Thoughts: Fake News

If there is a catch phrase to sum up the appearance of Donald Trump on the national political stage, it has to be the phrase "Fake News".

It makes me cringe. Though perhaps not the way it does for most. I do not out of hand reject the assertion that there is such a thing as a biased media agenda that runs counter to the reality of the Trump administration. Nor do I accept it. When you get down to it I firmly believe The Washington Post or New York times, despite their easily shown slants,  are far better source on average for "truth" than Breitbart and Fox regardless of what side you are on. I will stick to that so long as they continue how they presently do business for their more serious journalistic endeavors. This is not to say they are perfect. Far from it. Nor is it to say there is no content of merit posted to Brietbart or Fox.... though that is a heck of a lot easier to show with Fox. I routinely peruse through all four these days. All must be read critically. All have faults... some more than others. Take the Brietbart Lead Story while I am writing this. Taking it at face value that story is basically flipping the whole Trump Collusion accusations around and pointing the finger at what it claims are equally culpable acts by other government agencies or democratic figures. What neither narratives seem to be able to contemplate is that perhaps elements of both sides view are true... and it ALL needs to be addressed.

They, along with ALL legacy media and news establishments are not what they once were in terms of founts of truth. The world of the internet and clicks is far different from the days of the newspaper, radio, or the evening broadcast news. The thing is... the world as we knew it prior to the internet wasn't great on a 'truth' front either. We just had a more widely held common delusion that there were better objective sources of truth to trust. This societal delusion has (had?) its uses... much like the one that upholds money. But it is most certainly a delusion. The phrase "Knowledge is power" didn't arise without reason... and control of media represents a control over an awful lot of public knowledge. Often times the truth is less important than belief. IE your story can be true whether or not people believe it. But stories that impact MUST be believed.... because it is that belief that drives the impact. Unfortunately, it is often far easier to tell someone something they want to believe than it is to inform them of an objective truth if that truth contradicts that persons world view. This makes for a devilish temptation to elicit the former rather than adhere to the latter when how many clicks you get impacts whether or not you have a job.

Truth is a difficult a thing to pin down as the exact location of an electron. Well.... perhaps I should state that a bit differently. I do hold there is unquestionably truth. But... being able to prove what is true is another story altogether. By far the most useful mechanism for provable truth has been the scientific method. But science has a serious problem when we enter the realm of subjective topics. The truth of right and wrong, of morality... is not fundamental. Or perhaps I should say... not provable. At its heart, morality is culturally subjective.

Star Wars allegory. "Ben... why didn't you tell me the truth?". "Luke, what I told you was the truth.... from a certain point of view".

I think many Journalists are doing the same as Obi Wan. Telling the truth from their point of view that best suites the circumstances. The problem is that more are saying what they need to draw viewers to a story or worse, to actively forward an agenda independent of, or consciously avoiding, the truth. Those doing the former are valuable. Those doing the latter are the "Fake News" problem. The really crappy thing is.... who is who often depends on your point of view. As a generic statement I think many would agree with the above statement regarding many journalists doing a good job but that they are being drowned out in a sea of unscrupulous hacks. However, once you start naming names and saying that one is "Trustworthy News" and that one is "Fake News" you quickly find a distinct lack of consensus. And that is the problem. I don't think there is a single publication without blame at this time. Some have great journalism going on... and at the side or the bottom of the page you find the click bait dreck tailored to draw whoever is reading deeper in. As this has become a systemic reality for almost all news publications in an attempt to survive the transition to the digital age it is causing a crisis. Not a crisis in the the daily lead headline use of the word. This is a slow moving, hard to see, very large shift in how information works in our society crisis. A Gutenberg press level event that we are in the midst of akin to the shifting of tectonic plates. They rumble for a long time until a critical level of pressure is built up... and then a huge chunk of California falls into the sea. Or in the case of Gutenberg, Monarchy turns into Democracy. Catholicism (universal) shatters and gives way to Protestant schisms. The internet age has put the reins of knowledge up for grabs... and the world has not figured out who is going to hold them.... and we don't know how it is going to end.

Fortnite Part 1: What is it? What is it like to play? What is needed to play? Is it really free?

Epic Games Fortnite Season 7

Fortnite. It is EVERYWHERE. What is the big deal about this game? I am interested both as a long time video game player and parent who has a kid just dying to be Fortnite obsessed if I would just let him play. I remember Epic announcing their concept building\shooter mashup at CES and saw stories pop up from time to time about it. The concept perked my ears up… but I can’t say I was super interested. Since the advent of online play, single player FPS games have gone very stale and the online FPS crowd has a well earned reputation for being…. shall we say a bit raw? However, The original Fortnite concept (now the save the world version) of a player building, co-op zombie shooter sounded new enough I was curious if it would be any good. Then it disappeared into development hell. Truth to tell… that version of the game is still in development hell. Suffice it to say that the original announced game Fortnite and the current cultural sensation sweeping the nation have almost nothing in common other than the name, and the fact you can build and shoot things. 

Somewhere along the way in the midst of the numerous delays of Epic games development hell for Fortnite someone had the bright idea to launch a beta multi-player mode aping the break out PUBG battle royale using the core combat and building mechanics that had been developed for Fortnite. The result is the 100 man battle to the finish version that has made such a splash. When it launched my take was… Right… another death match shooter… *Yawn*… then it passed pubG in user count…. so what? flavor of the month…. more time passed… who the hell is Ninja and why is he showing up on commercials like Aaron Rodgers? They made How much???? Epic announces 100million for E-sports competition purses for Fortnite in 2019. Ok, I can take a hint.... eventually.  Obviously this is more than a ‘flavor of the season’ situation. So… I decided to dip my toe in and see what all the fuss was about. 

First, a quick primer if somehow you have not yet encountered the basic concept of a battle royale game.

The basic idea is 100 players are dropped onto a map with nothing, they have to search around and find weapons and other resources and be the last one standing. If it sounds like “Hunger Games” that is because the Suzanne Collins stories are often credited with inspiring the concept. That said, the basic idea of last man standing FPS has been around since Doom\Quake death matches. The new element going on lately is the number of players, size of the map, random player selected distribution across the map and the shrinking zone mechanic. Fortnite’s discriminating feature is a goofy aesthetic and the ability to build with materials you collect with a pickax similar to Minecraft. In effect Epic took popular elements of Minecraft and PubG (and similar BR games), smashed them together and voila. Massive hit. Trust me… there is more to it than that and it is far harder to do something like this successfully than you might first suspect.  

In Fortnite the game occurs on a single large map equivalent to a few square miles (8km by 8km is the rough estimate I have seen). It is presented as an Island. Each game consists of 100 players either all on their own, paired off, or in squads of 4 depending on which flavor of battle royale you choose. To reach the Fortnite island all the players jump out of a flying hot air ballon blue battle bus as it makes a random pass over the island and you sky dive\glide to where you want to go. You can reach anywhere on the map though depending on the path the bus takes it will take you more or less time to get there. Once you get there it is time to search out weapons and supplies that will help you survive to the coveted “Victory Royale”.  Don’t forget the storm, as it closes in you have to stay in front of it forcing you into ever closer quarters with the other players. This keeps happening until only one remains. So what is it like to actually play? Only one way to find out. 

The first time I jumped out of the bus I popped my glider immediately and watched all the other players streak for the ground. I decided perhaps I should go another way seeing as it was my first time. I glided all the way down enjoying the view. I landed in a distant interesting looking area on the island and I wondered around, swiped at some trees and boxes with my handy harvesting tool, picked up some goodies. Gunfire sounded in the distance and various beeps and horns and such sounded periodically the meanings of which I was unaware. And then a purple haze washed over me and my health started declining. Oh yeah.... the shrinking “storm”… ooops… There was a helpful line on my mini map that was indicating the most direct route to the safe circle. So I dutifully turn my avatar in that direction and start running. Hmmmmm.... the edge of the storm is receding faster than I can run. About a minute later a helpful drone looking thing scanned me out of the game once I ran out of health points and my loot scattered across the ground. A screen informed me I had earned some experience and that I survived more than 50 other players... all without ever even firing a weapon. Interesting. 

The second time I jumped out of the bus I dove with the crowd to see where they were all going. It seemed they were headed for a set of tall buildings towards the center of the Map. I land on the top of one with another player and they introduced me to their pick axe… hmm its a weapon too. Scanned out. Then I got informed I outlasted 5 other players. Welcome to Tilted Towers indeed. 

The Third time I jumped out of the bus I headed away from the crowds again and found the useful M key (for Map) once I noticed the line pop up on my mini map and saw the circle was quite a ways away from me. I began to understand the meaning of some of the sounds that give you audio cues about what is happening. An important one notes the safe zone has updated (moves to a smaller circle within the current safe zone) and starts a countdown to when the storm will start to shrink to that circle, another noise announces the storm is shrinking etc… Anyway, this time I immediately began moving towards the initial safe zone, taking time to look for loot along the way. As the circle got smaller I stayed towards the outskirts of the storm and took advantage of cover as I got closer and closer to gun fire. I crept in with my gun drawn looking for someone to aim it at. I soon enough had my chance. Someone came trotting up the other side of the hill I was on and I fired. They fired. We both missed. And next thing I knew, a 3-4 story building magically appeared in front of me in a flurry of plank assembling animations and as I looked up dumbfounded, I saw the player descending from above and heard a shotgun go off. Scanned out. The end game screen informed me I came in 8th and got a nice bonus for my survival placement. I knew you could build your own fort in the game.... but that was surprising. I’m talking 1 thousand 1, 1 thousand 2, maybe less and there was a player built fort in front of me. This requires placing each wall and floor. Jeebus. When you are eliminated you get to watch the stream of the player who eliminated you... so I watched this master builder go on to a Victory Royale... and was simply amazed to find out what I encountered was just the beginning of what a build fight entailed.  #goals.

My next few jumps entailed variations on these themes. Mostly whenever I encountered another player who was aware I was there... I died. I got a couple of lucky eliminations with my pick axe, and the occasional vulture elimination (put walls up when you heal after a battle... just sayin). I played around with building and became even more amazed at what I was seeing people do as I came to better understand the flurry of keystroke and mouse movements necessary to successfully build. Not to mention the decisions making that had to go into monitoring another builder coming at you and making decisions about when to switch to weapons. And THEN I learned about and watched editing (making windows to shoot through etc.). Holy. S#!7. #mindblown, #iWantToBeAbleToDoThat.

At this point I was able to reach the top 25 more than half the time and the top 10 more than 25% of the time. However, a few realities set in that were keeping me from having much chance of ever nabbing a Victory Royale. You see… getting to the end game is actually pretty easy. Surviving it not so much. If your method of getting there is avoiding confrontation, once you get there you find yourself inevitably facing those that survived the other 99 players you avoided. So I wasn’t building up skills that would let me vanquish the players I met in the end game. Also… I couldn’t control my character well enough to have much of a chance which was driving me to avoiding people in the first place. Thankfully that was not all down to my incompetence. Old for games like this I may be… but once upon a time in a former life I was someone you really didn’t want to be matched up with in a game like this. I just needed better tools, and I needed some practice to knock all the rust off. Queue the montage…. while that is going on lets talk PC FPS game controls. 

1) Modern FPS games have evolved to the point that your average computer mouse and desktop mouse cursor control settings are just not going to work in a highly competitive FPS game. Gaming mice are a thing… and it is not all marketing hype and glowing lights. Honestly, I couldn’t hit the proverbial broad side of a barn with my setup, much less an intelligent moving jumping foe on the island. My initial threat level to other players was quickly revealed to me as being “Harmless”. My mouse was not very sensitive/consistent, and I had no idea what was going on with the mouse settings in the game. To fix this I went for a well reviewed less flashy unit from Steel Series (Rival 310) and started researching mouse settings among professional gamers (that is also a thing now if you didn’t know, subject for another article down the road I think). I also picked up an aiming trainer game called “aim hero” from steam which recreates settings for various games and provided target ranges to practice mouse control with. Other than having a reasonably up to date optical/laser wired mouse the real key here are the settings. High resolution and large screens have led to cursors that have acceleration and typically not very fine control in order to be able to get the cursor to any point on the screen with very little effort. In a shooting game you need to have more motion of the mouse relative to the motion of the cursor to give you finer control. You also need to kill acceleration as you also want your cursor movement to be VERY consistent and repeatable. Basically you have to train a reflex skill that involves you unconsciously translating identification of a target to a snapping of your cursor onto it. If this isn’t a reflexive action (along with weapon selection) odds are you will not survive. This takes time and practice. But without a decent mouse… all the practice in the world will not help because the movements required will not be the same. Once past a certain point of quality, the real advantage of gaming mice are the more durable, and more numerous buttons for assigning various game actions to. 

2) Like mice, there is a lot of hype out there about gaming keyboards. I find the need for these much less convincing. That said… your bottom feeding wireless units with years of crumbs may cause some issues. All you really need is one you are comfortable with that can register keystrokes at the pace of the game (not all of them do this). I shifted to using a wired more mechanical feeling keyboard I got by default from Alienware when I bought my VR system. I may try something in line with the Mouse I got above at some point just to see if there is any real difference. But mostly the validity if any is about the feedback the keys give you. Clacky mechanical switch keys with a noticeable detent at the point the key is triggered helps you know when you have done actions faster than your typical budget/system freebie membrane system. In short... if you have no issues hitting the keys you want when you want, and the game is responding when you do it is unlikely a new keyboard is going to improve your game play.... no matter how many LED lights it has.  

3) Next up I could tell my game session itself wasn’t exactly smooth. My frame rates were all over the place using the default ‘optimize my settings’ option. I ended up doing more research and tweaking of video settings than I have had to do for a game since my DOS days wringing every last cycle of performance out of 486 systems. That got my frame rate up and more consistent at the expense of some of the eye candy. Most importantly it increased my in game view range. If you are shopping for a system to play this game, ignore the minimum requirements and get above the recommended which is not hard to do, and not terribly expensive as PC game systems go. It is more than a console though. 

4) Sound. Oh my god does Fortnite create a good and effective sound map. Perhaps one of the biggest single changes was when I went to using some ear buds vs speakers. Just putting in buds with stereo helps a great deal knowing which side someone is approaching from. But as most encounters are not inside the subtlety of direction needs to be far better than simple left or right. You really need forward/rear, left/right and up/down information. Without that I was still getting blindsided by folks I often couldn’t find even after they started shooting. I’d hear footsteps and turn 90 degrees to find…. nothing, and die. Older games and more traditional maps avoid open areas like the plague which means encounters tend to be about corners in close quarters. Fortnite happens in much more open spaces. After a bit more research I groked that the digital sorcery they have come up with to drive surround sound through headphones with only two drivers is more than a gimmick. Amazon kindly agreed to ship me a 7.1 capable headset with a discreet retractable mic. Well, at least the shipping was “free”. 

*Side Note* You don’t HAVE to have a PC. The game is available on Android/IOS phones/tablets tablets, the Nintendo switch, PS 4 and Xbox. A PC, or console system supporting keyboard and mouse support are recommended for any kind of ‘serious’ competitive play. But there are plenty of top flight Fortnite players on PS4 and X box using standard controllers. The mobile phone/tablet are definitely more for casual play though. 

So what was the result of all these upgrades and several hours of training? It didn’t exactly turn me into the terminator. That said, the combination of getting a functional frame rate, consistent accurate mouse control, and the ability to determine more accurately where an opponent was approaching from  enabled me to generally deal damage when opportunities arose. This means I could win an occasional straight up 1:1 fight. The mouse, settings for the mouse, and improved frame rates helped with the targeting. Sound helped me stop getting blindsided which is critical to survival. Total cost (not counting the decent gaming rig I already had for VR) was about $180 with most of the cost being the headset. I could have gotten one for about $50 that was wired but I splurged for a decent wireless rig (also steelseries, 2019 acrtics 7 if interested). 

The verdict? I went from being “Harmless” to “Mostly Harmless”. The remaining problem is I still can’t build worth a damn and if I encounter a somewhat competent builder the odds swiftly tilt in their favor. Why? Some things never change. Ever since Quake introduced elevation to their game maps the result was that a hight advantage gives you an attack angle that dramatically increases your chance of landing a damage bonus headshot, it also simultaneously reduces the chance your opponent can do one to you. Add close range and the spread of a shotgun… and yeah, you are unlikely to come out victorious when someone knows how to press a height advantage. 

In Fortnite you can create your height advantage just about anywhere rather than being reliant on understanding the map and relying on terrain/obstacles etc… to provide it.  The speed at which building is possible once you understand it is I think something Epic didn’t really anticipate. Early streams of people playing the game show the game you might expect from a casual understanding of how the game works. Players built little forts and peeked out to snipe at players in other forts. The storm would flush them out and it was a rush to see who could huddle up the fastest or pick someone off that was struggling or out of materials. Current streams show you something entirely different. Somewhere along the way players started to work with the fact that building actions had zero cool down time when laying ‘mats’.  This means there is no time delay before you utilize building elements (or are able to drop the next one) while they build (meaning you can jump on panels you place while they are building. So with practiced key stroke timing, jumps and mouse looking you can drop mats into builds at a ridiculous pace limited only by the speed at which you can hit the right combinations. Then there came the emergence of the aggressive attack oriented building tactic of a ramp rush (followed by shotgun to the head from above) which seems to have been perfected by Ninja (Tyler Blevins). Thus building in Fortnite went from a boring defensive and camping fest, to an aggressive “build fight” climax that is hard to do, and fun to watch. Previously in an FPS shooter two players encountering each other in open terrain meant whoever could click while their mouse cursor was over the other character fastest with the right weapon selected won. In Fornite two capable builders encountering each other immediately build cover and advance at the same time while trying to gain a height advantage. Once the builds meet it turns into a fast paced move and counter move to gain an advantage in which to get off a shot or maneuver your opponent into a trap. Thus what used to be perhaps the single most boring type of encounter in traditional FPS games is often one of the most complex and exciting encounters in Fortnite. Add more interesting locations and things just get more exciting. Add anti building weapons/items and (more controversial) vehicles and its like going from rock, paper, scissors to Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock, Shotgun and then some. 

The combination of all these elements makes for a very fun game to play which is challenging to master on many levels. In summary, you have to choose where to start and how fast to get there. You then have to prioritize between finding weapons\items and collecting materials for building. Spend too much time collecting materials and you have no fire power, maybe no defensive boost (shields) or health healing items. Spend all your time looting and you have no materials to build with. Land in a populated area and you have to juggle these needs with defending/attacking players around you. You have to keep track of the Map and where the safe zone is moving to. How long to get there? Where are other players likely migrating from based on the bus path and current challenges? Do I need to Move? Loot? Or Collect? When spotting someone in the distance do you engage, stalk or avoid? By the time you get to the 3rd or 4th circle the game is down to under 20 players and now you have to decide how to expend all the resources you have been scavenging. Build defensively, proactively? Wait for someone to engage and build aggressively towards them? Try and snipe others in battle? Hide in a bush? Risk giving away your location grabbing a few more materials? From the time you drop off the bus to the time you are eliminated there are rarely more than a few seconds to consider any of this. At first it is overwhelming. Then you master elements and find more nuances awaiting you. Should you waste any time gathering sturdier materials or just wood? What items allow you to collect materials fastest? You only have 5 slots to carry weapons, healing and mobility items. What do you keep? You want that green shotgun or that purple hand cannon? Grenades? Suppressed sniper or heavy assault rifle? Mini quarter shields, half pots, chug jug, slurp juice, Bandages, med kit, Rift to go, Balloons? And remember... the location of and contents of the chests or other items is randomized. You never know what you will be getting and you have to be ready to use weapons and items you are not familiar with, or the best at utilizing. It keeps you engaged and constantly managing multiple elements... and then you hear footsteps approaching which throws your strategy right out the window as you have to make immediate decisions about how to counter the approaching foe. 

Keep in mind all of this is the free stuff. Nothing you can do above makes Epic any money. Just go download the game and dive in. The gameplay on offer is truly free. Further more, paying Epic Games money for the content they sell for Battle Royale will not get you ANY advantage in game play versus other users. It will not unlock any additional game content. Stop and think about that for a minute. This is content that has been pay content in one form or another for years and good FPS shooter games have made companies lots of money through the years. Epic has put together a fantastic multiplayer shooter here with an all new mechanic that breaths new life into the genre. And they are giving it away for free. Yet, somehow, they made 3 billion (Billion with a ‘B’) last year from a Free game. How? If you are interested just pop the red pill and follow me on down the rabbit hole in part 2.