Author: Jason

Non-MMO Gaming

Gaming

A while back, some friends and I started up some old fashioned pen & paper gaming. It started out with an AD&D (original rules) campaign, and has since turned into a rotating two campaign (two different DMs) 3.5 ruleset playday.

I had forgotten how fun face-to-face gaming can be.

Its refreshing to know that content won’t be broken (or “working as intended”), and there will be no farming or camping, unless we want to grow some crops or tell stories around the camp fire. There will be no lists, no looking for a group, no raid attendance or DKP. There will be no spam of Chuck Norris jokes (though jokes and puns are numerous around the gaming table), and one begging people to join his guild that plans to do end game raiding and be the most uber guild ever in under a month if people will just join he’s offering a gold for every person to sign his guild charter come on!

The feats of our characters are limited only by our imaginations, the will of the DM, and the luck of the dice. Death is a real threat and not a feature of the game mechanics. Losing is losing, not thirty seconds of downtime.

Currently, in the first of our games, I play a fighter. The band of adventurers I’ve fallen in with consist of a ranger, a paladin, a cleric, and two scouts *cough*rogues*cough*. Well, one scout. Last session, one of the scouts was turned into pasty goo by a giant. In the land we find ourselves in, I have taken over a garrison outpost of the local lord. We reclaimed it from the evil that had infested it and have now restocked and restaffed it to help hold against the wilds of the forest. Unlike most MMO games, or even single player games, here I feel like a hero. While trying to retake the outpost, we’d gotten inside and an army came to take it back from us. Suddenly the tables had turned, and while we had stealthily fought our way inside, now we had to repell invaders. Most armies of foot soldier are made up of level 0, or at best level 1, fighters. I was level 5. I also had a potion we’d recovered on an earlier adventure that could make me invulnerable to non-magic weapons for a short time. Long enough though to drop to the outside and wade into the army while my friends supported from the walls with bow and crossbow. Damn, that felt good.

In our second game, well, we haven’t gone too far, but I’m a mage this time, a sorcerer of dragon blood. I expect no less joy from these adventures.

I suppose one of the better parts is the limited nature of the game. Everyone who plays honestly wants to play. There is roleplay, not sissy “thee” and “thou” garbage, but people actually playing roles… the rogues are sneaky, I command armies, the paladin does the right thing even when it may not be the best thing. The game has no end, so there is no end game. There is no level rush, or gear to get. The game just is.

Oh yeah… I had forgotten how much fun this could be.

Graphics in Games

Gaming

One of the things that continues to baffle me is the push for more intense, more realistic graphics in games. While I’m sure that focus groups have show that people respond to the “better” graphics, and that shelf sales increase based on graphics buzz, every game I’ve ever played, and every game everyone I know has ever played, gets played longer based on the game play and has nothing to do with the graphics.

Seriously, if the game sucks, you put it down. In MMORPGs while box sales are important, continued subscribers and word of mouth are what make a game a long term success. World of Warcraft doesn’t have the best graphics in the world. Sure, they are highly stylized and pretty, but the fact that my 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATI 9800 machine runs it great is just awesome. Other games that have come out almost refuse to install on my computer at all. And while I don’t want to put down WoWs graphics, its clearly obvious upon long and repeated play that Blizzard spent alot more time on game content and less time on the graphics than some of their competitors.

At arcades all over the world, despite their being a number of “better” games graphics wise, people still continue to put quarters in games like Pac-Man. Simple graphics with immediately engaging game play. City of Heroes grasped this concept well. With its fast paced wham-bang superhero action, its almost pure fun. Its only real flaw is that the snail’s pace at which later levels progress will make any but the more hardcore gamers and diehard fans stop logging in to play.

So, for me, the perfect MMORPG would have “good” yet not overly expensive or time consuming graphics. Less polygons and shaders, more variety of color and style, and with the millions being saved not being spent on a AAA graphics team, I’d be able to hire a few more content designers to help keep the game exciting to play even if its not the most exciting to look at.

Alliance: Good doesn`t mean Nice

Gaming

Ishiro and Lorilai head to Winterspring to do battle with demons in the south because Ishiro needs some felcloth. Unfortunately, seeing as we have gotten all our gear doing quests and picking stuff up as we go, never in the auction house, we are poorly equiped to handle level 60 elites as a duo. So after getting our spirits crammed back into our bodies, we decide to do something else instead. Quests in Silithus.

Seems some of the guys there want us to kill more of those Twilight Hammer guys, so we are off to do that. Sadly, the pages they drop are a repeatable quest that people farm for faction to be able to complete other quests. First camp we hit, the one in the far southwest, a group of 60’s are pummelling everything in site. Second camp, just west of the town, also camped by a group of 60’s. Third camp, ah-ha! Only one rogue here. Of course the rogue spots a priest and runs up to me and says, “++”. I ignore him, assuming he doesn’t speak English. “zu” he says. “++”. He keeps running over, helping us kill stuff and repeating “zu” and “++”. Now, at this point I assume he wants something, but I have no idea what. Finally I say, “Sorry, I don’t understand you.” He stands silent a while and then says, “hp”. Hmm… I guess he wants a stamina buff. So I relent and give him one. He then proceeds to steal kills from us, and when he gets caster mobs with pets, he continually dumps the pets on us after he killed the casters. An interesting way to say “thank you”.

Lori and I are happily grinding away. We kill the 10 Geolords they wanted us to kill, and we are now collecting pages for the hermit. 77 kills in total and we got 7 pages. A 1 in 11 drop rate for an item that is also used in a repeatable quest that everyone and their brother appears to want to farm. Ugh. However, prior to the end of our evening, a raid force shows up. We are wondering what is going on, they are Alliance which means I can talk to them, so I ask. No reply. Ask a couple more people, ask in general channel. No answers. Without warning they trigger some god awful boss mob that blasts some area affect poison crap that nearly kills us. We scramble to survive our fight (3 mobs at once, that Keeper bitch keeps showing up at the most inopportune times), and then scramble to heal up. Then we get splattered again with the poison ooze and start healing and running.

After they kill the thing, I ask what it was, what it was for… no answers. I mention it would have been nice to give people a warning before spawning a boss like that… no reply. Then the raid group decides that with the boss dead, they all need faction and pages, so the 40 of them descend on our little camp and make everything dead. Nice.

So we pack it in for the night, still needed 3 more pages for Lori to complete the hermit’s quest. I really want to finish this crap so I can get away from Silithus. The place has been good to us, but there are just far too many wackjobs and assholes running around.

Poker Face

Reviews

So the book is called Poker Face with a subtitle of “a girlhood among gamblers” and it is written by Katy Lederer, sister to world famous poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. You would think the book would be about poker, or even gambling, but it is not.

Basically, the tale told in these pages focuses more on the “a girlhood” than it does the “among gamblers”. Yes, her family gambles. And yes, she does too. But the book is more about Katy’s life that happened around and outside and because of the gambling, not of the gambling itself.

Was it a good book? Ehh… it didn’t suck, but from the book jacket I was expecting there to be more gambling and the gambling life. However, I did pick this book up the lofty price of $1.98 in the bargain resale library book bin down at the local Books-A-Million, so I really can’t complain. I don’t really recommend it though, unless you want to read about a girl whose family breaks apart and then mostly reforms in Las Vegas, but very little about the actual gambling.

Stuff on the Net V

Stuff on the Net

Its not new news, but EVE Online has proven to me again that it is a place where anything can happen if the players want it to… including theft and assassination.

Do you think you could be the next Mistress of the Dark?

I never think of the great ideas first. From big red paper clip to a year free rent.

Of course, even great ideas can be dwarfed by combined genius and stupidity. I leave is to you to determine which one is the genius.

I don’t bowl enough to have an average, but if I did, I might consider entering this tournament where the winner gets to own the bowling alley.

While looking up stuff to educate myself on the woes and advantages of hybrid cars I stumbled onto this enthusiastic yet disgruntled hybrid owner’s blog.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Reviews

It has been a very long time since I read through the 1985 DC Comics event, but last year Marv Wolfman decided to write a novelization of the comic. Crisis on Infinite Earths tells the same tale of the original comic, only this time largely from the point of view of Barry Allen, The Flash.

If you’ve read the original, or if you read the first chapter of this book, you know from the get-go that Barry Allen dies. If you have followed The Flash comics since the original Crisis series, you also know that Barry didn’t really die so much as join the Speed Force (well, first he skipped off into the future, had a couple kids with his wife, Iris, and then permanently joined with the Speed Force, but that’s not really important right now). So from the first pages you know Barry is dead, but somehow and for some reason, the Monitor and the Speed Force are keeping him around in some sort of super accellerated ghost state. Appearantly he has something important to do.

The story is fairly confusing as it leaps from Earth to Earth and through time all over the place telling you things out of order and upside-down. But the snippets are still interesting, and the end of the book ties everything together nicely, adding a new dimension to the old comic book without destroying it.

If you liked the original Crisis, then I recommend this book.

However, I do have one complaint. The original series was published in 1985. This book was published in 2005. Twenty years. Alot has changed in those twenty years, and Marv lets slip in a number of current and recent pop culture references that simply didn’t exist then. Then again, comics have always been a very weird art form since their characters tend not to age while their world usually stays fairly up to date with the times, so I can overlook it a bit but I strongly feel that every one of those references could have been removed form the book and it would have worked just fine. It didn’t need pop culture. Still, it was a good read.

Creative Roadblocks

Random Thoughts

I have been a writer for a large portion of my life. I am constantly jotting down ideas, paragraphs, pages, and half-chapters. Sadly, little of it ever really gets complete.

I don’t believe in writer’s block. What most people call writer’s block is usually either fear, or just a lack of a clear path from point A to point B, or worse, not wanting to use the path that has come to you naturally. Truth is though, most people who claim to be blocked are really just trying to hard to write final drafts on the first draft. The solution: write it, and if it comes out crappy, rewrite it.

I am constantly rewriting.

However, on occasion, I can churn out some quick content… heck, its what half of this website is… but there are times where I do get stuck. I come up with a good parody idea, and sometimes the words just flow right out… other times, I get halfway there and get hung on a word, a needed rhyme or turn of phrase that just doesn’t come. My usual response is just to set it aside, ignore it, work on something else, and the lightning will strike my brain, inspiration will appear. But for some reason, today, I have been sitting here with something that if a great idea, in this case the re-lyricing of a song for laughs, and when I employed my usual tactic the words just never came. So I’m sitting here with a half written song (I have the chorus set, and a couple of the lines) and I’m laughing at the idea of it, but for some reason I just can finish the execution.

Perhaps my brain just has a bridge out and what I need is a good solid detour… mmm… time to go home.

Alliance: Sometimes I wish I was Horde

Gaming

Ishiro loves him some Alterac Valley.

Now, for those who don’t understand, let me explain. In World of Warcraft, if you wish to engage in PvP but do not wish to engage in open PvP out in the wild where you can get ganked, outnumbered 5 to 1, there are Battlegrounds. Warsong Gulch is Capture the Flag: each team has a base that holds a flag and a field between the bases, and your team tries to get the other team’s flag and bring it back home. Arathi Basin is Control Points: there are 5 control point locations on the map you have to assault and hold, while holding them you earn points (10 at a time), and the first team to 2000 wins. Alterac Valley is a Campaign: huge map, with a home base, towers, control points, and other stuff, if you hold a control point that gives you access to a graveyard which allows you to better hold the battle lines, the winner is the one who defeats the other teams general.

I like Alterac Valley for a number of reasons. One, there is lots to do. You can capture rams to equip your NPC ram riders. You can gather minerals from the mine. You can PvP and collect armor fragments to upgrade your NPC guards. And more. Because the war is usually long (5+ hours) people learn to organize and play together and leaders emerge. Two, the Alliance wins fairly often at this. Mostly we win because after 6 hours, the Horde team usually goes for an end run, we defend it, and they start quitting. I’ve heard its different on other servers.

But that doesn’t explain the title… see, in Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch I have never been on the winning team. The Alliance sucks. People spend too much time going for individual kills, no one ever wants to play defence (less honorable kills to be had), and the Horde just rolls right over us. I’ve actually been involved in an Arathi match that ended 2000 to 80. That’s right, we managed to hold one control point for 8 ticks. And most Warsongs end with a 3-0 loss, usually because I, a priest, am the only one on defence no matter how much I ask for help.

Another thing… the Alliance on my server just blow at organization. They don’t form up groups, they don’t listen, and generally they just don’t play well together. We win Alterac because its a long haul campaign, were Arathi and Warsong usually take less than 30 minutes (especially at the rate we allow the Horde to get points). The other team, however, always seems to move together in groups, defend each other, play well… it makes me envious.

I keep trying Arathi and Warsong in hopes I can find people who are good at it… until I do, though, most of my efforts will be in Alterac where more often than not we can win.

A Dirty Job

Random Thoughts

Christopher Moore does it again. I just finished reading through his latest book, A Dirty Job, and I have to say that it is excellent. The cast of characters is full of new interesting faces, as well as a handful of familiar faces from his other books.

Charles Asher is a new father, his daughter Sohpie just being born. While still in the hospital, his wife dies and Charlie is a bit unnerved by the presence of a very tall black man in a mint green suit in her room that appearantly no one else can see. It isn’t long before Charlie learns that he has become Death… or rather a Death… or at least someone who goes around collecting souls from people recently deceased or soon to die and assisting in passing those souls on to their new homes. And then there are the dark monsters in the sewers…

As with many of his books before, Chris Moore had me laughing out loud quite often (and getting stares from people on public transportation, as I have mentioned here a time or two before). I highly recommend this, or any of Christopher Moore’s books. I’m only sad that now having finished his most recent book I don’t have another one to read.