Today/yesterday a new version of the note taking app Vesper came out. What’s more important is that Q Branch, the developers, also raised the price of it quite a bit. Here’s Gruber’s post on it:
Put another way, we’re going to charge something sane or die trying. We tried following the iOS App Store trend by pricing Vesper at just $2.99 for months. It didn’t work. Prices like that are not sane, and not sustainable, at least for well-crafted productivity apps. So Q Branch is drawing a line in the sand, and we hope other iOS developers will follow.
I think this is a good move that more people should follow. If you make something that you think are a premium product, and you have users that agree, you should be able to charge a premium price. It is ridiculous that anything that costs more than a buck or two in the app store(s) are considered expensive, no matter how good the software is question is.
Software developers have been trying to outprice each other in a race to the bottom and the only way out is probably if a few brave indie developers chose to do what Q Branch does; teach users that you get what you pay for and that an ”expensive app” (that still costs less than a cup of coffee and a donut) can be worth its price.
Net neutrality is impossible unless everything on the Internet is non-commercial, and that ain’t happening anytime soon, nor is it in any way desirable.
A.J. Liebling said, famously: ”Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” That’s so true, and with blogging everyone can own their own, and therefore be free. However, we’re trading that in for a bit more engagement.
I will link to this post on twitter so likely most of you who read it will find it there. You’re likely tweeting quite a lot yourself, and that is a good thing. I don’t think you should stop tweeting, and I’m pretty sure Dave doesn’t think that either. I am, however, saying that you should also use your own ”printing press” from time to time.
Use your blog for some of your writing!2 Don’t have a blog? Get one!
I have a lot of bad things to say about WordPress, but if you want an easy-to-setup, easy-to-manage blog you should give it a try. (This site is a WordPress site.) It’s optimal if you self-host it. That way you definitely own every word on it.
Don’t feel like self-hosting? Get an account at WordPress.com. Yes, you are using somebody else’s ”printing press” but at least that somebody is somebody who is dedicated to open publishing and to ensure that you own what you write and that you can write whatever the hell you want.
Afraid that nobody will read what you write if it’s not on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or [insert whatever]? Write in on your blog and then link to it on your social networks of choice?
You can even use a tool such as Dave’s Radio3 that allows you to make a link blog, or a list of short status updates, and simultaneously publish to Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and an RSS-feed. It’s a great tool that I use for most of my tweeting these days. That way, what I tweet also ends of as link-posts or status-posts here on the blog as well.
But what if I really don’t like WordPress?
There are other options, for both self-hosted and hosted solutions. If you decide to go with a hosted one, the most important thing is to make sure that it has a clear and easy way for you to export everything you write in full fidelity.
I should admit that I’d never heard of neither Liebling nor the famous saying before. ↩
If you find yourself writing more than two consecutive tweets about the same thing, maybe it is not something that you be tweeted. Maybe it should be written as a blog post instead. ↩
This is not to be considered a walkthrough of Majora’s Mask 3D. There are plenty of other great resources for that online. Instead it’s a ”journal” of sort for me while I play through the game. I wanted to document it for myself and figured, ”why not put it on the blog? It helps keep the lights on here”.
I almost completely dedicated this three-day cycle to the Southern Swamp/Deku Palace/Woodfall Temple. I started by once again acquiring the Moon Tear and trading it with the Deku Scrub infront of the Clocktower. I also used the telescope in the Astral Observatory to find which hole in Termina fields is the Scrubs secret stash. Once I got down the hole the Scrub sold me a piece of heart (my second) in exchange for not telling people his secret.
Then I headed to the Southern Swamp. Once there I traded the Land title deed for Clocktown with the Scrub next to the Tourist Center. Using his Deku Flower i launched myself to the rooftop of the Center and collected my thirds piece of heart. I also activated the Owl Statue in the Swamp and got the Pictograph. Koume, the magic hag that runs the boating tours of the swamp is missing so I headed toward the Woods of Mystery where she was supposed to be heading. There a monkey helped me find her. She was injured out because the Skull Kid had assaulted her. So I headed back out to her sister Kotake’s potion shop and got a red potion that gave her back her strength.
With Koume back at her place in the Tourist Center I took the boat ride to Deku Palace. There I spoke to the monkey outside and learned about the fate of his friend. Then I entered the palace, found my fourth piece of heart in the palace garden and made my was into the captured monkeys cage. He taught me the Sonata of Awakening and urged me to head to the Woodfall Temple and help the Deku Princess.
In Woodfall I activated a new Owl Statue, found my fifth piece of heart on a platform, talked to the remains of a fairy that asked me to find the Stray Fairies inside the temple and then I used my Deku Pipes and the Sonata of Awakening to gain access to the temple. I made my way through the temple, found the fairies and beat two mini-bosses and finally the boss Odolwa. When I fought boss I realized one thing that I think is different in the 3DS-version of the game, compared to the N64 original. In the 3DS version, when I fly in my Deku Scrub guise I can press a button and change camera-perspective to see what’s going on beneath me and also see a kind of ”bomb sight” that helps me land or drop Deku Seeds with better precision. It makes certain aspects of the game easier in a very positive way-
When I encountered the mini-boss Gekko I remembered how hard I had found it to be the first time I faced it on N64. Now I know that I can just throw bombs at it when it rides the turtle. Back then I had no idea what to do and I also didn’t have any bombs left once I entered that room.
After defeating Odolwa I met with the princess, put her in my bottle and returned to the Deku Palace. After reuniting her with her father I got sent to the Deku Shrine to receive a gift for helping her. I was unable to keep up with the Deku Butler and was running out of time so I warped back to the Tourist Center and tried to submit my pictograph of the Deku King to the contents but was informed that it had ended. I thought that was because I was at the very end of the final day, so I’ll have to come back to that in another cycle.
Finally I warped back to Clocktown, stashed my rupees in the bank and played Song of Time to return to the dawn of the first day.
This is not to be considered a walkthrough of Majora’s Mask 3D. There are plenty of other great resources for that online. Instead it’s a ”journal” of sort for me while I play through the game. I wanted to document it for myself and figured, ”why not put it on the blog? It helps keep the lights on here”.
In the first three-day cycle of Majora’s Mask there’s really not that much you can do. I’m stuck as a Deku Scrub, so therefore I’m stuck inside Clock Town. I found the one Stray Fairy that was missing from the fairy in Clock Town. It was located down by the water in southeast of Town. She gave me magic powers.
I also collected some rupees, bought a map for Clock Town and completed the search for the ”Bomber boys” so I could join the ”Bomber’s Secret Society”.
Finally I went to the Observatory, found a Moon tear that I traded with the Deku Scrub infront of the Clocktower in order to get his Deku Flower. Then, once I where in possession of the flower I just waited for the final night when the door in the Clocktower would open.
When the door opened I used the flower to fly up to it. There I collected a piece of heart and entered the roof where I faced Skull Kid. I took back the Ocarina of Time from him, player Song of Time and returned to the dawn of the first day.
Last week Nintendo released ”The Legend of Zelda – Majora’s Mask 3D”, a remake of the Nintendo 64-game ”Majora’s Mask” for the Nintendo 3DS. Some time ago1 I bought the N64-version and I still haven’t played it through to the end. It seems my current lifestyle just doesn’t allow me to occupy the tv for hours on end. It does however allow me to play short bursts of handheld games here and there. So when I heard about the 3DS-remake I went giddy with anticipation.
I’ve now played Majora’s Mask 3D for a couple of hours and I’ve got some early opinions about it. If you’ve never played it, neither for the N64 nor the 3DS, you can still read most of this post without having anything important spoiled.
The look and feel
The story and gameplay of these old N64 Zelda games remain very engaging to this day, but the look of them does not transcend time as well as one would want. The 3DS version fixes most of this. Where a lot of details in the original (rocks, patches of grass etc.) looks like a single boxy polygon, the 3DS version really gives you a whole lot more depth to the experience. Details are sharp and the world seems a whole lot more realistic and believable, without losing any of its wonderful fantasy setting.
Playing the game
Majora’s Mask is a great game! Wether you play it on an N64 or the 3DS it is a really fun experience. The story is compelling, the puzzles just hard enough to make you slightly frustrated at times, the characters are well known to you if you, like me, has spent way too much time playing The Ocarina of Time.
Everything about the controls that was good about the original is equally good on the 3DS and some things feel better.
Important changes
The concept of time is very important in Majora’s Mask. This is just as true in the 3DS version. The way time is used in the game led to a very odd and confusing saving mechanism in the original version. This has been smoothed out a lot in the 3DS remake. This does not make the 3DS-version ”dumbed down”, it just makes it less confusing.
Want to know more? See the following footnotes for details that might contain spoilers.2
Do I think you should by it?
Of course that depends on so many things about you that I know nothing about. But if you are like me, a grown-up geek with a well-paying job and disposable income, a love of Zelda-games and some time to kill, the answer is YES GOD DAMNIT, YES!!!!!
But I don’t own a 3DS
I bought my 3DS for The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Even if that had been the only game I played on it, it would totally have been worth its price. I’m sure the same is true for Majora’s Mask3.
So how far have I’ve come
I’ve just finished the first real dungeon. On my never-finished run on the N64 I made it through three out of four dungeons, so I have a pretty good idea about what to do next. I’ll likely blog a lot more about the game as I make my way forward.
Turns out it was quite a long time ago. I thought it was in the recent year but when I looked up the old blog post I realized it was in 2013. More than a year and a half ago! ↩
In the original version there are two ways to save:
1. You play the ”Song of Time” and return to the dawn of the first day. You’ll lose you’re inventory and the state of the land will return to the way it was at the beginning of the game. Collected masks and treasures will remain in your possession.
2. You find an owl status and tell it to save and quit. When you start playing again you will be back at that very place, that very time. However if you quit the game now, everything since the last time you played ”Song of Time” will be discarded, unless you once again quit by talking to an owl statue.
This is needlessly complicated for something that should just work. In the 3DS version you can still reset the time by playing ”Song of Time”. However when you encounter an owl statue you can save, but without being forced to quit the game. There are also more saving points placed here and there in the game. These are not owl statues so you can’t ”soar” to them, but they are fully functioning save points. ↩
Again, if you have disposable income. Don’t buy things you can’t really afford! ↩
Igår kom posten med ”Ocarina of Time 3D” och ”Majora’s Mask 3D”. Förhoppningen är att det ska vara lättare att spela igenom MM genom att spela fem minuter här, fem minuter där, snarare än att försöka sitta flera timmar framför tvn. Fast idag började jag med några minuter OoT. #Zelda #OcarinaofTime #MajorasMask #3DS #Nintendo
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1 september, 2015 09:44This Article was mentioned on blog.henrikcarlsson.se