New Toys!

Well, I think I've solved the problems I've been having with my roommate's internet usage making C:SI dueling impossible. One solution mentioned was taking turns. I suppose that would work but as a computer scientist any solution that involves social interaction is always a last resort :P I ended up upgrading to a better router. It supports the QoS protocol, which basically lets me reserve a portion of the bandwidth for a specific program (like SL). Actually, I haven't had to set this up yet, as it seems to have fixed the problem by just having more capacity to queue and send out packets. I'd say this is the perfect solution for a computer scientist, since it involves expensive new toys and the opportunity to throw around fancy jargon like "protocol".

The long awaited C:SI update came out yesterday! But I haven't yet gotten the change to try it out yet. The infamous block bug is advertised as fixed. It will be interesting to see if this helps or hurts me, lol. There is a new feature to challenge someone to a duel. If the person accepts your duel, then your sword will not harm anyone but them until the duel is over. I'm actually not sure when I'd want to use this. I don't think I've ever been fighting and thought, "I really wish I couldn't hurt anyone but this person I'm fighting with." But as I was typing that, I remembered being accidentally killed while an innocent bystander in Shrouded ;) The new duel feature reminded me of something I was thinking about a while ago. If I ever get up the courage to dive into the SL Viewer code, something I want to do is create a sort of "duel mode" that will only render you and your opponent. My framerate drops about 5 fps for every person on the screen, so I think that would help a lot. Another great new feature is practice mode, which turns off damage on your sword. I think this is something I will use a lot when I'm teaching students. The problem with doing drills is that someone would drop dead after a little bit.