Dawn of War II – A Review (published in the Rotunda)

Before there were Zerg in “Starcraft” and the SPARTANS in “Halo,” there was “Warhammer 40,000.” This series, which started as a tabletop miniatures game in 1987 by Games Workshop, has evolved over the years into a role-playing game as well as various computer games. The newest in this illustrious series is “Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II.” It was released on February 19th, 2009 by Relic Entertainment (makers of the wonderful “Homeworld” series and “Company of Heroes”) and has since occupied a spot on my hard drive.

Why do I have those examples from much more modern games? It is because they took those ideas from the iconic figures of the Warhammer 40k universe and tried to make them their own. The Zerg from “Starcraft” are the Tyranids, insectile hive-minds that feature a prominent role in “DoWII.” The SPARTANS from “Halo” are the Space Marines that are the feature of the single-player campaign in “DoWII.” Other races you will encounter are the Orks who are just as orcish as they sound, the Eldar who are your requisite Elves, and the Imperial Guard who are the massive armies fighting with you on the side of the Emperor, the immortal savior of humankind. The introduction to the game sums it up well, “It is the 41st Millennium, and there is only war.”

Unlike the previous title in this series, the original “Dawn of War” and its myriad expansions, this game focuses more on squad combat than cranking out units and trying to fight with massive armies. This fits the universe more as your Space Marines are designed to be small squads with no more than five to six members a piece. You also do not crank them out of a base structure in single-player, they are sent down from your orbiting battleship as reinforcements. You can only reinforce at certain points so it behooves you to maintain close control over your squads as you advance through the game. It is still very much a real-time strategy game in its control scheme and viewpoints though you can zoom all the way down to ground combat. I highly recommend this as there are some impressive finishing moves.

The tutorial to the campaign brings you into “DoWII” very smoothly and is a baptism by fire. You immediately begin by having to retake your home planet by reinforcing Captain Davian Thule of the Blood Ravens Space Marines and fighting to him. The game mechanics are introduced to you slowly but in a manner that makes sense. As you progress through missions for the first fifth of the game things such as “orbital strikes” and “automated factories” are shown and control is turned over to you of them. The story stays coherent throughout and there are several surprises in store for you as you play. There is intrigue aplenty and you never know who is up to what. If you are familiar with the “Warhammer 40k” lore through the novels of Dan Abnett, Ben Counter, and others then it will not be as surprising but still pleasant in how they are carried out.
The other races are designed well as they should be considering the amount of established lore that exists. Games Workshop has dozens of manuals that exist and the “Black Library” of fiction for the universe is huge. The Eldar “psykers” are as ethereal and elf-like as you would expect and the Orks are as brutish and bloodthirsty as their regular “Warhammer: Age of Reckoning” counterparts. Watching an Ork pick up one of your men and throw them across the screen does not get old. Having your Space Marine slice them nearly in half with a chainsword is better as it means one of your men is not dying. Multiplayer allows you access to the other races for play but it changes the mechanics of the game by requiring some base building and construction of units. It is here that “DoWII” feels like a regular real-time strategy game. I understand that it is necessary in order to provide a multiplayer experience but I prefer the squad-based format from single-player.

There are a few problems with the game that do need to be addressed and some of them have been already through patches. One issue is that in order to play you must have a “Steam” account through Valve. This is nice because it will automatically update the game for you but if you are not permanently connected to the internet it will mean you have to connect every time you want to play. “DoWII” also has the same achievement system as a normal Xbox 360 game because of its association with “Games for Windows Live.” I do not have an issue with this as they do give you goals to shoot for but they can be disruptive during gameplay as they issue a sound and appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. As long as you have a system that is no more than two years old you should be able to run “DoWII” with no problems but I do recommend having a decent graphics card if you want to see the bloodshed in all its glory.

Overall, I would highly recommend buying this game. If you like a dark, dystopic, gothic science-fiction game with extensive lore it is right up your alley. If you like a squad-based game with excellent tactical AI and beautiful graphics, this game is for you. If you prefer your elves with bows and arrows and your humans puny and week, this is not the game for you. Want to see the source of all of your current gaming heroes? Then “FOR THE EMPEROR, KILL THE MUTANT, BURN THE WITCH, PURGE THE HERETIC” and buy this game!

Article about GDC in the Rotunda, edited to fit the paper…

When someone thinks of a gaming conference the first thought that comes to them is usually E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Until a few years ago that had been the de facto gathering for all things gaming related in the eyes of the consumer. In the background there was a much more professional show designed towards the actual people working in the industry. That show was the Game Developer’s Conference. Begun in 1988 in the bedroom of a developer, by 2009 the conference has expanded to cover nearly the entirety of the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif.

Why this whole mini-history about the GDC (as it is known by everyone that attends)? Because that is where I just returned from! That is right folks; yours truly is a budding game programmer and designer and has attended GDC for the third year in a row. I have quite a few things to report about my stay there which spanned from Tuesday night through Friday afternoon.

Day one was mostly my arriving in San Francisco. I met quite a few other students and saw how many traditional four-year colleges are integrating mock game studios into their programs for experience. It is a cross-disciplinary study so people from all majors in all aspects of the company from managing the project to the actual programmers involved.

Day two was the real start of the GDC. I attended several workshops in the morning including “Windows 7 Overview for Publishers and Developers,” showing what Windows 7 will be doing for games. I am not a Microsoft fan-boy, but if they follow through with half of their promises for Windows 7 it will be an amazing and much faster experience. The expo area was my next stop as that is where most new things are shown off and here is where you could really see the effects of our current economy. There were much fewer booths than last year and the booths themselves were smaller. The career expo area had almost more booths than the regular expo area and even then there were very few entry-level jobs available.

The Independent Games Festival and Game Developer Awards were later that night. “Fallout 3″ won game of the year, and Hideo Kojima got a lifetime achievement award.
I got to meet Tim Schafer after the show. He was the presenter for the Game Developer Awards He was the creator of quite a few older LucasArts games (”Secret of Monkey Island,” anyone?) and is currently the one who created “Brutal Legend,” which will hopefully be released soon. Schafer is quite insane, which is great, and appears to be a job requirement in this industry. I also got to speak to Kojima. He does not speak English very well so I wasn’t sure how to get his attention. So I just ran up him and his group that was leaving and said, “Mr. Kojima-san! Mr. Kojima-san!” Then I bowed as deeply as I could and said, “Thank you very much for your wonderful games.” He smiled and said, “Thank you.” Infinity Ward also showed a teaser trailer for their new game, which appears to be “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2.”
Day three had much more of the same from day two with more expo booths and the career expo area. CCP/White-Wolf was showing off their game “Eve-Online” and is hinting at other things in the pipeline. Last year they discussed doing a “World of Darkness” MMO, so I am wondering if that is the project they were not really talking about? “Apocrypha,” which is their newest free expansion for “Eve-Online” came out just the week before GDC and they were quite heavily promoting it as well.

Day four was the last day of the GDC for me, and it was a short day overall. I got a chance to go back and demo some games I had not been able to before. Both “Ghostbusters” and “Wolfenstein” were on display, though no pictures or video could be taken of them. “Ghostbusters” was incredible. It was very easy to play and it felt like a “Ghostbusters” game. That will be coming out for both PC and consoles later this year. “Wolfenstein” was a bit of a let down for me. It looked, felt, and smelled the same as its previous release from several years ago.

Overall, even with the economy on the downturn the gaming industry is doing well. People need something to take their minds off everything happening and games offer the most bang for their buck. I expect the job situation to improve next year as long as our economy does. I am also hoping Sony will get its act together and show us something worth buying. Their booth showed nothing new and they had no major announcements either. Maybe during the rest of this year they will have time to unveil something to make their “Blue-Ray” player worth buying. If you want to read about everything I saw at the GDC, check out my blog at www.gerrymartin.info.

GDC 2009 – Day 4

GDC 2009 is over, long live GDC! Its been a great week and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself along with learning quite a lot. Today was a great ending to it with a bit more information and a chance to check out a couple more games that I hadn’t had a chance to earlier.

The first is the new Wolfenstein game coming out. I got a chance to see it in action and it doesn’t look bad. It has the feel of the previous Wolfenstein game though the AI seemed a bit better from what I could tell. The UI was nice with the amount of damage you had taken shown by the amount of blood on the corners of the screen. It definitely felt like an alternate universe WWII. I wish I could show you pics but it was another “no photos/videos area.”

Halo Wars was another I got to try. Graphically I knew it was amazing already but the control scheme was what I wanted to check out. Amazingly it actually works well. The controls were context sensitive and very responsive. I was able to select and move units with ease and ordering attacks was not a problem at all. I may download the demo on Live when I get back and play it some. If I still like it I may buy it. Who would have thought an RTS on a console would work without using something like Endwar’s voice commands? I’m impressed.

I ran into one of the head guys for Entropia Universe as well. This is the first and really only MMO that has a real-world economy. They just got approved by Sweden to be an actual bank so the money and time you invest in the game can actually really pay off! Its on my list of things to try out when I get back to a stable and faster internet connection. It makes what people have accomplished in Second Life much more accessible as real world funds with about the same effort. I’ll give a review once I’ve played it.

I also saw a preview of the new Metallica expansion for Guitar Hero. It looked pretty much the same as previous expansions just with the new songs and some new playable characters. Expect more of the same, and no that isn’t always a bad thing in the case of something like this.

Overall it was a good end to the week as a whole! I was impressed with the whole conference even though it didn’t seem quite as grand as last year’s. Expect to see me back at the Game Developers’ Conference in 2010 (hopefully representing a company!)!

Gerry

GDC 2009 – Day 3

Well GDC Day 3 went off with a bang. Well actually it was my alarm clock but close enough. I got up a bit late because there weren’t any sessions I wished to go to this morning so I slept in. As soon as I got up I headed back to the career pavilion to check things out. This year is definitely a bit leaner than last for jobs, especially if you are going for an entry level position. Because of the layoffs there are a lot more people available with years of experience that can be gotten a lot quicker than training someone in an entry level job.

Hopefully next year will be better for the prospective graduates. If you are considering going into gaming, make sure your portfolio SHINES! The more quality products you have in there, the better! The indie scene has never been better either so getting help and getting advice is even easier than before. Trust me, I plan on getting my portfolio as filled as I can.

I also got a chance to meet with Billy Joe Cain who was lead designer for Wing Commander Prophecy. I LOVED the Wing Commander series and it was actually the first game I ever bought with my own money. Chris Roberts is around here somewhere as well so if I get a chance I’d like to talk to him as well. I also ran into one of the lead business department people for Stardock and complimented them on their DRM strategy which I love. Basically NO DRM really. Check out their Gamers’ Bill of Rights, it should still be posted online. Stardock is also the company that published Ironclad’s “Sins of a Solar Empire” which is just incredible (and just had an expansion pack released). GalCiv I and II are still games I play regularly.

Billy Cain had some great advice for me and anyone else going into gaming: do not forget your family or friends while you’re making your game as they helped get you there and are the ones who will keep you sane. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll get a chance to run into some of the Relic guys to complement them on Dawn of War II. I got a SWEET poster at the THQ Career Expo booth. I also got some pictures for Jim of the Perfect World booth.

The Blizzard party was waaaay too packed for the size of the bar they rented. For that matter the THQ World Mixer was a LOT more packed than the 3rd floor of the W could hold. It was nice talking to the people there though and I’m definitely going to look at Flashpoint in Chicago as a school for later.

Well hopefully I’ll have more to talk about tomorrow night! More Expo time in the morning and the Game Career Seminar as well. Its gonna be a busy and exciting day!

Peace!

Gerry

GDC 2009 – Day 2

Well today was another fantastic day here in sunny San Francisco at the Game Developers’ Conference! The day started out well with me wearing my new shirt that I bought. I left the hotel at about 11:45 and got the copies of my resume that I had ordered last night. I made it to the first workshop at about 12:05 which was by one of the guys from CCP/White-Wolf on leveraging social networks to maintain and increase membership. It was really interesting and I think I have learned some new ideas to improve membership in WMLU amongst other things. Mavens (know-it-alls), Connectors (knows and can talk to any/everyone), and Salespeople (can sell snow to penguins if they believe in their product) are the three types of individuals to focus on and gear your PR department to. Get them involved online, manage them well, and they will bring more people with them and you can expect a growth in membership and usage of your product. I took some verbal notes afterward, expect them to be typed up this weekend or early next week.

After that I wandered around for a while checking out the Career Expo area and the regular Expo area. I got some lunch and went to another talk, this time on how Windows 7 will impact gaming. I will post more details on that later when I type up my notes from the conference but from the way it seems, Microsoft might actually be making some right decisions in its design ideas. I never thought I’d say that honestly, and it may turn out to be like the rest of their products, but if it works the way it should it will be an interesting paradigm shift in gaming.

I went back to the regular Expo area after that and checked out some of the booths. I got to play the beta of the Ghostbusters game (sorry no pics, they weren’t allowed). It actually felt like Ghostbusters and definitely had the look of it. Slinging a proton pack around was a hell of a lot of fun! Then it turned out that Ubisoft was about to announce a new game in partnership with Intel! I was shocked but got a prime spot for pics and video of the demo (which I will be posting soon). Called Ruse, its an RTS that takes the camera from Supreme Commander and just blows it out of the water! It can have up to 1 BILLION polygons on the screen at any one time and you can zoom all the way from a megamap mode down to ground level with the troops. This is key in directing them where you need them. You also have these “Ruses” that you can use to try to gain an advantage on your enemy. Only two were shown and I will try to get the third one demoed for me tomorrow but there will be 10 total for the released game. It is a WWII RTS but it could easily be expanded with other forces as DLCs (though no real comment was given on that at the time). The UI is VERY unobtrusive and does not really exist except for a few icons in the upper left hand corner. The game looked beautiful and played well. I’m looking forward to playing it though to take full advantage of it, you’ll need a truly multicore processor set up and a hefty graphics card. They demoed it on an Intel i7 chip with 6 GB of RAM and an Ati 4780 x2 graphics card. I hope thats not the MINIMUM requirements!

I will say that both the Expo areas and the after conference stuff was quite toned down this year. There is no CCP/White-Wolf party this year and I have yet to find another company hosting anything big. There were also fewer expo booths than last year and many of them were smaller sized. Everyone is saying its due to the economy but crowds are still high here so people are still interested in gaming. It appears that even with this lower amount of expoers and parties that the Gaming industry will thrive much like early Hollywood did during the Depression. If digital distribution takes off it will help as well since you can get more games for the same money and the producers save on the creation costs. Here is hoping!

The OnLive system was quite interesting as well! This was recommended to me by a friend of mine as something I should definitely check out. Imagine having a console the size of some cell phones that streams all of your games from the internet. Now imagine that you could save your game and resume it on your PC or Mac? And imagine that you could save video clips to share, watch your friends play other games, join in the middle of a game if it seemed fun, and see what players around the world are playing? Well imagine no more because that is the OnLive system! The “console” part has an HDMI out, two USB ports, a network port, and a power adaptor. Thats it! You have to have broadband for it to work but the games were VERY responsive and looked great graphically. Load times were small as well; Burnout Paradise loaded in about 30-45 seconds. Pricing was not mentioned as of yet as they are still working out the details. I would expect either a “rental” system or a cheaper “pay to own” system. This will help solve the DRM and pirating problems as well as no physical media is involved. It was rather intruiging. Expect this around November of this year. There were two neural devices on display this year and I plan on checking them out tomorrow. Valve is on a hiring blitz at the moment too and I am considering putting in for one. At the very least the experience in an interview wouldn’t hurt. They had TONS of people signing up for them so I wonder what new projects are on the horizon? The Perfect World people are hiring as well and I plan on getting some pics of the booth for Jim at work.

Later in the evening after a much needed dinner at Mel’s diner I went to the IGF and Game Developer awards. There were a LOT of really neat entries and I am looking forward to trying some tomorrow in the Independent Games booth area. Fallout 3 won Game of the Year and Hideo Kojima got a Lifetime Achievement Award (very well deserved for his creation of Metal Gear Solid and his work on over 50 other games). The co-founders of Harmonix got the Pioneer award and Tommy Tallarico got the Ambassador award for his contributions to spreading the “Gospel of Gaming” through Video Games Live; the live music performances of game music. The creators of Little Big Planet were on stage quite a bit after winning around 3 or 4 awards. Braid deserves an honorable mention after being in nearly every category as a contender. Cortex Command also gets a mention from me since it did win several awards and was in quite a few categories as well. Go Indie Devs and go mainstream Pubs! I was a little upset at the presenter of the IGF awards due to his comments about used game sales. I hate to say it but used games are here to stay and publishers need to learn to make games that can be expanded with DLCs or move to digital distribution. Not all gamers can afford to buy a lot of games and for some used games and systems are the only ways they’ll ever get to play. Remember you have an audience as well, not just a sales number. Most of the developers seem to realize that and many of them were truly grateful for their awards. I love seeing that and seeing the passion people have for their jobs. Its fantastic to see and just reinforces my decision to get into the industry just that much more!

I got to meet Tim Schafer after the show. He was the presenter for the Game Developer Awards (not the guy I was irritated at). He was the creator of quite a few older LucasArts games (Full Throttle anyone?) and is currently the one that created Brutal Legend which will hopefully be released soon. I got a picture with him as well which was just awesome! He is quite insane which is great (its a job requirement here I swear!). I also got to speak to Hideo Kojima though I couldn’t get a picture. He does not speak english very well so I wasn’t sure how to get his attention. So me being myself I just ran up him and his group that was leaving and went “Mr. Kojima-san! Mr. Kojima-san!” Then I bowed as deeply as I could and said, “Thank you very much for your wonderful games.” He smiled and said, “Thank you.” I was told by several people near by that I have huge cajones (my response was “Why do you think I walk bowlegged?”). They had considered doing that but weren’t sure if they should. If you don’t take risks you will never prosper!

Infinity Ward (who is also producing Ghostbusters I believe) showed a teaser trailer for a new game. The website is www.modernwarfare2.com and it looked quite interesting from what I could tell.

I’m hoping tomorrow will be just as exciting as today was! I’ll let you know anything else exciting I find out!

Peace!

Gerry

P.S. My luggage FINALLY arrived! Yay for having clothes!

Game Developers’ Conference 2009 – Day 1

Well Day 1 of GDC 2009 was quite eventful and not totally in a good way. The good news is that I made it to San Francisco. The bad news is that my luggage is somewhere between JFK in New York and SFO in San Francisco.

I got up at about 3 am to finish getting ready for the trip. I got packed and left about 4:15 figuring I’d have plenty of time to get to the flight. I actually nearly missed it! I misjudged the time and when the plane would leave so I nearly missed it. Not that it would have been a bad thing since the plane ended up having a mechanical problem that put us back over an hour. The problem? A switch was loose and was saying something was broken that wasn’t. By the time we left though it was already too late to catch my flight to San Fran so they had given me an alternate. I missed that one too since it was all the way across JFK!!! That requires a TRAM ride, you cannot just walk.

So they booked me on another flight that I nearly missed with a DIFFERENT airline. I started with Delta and ended up on American Airlines. I knew I was going to have luggage issues when AA hadn’t gotten my electronic ticket saying I was rebooked on that flight. So Delta didn’t get them my luggage in time or it wasn’t packed since they didn’t know it went on that plane.

This means I had NO clothes when I got here except for what I was wearing (and I’m glad I decided to keep my jacket and not put it in the suitcase!). This means all my nice clothes, suit, etc are not here. I really hope I get them by tomorrow (they said I might have had it by tonight but I doubt it at this point).

I needed more clothes stat so I went to Macy’s and ended up spending $171 on 1 shirt, 1 pair of pants, 1 thing of underwear, 1 thing of socks, and 1 thing of undershirts! It was INSANE. But at least I will look good (and people wonder why I don’t buy name brand usually). I’m also getting a few copies of my resume printed to drop by the career expo with some companies. CCP, Bioware, Bethesda, and others; I am looking at you!

Microsoft had its bar/cafe set up again this year and I’m sure G4 will be setting up again soon, that area looked ready to go for Xplay. Halo Wars was definitely being demoed as was Dawn of War II (they had PCs and Xboxes all over the place for people to play). They were also showing off a bunch of community made games that were kinda cool! Its amazing what individuals can create. The Expo and Career Expo areas weren’t open yet but construction was underway and they look just as incredible as last year from what I could see.

Then came the IGDA party. I had registered once I got here and got all of that straight so I was good to go. I ate some killer sushi at Sushi Rock up the street from the Triton. I’m right across from Chinatown literally! Its a block walk through the entrance. After that I made it to the Westin and began networking. I knew I should have brought more business cards but they’d probably have been in my luggage. Luckily I kept my laptop and the like as a carry-on. Anyway, I met a Fallout 3 dev who did a LOT of the landscaping for the game. We talked Fallout in specific and gaming in general for a while. I don’t remember his name offhand but I’m going to catch it tomorrow since he’ll have his namebadge on him then. I met with some other students who are looking to get into the field as well including one whole group of them from Chico State here in Cali. Lindsey and Michael were really cool and I talked with them for a while! It was nice finding kindred (and skewed like me) spirits. They’ve actually set up a whole mock studio at Chico and are working on putting out an actual game! Thats a really cool idea and I love it!

Tomorrow will be a lot more interesting (and I hope I meet more cool people and get to hang with the others I met tonight). If you want me to look at games or pubishers/developers let me know! I’m already checking out a God of War booth (if they have it), the new Final Fantasy game (if its on display), the Versus mode for RE5 if they have a booth, and the OnLive game console if the developer is here. If there are other items let me know!

I’m off to bed now. I have a workshop fairly early in the morning (10:30) on creating an Independent Game Studio. I’ll write again tomorrow with pictures if I take any!

Peace!

Gerry

Response to “Your Fellow Peer” in the Rotunda

Please note that this is a response to the “Letter to the Editor” in the Rotunda. The Rotunda is Longwood University’s student-run newspaper. It is available at www.therotundaonline.com. The letter I am responding to is actually a response to the letter in the 12/3/2008 edition of the paper, also available at the Rotunda’s website (here is a link to the letter).

Dear “Your Fellow Peer,”

In reading your article I noticed something that seems to strike me as very peculiar; a bit of naiveness when it comes to actual human beings and their actions. While I applaud the idea that someone will set aside all feelings towards something else that they hold dear when they enter a meeting, the truth of the matter is that does not happen. That is why Chi is an ideal that we all have to strive for, it is not natural for us to begin with (to quote the saying at the Chi Fountain “Chi, founded in 1900, is an ideal always sought but never obtained/It is the spirit found in the hearts and minds of those who seek its real purpose/Loyalty-Character-Respect-Challenge-Responsibility.”). That would be like the newly elected President of the United States Barack Obama setting aside everything that he has worked for in the Democratic Party and adopting a neutral stance. It is all well and good to strive for that neutrality but the reality is that it will not happen except with much work. And many of the students do not see that kind of work being put out (even if it is).

Also, your letter seems to be referring to the money situation much more than the letter you are referencing. Truly I found only a single reference to money in the previous letter on 12/3/2008 (which I did not write) and that is in the first paragraph! The major of the letter focuses on procedural issues within the SGA itself such as following your own Constitution and the rest focuses on the attitudes of the SGA towards other organizations on campus. I also noticed that you still have not addressed any of these issues in your letter; I am hoping that is to follow in another Letter to the Editor sometime soon.

The questions that need to be addressed in my opinion are as follows:

1) Why is it that the meetings of the SGA are not publicized in some fashion? I am sure more Students would attend if they knew when and where the meetings are. I happen to know they are most often in the ABC rooms on Tuesdays at 3:45 but that is only because I have been instructed to come to them in the past. Student Finance Council (SFC) meetings are on Thursdays at 7pm and are open to the campus as well.

2) Why is it that parts of your own Constitution are not being followed? The biggest reference to that has been Jordan Miles sitting on the Senate as a Senator whilst also being the Chairperson of Judicial Board. This goes specifically against Article IV, Section 1, Subsection A, Paragraph 5, Sub-Paragraph R and it goes against Article V, Section 7.

3) Why are major revisions to the Constitution and other Bylaws not publicized to the campus? I know that we vote on the major changes to the Constitution as a student body, but why are they not publicized in some form such as in the Rotunda or via a mass email to the campus? Bylaw changes, such as to the SFC, are not voted on by the Student Body (Article 4, Section 1, Subsection B, Paragraph 3, Sub-Paragraph A) and are not known to the student body unless someone requests a copy from a Senator. Finding even how the voting went for the changes we do vote for is nearly impossible; I have yet to be able to find the voting group on Blackboard or find the counts on the votes.

4) Why is it that no information is given to the Senate on why the SFC voted the way it did? The Senate is expected to vote on the recommendation of the SFC which is not even a half-count (having just 12 members) of the entirety of the Senate but are given no explanation as to why the SFC reached the decision it did. Most organizations submit budget request paperwork to the SFC; why is this same paperwork not distributed to the Senators?

5) Why is there no publicized way to contact the SGA? This partly goes back to the question of the meetings of the SGA, but why is it that there is no listed way to contact the SGA or even a location of the SGA’s offices (they are in the Student Union, around the corner of the C room of the ABC rooms) or a listing of office hours?

6) Speaking of the money, why is there no published listing of how the SGA allocates the money or even how much money the SGA has to allocate to begin with? It has been said that we are in a budget crunch but there has been no evidence to show it. There is also no accountability to the students in how the SGA uses the money.

7) Why was the money denied to APO when there is no current rule in effect that prevents them from having the money? It was said that a revision to the bylaws was being proposed but that it had not been proposed or passed as of yet. According to your Constitution (Article III, Section 4) there can be no Ex-Post Facto laws and yet that seems to be as such.

These are just a few of the major questions that we has students have. And we do have a right to answers to these questions seeing as that we are all members of the SGA (Article II) and that the SGA is to have Freedom of Information in regards to everything that you all do (Article II, Section 6).

Until questions like this have been answered, the student body will be critical of the SGA in every other word. That is the democratic process at work.

Also, I have a large amount of respect for you all and what you do (The Big Event, Election Day rallying, smoker’s rights on campus, cleaning up the campus, etc…yes they really do a LOT at the SGA), but it is hard to maintain that respect when we feel we are being hoodwinked every day. Respect is not something that is automatically given, it must be earned and right now that account has been overdrawn.

Thank you for your time and keep up the GOOD work that you do.

Sincerely,

Gerald (Gerry) Martin

Concerned Student, Fellow Peer

Response to Jordan Miles in the Rotunda

Please note that this is a response to the “Letter to the Editor” in the Rotunda on 11/5/2008. The Rotunda is Longwood University’s student-run newspaper. It is available at www.therotundaonline.com. The letter I am responding to is a “Letter to the Editor” from the week before (10/29/2008), also available at the Rotunda’s website (here is a link to the letter).

Dear Editor,

First let me start off by saying that I am an avid reader of the Rotunda. I have collected nearly every issue in my tenure here as a student of Longwood and I have amassed quite a collection. Second let me say that I have also had the pleasure of going through the Rotunda’s archives so I have seen how the paper has morphed and grown over the years that it has been in existence. Thirdly let me say that considering both of those above statements I find Mr. Miles’ comments to be quite insulting to the paper and to myself as a reader.

Media is supposed to serve as the conscience of the people. This means that there are going to be good things and bad things that are reported and that it is not going to be popular to a lot of people. Media is not supposed to serve as a sycophant of the people in charge, it is supposed to highlight mistakes and what is being done to correct them. Now a good media outlet does not just report on the bad things, it reports on the good as well. I have yet to see a Rotunda issue that does not praise someone in some way be it the sports teams, and organization, or just someone in general. That is one reason why you all have the Props and Drops as well!

Oh sure, you could never highlight the bad things and be just a propaganda outlet for the University but what good will that do the campus? Will anyone seek to change anything if they do not realize something is wrong? Would we have gone green if people had not reported on how much we were negatively affecting the environment? Would Madeline’s House have been saved by the students of Longwood if someone had not said how bad that was and not just let it take its course? We are taught to be citizen leaders here at Longwood and part of being a good citizen leader is not just blindly saying “Yes, yes, everything is ok!” It is saying “no, we have a problem here and it needs to be fixed!”

Secondly tradition is only tradition because no one has bothered to change it. I love the traditions here at Longwood, they are part of why I came. Longwood is an old campus and there are some things that should not be forgotten. But if you look over the years the traditions have changed! Did you know that Oktoberfest used to be a MUCH bigger deal than it is now? It was something that the WHOLE campus got involved in! But over time nothing changed and now the participation is nothing like it used to be. Maybe its time for new traditions? That is what I believe Mr. Holmes was going for. Now I will grant that Mr. Holmes comments about spending on a “kegger” could have been worded differently but if he had said “a huge cake” it would not have changed the tone of the article either. Would you deny him the opportunity for the free speech that is the right of everyone on campus simply because you disagree with his wording? Also the veiled threat Mr. Miles gave over continued reporting of criticisms seems a bit extreme, “Please do not let this article and continued scrutiny and criticism over traditions and spirit bring the paper down.”

Remember, this country was founded on criticism about the rule of another country. New traditions were founded and have been reexamined over time and in some cases replaced. It was traditional that women did not vote and that African Americans were second class. The ONLY reason it changed is because someone criticized it and caused the change to happen. If everyone had just gone with the propaganda of the time, where would we be?

Please, be an active citizen leader and criticize your leaders. Do not just be a “yes”-person, be an active citizen leader and enact the change around you. Do not trust someone who says that “everything is fine just trust me” all the time. Be a true student of Longwood!

On a final note I will leave you with this:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Live it, learn it, love it, PRACTICE IT OR LOSE IT!

Sincerely,

Gerald B. Martin

To-Do List

1. Work on Senior Project Idea

2. Set up Linux Server

3. Set up Server 2003

4. Work on uploading WMLU shows to website

5. Reorganize Room

6. Get General License for Amateur Radio

7. Brush up on Programming (use examples in Linux Magazine and Linux Pro)

8. Make sure everything is packed for School

9. Move in the 17th of August

10. Head to New York soon

To Be Continued?…

So far this summer…

I really need to get a To-Do list done for the rest of the summer.

I think I have lamented the lack of one before, maybe after work tomorrow I shall come up with one! It has helped immensely at work so it can only help here at home no?

Speaking of, things are going well at work. Oh, before I start my blog post, let me do the disclaimer I’m required to do:

*Ahem*

Ok, this blog/website/forum post/what-have-you is in NO WAY a reflection of the opinions of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers. These thoughts are my very own and do not reflect on my place of employment. If you have any issues with the information presented below, contact the author (i.e. me at martin.geraldb@gmail.com), not the company. Thank you!

I got another raise, which makes my wallet very happy. I know its not quite what I was making at Geek Squad but come the fall it’ll be very nice again as I won’t be driving as much. I’ve been busting my rear at work to get the trade section cleaned up and its going well so far. If labour wasn’t so tight I’d have gotten it finished before now but one works with what one has.

I’ve managed to double the Teens section which makes me happy. I LOVE seeing younger readers devouring books, especially when they’re reading my favourite genres: Paranormal, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. Thanks to authors such as J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer (”Harry Potter” and “Twilight” respectively) as well as Rick Riordan (”The Lightning Thief”), kids and Teens have been reading more than ever and even in Farmville, VA it shows! It really does warm this cynic’s soul. Either that or I’ve got indigestion again, but we’ll go with the heart-warming ok?

I’ve also doubled Current Events which has become another Hot Spot for the store. Thanks to the upcoming election (Go OBAMA!!!) and G.W.B.’s constant follies (Go AWAY G.W.B.!) sales are at a high in that section. And much as Oprah makes me ill, her endorsement of several recent titles (Ekhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” for example) has propelled our New Age section to stratospheric heights! And who knew there were so many Pagans in Farmville? I’ve got more people coming out of the “broom closet” every day (and I guess it helps that its a bona fide Pagan doing the ordering for the Trade Section too).

On that note….PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW MANY BIBLES I HAVE IN THE STORE! Yeesh people, if I had the room I’d carry more but last time I checked you weren’t the only Religion in the Religion and Inspiration section. Oh sure, you’re the largest section by far but I still have to cater to everyone else. Out of a six shelf section, you’ve got 3 1/2 shelves! If you want me to keep as much Christian Inspiration, Reference, etc as I have now, I can’t carry that many Bibles. Special Order them! We don’t mind! We’d LOVE to order them for you! But do NOT look at the New Age section or the other sections within Religion and Inspiration with disdain. I have no problems with carrying as much Religion and Inspiration as I can, if I only had the room. And trust me, I’ve tried to make the room! Thank you for your consideration!

Beyond that, I’ve just been cleaning up the shelves, making sure everything is stocked, and keeping an eye on Magazines. We’re doing much better on the Magazines and we do have a few more on order including several Bridal magazines, a couple more Men’s magazines, some Martial Arts/Sports, and a few more Health magazines. Hopefully this last order should fill up the racks and come next Spring I’ll evaluate how they are selling and replace as needed.

In my next post, I shall probably talk about several new books I’ve read along with possibly posting a To-Do list. Who knows?

Have a great one!