Redwolf's Journal (continued)

While walking back to work from dinner, I had a vague vision of a fantasy colony game... A ship of settlers and explorers arriving in a new land, unknown and untamed, but not necessarily uninhabitted. Whatever their background or motivation, they have to rely on one another to some extent to set up a home and learn about the place they have come to. ... It's hardly a new concept, though probably explored more in sci-fi than fantasy (just look at the last two Stargate series). My mind framed this loosely in the setting of Furryfaire, which immediately had me thinking about magic. If there's to be any atmosphere of isolation at all, magic has to be limited. The thought that came to mind was a property of the land (literally the earth and/or air) that saps essence such that the power of magic drastically drops off as the distance it operates over increases. This makes magics of large scale and range basically impossible, but still allows for magical effects. There'd be mo

Let's see... what to recap on? I reinstalled Galactic Civilizations 2. What a glorious time-sink that can be. I'm sure it doesn't apply to everyone, but I like building up an empire with which to take over. That countdown to the next learned technology or built ship, however, puts quite a temptation on hitting the end turn button just "one more time." And when the larger maps can take several hours to play through... yeah, I need to be careful. ;) On the down side, "normal" AI isn't able to keep up with me and most games end up reaching a tipping point where either A) I have such an advantage in resources and technology that it's just a matter of time before I win or B) I'm so far behind it's futile. That may be why I stopped playijng it at some point - when you see the signs, there's not much incentive to really finish. WoW security's touchy these days. Last year (or was it the year before?), a friend helped me get through so

I've been asked several times what I'll play in Guild Wars 2. Ultimately, the answer is "I really don't know yet." I mean, the game's a ways off yet, we've only seen pretty superficial and limited information about the races and professions, so it's hard to say for certain. The guardian profession has the most appeal so far, but I'd need to better understand how it plays. So when it was suggested that "I could see you playing a charr," I gave it a little thought and agreed with it as a possibility. Having seen the previews released over this past week centered on the race, I have seen a few points that make me more interested, and a few that make me less so. On the one hand, I feel the whole "warlike race" things is a bit of a played-out extreme. There's always got to be at least one, it feels like, in a fantasy setting. And in Guild Wars, they actually overlap some with the norn. Granted, norn are more fighters out for

In discussing WoW with a coworker (and former guild member), I had a realization regarding the upcoming patch: it's content appeal is going to be short-lived (at least for me). Now, I agree with him that I'm eager to see it go live. There's a number of mechanics tweaks that I am looking forward to (and at least one that makes me go "awwww"). That's good. There are two new heroic dungeons that will help 1) accumulate valor points, 2) lead to more maelstrom crystals and 3) get epic drops in gear slots that have been hard to fill for anyone less than a "cleared it all many times" raider. That's good. I really have no complaints about what the patch brings. But... Those two new dungeons are in their own random queue. So each time you go for an 'advanced random' you get one of these two dungeons. After a couple weeks of that (or even days for some, given the random rewards are now weekly rather than daily), I don't see how you could no

Something I've pondered on and off, especially while running (or mourning) the game I did. What makes Star Wars Star Wars ? From some discussions, it appears my own opinions already differ from at least one friend. I suppose that's to be expected. The Force is a big one. It's one of the unique features of the SW universe, after all. You could have a SW story without it, but if the Force is ignored completely, something's missing. This also includes a certain degree of "real" good and evil in the setting. While it's interesting to explore sometimes, the source material I consider most canon makes it pretty clear that there is a "dark side" and a character thinking otherwise is ultimately deceiving himself. Times of conflict are pretty central. After all, it is called Star Wars . So it's no surprise that most of the stories take place during or around massive, galactic battles. Redemption is a huge theme in my book. Luke confronting,

So when I pulled out my AD&D 2nd Edition books, I also dug out the old AD&D (first edition) PHB and DMG. These books were inspiration and vague reference for me back in the day, not manuals . I know I played and GM'd before 2nd Edition, but I think that was a mix of AD&D and several of the soft-bound boxed set books from "regular" D&D at the time. I remember taking stuff from Unearthed Arcana, but I don't remember using these two core books all that much as direct reference. What interesting little things did I find there? - Ability scores still had different maximums for male and female characters in a few cases. - Half-orcs were a standard PC class. I sort of thought these were "new" in 3E, but apparently they were just making a reappearance. - Lots of sub-classes . I would have thought 2nd Edition expanded, but really it seemed to pare things down a little bit. Illusionists were their own class. Assassins were in the PHB. Bards we

Had an interesting dream this morning... It was something of an alternate World War II, with the conflict being drawn out and becoming a bit more of a cold war with Miyazaki influences. I was an Allied pilot in something of a light bomber/large recon plane, cocky and gifted at flying, but probably co-pilot to the more technical and by-the-book pilot/navigator. Looking for a missing aircraft designer, we were shot down by a canon hit over an Axis base. The two of us, along with our mechanic/comm person fell out of the debris only to land on the prototype craft made by the person we were looking for. The thing reminded me a little of White Knight (the carrier for Spaceship One) with the sort of "outrigger" hulls on either side of the main one, but much larger and bulkier (thus getting into the Miyazaki-style airships) while still being somehow faster/better than anything of a comparable size. I struggled with a German soldier on while trying to remain on the outside of the

Whether it's chat on game nights, or just wandering thoughts, I sometimes reminisce on old games and what we experienced versus what was actually in the rules. I just dug out my 2E Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide to have a look at some of those old rules and have a look at some things... - Ability Scores have some uneven bonuses, usually only kicking in at 15+. 3E consolidated a lot, 2E bonuses are all over the place, but you generally don't get anything of note for a score below 15 or 16. Only warriors get a HP bonus for Con above +2. Int places a hard limit on the maximum spell level of wizards and their chance to learn a specific spell (failure means able to try again next level). Priests have it a little easier with a chance of spell failure at less than 13 Wisdom, and bonus spell slots for 13+. Classes have hard ability requirements. - Races make a lot of difference. Demi-humans are seriously limited in available classes, cap out at a maximum level o

I've mentioned before that I usually find characters with motivation more interesting to play (or to play with). And reading an article on the importance of character wants to a story (implying that a lack thereof should usually be reworked). That got me reflecting on previous characters, naturally, and considering nuances as applicable to roleplaying. I do keep coming back to my Exalted character, Alexandra, are one of my most memorably-motivated characters. Heck, she wanted nothing short of to fix the world with the establishment of a new, better order. In most games, that's be a rather unobtainable (though not necessarily bad) goal. In Exalted, though, it fit right in. I sort of regret not being able to take the reins more and have her steer the course due to certain issues that needed to be dealt with "now" keeping any such plans from really taking hold. I was puzzling out possible ways to work an alliance with Lookshy in order to build up support in the reg

Charles de Lint is one of those authors I've always heard of, yet somehow never read the work of. I'm not sure I even have an actual excuse. That's finally changed, as I was lent what seems to be a compilation of the early Jack, the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon . It proved to be pleasant enough urban fantasy with focus on fae all set in Ottawa. The insistence on Gaelic terms (Laird, gruagach, and such) is... just a little painful, as I know just enough to know I'm mentally mispronouncing half these things, yet the characters rarely have issue at all. And seeing two 240-ish pages novels combined together (as well as a certain feel to the writing) is a reminder how books have changed. That was about normal for a fantasy/sci-fi novel not so long ago, now published books often seem closer to 500 or even closer to twice that. So... enjoyable reading material, though something about it felt a little off to me. Maybe it's just how a lot of things play out over

What else? tashiro did a Tarot reading for me online. It was... about what I predicted. Mind you, I'm not big on Tarot, but the general layman's view is "reading the future" right? This was more a reading of a present situation that I've already over-analyzed and isn't any secret to him. So there weren't any new insights for me. If I were playing skeptic, I wouldn't be convinced. But that wasn't the point of the exercise. In the end, it made me a bit moody the last couple days, not unlike my own periods of introspection. The situation in question also had me reminiscing about my lapsing out of the SCA. I find myself wondering: if things had gone differently, would I still be involved today? Moot point for me, but it could theoretically be a message to others to not take volunteers for granted. Or maybe just a lesson in my own pride, I'm not sure. I recently borrowed and more recently finished Red Dead Redemption. 'tis a pretty good gam

Well... Raid nights have ups and downs. Once again, we're currently often floating at around 12 "qualified" people and only 10 slots, but we've bounced around too many or two few pretty much since we started raiding. I think this weighs overly much on our guild leader, and he wants to please everyone he can and agonizes when the players he may be closest to are not always the best performers. It's rough. I feel part of the "problem" remains our casual, friendly atmosphere. I think more dedicated raiding guilds have official policies they can point to as far as who gets in under what conditions. We lack that, and trying to come up with a set of rules may put off some people. After some minorly painful shuffling, but no actual griping that I heard, we looked for direction. A quick vote had us tackling Magmaw and Omnitron as a warmup. They're pretty easy and routine for us now. Omnitron can still go badly, but didn't. Then we jaunted over to the

A couple months back, I was gifted with a bunch of mp3s and almost immediately asked which was my favorite. Aieee! The problem with that approach is that I really don't listen to music that much. It's generally out of the question at work. At home, I don't often have dedicated listening time. I can put it on while I'm doing other things, but then it's background noise I'm not paying attention to, making it easy to miss songs and hard to critique them. Ultimately, I usually only end up listening to five or six songs a day at the most while driving to and from work. And then, they have to be in a format that I can play in the car (which will play mp3 files, but only from CD). In the end, the answer was Blackmore's Night's Under a Violet Moon. The process got me thinking a little about what I like in music these days. It's got a nice beat that draws you in, that's good. The lyrics are pleasant and generally understandable, that's a plus. The

Not much turnout for gaming last night. Maybe Friday would have been better, but two nights a week is a little much for me. Ah well. The three of us played a game of Munchkin, then tried out some rules for a homebrew fantasy "sky pirates" game. And we wrapped up with two of four heroes dismounted (though possibly saved from falling to their demise) and four of six enemies disabled in one form or another. After that, naturally, there was discussion about the rules... Some of it seemed a little silly. He'd conceived of it taking a long time to stow the single-shot firearms after use. We argued that it would really make so much more sense to have them tied to your mount's saddle (for long arms) or the pilot's harness (for pistols). Easy, easy thing to do and you can simply drop your weapon without losing it, since reloading is supposed to take forever. Otherwise... well, I see this behavior elsewhere, but this particular member of the gaming group exhibits it th

I made a comment last night about having high hopes for both Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I edited off a doubtful qualifier because... well, anyone who knows me will already know I'm skeptical at this stage. ;) But really, any MMO that wants a notable slice of the pie is facing a huge uphill battle. WoW is undeniably the big target everyone points to as "success" in the industry, though there are certainly a number of games that manage a lesser degree and remain in the realm of happily profitable. Every new game wants to be a "WoW-killer," but that's almost impossible for a number of reasons. From the standpoint of design, any new game walks a fine line. Copy things too closely and your game is derided as a clone. Stray too far and you lose people who are familiar with the current standards in how to do things. Just hope you please more people than you annoy. From a content standpoint, WoW has a ridiculous lead. If a stand-alone game

I might wish we could get farther along. Downing Maloriak is somewhat less satisfying after having been unable to repeat that for a couple weeks. But overall, I'm still pretty proud of the guild's progress in Cataclysm raids. We're still fairly "casual," with only one raid night a week, and we're at 5/12 bosses for the current tier. That's still well ahead of our curve last expansion and, I think, perfectly respectable. And defeating the Conclave of the Wind was a rush. I knew the coordination would be difficult, even though some people have claimed it an easy fight. The first several wipes were painful, as we didn't seem to be getting much of anywhere, but then we got cleanly past our first platform switch. And then we lasted longer. And longer. I think we hit the enrage once. And then we got all three bosses down, but missed the 1 minute window by probably a few seconds. That's where I really get into it - seeing progress. Feeling like we'r

I think we got that Conficker outbreak under control after about a day and a half of work. Pesky worm - thankfully haven't seen one of those in a while, though I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. We were, admittedly, a bit lax with anti-viral protection on some servers because they simply werne't directly vulnerable before. That's probably what got us, though it's really hard to figure a point of origin. Waking this morning from a second night of tossing and turning. Headachy and a head of strange dreams - a road trip, my dream city, and... oh, I can't remember specifics now. We added the Conclave of the Wind to our list of downed Cataclysm bosses last night. I knew it'd be rough to learn from the amount of coordination involved. I didn't realize the plant adds would be such an issue. But we started making steady progress and, after failing to get all three down in a minute on one attempt, we pulled together and got it done. Finished anothe

Well, let's see... Massively saved me a lot of effort by doing a roundup of MMO-related foolishness . Crabby, the dungeon helper, is cute. Of them all, I think I'm inclined to give kudos this year to the Guild Wars team with their commando class for GW2 - partly because that just looks neat and partly because they went the extra mile and put them in GW for a holiday event. It's just a short quest, and you don't get a rifle, but you get to play as a commando through a mission helping someone from the future save Gwen's mother Sarah from an Annihilator robot sent back to kill her. Blizzard also has motion sensitive console Starcraft 2 and a Horadric Cube app which needs to be real (the disclaimers are worth it alone). White Wolf has a Paths of Storytelling supplement for Vampire. Sequential Art puts out its last comic ever and reveals all. Google gets in on the motion-sensing wave of technology and lets your manipulate your email with body language as wel