To celebrate the release of Mac Steam, Portal is free until May 24th, for both PC and Mac.

[Update: also, Torchlight is half-price for the weekend, and although it doesn’t sync saved games between Mac and Windows, it at least runs well on both. User-made mods have some issues on the Mac side, including differences in how the engine compresses data, and how it handles mixed-case filenames. Still fun, though.]

"You strap your Prosthetic Leg to your back and head out for some adventure."

Fledge asked about the gaming performance on my ION-equipped Lenovo S12. At the time, the only benchmark I had was that it was possible to ride an epic mount around in Dalaran one evening at about 6 frames/second, but there’s really nothing you can do to get decent performance in Dal, on any machine; WoW just can’t handle a big crowd of people.

So, a more realistic test. Last night, I created a brand new level 1 human warlock named Lenova and ran her up to level 7. My framerate never dropped below 18 fps in the starter area, and averaged 24 fps there and in Elwynn Forest. It dipped to 14 briefly when I went into Goldshire (duels and a crowd), averaged 40+ in the mines, hit 12 in the main square of Stormwind (big crowd), but stayed a steady 15 outside the bank in Ironforge (moderate crowd). I even watched the character-intro movie, and it only had a few moments of choppy framerates; for the most part it was quite smooth, as was the gryphon flight back from Ironforge to Stormwind.

I had the visual effects settings pretty low, obviously, but this was at a full 1280x800, with the music and ambient sound on.

[Unrelated to gaming, but I like the fact that Win7 on the S12 is automatically switching to hibernate after the machine has been asleep for a few hours, and correctly resuming.]

[Update: we just tried the Star Trek Online headstart, and just flying around in space, we could get 10+ fps; once we entered a space station (which had a rapper as background “music”; word to my Federation homies, blech), it dropped to 5-6 fps, and lowering the resolution didn’t help much. The Atom just doesn’t have the guts, even assisted by an ION.]

Today I finally converted my World of Warcraft account into your new, one-ring-to-rule-them-all Battle.net account system. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the email address I gave for my new, unified login name is “nospam@jgreely.com”. You sent me a confirmation email that my account had been converted, and that my new login name would be “n***@jgreely.com”.

This would be a nice little touch of security, except for the fact that you sent the email to nospam@jgreely.com, making it pure theater. Next you’ll be asking me to take off my shoes and empty my water bottle…

[to be clear: the problem is not that they sent email. That was expected and desired. The problem is that the body of the message pretends to “protect” my login name by masking it, in a message sent to the email address that is identical to that login name]

[no relation to the ancient Borland SuperMacro product, which we once used to automatically navigate the swamp in Leather Goddesses of Phobos. clap, hop, kweepa]

Like most MMOs, Champions Online has some built-in macro support. It’s fairly primitive at the moment, but there are certain key-bindings that I want for all characters.

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[What really happens when heroes and villains interact? In Champions Online, we don’t have the opportunity to chat with our adversaries. There’s some random speech bubbles and the occasional monologing cut-scene, but no real dialogue.]

…

“I’m not a super-villain.”

“You have a lair.”

“I have a lab.”

“It’s hidden in a deserted warehouse.”

“The lease was cheap.”

“It has security cameras and electrified doors.”

“In this neighborhood? I should think so.”

“It has multi-level interior defenses, including pit traps, gas bombs, and little flying robots with lasers.”

“I like my privacy.”

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Lane Carter didn’t think much of Supers. Heroes were chumps; villains were creeps. So what’s a girl to do when an alien death-ray backfires, granting her super-speed and super-strength? She managed to keep the strength a secret for a while, but after the incident with the baby and the tiger cage, her speed gained her fifteen minutes of unwelcome fame.

Okay, so she got a nice writeup in the papers, and a big thank-you from the parents, but she also had to register with the feds, listen to boring speeches about Responsibility, deal with the suck-ups who insisted they’d always been her Best Friends, and learn to cope with the Internet. The bloggers were only a brief annoyance, and the way-too-personal edits to her Superpedia page were quickly reverted by the editors, but the basement-dwelling mouth-breather who called her “Fast Lane” and wrote hardcore lesbian “team-up” stories was too much. She thought his scooter looked much nicer as an ashtray.

Once they found out about her strength, the recruiters showed up:

• "Join your 'team' and fight for justice? How about 'no'?"
• "Become your 'henchman' and help you take over the world? Is your stupidity contagious?"
• "Be your sidekick? Oh, come on, did your Mom make that outfit?"
• "You want to give me 'special training' and a 'unique costume'? Put it back in your pants, creep."

The worst part was that she liked her new powers. She could explore the City any time of the day or night, zipping past terrorists, gangsters, aliens, and creepy middle-aged men without being noticed, and if someone did try to mess with her, well, a girl who can toss an SUV like a softball only gets hassled once.

If only there were some legal, rational way to use them to make a decent living…

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…this weekend, anyway. Champions Online is offering people a chance to try their game out for free, from 10am Friday through 10am Monday. If I weren’t already playing, I’d start.

Even with the bugs, imbalances, and graphics glitches, even with the inept proofreading and occasionally 7th-grade-level writing skills, they’ve built a game that’s an awful lot of fun to play. With a few months more polish and playtesting, it will be even better, but it’s worth a look today. Honestly, I’d pay the monthly fee just to play with the character designer; the fact that the combat system is dynamic and exciting is a bonus.

Speaking of the character designer…

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