to say "I'm better than you"
So what is Yellow? Yellow is a way to say "I'm better than you"
Historically, knights can be seen akin to modern day football players. They're assholes and they pick up all the good women. Romeo and Juliet and really all romance in many ways really are just stories, and yellow is the representation of the truth. Traders are also akin to yellow, They do not work the feilds, they do not help in mining. However, they offer supply and they can let other know the demand. They don't do much at all except for trade and influence other people to continue their line of work. However, if it wasn't for them, kings would not have known about rubys, saphires and pearls. Spices would not be in such high demand and of course Colonies and Settlements and Wars would not have been fought for the desire to have everything at hand
Yellow in many ways is the story of getting an inch and wanting a mile.
While red is a story of Fire and aggression and passion.
Blue is a story of the sea and understanding the ebb and flow
Yellow is the story of Gold and wanting more.
Confusion: Yellow and White
White has taken many of yellows more "desirable" aspects. Yellow created the caste system and a natural Law and Order amoung people. The King is on high, Then his advisors, then the military then the tax collectors, then the farmers/people with purpose then everyother worthless scab that floats on this great earth.
Amoung examples of why yellow is yellow is:
1) Our knights decided to rape and pillage in a foreign land? Did they bring anything good back? They're heroes.
2) I want to expand our kingdom, lets start a war
3) The church and ethics say I should only marry once and have no mistresses. I disagree.
4) A neighboring kingdom has crossbows, I want something better. A neighboring kingdom has an atomic bomb, I want 10,000.
These are actual representations of real yellow. Which however, has become more akin to white.
White however has taken the burden of being considered yellow.
First Strike
"Oh you have a 2/2? My 2/2 has first strike"
"Oh your 2/2 has first strike? My 2/2 strikes even before your first strike does"
This is an example of Yellows Arms Race. Its the color of being better at all costs.
White has a tendancy to want to play fair and win doing it, or to equalize everything so things are fair. Children are a great example, if someone isn't playing fair, they will get very upset. However, by making sure players can play fair and still win or at the very least have a good time thats important. One way to see this is the fact if yellow were to attack, obviously white wouldn't block. However they would attack back for the same damage. Yellow makes it more of a standstill situation.
Its important to point out though that yellow if it is to be the "arms race" color has access to everything in a way. Another way to look at it though is that they can pay for everything, and teach it to their minions.
Wrath of God: If I don't win, nobody will
Yes, this is iconic to Gods Judgement, and God is dipicted as undoubtedly white. However, as seen in biblical respresentations, god has a jealous side. And if we are to look at other things in the bible, he has purposefully made Job a miserable man just to prove to the devil he would still worship him. He tested mans passion in love.
However, if we are to look at things magically. If I were losing, and didn't care that much about my creatures or anything really except winning. I would destroy everything. Everything's gone now, but my stuff is better. My next card will be better than yours.
This is more of a yellow aspect
Knights and Showmen
Knights are nobility, Soldiers have a certian brother hood attached to it however they are also part of a caste system. A Militia is literally made by the people for the people. Riots are another example of By the People for the people, though obviously in a much more aggressive manner.
But pretty Much Knights are the football players of the magic universe, to the average person they may be assholes unless they don't want to be. However, when it comes down to it, they don't need to be nice, and the king may not even want them to be. A Showman is different though. Showmen are white. Why? because literally the only reason they do what they do is because they feel good pleasing the crowd. And who are any of us except for part of the crowd. A Showman can appreciate a good showman, a Knight may be jealous of another knight. A Showman may never escape his job. A knight may eventually become a duke.
A showman never needs to Blitz a small town. A knight may have to on order.
Even though Gladiators aren't necessarilly considered white, and may even be bigger assholes than a knight. Pleasing a crowd is white, Its when money and status starts getting involved where you start actually feeding into more yellow territory.
Equipment: The Arms Race
Equipment is obviously an arms race. However white isn't filled with artificers. In fact you have maybe one that loves his craft so much he spends their life working on it. However equipment is made for killing and take over. its purpose though also in defense, in mass quantities is more of a
the prophet predicting war and preparing for it is white
The factory creating them for mass use is yellow
yellow is also always looking for that one up, and as a result they're focus is one lean mean killing machines
Confusion: Yellow and Green
Mana dorks
Elves. Specifically Llanowar Elves. Llanowar elves have always been depicted as badasses, able to take down big creatures through enginuity and grace. Because they know their forest better than anyone else. What you actually see though is that they produce mana. Mana production isn't bad, however, I don't believe that is what an elf is meant to be. They're suppose to be a well working order adapted to the forest, not weaklings that spend every waking moment sapping mana for it. Sylvan Ranger is a truer elf than llano, though obviously llano has its place in the world
Yellow however is a caste system. Farmers, miners, factory workers
Farmers, miners and factory workers whole purpose is to provide resources for everyone else to use.
What is a mana dork? It provides resources for everyone else to use
Elves, like the native americans aren't immune to the wild. But what they do is they adapt to it and survive in it. In its good times and its hard times. They adapt. Mana dorks don't adapt. They are used for one purpose or to die. Thats not an elf.
What is Yellow?
Yellow is mana dorks, arms race and having things that are better than your opponents
About necessary sacrifices
Literally Yellow is the color of have one building where all people do is produce mana
Another building where all people do is produce tools of war
And another group where all they do is fight
And making sure people will do it even if they don't want to
Its the story of ant's and having things better
What is White?
White is about family and being happy with what you have
A story of misfits and happiness
About showmen and wonder despite the world being a hard place to live in
The story of the underdog getting there
The story of migration to new begginings
Its also the story of forgetfulness and unawareness of others intentions. Or even ignoring them.
What is Green?
Green is about the wild, about taming and understanding what really is just a terrible place.
Death isn't a nice thing, and yeah we can understand it. But in a way green is about living in a place where you know its dangerous, but you learn to adapt in it rather than changing it.
Conclusion
Theres a lot in here thats a bit incomplete and half hazard. However I am convinced in my argument and will probably stand firm by it despite the fact it may not be seen by others and isn't fully fleshed out. However, without yellow, White has taken the role where yellow should be. Yellow is about organization and mindlessness while white is about playfulness and relaxation. Being human. Green also is in the territory wiht mana dorks and Shouldn't even be a color to begin with.
That being said, should magic change? Probably not. The difficulty in retuning and readjusting the color pie isn't an easy one. It takes observation and finding rhyme rhythim and patterns that can't be found over night (well they can but thats another story). Also, Our colors in magic are so fun and fleshed out that it would be a dissappointment to see anything change. Why fix a well working wheel?
However, I do share these complaints because though white is my color of choice. I don't like how its represented at all. I understand why its represented that way, but I don't appreciate it.
Also, though I think green's appearence is more widely understood than yellow, I also think its misrepresented. Never mind the fact I think it shouldn't be a color to begin with
Thanks for your time :)
When I talk about yellow I mean yellow as a color on the color pie
I'm not suggesting to add more colors since honestly, Magic has evolved to such a point that it is already to awesome and incredible of a game to start adding things that would advance complexity
But rather Yellow is its own seperate Identity
To Prove yellow as a seperate Identity let me go over what White and green are in the Real world
White
White in the real world is the color of childrens games, the hope of a great tomorrow and peace. Ghandi's color is white, a smiling face depicts white, hardwork is white, meditation is white, day dreaming is white. These colors promote more the idea that white is a color of happiness outside of being rich, intelligence, having freinds or really having any material goods at all.
That being said, white also has a problem of which their goal doesn't involve other people usually, and if it does its to make other people happy, or involve teamwork of some sort. Debating with conviction, where influencing other people to make a choice that would be in your best interest through words and feeling.
Green
What is green? Green is the color of the forests. Whats in the forests? A food chain of creatures far different from one another. Green shows variety but also shows a caste system. Worms eat the dead, grass and plants grows from the worms digestion, Moles and rabbits eat the plants and cats and wolves eat them. Theres also a secondary one where mice eat bugs and owls eat the mice. Pretty much Its a bunch of chains. Then as humans enter it we come in as observers. As we observe we may get consumed by it, because though we feel bad for the prey we respect the predators more. On top of that its amazing the kind of love that the animals give to their young. It feels safer. However its not. There are poisonous parts of each forest/jungle and these types of places are unforgiving. The weak die, the strong survive. This isn't a sort of hopeful idea but rather a reality.
So why do we as humans love the forest so much? I'd say the forest is like music to a cobra, it hypnotizes and makes you believe its the proper place.
A very good magic set that I believe depicts the forest as it should be is Lorwyn. The trees survive off of the dead. And if its not the dead it needs a caretaker. Someone that i provides food, water, shelter and everything else it needs. The Trees aren't evil, since they make no action. However it's natural hunger is to feed off of the dead, off of worms. And as a result it needs those things to die so it can continue to prosper.
Why make this article
Before I get into yellow, I want to write a little bit about why I wrote this in the first place. Over the course of my life i have been taught red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. If you add them togethor when they are flashlights on a wall, they make white. If you add them togethor when they are dyes they make a murky dark color (but would make black most likely if they were bold/pure red/yellow/blue)
So the three colors red yellow blue make the rest in one form or another
Magic however depicts a different color system; red, blue green
This isn't uncommon as we can actually see in computer programming that it works off of red blue green as well. And all the other colors are made from the combonation. Likewise apparently our own eyes are see in red/blue/green which means in ways that yellow is nonexistant. Though obviously it exists.
Why i made this article is more the unrepresentation of yellow in so many areas it boggles my mind. Yellow is unrespected most likely because it is the hardest things to depict. Red/Blue/Green was probably very simple to program, so why include yellow? Yellow isn't seen very much by our eyes, so why make it a color we register?
And of course: Color isn't seen very often Thematically in a magical setting, so why should we care to include this color over Green in Magic: the Gathering?
Yellow
Yellow. Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow.
What is Yellow? Yellow is................
Gold
Gold creates greed and a caste system
caste systems allow people to say "I'm better than you"
So what is Yellow? Yellow is a way to say "I'm better than you"
Historically, knights can be seen akin to modern day football players. They're assholes and they pick up all the good women. Romeo and Juliet and really all romance in many ways really are just stories, and yellow is the representation of the truth. Traders are also akin to yellow, They do not work the feilds, they do not help in mining. However, they offer supply and they can let other know the demand. They don't do much at all except for trade and influence other people to continue their line of work. However, if it wasn't for them, kings would not have known about rubys, saphires and pearls. Spices would not be in such high demand and of course Colonies and Settlements and Wars would not have been fought for the desire to have everything at hand
Yellow in many ways is the story of getting an inch and wanting a mile.
While red is a story of Fire and aggression and passion.
Blue is a story of the sea and understanding the ebb and flow
Yellow is the story of Gold and wanting more.
Confusion: Yellow and White
White has taken many of yellows more "desirable" aspects. Yellow created the caste system and a natural Law and Order amoung people. The King is on high, Then his advisors, then the military then the tax collectors, then the farmers/people with purpose then everyother worthless scab that floats on this great earth.
Amoung examples of why yellow is yellow is:
1) Our knights decided to rape and pillage in a foreign land? Did they bring anything good back? They're heroes.
2) I want to expand our kingdom, lets start a war
3) The church and ethics say I should only marry once and have no mistresses. I disagree.
4) A neighboring kingdom has crossbows, I want something better. A neighboring kingdom has an atomic bomb, I want 10,000.
These are actual representations of real yellow. Which however, has become more akin to white.
White however has taken the burden of being considered yellow.
First Strike
"Oh you have a 2/2? My 2/2 has first strike"
"Oh your 2/2 has first strike? My 2/2 strikes even before your first strike does"
This is an example of Yellows Arms Race. Its the color of being better at all costs.
White has a tendancy to want to play fair and win doing it, or to equalize everything so things are fair. Children are a great example, if someone isn't playing fair, they will get very upset. However, by making sure players can play fair and still win or at the very least have a good time thats important. One way to see this is the fact if yellow were to attack, obviously white wouldn't block. However they would attack back for the same damage. Yellow makes it more of a standstill situation.
Its important to point out though that yellow if it is to be the "arms race" color has access to everything in a way. Another way to look at it though is that they can pay for everything, and teach it to their minions.
Wrath of God: If I don't win, nobody will
Yes, this is iconic to Gods Judgement, and God is dipicted as undoubtedly white. However, as seen in biblical respresentations, god has a jealous side. And if we are to look at other things in the bible, he has purposefully made Job a miserable man just to prove to the devil he would still worship him. He tested mans passion in love.
However, if we are to look at things magically. If I were losing, and didn't care that much about my creatures or anything really except winning. I would destroy everything. Everything's gone now, but my stuff is better. My next card will be better than yours.
This is more of a yellow aspect
Knights and Showmen
Knights are nobility, Soldiers have a certian brother hood attached to it however they are also part of a caste system. A Militia is literally made by the people for the people. Riots are another example of By the People for the people, though obviously in a much more aggressive manner.
But pretty Much Knights are the football players of the magic universe, to the average person they may be assholes unless they don't want to be. However, when it comes down to it, they don't need to be nice, and the king may not even want them to be. A Showman is different though. Showmen are white. Why? because literally the only reason they do what they do is because they feel good pleasing the crowd. And who are any of us except for part of the crowd. A Showman can appreciate a good showman, a Knight may be jealous of another knight. A Showman may never escape his job. A knight may eventually become a duke.
A showman never needs to Blitz a small town. A knight may have to on order.
Even though Gladiators aren't necessarilly considered white, and may even be bigger assholes than a knight. Pleasing a crowd is white, Its when money and status starts getting involved where you start actually feeding into more yellow territory.
Equipment: The Arms Race
Equipment is obviously an arms race. However white isn't filled with artificers. In fact you have maybe one that loves his craft so much he spends their life working on it. However equipment is made for killing and take over. its purpose though also in defense, in mass quantities is more of a
the prophet predicting war and preparing for it is white
The factory creating them for mass use is yellow
yellow is also always looking for that one up, and as a result they're focus is one lean mean killing machines
Confusion: Yellow and Green
Mana dorks
Elves. Specifically Llanowar Elves. Llanowar elves have always been depicted as badasses, able to take down big creatures through enginuity and grace. Because they know their forest better than anyone else. What you actually see though is that they produce mana. Mana production isn't bad, however, I don't believe that is what an elf is meant to be. They're suppose to be a well working order adapted to the forest, not weaklings that spend every waking moment sapping mana for it. Sylvan Ranger is a truer elf than llano, though obviously llano has its place in the world
Yellow however is a caste system. Farmers, miners, factory workers
Farmers, miners and factory workers whole purpose is to provide resources for everyone else to use.
What is a mana dork? It provides resources for everyone else to use
Elves, like the native americans aren't immune to the wild. But what they do is they adapt to it and survive in it. In its good times and its hard times. They adapt. Mana dorks don't adapt. They are used for one purpose or to die. Thats not an elf.
What is Yellow?
Yellow is mana dorks, arms race and having things that are better than your opponents
About necessary sacrifices
Literally Yellow is the color of have one building where all people do is produce mana
Another building where all people do is produce tools of war
And another group where all they do is fight
And making sure people will do it even if they don't want to
Its the story of ant's and having things better
What is White?
White is about family and being happy with what you have
A story of misfits and happiness
About showmen and wonder despite the world being a hard place to live in
The story of the underdog getting there
The story of migration to new begginings
Its also the story of forgetfulness and unawareness of others intentions. Or even ignoring them.
What is Green?
Green is about the wild, about taming and understanding what really is just a terrible place.
Death isn't a nice thing, and yeah we can understand it. But in a way green is about living in a place where you know its dangerous, but you learn to adapt in it rather than changing it.
Conclusion
Theres a lot in here thats a bit incomplete and half hazard. However I am convinced in my argument and will probably stand firm by it despite the fact it may not be seen by others and isn't fully fleshed out. However, without yellow, White has taken the role where yellow should be. Yellow is about organization and mindlessness while white is about playfulness and relaxation. Being human. Green also is in the territory wiht mana dorks and Shouldn't even be a color to begin with.
That being said, should magic change? Probably not. The difficulty in retuning and readjusting the color pie isn't an easy one. It takes observation and finding rhyme rhythim and patterns that can't be found over night (well they can but thats another story). Also, Our colors in magic are so fun and fleshed out that it would be a dissappointment to see anything change. Why fix a well working wheel?
However, I do share these complaints because though white is my color of choice. I don't like how its represented at all. I understand why its represented that way, but I don't appreciate it.
Also, though I think green's appearence is more widely understood than yellow, I also think its misrepresented. Never mind the fact I think it shouldn't be a color to begin with
Thanks for your time :)
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