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Showing posts from May, 2009

Oh My Gawd...

Y'know, the MUCK's far from perfect. We've a lot of people that lack inspiration and drive, and I'm usually one of them. But for all that, there's no one I hate there. There is, however, one person I have a great deal of difficulty tolerating. Even then, I don't hate... I just can't stand. From my perspective: - This person did a lot of work for the MUCK in the form of coding. This is beyond me in the sense that I don't know it. I probably could learn it, but I really don't have the desire. I am appreciative of this effort. It did take time. It did take work. - They are prone to idleness. Seriously, the character will be logged on and (in spite of idle-boots that kick other people off after minutes or hours) show an idle time of days frequently. - They are TOTALLY self-absorbed. They will come back from weeks of absence and expect things to happen right then for them. They will come onto the public channel and launch right into a topic expectin

Pacing Games

As I'm pressured (and seriously considering) taking up the Star Wars RPG campaign that petered out several months ago, I find myself contemplating one of the more tricky and subtle aspects of running an RPG. How do you pace the bloody things? Stated simply, it's a factor in any game, but it's harder online. Whether in PBEM, PBP, IM, or MU*ing, just the fact that thoughts must be typed out makes everything take longer. In person, a simple yes/no question can be asked an answered in seconds. When everyone's at their keyboard, it can still take a minute online with typing, reading, and typing back. Add a little distraction of another window of something to fill the "dead" time between bits of text and that compounds. This is generally why I feel that organized/scheduled RP sessions online deserve top attention priority and I generally refuse to get into anything else which will affect anyone beyond me when I stop paying attention there (WoW dungeons, I'm lo

Grrawr!

So after a load of laundry yesterday and a small load today, the dryer seems to have burned out its fuse again. I was pretty sure the exhaust tube wasn't pinched off this time, which has me thinking something else is wrong with the thing. On the up side, I ordered two fuses, so I put in the spare and it's working now. On the down side, I suspect it won't be long before it toasts that one, too. I really don't want to make a service call for this, but I (in my very, very limited experience) seem to be missing something... Addendum: I suppose a couple other things bear quick mention while I'm making a "real life" post venting into the ether. My allergies seem to be easing up - or the medication is doing a better job. I also feel better than I'd expect for staying up until about 4:30 in the morning reading. Eight almost-contiguous hours, and I've finished Kushiel's Mercy . That second trilogy didn't initially grab me like the first, but it

Dragon's Eye: Part 1

As mentioned here before, we've had an exterior repair project going on for months and months now. It's tiresome to see it not done. The buildup to it was financially painful, and there has been talk about cost increases since. When it started, there were three or four guys doing a good bit of work. Lately, I see one around now and then on weekdays, and that's it. What could possibly be taking so long? The estimates were to be done long ago. Well, I talked with the guy doing the work today. Really, I was just going to point out a temporary cover to the roof over our front door has slid down, but we got to talking more in depth, and I heard his side of things. Just about every time he does something, he finds more damage that wasn't seen before. Wood stacked against building walls has led to mildew penetrating the walls. Poor original building designs have led to water seepage between surfaces. Exterior studs are placed at inconvenient intervals. All this sort of stu

Dragon's Eye: Prologue

It feels like ages ago now, but like so many roleplayers, I read the Choose Your Own Adventure-style books as a kid. Perhaps the earliest were the D&D versions, though I'm not certain of that. While on vacation with my dad and step-mom in Britain, I was introduced to the Fighting Fantasy series, which was more involved - with *gasp* use of dice, charts, and stats to resolve combat. And while the Lone Wolf series has a special place in my heart, I think the most mature (mind out of the gutter) of the adventure books I read were from the Swordquest line. They probably aren't really that outstanding as far as writing goes and were fairly linear, but certain little elements that were included made them stand out to me at the time. Quest for the Dragon's Eye by Bill Fawcett was book two, though each was self-contained. Now, it's been a long time since I've read it last, so most of it is hazy. You play a thief-turned-soldier, and are sent in search of a magical gem

Welcome to Summer

The Memorial Day weekend sort of marks the beginning of "summer" here. It's now tourist season, and it feels like it. We had kyn-elwynn over since Thursday, and just saw him off earlier today. It was interesting having someone over for a few days - the first time we've really done that which I can recall, though we've had overnight visits a few times. It didn't really feel crowded here, but I did spend a lot of time worrying over entertainment of my guest. I suppose that's the nature of things. You don't want everyone to be bored, but I don't care to run around all the time either. We went to Mesa Verde. It was the first time up there for me in... I dunno. Ten years? More? So that was sort of nice, and about the most touristy thing we did. Otherwise, we caught a movie, ate out around town, walked some of the river trail, and saw (albeit in passing) some of the bike racing that goes on over the weekend. I hope the experience was relaxing overal

@.@

Running around yesterday and today cleaning and whatnot. I'm not used to having guests for more than overnight stays. Aieeee! While doing laundry, it looks like the dryer fuse blew. That took a little while to diagnose and I ordered a replacement, but with the holiday weekend it still might be toward the middle of next week before it is here. I might have been able to find one locally, but who wants to run around looking for the right fuse when they have to be at the airport in a few hours to pick someone up? Double-aieeee!

Well... huh...

According to the company newletter, I started work at the paper fifteen years ago today. Different jobs over the years, but same company. Wow... fifteen years.

(WoW/GW) Sweep the Deeps!*

Slow WoW weekend in general, but got in a couple heroic dungeons anyway. WoW My paladin put away her shield and pulled out her two-handed sword, letting our guild leader tank with his warrior alt. I've also started watching the DPS meter to get a feel for how I can do in damage dealing. We hit Violet Hold on Friday night first, got to the first boss - the voidwalker I hadn't seen yet - and wiped. Ow. Being my first time drawing that boss, I don't feel too bad. We swept the dungeon on our second attempt without any major problems. Then we hit up Halls of Lightning. It went pretty smoothly most of the way. We got a little split up on Ionar, and one person died there, but it wasn't a big setback. Loken, however... was interesting. He's one of those fights you can almost expect to die on the first time - you take damage for staying too far away, and he does a nova effect that hurts a lot if you don't run out of range in time. Movement's a bit factor. So

Edge of Inspiration

I feel a certain energy, a drive and desire to work on something. And yet my mind refuses to "lock on" to anything. A campaign? A character? A story? I can't quite grasp any of the threads to pursue, thus I am failing to accomplish anything. . .

(GW) Feeling Left Out?

It has been noted that I make far more World of Warcraft posts than Guild Wars ones. The reasons are probably already laid out in some of my comparisons in the past, but I guess I've heard it just enough now to address directly. And there are multiple reasons that are mixed, scattered, and cross over one another. That makes it hard for me to sort out, but I guess I shall try anyway. Probably the main point: WoW is more involving to me. The game world's lore is built upon games I've previously played and, though told mostly through 511-character pages of text from quest-givers, seems broader and richer. The professions, resources, and in-game auction house give lots of things to do in the game other than talking to people of finding things to kill. Boss fights stand out from the norm, and usually involve some sort of strategy beyond just using your character's attacks. At my level of play, there is always something to strive for, usually in the form of gear upgrade

(WoW) A Visit to Archavon

So the guild has planned a Vault of Archavon run Saturday afternoon, trying to get as many members are possible together to hopefully fill out the 10-man version. I almost missed it myself, but the week played out such that we put off our offline game, freeing up my time to make it online. There was some last-minute communication and we ended up with 8 people. Good, but not a full raid. There were a few other levels 80's unaccounted for, but such is the problem with scheduling. So we picked up a druid healer and.. umm.. I don't recall what class the DPS character was. The first trash pull went fine. The second was going okay, but flowed into pulling and third and somewhere in the chaos, I got squished. Go tank! o.o; Last time I was in there, we picked up the third mob while fighting the second, too. I thought I drew back far enough this time, but I guess not. Number four went down easily enough, leaving us with Archavon himself. In general, I'd say the fight went fine

Hellsing

I seem to have trouble given straight positive/negative reviews these days. I picked up the first DVD of the "Ultimate Collection" to watch. Overall: Not bad, not great. I think I like the story as presented so far. The art gets more of a mixed reaction from me. Things (guns, scenery, etc.) look good and slick. People, however, are far too stylized for my liking. The inhuman grins (mostly, but not always on inhuman characters) are disturbing, which I take to be the point, but a little too much. The dialogue/dubbing is one of the most painful I've listened to since the mid-nineties, with accents that feel overdone. There were also multiple scenes where there's voiceover exposition that's drowned out by the sound of action on-screen - I don't know if that's a flaw of the DVD or inherent in all copies. So I wouldn't buy it or stay up late to watch it. As long as they show up in those cute little Netflix envelopes, however, I might borrow and watch th

Star Trek Rebooted

Pretty darn good, actually. A bit actiony and not heavy on the societal/philosophical commentary. I'm fine with that. It was entertaining and the characters generally worked for me. - The Uhura/Spock thing? I don't know. I'm... iffy on that. I'm not fully against it, but it feels a little awkward. I'm willing to see how it works out (and let's face it, there's probably going to be a sequel). - I'm reserving some judgement on the accents, too. Chekov's felt a little... forced to me, but I'm willing to accept it might grow more natural. - Nimoy showing up? Awesomeness all around. He's aging and it shows, but he's just cool. - Phasers. Odd. The flipping lenses are kinda cute. A little gimmicky, but it's neat to be able to see what the weapon is set to. That we've gone from beams to pulses that seem to have a distinct, almost metallic, impact noises is odd to me, though. - Time travel is so overused. And yet it worked well

The Problem With Levels...

... isn't, per se. Of course, it's still a problem, or challenge, anyway. Though I'm thinking of this in application to "tabletop" RPGs, I find it easier to illustrate using CRPG examples. I remember pushing my sprite-based characters across an overworld map and entering a new dungeon. A few steps in, the screen would go swirling and it was time to do combat. A couple rounds later, my valiant heroes lay crumpled upon the ground and I was reloading a saved game. This was a sure sign it was time to go back to gain a few more levels and probably upgrade equipment. It's how game designers paced their games. Skip too much of the content and you get your ass handed to you until you go back and gain levels. More recently, Bethesda Softworks put out Oblivion . Their approach to this situation (and there are probably earlier ones, this just comes to mind) was to scale opposition to the character level. When you run into bandits at level 2, they're equipped w

Comparing...

Unisystem/ Witchcraft - Point-based character creation (with categories) and advancement. Pros: It's relatively simple to pick up with a few details that are more complicated. The rules move pretty quickly most of the time. Cons: It feels incomplete - often someone will ask "okay, I can do this, so can I do this which is similar?" and there won't be an answer in the books. Some people get tripped up with the Rule of Ten/One, which is a critical/fumble system that requires a little calculation and/or the char. While specific campaigns might alter things slightly, the as-written balance between certain powers/types is somewhere between passable and horrid. Other Thoughts: I don't know why some people I know are so fascinated with the system, to be honest. It's at its best when the PCs are a group of starting characters - slightly better than average Joe stats with some supernatural stuff in a mostly mundane world. However, if players min-max there or when t

Ugh...

My brain feels like it's melting and oozing out of my skull. Yesterday morning, I was miserable though symptoms eased up toward noon. While this doesn't include the body aches of a flu or anything, it's taking a lot out of me. Tangentially related to brain-melting, I watched The Fountain a couple nights ago. It's a pretty movie. I have also used the word "trippy" to describe it. I keep trying to summarize it and failing. There's more that happens than what you see on screen, and what you see may or may not be what's actually happening. It's a story of love with themes of immortality, acceptance of death, and rebirth. But I get the feeling it was deliberately designed in an "artsy" way such that the audience could interpret things differently. In my case, the more I think about it, the more I consider that two of the three "time periods" in the movie may not be "real" per se - rather one is a story being writte

Passing Ideas (p2)

So... venting a little more in the way of ideas and analyzing them. Were I actually to run this as a campaign, I might put forth something like this to the players: You were a part of the assault on the beachhead at Port Nadir. It was the last, desperate gasp of the Republic. With the Emperor himself present, success could lead to a negotiated cease fire with the Imperial generals. If the attack failed, there would not be enough of an organized resistance to slow the Vastyrian armies anywhere. Progress was hard-won, but you survived were countless others did not. At the doorstep of the Emperor's mobile palace, you met up with General Farius himself, leader of one of the few combat-tested Republic military units. True to his reputation, the general rallied stragglers from what units had made it and he led the final charge himself. Alongside his knights, you saw the line held against waves of fanatical foreigners dying by the dozens on spear and blade. As costly as it was, the f

Passing Ideas

The Empire of Vastyr was a mystery to us. Far across the Eastern Sea a foreign people was known to exist, but few of our vessels were capable of making the journey. Thus it was an utter shock when the Empire's invasion force landed on Republic shores. Three coastal cities fell within the day. Waves of trained soldiers spilled forth, supported by self-mechanized devices we had never even conceived. The Imperial onslaught seemed unstoppable. We won. Victory came not through numbers or technology. Our magic was not superior. Some say the gods gave their favor to the Republic. Certainly the valor and determination of our heroes contributed much to winning the day. Figures of will and fate, numbering a score, cut to the heart of the assault - indeed, the very Empire itself - to save us all. They are revered today. Rightly so, for they are the saviors of the Republic. Monuments are crafted to the fallen as the living have risen to the peak of our society. The Republic shines brigh

(WoW) Holy Healing Priests, Batman!

I've had a secondary Holy spec on my priest for a little bit now. This weekend was the first time I actually made use of it, healing a heroic Utgarde Pinnacle run (and a few Icecrown group quests later). Conclusion: It's not all that bad, though I'll need practice to be good. I bit it on Svala due to... well, being completely unaware of an ability, actually. The adds that pop up when she does her Ritual of the Sword apply a DoT to you if you hit them with "direct damage" spells. As a tank, I've either avoided or ignored this. I don't think Consecrate counts. Holy Wrath might. Hammer of the Righteous might. So Sash probably picks up a couple stacks of it and goes on. With Reya, however, I jumped in and Holy Nova'd. Apparently that qualifies as direct damage, and I came out of the second (I think) Ritual taking 4-6 thousand damage per tick. Ow. So, I died, but the group took her down. I believe we wiped once on trash before Gortok, then just made i

(WoW) Also Not Perfect

Noblegarden went well. I enjoyed it. It sent me around to places I hadn't been in a while. It took some time to get enough eggs and other items to make the achievements, but it didn't grate on me. All-in-all, it felt like the most accessible holiday to me. It gave me the feeling I just might be able to start completing achievements and end up with a violet proto-drake, even if that may be a year away. I think Blizzard did a fine job with it. Then Children's Week starts up. First, daily quests aren't registering for one achievement until the next day (by server quest reset time), which makes me wonder why they didn't just make the whistles available then instead of a few hours earlier. Then one achievement (Home Alone) is unsetting itself when you log out. Both of those have been remedied, at least. Then there's School of Hard Knocks. I generally don't favor the PVP aspect of these games. Wintergrasp has grown on me some, probably because of the vehicles

Diplomacy and Law

"You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer." - Harry Dresden in Turn Coat by Jim Butcher   A further excerpt from Turn Coat in which Harry Dresden and Warden Captain Anastasia Luccio discuss Harry's mother's semi-radical views and why they were a problem:    "She was furious that 'the Laws of Magic have nothing to do with right and wrong.' She pointed out how wizards could use their abilities to bilk people out of their money, to intimidate and manipulate them, to steal wealth and property from others or destroy it outright, and that so long as the Laws were obeyed, the Council would do nothing whatsoever to stop them or discourage others from following their example. She wanted to reform the Council's laws to embrace concepts of justice as well as limiting the specific use of magic."    I frowned. "Wow. What a mons