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In City of Heroes News…

Random Thoughts

.. the people on the official CoH Message Boards continued to discuss how cool the game is even though it doesn’t exist yet! They talk about the game disecting each frame of the admittedly damn cool gameplay movie. They roleplay. They create characters (most of them will end up bitching when someone steals their idea before they get their hands on a copy of the game). They form super teams.

Let me repeat… The game does not exist yet!

This isn’t a new thing. It’s happened with most games that have come out recently. See Dawn for an extreme case of people defending a game that will NEVER exist (I have my Beta account set up anyway so I can laugh at it properly). Mostly though, this kind of religious ferver just results in disappointment and general community divisions and hatred as people bicker and bitch about whether or not capes should be in the game.

I think the first sign of the coming apocalypse is any time two people argue about something where not only can neither of them win, but even if they could it wouldn’t matter because its not up to them to decide.

Back to my comic books…

Random Thoughts

As you may recall, I have a collection of comic books I want to unload. eBay won’t let me do it as I want to, and rather than spend time and money splitting the sets out to sell them in parts, I need another service.

If anyone knows any online auction place that will let me set up something for sale at around $5,000 minimum bid, let me know.

And sometimes they do it right.

Random Thoughts

The Weekend before Halloween, Verant make a change on the servers for what they called “Adventure Weekend”. They sped up the spawn times for the large contested monsters in the game. The dragons, Venril Sathir and others. Lots of guilds got to do alot of the high end game.

“But what about the little guys?” you ask.

Well, they also patched the server on Halloween morning to introduce a bunch of scripted events. In several zones werewolves and undead roamed where they previously hadn’t. And these monsters dropped very nice equipment. A few pieces were even good by the high end gamers’ standards, but most were aimed at people around levels 10 to 40. Each of these zones had a story, and completing the story ended the event… but… it would start over again in 2 hours to give more people a chance to participate.

This is exactly what Verant needs to do more often. Not always dropping loot and other things, but to have a zone be unpredictable. The spawns more random. Get the players involved. Like having 2 quests in a zone, if the good guys win evil is vanquished, if the bad guys win good is sent heading for the hills. These events, when followed and not farmed, were engaging, interesting, and fun.

Now, on to my next comment…

Those were scripted events. Today however, I ran into what is usually referred to as “a_GM_event00”. Usually these events are nothing but people getting killed and crappy loot.

However…
(in character)
I head to Karnor’s Castle for some hunting. We build a group and get ready. Kill a few things and I run in deep to pull something out to play. As I round the staircase in the Left Courtyard toward the Well, I see “Sentry of Sathir”. “Cool”, I think to myself. I’ll pull him out and have some fun. Then a dwarf flies by. His name is “Knight of Brell” and he says only one word: “RUN!”

I round the corner and I see him.. Venril Sathir. Immediately I take the dwarf’s advice and run. At the front of the Castle now I see them all coming: Venril Sathir, Knight of Sathir, Sentry of Sathir, and Drolvarg Captain. They charge us and we brace for it.

Things did not go well. We were beaten out of the zone. We collected ourselves and then once more into the breach. We stand longer this time, and a few of us fall in combat. Our clerics revive us and we rejoin the fray.

The word has gone out, and the army gathers. The Drolvarg Captain falls. I begin shouting orders and the adventurers begin to listen. The Sentry of Sathir falls. Collected more fully know we charge. The Knight of Sathir falls.

And we fail. Venril Sathir lays the Knight of Brell to rest.

Now enraged we charge at last Venril Sathir himself. I call out to rally the forces assembled. We battle. Each of us tired, weary, but we continue. And finally, Venril Sathir falls.

We collect the spoils of our fight: Cleric Greeves, Magician Staff, Wizard Staff. I allot the loot to those who helped.

From deep within the bowels of Karnor’s Castle, a voice echoes, “I will return!” Venril Sathir is far from done with Norrath.
(end in character)

See.. now THAT was fun. I wish more people could see the game like this. And I hope that Verant does things like this more often.

All Hallows Eve.

Random Thoughts

Last night was Halloween. One of my favorite nights of the year, even though I partake of it too little.

I’m happy to say that Cobb County didn’t try this year to celebrate Halloween on the 26th or some nonsense to avoid work and school conflicts. I’m also happy I wasn’t innundated with warnings about rapists and murderers about. I wasn’t told to make sure the kids start trick or treating at noon and are done before sundown.

People seemed a bit more relaxed this year. Well, except that perhaps they were looking at Halloween as an escape from terrorist threats, anthrax scares, and all the real world bring-me-downs that we have seen since September 11th.

I headed out this year to a local Taco Mac. The best Taco Mac around in my opinion. Built in an old Steak & Ale building it looks totally different from all the strip mall steel and glass crap many of the others are made of. It’s homey. Smokey. More a bar than a restaurant. And I went with my fiancee and a few friends. We talked and drank. I think my friends were bored, or just had too much else going on to relax.

One by one they left. The band came on the stage, Tommy Gun, and with the end of their first song, the last friend left. My fiancee and I stayed. The band was good. Bordering on great. We drank. We sang. We danced. Ahhh… relaxation.

After the first set was done, we too headed out. We got home and decided to take a stroll out in the full moon light. The night air was brisk, and we wandered the streets, empty of trick-or-treaters in our apartment complex, and talked. We laughed. We smiled. Ahhh… relaxation.

The worries melted away last night, and once my friends were gone and the music began to play, up until I drifted off to sleep during the final credits of The Amityville Horror with thoughts of bleeding walls and demons in the basement drifting through my head, it was a great night.

I love Halloween.

Sorry, I don`t have an icon for…

Random Thoughts

Horizons. I’m also running a bit late with this news. Check out the main page. It appears that NCSoft has stepped up with $4.5 Million to help fund the project. Most games cost about $3 Million to make, so hopefully this should mean that Horizons WILL see the light of day.

Horizons, at least if you believe all that you read, is the most ambitious of the MMORPGs to unveil itself. If it can hold true to all its designs it will be a major force in the market place. But therein lies alot of “if”s.

Only time will tell.

My Comics and eBay.

Random Thoughts

First off, let me say this. I’m selling my comic book collection. Over a number of years I bought and read comic books. I loved them, and if I had the money, I would love getting them still. So now, after having enjoyed these comics, I have 14 long boxes full of them and they take up space.

I have a list of most of what I have here. And if you want to make me an offer, please do so.

Next: eBay sucks.

I tried to go and place this collection up for auction. Repeatedly the site would give me errors and then erase everything I had done. And they some sort of add policy that states in order to sell something, you must be able to buy it. I tried to put this collection up for a minimum bid of $5,000, since to someone with the time and contacts its worth about $10,000, and it tells me I don’t have $5,000 worth of credit.

I mean, if I had $5,000 I wouldn’t need to sell my comics.

Sometimes I just don’t get it.

Job Hunting.

Random Thoughts

Since early this year, the Information Technology market has been less than good. At the end of last year I quit a job and within a month picked up an open ended contract, basically stay hired as long as I wanted. After they moved me to third shift, 11pm to 7am, I decided I didn’t want to any more. So on April 30th I turned in my work I.D. and security swipe card, and set off looking for a “better” job.

I had 4 months of bill money saved up in the bank, 5 if I stretched it. I called some headhunters, recruiters and the like, and started sending out resumes.

Its now almost 6 months later, and I’m still unemployed.

I managed to keep my head above water because my fiancee has a job, and she makes just enough to not quite cover the bills. So we are still slowly sinking, but not having to bail water as often.

I’ll be the first to admit, when I started looking, I had a fixed set of rules for where I wanted to work. But that began to fade after the first month. Slowly, week by week, my standards for employment have crumbled to the point where I think the only thing on my “I’m not comfortable doing that job” list is fast food. And its not just personal choice that has whittled away at my resolve. In nearly 6 months, I have had 2 real interviews.

Two.

Anyone else who bothered to contact me in response to my resume (and that number is small when compared to how many I have sent out) said the same thing: You’re overqualified, you wouldn’t be happy here, we can’t hire you. Even one grocery store which will remain nameless told me that I was overqualified to work stock, and that they would rather hire some high school kid who’s going to quit the first time his job conflicts with his social life over me, someone who just wants to keep food on his table and a roof over his head.

The job market was getting better. Then some maniacal moron had the idea to slam a couple of planes into the World Trade Center. I had 3 interviews lined up that week. All gone now as each company “rethinks its position in this time of crisis.” I don’t mean to lessen the pain of the terrorist attack. I sat at home, being unemployed, and watched CNN all day from the first crash to the very end. And I cried, all day. But as the President said, we must carry on. Those of us not victims of the attacks, our lives did not end on September 11th. We must continue living, we must show that an attack on our buildings cannot destroy our lives and freedom.

And yet lots of companies stopped interviewing. They still post jobs and collect resumes, but if you call them, they aren’t following through. No interviews are being set up, no hiring being done. The process only pretends to continue, it doesn’t actually carry on.

So what am I to do? I need a job. Lots of people need jobs. I’m no fool. I realize that I’m in a pool of thousands looking for work. But I can’t worry about them, because if I do I’ll care, and I’ll starve. Well, not likely starve, but move back home with my parents for sure, and that’s almost worse.

Luckily for me, the Christmas season is upon us. Its a time of generosity, good cheer, and seasonal help in stores all over this great nation. I’ve got an interview today in fact. And if I’m chosen, I’ll get to survive until next year. And if I’m not… I hear you can make up to $12 an hour begging on the street if you do it right.

Browsing and Wasting Time.

Random Thoughts

I remember computer games. One of the first I ever loaded on to a computer was the first of the Zork games. We also had a few of those ASCII text games, and there were things like the Door Games on the BBSs I used to frequent, like Global War, Baron Realms Elite, Trade Wars 2002, and all the other football leagues, war games, and trivia. I didn’t see real computer graphics until The Black Cauldron (you can download it here). I got hooked on Sierra games. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Thexder, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and other. And of course as a brainy kid who knew too much triva, I also too to the Carmen Sandiego games. And don’t forget the hours and hours I spent playing The Bard’s Tale (sometimes at night, when its quiet, I still hear the music).

So I’m surfing around the net today, looking for things to keep me busy until my new video card (Thanks Kevin!) shows up so I can try playing Dark Age of Camelot again, and I found this.

Sweeeet.

Taking me back to my days of playing text games like Zork, Stephen King’s The Mist, and this one, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I am sad to see they removed the first step of the game though. I know it personally took me about 4 hours to figure out the proper command to end the repeating of “It is dark.” was “open eyes”. Seems they removed that and jumped right into turning on the light.

It probably better this way, the world needs less insane people.

Superman on TV again.

Reviews

Well, I’m late with this. Its a character flaw.

But last week was the premiere of the new Superman TV show Smallville. And boy was it good.

The last show, live action show that is, Lois & Clark was pretty good when it started. Sure they did some lovey-dovey romance stuff, but they focused mostly on the superhero stuff that we all really want to see. That lasted a season or two, then they did the wedding (the absolute worst TV show in the history of TV shows) and it really started sucking even more after that.

I’m hoping that Smallville doesn’t fall into that trap and keeps a healthy level of action with its drama.

In this incarnation, we are taken back (although they did update it to the present day) to the beginning. Clark Kent is a teenager, a freshman in high school. He knows he’s different, and he hides his super powers. In the first episode, they introduce the Kents, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, and Kryptonite (which I felt they did in a very cool way). The series looks to focus on Clark coming to grips with his true nature, using his powers for good, all the while just trying to fit in and be like everyone else. Teen angst with super villians.

Rock on.

Smallville comes on the WB network at 9pm on Tuesdays. I strongly recommend checking it out. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Keeping a Promise.

Random Thoughts

A long while back I promised something. And later promised it again. If you dig through the .plans you’ll find the promise. But I’ll save you the trouble…

Women in Prison: The Greatest Movie Genre EVER!

And that’s no lie.

First off, let’s start with the usual movie genre classifications: Action/Adventure, Horror, Drama, Comedy, Documentary, etc.. you know them all. Now, some people might say that Women in Prison isn’t a movie genre, but a style, or a common plot device. To them I say, “Bah! Shut up!”

Second, what makes a Women in Prison movie different?

Well, we can start with the setting, a women’s prison. And the cast.. there is always a warden, and they come in two types: hardened badass and pushover. Then there is the head guard, often male, who is almost always the opposite of the warden, either on the surface or deep down where it counts. If the warden is hard, the head guard is soft, and vice versa. There is always the naive prisoner, many times the main character, and there is always the time hardened evil prisoner. Most times there is also a wisened “been around the block a time or two” prisoner to help the naive one find her way.

Beyond the setting and cast, the stories themselves can be quite diverse. A Women in Prison movie can be an action flick, a drama, a horror film, a comedy, a documentary, etc… you get the idea.

Oh, and lets not forget the shower scenes, forbidden love, forced encounters and all the other things that make these movies GREAT for first dates!

And I’m not the only one. Check out this site about prison flicks. They have a good section on Women in Prison movies.

Beyond this however, there are quite a number of essays out on the net (I’m not posting links, cause some of it is really disgusting and I trust if you really want to see it you can find it yourself using Google or some other search engine) that actually point out that these sort of Women in Prison movies, made by men with all the sex and stuff, are actually more accurate a depiction of prison life for women than those movies that portray every woman in the slammer as a single mother trying to do right by her children while learning to be a productive member of society and sharing knitting secrets with her fellow inmates.

Anyway, I still hold, and probably will until my dying day, that Women in Prison is the single greatest film genre ever. Or, as the author at the link above says, at least that’s what I’ll continue to tell all my friends and family when they catch me watching them.