Western Australia Part I: Whine and Wine
Feb. 21st, 2015 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipTook the silver bird to Western Australia on Friday for the niece's wedding, watching Love is Strange and Automata. The former did well to elucidate the destructive effects of discriminatory employment practices. The latter had a good premise and deriving from a number of near-future sf films, didn't quite deliver. Getting off at Perth, turned on Ingress to discover that my home portals had been smashed just as was taking the taxi to the airport. It was particularly disappointing as a number of them were at 85-plus days, including one at 89 days. Given that there is a guardian badge at 90 days, which would have given me the criteria to get level 15, it was a little annoying to say the least. The charitable side of me wants to believe that the surprise attack was not the result of a screenscraper, as that would constitute cheating.
Initially staying incaseopaya's mother's house in the southern suburb of Kwinana and went to the Rockingham foreshore for dinner. This has changed significantly since my childhood. Once very much a fringe suburb of beach shacks and campsites, it is now very much mainstream suburbia with modernist mansions overlooking the sea. Of course the facilities are much improved but it has certainly lost a great deal of its isolated charm. On the following day made our way to the Yallingup Forest Resort taking accommodation in a pleasant chalet surrounded by bushland, which includes some very friendly magpies.
Shortly after arrival joined a tour of some of the other guests a few local wineries and breweries (there's apparently around 125 in the Margaret River region). None were particularly astounding, although we picked up a reasonable limette at Happs and a good tampranillo at Hay Shed. Lunch was at a local brewery, Bootleg, which had good food and setting, although the beers were very uninteresting. I certainly could have done without the ignorant old white man at the lunch table trying to tell me how much better the aborigines had it before equal rights. It is interesting that I have never in all my years heard an indigenous person say such a thing.
Initially staying in
caseopaya's mother's house in the southern suburb of Kwinana and went to the Rockingham foreshore for dinner. This has changed significantly since my childhood. Once very much a fringe suburb of beach shacks and campsites, it is now very much mainstream suburbia with modernist mansions overlooking the sea. Of course the facilities are much improved but it has certainly lost a great deal of its isolated charm. On the following day made our way to the Yallingup Forest Resort taking accommodation in a pleasant chalet surrounded by bushland, which includes some very friendly magpies. Shortly after arrival joined a tour of some of the other guests a few local wineries and breweries (there's apparently around 125 in the Margaret River region). None were particularly astounding, although we picked up a reasonable limette at Happs and a good tampranillo at Hay Shed. Lunch was at a local brewery, Bootleg, which had good food and setting, although the beers were very uninteresting. I certainly could have done without the ignorant old white man at the lunch table trying to tell me how much better the aborigines had it before equal rights. It is interesting that I have never in all my years heard an indigenous person say such a thing.
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no subject
Date: 2015-02-21 02:06 pm (UTC)(Probably inappropriate to mention this now, but I got my 150-day guardian a couple of weeks ago ... )
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Date: 2015-02-21 10:39 pm (UTC)Yes, hunters are evil, it's a pretty low trick to pull. But I suspect that may have been just pure coincidence, even if it was just within 2 hours before it would have clocked over.
More to the point it is indicative of a game design flaw. I mean, can anyone work out the function used to generate badge levels?
no subject
Date: 2015-02-22 02:16 am (UTC)I've become seriously obsessed with glyph hacking in the last few days, though ...
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Date: 2015-02-22 09:20 am (UTC)That's quite true. Some of us have had conversations about this and have come to the not surprising conclusion that the designers were mapping experts rather than gaming experts. They really could do with some hard-nosed game designers on their team.
The "just a game" approach is of course the spirit in which one should engage play. I enjoy being a pro-alien advocate and I've had some lovely amusing conversations with people who get into the spirit of being a Resistance agent.
However we know (from screenshots of faction conversations from honest agents etc) that there is some who engage in screenscraping, which an absolutely shitty thing to do. I would even prefer it if information was readily available to all, but to deliberately cheat is just not enjoyable for others.
> I've become seriously obsessed with glyph hacking in the last few days, though ...
I understand that! I just wish (a) my phone was better at recording finger movements more accurately and (b) my short-term memory was better.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-22 04:38 pm (UTC)Bue yeah, Ingress is definitely a mapper's game ... and honestly, that's what most appeals to me about it. But the problem is that it leaves the game's mission muddied, at least on a personal level. Is it about accumulating AP and badges for oneself? Helping the local faction, or the global "cause"? Beating down players who are on the other side? Too many people, unfortunately, seem to think that the latter should be the only focus ... while most of the players are sportsmen, there are too many jerks playing.
Me, it's just something fun to do while walking my dog. I do my best to stay out of the factional drama that a few resistance players continually try to stir up around here.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-23 01:42 pm (UTC)