Posted by Lethality in Lethal Injection, News | 53 Comments
Lethal Injection: The Drowning Pool
If you’re one of the TOR faithful, you’re probably aware that last week there was a press event for the game held in London. That event also included a couple of special play sessions for some lucky fans, as well as question & answer time with developers.
One of the revelations coming out of those sessions was that swimming would not be in Star Wars: The Old Republic when it ships. At first it sounded like the reports we were receiving from across the pond were inaccurate.
However the next day, Daniel Erickson made it crystal clear as part of one of his posts on the official forums:
Swimming will not be in TOR for ship. It is not a ‘free feature’ we turned off and is actually a huge amount of animation, pathfinding and AI work. Either every creature in the game needs to have water moving/fighting animations and AI to handle 3D movement or combat has to stop in the water with all the AI craziness that having safe zones you can jump in and out of entails. We have nothing against swimming but it’s never going to outrank improving combat, Companion AI or any of our other core features.
And that’s all the community needed to go off on one of its trademark diatribes… The official forums were on fire, and probably every fan site and podcast took a shot at the decision.
Now, not everyone was against the idea. There are people of the opinion that it’s no big deal that swimming isn’t in the game. And as a matter of fact lauded it, as using lightsabers or heavy armor underwater just doesn’t make sense.
This is called precedent.
But I’m here to tell them why they’re wrong.
In an open world, massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, in which “exploration” is touted as one of the pillars upon which the game experience is built, the ability for your character to swim is absolutely essential. It’s almost elemental. Right up there next to jumping. There’s nothing more immersion-breaking that traversing a landscape and having to run around bodies of water that are much deeper than your character.
Sure, the world designers will probably make sure there aren’t any significant bodies of water that the player will come across. But that’s a design direction that seems to compromise creativity. Even in World of Warcraft, It was always a very cool moment when you realized that after all of the exploring for that next step in your quest, maybe what you’re looking for is IN the nearby water. And lets not forget where Sméagol originally found the One Ring.
And it’s really not about wanting “underwater content,” but simply the freedom to explore underwater spaces. Yes, this means that ideally there’d be _something_ underwater to see, but I don’t think that’s an unfair request for game with the scope, budget and development timeframe of TOR. Some aquatic lifeforms and some basic swimming animations for player characters are all that it would take to enhance the believability. I’m not suggesting this is trivial, but the competition has it covered. And it would go a long way toward supporting role-playing.
So how will water be handled then? Georg Zoeller offered some relative reassurance that there are no invisible walls blocking you from entering water:
There’s no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.
Further, he elaborates that it’s something they may revisit later:
We’ll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it’d be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.
Great news, but that doesn’t help the first impression that players will get when the first log into the game when it ships and try to jump in the crystal-clear sparkling blue water on Tython. And truthfully, if the underwater environments aren’t currently being fleshed out, will there really be an effort to go back and do that on every planet in the future?
In the end, swimming isn’t a game-breaking issue, but it IS a core part of interacting with the environment and making it feel like a real place. One of the things that makes the world seem believable.
So what say you? Does not having the ability for your character to swim detract from your experience in any way? Or are you perhaps even glad that this is the decision they’ve made? Do tell.
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I was completely surprised by this, and I agree, if there is no water deep enough to be of concern, then that would have seemed to be a really restrictive design constraint
Saying that the lack of swimming is due to heavy armorur is just ridiculous. What if I’m not wearing heavy armour?
Besides, BW stated that every feature you’d expect from an MMORPG will be in the game. Now, how more basic and a core feature can you go? Seriously?
IMO implementing a swimming system without thinking about the consequences around armour, weapons and combat is also rediculous. What do I do with my heavy armour – take it off and forage about the other side of the lake nekkid? Do you get my point yet? This question may seem trite, but it has relevance. And guess what, I’ve not even gotten into the difficult questions. Rediculous is a swimming system that has me swimming around in uber shoulder pads.
Until someone can detail a solution for this that addresses the issues of the poorly implemented swimming in other games breaking my immersion then I’ll continue to vote with the 75% that I am not bothered by its absence. The gain is positive overall.
I could not care less. I have never liked underwater content in MMOs, and I would much rather them spend their time on other things.
As I said, it isn’t about having underwater content… I’m not that crazy about it, even in WoW’s Vashj’ir, an entire zone built for it.
But artificially restricting my character from somewhere he should otherwise be able to go.
It’s very much an exploration frontier – land, sea and space (and time!) I think it’s an important part of creating a believable world.
Someone in heavy armor should not be swimming.
You said about coming across a deep area of water and not going to be going in it. Lets face it in real life you would going running into lakes to swim across them. For one your clothes would get wet and you have no idea whats in the water. You said it goes against roleplaying I say it helps it. It means people aren’t jumping out of lakes perfectly dry or jumping in when in real life they wouldn’t. Only problem I have with it are if Kit Fisto’s race are in game cause its weird them not being able to swim.
When, in life, have you ever thought “Hey, I’ll swim across that lake instead of walking around?” Especially if you were wearing a heavy suit of armor or some fancy Sith robes? Combat would have to work in water too, so you wouldn’t be able to break encounters by jumping in a shallow pool, and in lore most lightsabers and blasters don’t work underwater. Honestly, if anything, swimming in MMO’s is more immersion-breaking than the inability to swim.
You speak as if it’s somehow never been done before… on lesser games with lesser budgets and lesser time!
There is precedent, even in Star Wars, that the tech works underwater, etc. But that’s the stuff that can be overlooked.
What cannot be overlooked is the simple sense of freedom being taken away from my character.
And lesser games with lesser budgets may have been better off adding content, characters, or any number of things with the money they had. If my character reaches the side of a cliff, he won’t be able to do some simple rock climbing to get over that, but does that ruin my sense of freedom? Swimming is a buggy, overrated, under-utilized, and underperforming facet of MMO’s historically, and it’s worth a little suspension of disbelief for me, knowing that the money and time that could have let a trooper dogpaddle across a lake in a hundred pounds of armor was instead spent creating more armor sets, more quests, and more scenery.
And if we’re talking lore, I believe Kit Fisto was able to get his lightsaber to work underwater by using two crystals and installing some pretty unique tech. Should BW really stomp all over the lore and give every lightsaber that ability, 3000-odd years before?
How can you defend a decision to not implement something so incredibly basic in an MMO that touts exploration as a literal pillar of the game?
Swimming never, ever got in the way of players before… it only provided more freedom. My sense and fear is that most people who don’t “get it” are single player gamers.
So, backwards we go I guess.
How can you say that swimming never got in the way before, have you played MMO’s? Ever done one of those “Get the item out of the sunken ship” quests in WoW? They were a pain.
You had to deal with messy camera angles, swimming with reduced speed so it took several minutes of paddling just to find your objective, and then the enemies hanging around it would end up slightly above or below you, making your abilities fail to cast or forcing you to watch your fight clipping through the cargo hold wall.
There is far more done wrong with swimming than is done right, and you know what? If I’m an explorer, I don’t care too much what’s on the bottom of a lakebed. I care about the coastline, I care about the mountain in the distance, and I care about the secret enemy base hidden UNDER the lakebed. I’ll stick to exploring those, and leave the malprogrammed swimming lessons out.
It doesn’t seem like you “get” the idea of immersion.
Swimming never, ever got in the way, and as a matter of fact was one of my very favorite things to do in an MMO. It sounds like you just didn’t really have a handle on controlling your character.
I could care less if your opinion aligns with mine, but there’s no objective way you can describe why not being able to swim makes any sense.
Look, there’s no need to get personal here, and claim that I “can’t control my character.” I’ve spent a lot of my time in these games, I know what I’m talking about. I’m sure you do too, but at least show some respect.
I don’t picture my character, with armor, robes, and a weapon that he probably doesn’t want to get wet, diving into a lake and swimming across instead of walking around. I don’t see how that actually adds a level of immersion to a game. It just adds more area to explore, and a different type of exploration. That doesn’t mean the same thing as “immersion.” How does it support role-playing? None of the characters are from particularly aquatic races, there are no water-covered planets, and if there are in the future, swimming can be added and implemented for a good reason, instead of more banal “find the item underwater” quests like we’ve seen in the “competition.”
I’ve made plenty of objective comments (and plenty of subjective comments, no doubt), which you have ignored in favor of telling me that I don’t “understand” what the word “immersion” means. If you can keep a straight face and tell me that underwater combat or exploration in a AAA-level MMO has ever been handled nearly as well as on solid ground, good for you. Keep dreaming.
Would be nice to see an ocean base planet.
I don’t feel that the argument “I want to go wherever I want to” is valid. There will be a dozen PLANETS at release, and obviously you can’t have the entire planet open for exploration. Currently, having a huge open ocean or lake with absolutely no content in it will just make load times worse for everyone.
Once they have some content for the water (i.e. a One Ring for little Smeagol to find), then of course they should implement swimming. And they will.
That ability to go “wherever I want to” is one of the freedoms that has contributed greatly to the success of WoW. From under the water and now across the skies… there’s nothing keeping you from doing anything or going anywhere (except, across the ocean without a boat of course).
And that kind of freedom is important in an MMO. Even if you feel its intangible, it contributes to the world feeling like a real place.
There are some limits, like being able to swim across the ocean, that need to be there. But there”s no reason I shouldn’t be able to dive down to the bottom of a 30 foot deep pond in the landscape to grab a resource or even a quest objective… The One Ring.
I have mixed feelings. On one side of the argument, if I see a body of water in other MMOs I do my best to run around it. I hate that every body of water in every MMO is full of monsters, and if I try to swim through it I’ll have to fight my way through it instead of just swim.
On the other side, however, I understand the immersion aspect of just having the option to swim. Like they say, you never know how much you loved someone until they’re gone.
So I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how the level designers do it. Does having all the bodies of water be 2 foot puddles draw me out of the immersion, or will I even notice it?
We can nit pick at all the little details we want, but it will be how the little details come together and are executed that really make the difference.
/facepalm at people whining over such a useless feature
I think they should remove jumping then. Useless feature also, right?
Is Bioware designing content that benefits from jumping? Are you able to jump up on objects?
Jumping does have value. A skill interrupt, a method to engage in space in another way. Why is swimming so damn sacred? What about flying? Shouldn’t I be able to steal a speeder and go anywhere I want in Coruscant? As a Sith shouldn’t I be able to invade Coruscant? Shouldn’t I be able to slaughter newbie Jedis? Yet there are restrictions. Sometimes you just gotta be happy with what you have and not whine about what you don’t.
Jumping in no way provides any value… there isn’t jumping “content” if you want to use that argument. There is no requirement to “jump” to reach an area.
And yes, you should be able to steal a speeder and go anywhere you want in Coruscant. Once they announce that we can’t, I’ll be back here in another article asking why.
Land, Sea and Air – three frontiers of exploration that “other” games have gotten right. I never excepted that these things would even be in question in game like TOR.
pretty silly that they do not have it in there, I agree….
Game breaking? probably not, and besides I think they have much bigger issues that I HOPE they are working on
– endgame design for solo\small groups
– dynamic content
– character customization – like how about some other NON human races? or the lack of an appearance tab or Guild Wars 2 gear morphing and colorization
I have a feeeling they will likely add this at a later date, probably an update\expansion tied to a water planet….
But they will take some flack for not having it avaialable at launch for sure…
I am highly disappointed that swimming won’t be in at launch. I feel it is a poor decision for a triple A MMO to launch without something so many have become accustomed to as a standard feature in today’s MMO.
There are so many things I was able to do in other games using that mechanic and I am sad to see that those things will be absent in SWTOR.
After this announcement I fully expect not to be able to fish either. :/
And guess what, after this announcement I expect to not be able to basketweave or do sychronized dancing in the Cantina either. However, I’ll settle for the fact that BW selected HEROIC as the vision for this game and savour that. When swimming, fishing, basketweaving and sychronized dancing in the cantina are considered heroic by the majority of the community then I think can at least challenge BW to uphold their vision. However, I am sorry that you are highly disappointed. Disappointment is never fun, but it is ultimately a choice.
You’ve got an entire “real” galaxy here filled with planets to explore. It’d be a complete waste if the only focus was on jar-headed “heroic” content.
Perhaps you haven’t played an MMO before, and are used to the one-track-attack of single player games?
Say what? Was that comment directed at me? LOL
I was responding the comments commentary on fishing. Please read the entire context – the way your comment reads it is as though you may have missed that.
My point (which you missed) is that with an entire galaxy full of planets, there is room for everything. Swimming. Fishing. You name it.
Thats the 2nd time you have made comments about people never having played mmos due to not agreeing with you. I have played several mmos, and do not play single players games.
Swimming is poorly implemented in every mmo I have played. It looks wierd and is immersion breaking. It adds nothing to the exploration of mmos imo, unless they actually ADD content to be explored..which swtor will not have. You mention flying, destroyed certain aspects of exploring in those games, exploration titls werre trivialized with flying.
The poll speaks for itself, most people were surprised its not in the game, and most people are not bothered by it.
I would think that if in an expansion Bioware adds swimming, we will, for the first time see how well done swimming can be, when implemented correctly. I am gladd they know they are not able to design it to their expectations and are not half assing it.
It has nothing to do with whether they agree with me or not.
You also don’t seem to understand the distinction between freedom and the need for content – they are separate.
Finally, there are plenty of games that do swimming perfectly. For a game like TOR, with the budget, the studio, the length of time they’ve had… zero reason not to have it at launch. Zero.
No I understand the distinction perfectly, it is you who is not able to accept that either most players don’t care or don’t think it ruins their game play.
Swimming is FAR overated in mmos, especially if it desn’t have well designed content.
As of the time of this post 75% of people weren’t bothered by the lack of swimming. I voted that I’m not bothered. A few things are on my mind that those in the aggrieved camp have not address so far:
– I want end-game raid content to be a priority. This is more important than swimming
– I want balanced and meaningful PvP to be a priority. This is more important than swimming
– I want class balance to be solid at release. This is more important than swimming (and don’t poo-poo this – designing a game is about priorities and vision)
– I want someone to explain to me if Heavy Armour is not a good reason to hold back swimming from release. Force me to take my heavy armour off? Where do I put it? Do I carry that suit of heavy armour with me and put it back on the other side? Do you get the madness yet? I’ve yet to see an answer even come close to addressing this
– I want someone to explain to me how the exception of a handful of lightsabers able to operate underwater is to be address with combat underwater. Blasters also fall into the category of not working for combat. If that’s the case, do we need a hand to hand system for combat? Do we forgo combat underwater? If that’s the case, then I could claim based on the pictures above that the precedent for combat underwater has been set.
– Assuming the issues above can be addressed, no swimming system I’ve seen in an MMO has ever been perfectly done. And you know what, poorly implemented swimming in an MMO breaks my immersion.
Now, you may wade back to the position of your immersion being broken, the precendce in lore and be hard pressed to pause and accept that those 75% that are not bothered may have as meaningful position as yours. But my interest is simple; this is a MONUMENTAL task BW is undertaking. It won’t be perfect, but I want this to be a successful and highly populated MMO. It’s too late to add swimming at this point and the decision has been made. The poll results are most likely bearing out my position. Swimming not in is not bothering 75% of votes. In my opinion, given what I’m looking forward to in TOR a lack of swimming will not break the game. A lack of players leaving because of poor end-game content or PvP system will do more harm than a lack of swimming. A lack of swimming is nothing against a lack of content. It’s time for priorities and I think that BW has made the best decision given the challenges, priorities and realities they have to deal with. You may not like that, but that’s my opinion – and guess what, it’s as valid as yours.
Sa Chi – I think all of us agree that swimming or underwater content doesn’t take a priority over the things you mention (end-game, PvP balance, etc.)
But, not having it in INSTEAD of those things just doesn’t hold water (sorry for the pun). Other games did it at the same time, at release.
And no matter what anyone says, having a world where you can’t at least explore the water, regardless of if there’s content in it or not, is just less believable as place.
Lethality – but my questions are unanswered.
– The poorly implemented swimming in the game breaks my immersion.
– Heavy Armour whilst I swim breaks my immersion
– A lack of underwater combat (due to the imbalance that inevitably comes) breaks my immersion
I appreciate where you’re coming from, I really do. But I happen to think in the comparing this to the poor implementation of swimming in other games is a far weaker point for debate than the questions I am asking.
Any of the games I’m thinking of comparing it do don’t have poorly implemented swimming. WoW did it quite well.
I was swimming underwater in Northshire Valley within minutes of first logging into the game on November 23, 2004. There was no content there but it sure made the world feel free and open to me – and that’s the entire point.
There is all kinds of precedent in the Star Wars universe for armor and weapons, not to mention the technology being much different than ours.
We don’t want underwater content… we want underwater to not be barrier.
I disagree; in WoW swimming broke my immersion and WoW did not do it ‘quite well’. How can I swim in heavy armour? And when I stick my head underwater I want there to be ocean life. I want there be corals, fish and other critters. I want there to be a distortion to my viewing that comes from refraction. If I can go underwater I want as much attention to detail as above the surface. After all, when I swim in the sea I am ‘immersed’ (excuse the pun) in an underwater world (not stretched textures devoid of even a pixel of movement).
In the end, our points differ. You’re willing to have swimming so that you can expore to enhance your immersion. I want someone to build swimming in a game that reflects the realities of things like drowning in heavy and uncumbersome armour, and not break my immersion. No MMO that I’ve played has managed to even come close yet.
I’m still not hearing an answer for this :)
It’s your opinion on wether or not your “immersion” is broken by WoW’s swimming. As you said – its a choice. By the way, WoW has had water refraction and caustics for a while (if not since the beginning.)
But here’s a fact: Not being able to enter and explore water IS unrealistic. That doesn’t break immersion? It’s fine in a single player game where you’re given a mission with a narrow scope and limited variables. But that’s against what an MMO should strive to achieve.
Swimming in full armor is not immersion breaking for you? Having all your gear work as though you were on dry land, yet be 50 ft. underwater is not immersion breaking?
Late arrival, but I felt this deserved comment:
“But here’s a fact: Not being able to enter and explore water IS unrealistic. That doesn’t break immersion?”
No, not being able to explore underwater doesn’t break immersion (love the pun there). Quite the opposite, actually.
I’m a diver. Do you know what I go through to explore underwater? Have you ever actually tried freediving to 30 or 40 feet? If we at least stick to humans as a baseline, exploring underwater is NOT realistic. Hell, have you ever even BEEN to the beach? What do you do? You sit on the sand, you splash around a bit, you maybe snorkel. If you’ve spent the time training and have the gear you might explore a bit more, but jumping in, swimming for half an hour and exploring sunken pirate ships while you kill things with your big two-handed axe?
No. Just… no.
So, hopping in a starship and navigating an asteroid field comes naturally, but you need to train to go in the water?
The same sense of disbelief can and should be applied to swimming, because it offers the FREEDOM that an MMORPG should.
The precedent set by other games shows that its not only possible but interesting…
Truly spoken by someone who’s never been in anything more than the deep end of the local pool.
Yes, you do need to train to go in the water. If you don’t, bad things happen – drowning is the obvious, but other fun things like ruptured eardrums, the bends, and exploded lungs. But still, the response is rather silly. You think anyone hops a starship with no training? And if you mention Anakin’s little run on Naboo, you will officially lose any credibility you might have, for all time.
But more importantly, you’re starting to contradict yourself. You’ve been saying it’s all about immersion, but now say we should apply a sense of disbelief. The two are directly contradictory – the need for disbelief is, by definition, immersion breaking.
The last line really is the important thing. It doesn’t have anything to do with realism, or immersion, or even exploration. Other games did it, and so you expect it, regardless of whether it makes sense or truly adds to the game.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the water content well enough. I’m a diver for a reason, and that carries over. But the point they’re trying to make is that the effort to do it right – by their standards, not “My tauren will now briefly look like he’s standing as he swings his axe at the shark” – isn’t worth the tiny bit of content it enables.
And however much you may want water content, they’re not wrong.
You missed the point.
You said diving (not swimming) is complex. Yet I don’t have to train to fly a spaceship in this game. Rendering your reasoning for not having it completely moot.
I don’t want water content. I want a world that doesn’t limit me in the most basic of ways.
You missed my core point – you claim not being able to swim is immersion breaking, and point to other games. I’m telling you that if you know anything about water activity, those other games are WAAAAY more immersion breaking than an enforced “I don’t think I’ll get wet today.”
You undoubtedly do train to fly a ship – you just do it off screen. You’re also provided with the equipment necessary to do so, because it’s a core part of the universe. Could the same be done for underwater activity? Certainly, but underwater is not the central critical part of the universe that spaceflight is. I’d compare it to driving a car – the level of training is comparable, most people train to drive cars, not nearly as many people are divers.
EVERY game “limits you in the most basic of ways”. You need reasonable gear and training to swim/dive for lengths of time. Same could be said for sheer cliffs – why does the game limit me in the most basic of ways by not letting me use Naboo rappelling guns to climb the side of every wall/building? Why aren’t you up in arms over that?
Because other games provided swimming, and you consider it standard. Climbing remains unimplemented, so you don’t miss it – despite every argument you’ve made applying equally to that.
I understand ppl that want to swim by the sake of it and the freedom of a MMO. But for me it is better not to have to swim. Generally swming is a way of running away from danger (both PvP and PvE) and when it is required to swim it generally in most games it takes longer than running.
And unless swiming also comes with underwater danger (like sharks and sea monster) I rather not have it. I always felt swming a boring and unreal thing.
Thumbs up for not swimming.
Hi
First let me say as I am both a game player and a Star Wars Fan.
TOR seems a great smoth well polished MMO, but for me it also lacks alot.
Swiming is one of the things it lacks and under water combat. maney games have under water combat and I always enjoy it so much. Love WOWs underwater area. As the whole for the movment is slow under water thing. No WOW soveled that by giving a fast moving sea horse mount for thier under water area as part of a quest. So in TOR we could have an underwater mount that only works underwater and makes your movment faster. I know someone is going to say well go play WOW then, but as I said I am a Star Wars Fan to.
The other things this game is missing.
Player housing or at least the abilty to decorate the inside of our own ships, to make it or own.
Player Onboard Ship where your friends can help you in space.
More than one type of ship per class.
Open are space flying with space PVP.
Craftable ship parts and upgrades
Pets system. Any MMO I have palyed has alowed you to have pets. I like the whole conpianon thing and the stuff they can do, but a pet for combat only would be realy nice.
I know I will get shot down for some but the gamer part of me finds that MMO’s that just depand on combat and even with a great story become boring once you hit the high end content and they then depand on the next patch to keep players interested. This happened in WOW. I have 8 toons in wow all 85 but to be honest I am now bored with it. These are just my thoughts and wishes. I just wish game designers out there would stop thinking that combat games have to be about nothing other than combat and also listen to what people want. They say they do, but they dont.
Wtach this to see how under water combat and play works
http://youtu.be/UMQkKZ-KVw8
How do we know that the water would not be acid? This is not a world… it is many.
I personally, am not at all bothered by BW’s decision to not include swimming with the release of TOR. I consider swimming, for the most past, to be extremely immersion-breaking in these sorts of games. From a role-playing perspective, no sane person opts to hop into an unknown pool of water and swim across it or explore it’s depths. You would walk around it to reach the other side. In fact I’m sure people would just get themselves killed if they were to try (especially if they were wearing heavy armour).
I’d rather BW spent their time and money creating more content than trying to implement and un-needed immersion-breaking feature.
I’ve been reading comments for a long while now and I was wondering if anyone thought that carrying huge bags full of loot around until you found a vendor to unload on was immersion breaking? :)
I used to play a MUD, way back in the day, where I could hang out in a nice grove and smoke a pipe. That was as relaxing as a game ever got for me. I’m sure it won’t be included as an option in TOR, but I’ll still play.
Immersion is what you make of it. Whether it’s a text based MUD or the fanciest next gen graphics monster. We take what is given.
Am i the only one who reads all theses comments and laughs becasue people are argueing over some thing as pointless as swimming in an mmo
I have to points I want to make. First… I hope Lethality is no longer a poster at this website… His comments, for the most part, have been rude and insulting to those he directed them at… that is no way a person in his position should act.
Secondly, am I surprised there is no swimming? Yes… does it break the game? No. Do I think that there should be swimming? In a later patch when it can be done right with underwater life and coral reefs and even the water looking distorted because of refraction! I don’t want it like wow or rift where it looks just like above water except with the “ceiling” being the water surface… I also know there are rebreathers and other “technological” rational for allowing combat or heavy armor under water, so that is a non-issue for me. I would love to see the gungan city on Naboo at a later date with the ability to swim there, no combat necisarrily, just a fun 2-5 minute swim with awesome graphics :)
No such luck – I own the site. This is an opinion column and if you don’t like my opinion, no sweat.