OS Wars

READ THIS FIRST

I wrote this close to two years ago, and it was essentially in response to an argument I had with a rabid linux fanboy who was in an IRC channel, hence its strong anti-linux bias and deviation into “seriously fuck linux” towards the end there. However, I feel it still holds up and I do sometimes link people to it as an intro to any argument. Also, I totally call linux an OS when it’s a whole stable of OS’s. Oh past Tom, you did not understand that at all.

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Mac VS Windows is one of the oldest fights on the internet. It rages on personal pages, in IRC channels, on forums, in IM clients. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t swear allegiance to an OS, and they’ll proudly parrot the company line when it comes to the competitors. It’s pervasive, it’s all-encompassing, and it’s incredibly fucking retarded.

Now, I’ll daresay some of you are sniggering amongst yourselves, waiting for me to proclaim my out and out love for Linux, the third most widespread choice for an OS. Well, you’re going to be waiting for a long goddamn time, because Linux is in many ways just the same as a Mac or a Windows machine, with the added disadvantage that the people who tend to preach about it also tend to be arrogant, elitist fuckwits. In every Mac/Windows debate, there’s always one guy who feels it necessary to proclaim he’s using Linux, and that it’s infinitely better than your conformist, capitalist OS’s. The guy who’ll belittle you for using a system that dares to have any kind of GUI, or user friendliness. The fact that your system doesn’t require users to have an intricate knowledge of programming to turn on is an outright insult to him, and he’ll tell you loudly and clearly.

The thing is, in that last sentence there, I’ve fallen prey to the exact same logical fallacies that befell the others in the OS debates. By simplifying a system down to its most basic, it’s easy to pick holes in what is a perceived weakness, regardless of how the system deals with it. For example, a common point against Macs is that it’s very difficult, if not impossible to change the core options of the system beyond a superficial point. This is bullshit that has been propagated for so long that it’s become an accepted fact! It’s entirely possible to change system settings for a Mac, just like Linux doesn’t need a degree in computing to run.

The OS’s themselves are largely innocent. Bar the intensely frustrating “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” advertisements, and the expected bitch-talk between developers, they co-exist. They’re for different markets, different uses, and they know it. You don’t go to windows for largely creative endeavours, and you don’t use a Mac for business. You wouldn’t run a server off a Mac, but you wouldn’t get a 5 year old starting on Linux. There are differing uses for differing OS’s and this fact has apparently soared over the heads of pretty much everyone.

I’d like to take a moment for sheer self-indulgence here, and rant about Linux users. The majority of you are largely inoffensive, quiet computer users, trying to get things done in a way that you like/want. I can understand that. Hell, I’m doing the exact same thing right now. But there’s a few of you, a tiny, vocal minority, that has taken it upon themselves to become paragons of purity and light, and shine the beams of Linux upon us poor mortals inflicted with Windows or Mac. I’ve been told by more than a few people that Windows is beyond redemption, that it’s inherently evil, that Microsoft (often hideously abbreviated to M$) hates users. I’ve seen articles by otherwise sane people declaring that ease-of-use is the enemy, and that having software that simplifies matters is terrible.

The line of thinking here is that everyone using a computer needs to be fully skilled in its use, and entirely capable of high-level computer wizardry. This is an idea borne of spending far too much time in the presence of other people skilled with computers, and not enough with people who don’t quite get them. It simply does not make sense for someone who only uses Windows for Excel to have to learn a substantial amount about computing to make it work. How does this help the user? Someone who spends a small amount of time using a computer, doing basic things with it. Why on earth would they need to know more than the basics?

This is in part due to the incredible elitism that we nerds tend to have about computers. There is a very widespread misconception that we “own” the internet, or that we’re the true custodians of computing. As much as nerds do generally control the websites, and as much as we tend to be the ones running the servers, usage of the internet has become far more widespread, as has computing in general. You don’t own it. You don’t run it behind the scenes, and you do NOT have any kind of claim to be the rightful users of the internet or computers.

Now, I’m fairly certain at least one person will go “But surely someone using a computer should know how it runs? What if something goes wrong?”, or even “If you don’t know how to use computers, then you don’t deserve to use them”

To the latter: Fuck you. You’re exactly what I’m talking about. Do you know exactly how to fix your car? How every part of it interacts, and how it can be fixed? No? I didn’t think so. Nobody denies you use of your car for not completely understanding it, that would be ludicrous. But you expect the same to apply to computers? You’re a dickhead, and you should take a long, hard look at how you interact with other people.

For the former, I’ll use the same car analogy. You know enough about cars to fuel one up, and make it go, right? There’s not much else you need to know, because that is all you need it to do. Just like with cars, the use of computers is often quite limited in its scope. The users don’t NEED to know the intricate details of the system, because there’s no REASON for them to know the intricate details of the system.

That kind of turned into a rant about Linux users, so let me drag you back to the central topic.
WOOOOOOOOSH

Ok. If we take that there’s three central operating systems, Mac, Windows and Linux, then the most rational, fair approach to take is:
“Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages. Each system is not inherently inferior or superior in every aspect, and each system is tailored to use by differing groups of people. The competition between OS’s is pointless at best, and non-existent at worst. I should look at the strengths and weaknesses of each system and carefully consider which is most suited to me before I invest time and money into one”
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I wouldn’t mind a bit of discussion about this, it’s an interesting topic that tends to be over-dramatised.

Alright, so

I haven’t really written anything here, and that’s mostly because I’ve stopped writing anything at all. Don’t really have a reason for it, but it’s what’s happened. I used to hope that this site would get a bit of traffic and some regular readers, but in the three years since it was created I’ve kind of changed my mind on that. As of right now, the plan is essentially a way to store and maintain the various things I’ve written and will write. I am going to try to write a bit more, but I fully expect to slow down again once school starts back up and I have things I actually have to do.

So, what’s going to change? Not much. I’ll post some stuff I forgot to post here before, and more stuff will hopefully get posted.

Mount and Blade: Warband

Mount and Blade: Warband is, in its most basic form, the Total War series For Men. Forget the pomp and circumstance of commanding hundreds of men from a floaty platform in the sky. Forget watching your men die and thinking “Oh well, there’s more where that came from”. In this game, you’re down there fighting, hacking your way through the enemy, leading the charges, fighting off sieges. In this game, it’s your ass on the line. For all that you’re a commander, you’re also a soldier, and you’re expected to fight alongside your men.

The issue is: Your men? Untrained peasants. You’re barely better yourself. So you’ll trot off to the woods to find some bandits (because that’s where bandits live), and you’ll go to lay the smackdown on their merry asses. And your men will be killed. And you will be knocked unconscious, and dragged around for days. And when the game thinks you have learnt a lesson in humility, it will set you free with, if you’re lucky, the clothes you were wearing.

It’s easy to quit here. In fact, it’s easy to quit anywhere. This never stops being a hard game. But for those who persevere, you’ll get more men. And you’ll train them. And you’ll find those bandits, and you’ll kill them. And those you don’t kill, you’ll sell into slavery. And you will rejoice. It’s that kind of game. You’ll build an empire. You’ll fight kingdoms. You’ll lose to kingdoms. You’ll triumph and fail in the face of adversity. And you’ll love it.

Visually, the game is… disappointing. To say the least. It would be graphically disappointing in 2005. The men look like men, the women look like men. The horses look like horses, which do look a little bit like men. The textures are low-res, even on the highest graphics, and my crappy laptop could easily run the game on full everything without any graphical lag. Depending on how important graphics are to you that’s either fantastic or godawful. After a while you’ll learn to deal with it, but it can be a little confronting when you first fire it up.

Combat is, for the most part, a thing of beauty. I’ve never seen a game handle battles so well. Fights unfold and roll across the landscape, short brutal curb-stomps, long, extended brawls, and the messy, chaotic, confusing clusterfuck that is two armies engaging. You’ll rejoice over every enemy killed, regret every ally lost, and fight for every inch in a siege. It’s incredible. The connection that this game inspires in you to your avatar is something unmatched in any game I’ve played before.

However, it’s a little weird to think about. My big dude would wander out of battle having killed literally half of the enemies on the field, covered in blood, relatively unscathed. Once you get to the point of having high-level armour, you’ll not even notice the arrow through your chest. Or head. Your horse will be killed under you, and you’ll get up and brutally murder the twenty men who shot it. The point I’m trying to make here is that by the end of the game, you are essentially playing as a goddamn abomination. After a year of in game time, my character had killed over two thousand people. Two thousand. With an axe. Probably grinning like a goddamn madman too.

There’s another side, too. Once you start to gain control over a few villages, maybe a castle or two, you get the ability to upgrade and maintain your own kingdom, or become part of a larger one. You can trade barbs with other lords in kingdom politics, preside over your own lords as king of your own territories, or ask for a lady’s hand in marriage to get in good with her dad. It’s obvious that thought has gone into the less bloodthirsty parts of this game.

Not enough, though. At times it can be frustratingly shallow. Want to adjust taxes in your kingdom? Nope. How many people live in your city? No idea. What kind of trade is influencing my weekly rent I receive? Too bad, there’s no such information. It’s the same with the romance. Want to have a kid, start a dynasty? Not gonna happen. Want to find out about the woman you’re going to marry? You get to know what poems she likes and who her parents are. I’m not joking.

I’d like to take a moment to just have a quick rant about the romance system. You get invited to feasts in your kingdom once you get to a certain social status, where you get to meet ladies and tell them they’re great. They think you’re pretty great too! Then you meet them a few times, tell them a poem which they may or may not like, there’s no way to know. And then if her dad likes you, marriage happens. If he doesn’t, you elope or find someone else. Romance!

It’s a hard game to recommend. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s the kind of game that people will either love with a passion or despise. It’s not a game you can play for a few minutes, either. It’s the kind of game that sucks you in, slow-feeds you a constant stream of goals, and then watches as you relish in your victories. And they will be your victories. The game is a testament to the very idea of non-linearity. I dropped 40 hours into it over four days when I first got it.

If you’re the sort of person that’s always wanted that extra bit of control over the fights in your RTS’s, if you’re the sort of person who’s played kingdom management games and wanted to have a more… direct say in policy administration, this is for you. If you’re a goddamn maniac who wants to cut down swathes of villagers with an axe, this is also for you. Just don’t go in expecting the world, and you should be happy with what you get.