Sometimes developers will break NDAs to release inside information ahead of release which has happened a number of times with iOS over the years. Recently Apple offered developers the opportunity to order limited new Apple TV units early by request into a lottery selection. The purpose of the unit is to test their tvOS apps on a real device before release. As reported by Macrumors, iFixit released a teardown on 4th generation Apple TV using the developer unit. iFixit has since been banned by Apple for breaking NDA resulting in the iFixit app being pulled from the App Store. Banning developer accounts for breaking NDA isn’t unusual, and is the standard response from Apple.

Why couldn’t iFixit wait a few more weeks to post their teardown? I hope it isn’t just for web traffic. Worse is if another developer has been denied a unit for testing an app. In a blog post, iFixit mentions that they “weighed the risks” and decided to ignore their contract anyway. Disregarding business contracts and NDAs is bad business, and shows their web visitors that doing business with them is risky. The post doesn’t mention how iFixit obtained their developer unit, but I assume it was through the lottery request order available to developers in early September.

I’ve mentioned co-founder of iFixit, Kyle Wiens, before about his hiring methods using grammar. He asserts that “good grammar is credibility” and people who make fewer mistakes in writing also make fewer mistakes in other work. Too bad the iFixit team made a doozy of a mistake here. I feel bad for any developer that may have been unable to obtain a developer unit having lost lottery selection to iFixit.

Sorry, iFixit has lost my respect and my business.

Please, respect your contracts and agreements.

I covered environmental immersion in my previous post. This time we’ll look into improving the beauty for Skyrim. One could go very realistic, ultra-fantasy art visuals, or cartoon-ish even. Since this is a fantasy game, and I’m going for immersion, my goal leans towards a realistic look maintaining the fantasy feel. Besides my picks, I’ll share a few alternatives. I wasn’t completely happy with any of the ENB preset choices so I’ll go over my adjustments.

In general, install new weather and landscape mods followed by lighting before installing and adjusting ENB. Since ENB replaces anti-aliasing, go ahead and disable antialiasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering in Skyrim launcher options. I play at 2056 x 1440 resolution (1440p) so more pixels compared to 1080p affect my decisions on mods I add. Pretty and playable.

When I went looking for mods, I started with the post, “15 mods that make Skyrim look beautiful” on IGN. All the mods I list here link to Nexusmods. If you’re new to installing mods, see my intro post for an overview.

The Harvest Super Moon total lunar eclipse last night I captured with a Canon Rebel attached to a Celestron C8 telescope used like a big telephoto lens. The shutter was held open for approximately five seconds. In the past I’ve counted the seconds, but this time I let the Canon Rebel decide calculated on the light using the standard P setting. It did a nice job. So as not to shake the camera, I used a wired shutter button.

There are aspects of “Frostfall - Hypothermia Survival” that should have been in the original TES V: Skyrim. Frigid air means dressing warm. In a blizzard, but too far out from Winterhold? Make camp and wait out the storm. After swimming in near-freezing water seek a fire to avoid hypothermia. “Frostfall” created by Chesko adds survival skills along with some gear and spells to help endure the journey.

Now this is Skyrim!

Immersion vs realism

Skyrim is an RPG. Even though combat is action-oriented and characters freely move about, dice rolls and movement turns take place. Time is compressed in game not just so day and night pass quicker, but also to scale the land. Have you noticed how indoors seem bigger than outside of the buildings? The land is compressed. It’s about 12 miles between Whiterun and Rorikstead if measured by characters traveling just over 2 hours (game-time) at a quick-pace. Outside of combat, a minute in real-time is 20 minutes in game-time. Picking berries becomes less time-consuming and tedious. This also implies that conversations actually last longer than the voice-overs and limited response choices, details left to the imagination.

Improving immersion doesn’t always mean making the game more realistic. This is a fantasy world for one. Secondly, some things we want to compromise on, such as landscape sizes and time. Things that jolt the player out of the moment, are out of character, or seem too unnatural are contenders for immersive updates. We can imagine our characters doing extra details within the time-scaled world such as removing the hide from a wolf, eating, or stopping to tinkle. It’s tougher to imagine a guard sleeping in bed clothes when the visuals show him sleeping in armor, helmet and all. Weather doesn’t need to be realistic. It should enhance the mood for the story.

Sometimes realism could be called just making sense to the player. Let’s take for example how the lanterns and braziers across Skyrim remain lit during the day. It seems to make sense using a mod to turn off all braziers and outdoor lanterns at sunrise. Not so fast! Notice how characters warm their hands near braziers? Windhelm is notable for this. It’s cold in Skyrim, and braziers keep citizens warm. One problem with being disconnected from the environment is that common sense doesn’t come as easy. Before considering immersive changes, the player should try to think like a character living in Skyrim.

Immersive mods should maintain consistency with the lore and support the fantasy feel of the game within reasonable limitations of game mechanics.

Improving immersive behavior, items, and atmosphere helps hold the role-playing mood. Fixing things that break continuity also improves immersion. Characters commenting on the cold is fine, but that character dressed in basic clothing while calmly holding a conversation during a blizzard breaks continuity. As does sleeping or swimming dressed in full plate-male armor. These little details remind us something isn’t right.

Let’s look at some mods created by the community to improve immersion in the environment.

Dee Count and Draco Calculation have been updated for iOS 9 supporting split-view and slide-over view. This means you can play Calculation while working on something else, or copy-paste more efficiently between another app and Dee Count. Note in Dee Count in slide-over view the camera will not be available for bar code scanning. Use in primary mode. These new views are available on iPad Air and newer devices.

Last year for iOS 8, Apple hinted that these new iPad features would be coming by reminding developers to prepare for these new views. I took it to heart a year ago and found that Apple’s changes to views make better sense for a more open design targeting different screen shapes and sizes. Split-view on iPad Pro should be a big step up for productivity.