Superanalytic Psychobabble GOOD!

(Those of you who haven't been here in a while might be amazed to learn that I blogged on Monday as well.)

Wow. I must say, I just started out my day with a PIKCHOW!! and a ZAMMIE!!! I plowed all the way through this here article, which is attempting to

"...illuminate the overlap survival horror games shared with psychoanalytic theorists."

No, no, I'm serious, that's totally what it's about. Check this out:

"The Resident Evil series conservatively positions a player as a defender of Lacanian 'symbolic order,' the psychological force constituting subjectivity [...] On the other hand, Silent Hill subverts our anticipation to occupy this position. If Resident Evil comfortably positions us as analyst, then Silent Hill mischievously collapses the distinction between analyst and analysand-undermining with it the surrounding symbolic order upon which such distinctions rely."

I don't know if I'm just getting more pretentious in my old age or what, but this kind of shit turns me on. I read that paragraph and I experience lust.

They're absolutely right, of course. I mean, the part about save points is (as they freely admit) a little goofy... but not necessarily wrong. And the central analysis of the position of the player in relationship to the psychological structure of the story is... just...

Well, you'll have to judge for yourself. But be careful. How you respond will reveal to the world how you see yourself.

O.O
( ^-- That's me, watching your reaction.)

I Haven't Played WoW In Ten Days

See...

...we had family at the house over the entire Imperialism Day weekend, like Wed-Mon, so there was no World of Warcraft over the break. This alone is staggering to me: I mean, I was somehow willing to not be horrendously rude to our guests by ignoring them for four hours at a time. (I only ignored them for two hours at a time, when I would get distracted by my piles of Vampire cards. More on that later.)

I hadn't played since the previous Monday, so the extended break accumulated into a ten-day hiatus. And, I feel very, very strange.

I have no strong urge to play.

O.O

I do have an urge to meet my commitments to my guild, however, so I will be going in tonight, to raid Blackwing Lair. However, I thought this streak was worth mentioning, as it is completely unprecedented in the past nine months.

...

...

...

Okay, so I will admit that there was another factor that went into this that might be having an impact.

I mentioned recently that my infatuation with Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (a card game that myself and a whole two of my friends care, or even know, about) re-exploded when I was exposed to the contagion that is the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

My inflammation has only gotten worse. And, on Saturday, something bad happened. As in "make the Bad Man go away" bad.

(For those of you who are watching this blog with the fascinated horror that one lends to trainwrecks and movies like Trainspotting, seeking after some kind of comprehension of how human beings can be so blatantly self-destructive, I offer for your voyeuristic digestion this morsel: in these pre-confessional moments, just before I am about to explain something that both horrifies and excites me, I experience an intense anxiety, like a hand physically grasping my heart. Most times, when I sit and begin to write about something, the topic seems amusing, and hopefully interesting. But right here, just before I describe the actual thing itself and I'm unwrapping in my mind the whole chain of events... it often seems funny in the same way that Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was funny. Like, "ha ha ha ha, holy shit the way that guy is slashing people is hilarious, ha ha ha ha". Like, there's a part of you that is screaming under the laughter.)

[As an aside, Ft13thPt6 was pretty goddamn hilarious. If you haven't seen it, don't, but do understand that it's really funny. In addition to being incredibly gory.]

Anyway. Where was I. The other reason I might not be craving WoW...

Oh, yeah.

The Bad Man
On Saturday, I made the mistake of going to the games store. This store has been undergoing a strange conflagration of events of late, and these factors combined on that day into what can only be described as a Vortex O' Doom. Here are the principal facts for your consideration:

1. The owner of said store has been away with some kind of debilitating illness for what is going on months now. She has thus been forced to leave her store to the care and feeding of her employees.
2. Some of these employees disagree with the profit tactics of their Imperious Leader. One of them in particular (who was running the store on this day) wants to clear out some of the detritus, and is willing to negotiate to accomplish this goal. Even though it's not his store.
   
3. This fine fellow believes that Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is largely a dead game as far as his profits are concerned. He may be right on this, for reasons that have to do with online availability of cheap cards for those who look, which is pretty much everyone who actually plays.
   
4. Thus, the store's stock of leftover Vampire boosters is robust.
5. I have Superior Presence.
   

I knew we were sliding into a bad place when this fine fellow expressed to me that, in the spirit of simplifying our conversation and his stock in one swoop, he would be interested in figuring out what his current lowest price on Vampire card stuff was in the store, by weight, and then offering to let me take however much I wanted of all of it, at that rate.

You might think I'm making that up. I'm not. Turns out that the lowest price in his store by weight netted out a price of $1 per booster pack.

That's roughly 70% off. I could resell those boosters for twice that, on eBay.

After about fifteen minutes of calculation, I took half the stock right there. Went home. Stewed. Went to Safeway... and went back. Took the rest.

I bought roughly three hundred boosters.

[Those of you with sensitive constitutions may want to avert your eyes at this point: we're going to NERDCON 2 here.]

I ended up with 9 packs of Bloodlines, 22 packs of Anarchs, 19 packs of Black Hand, two boxes (36 boosters each) + 3 loose boosters of Kindred Most Wanted, two boxes minus three boosters of Legacies of Blood, 33 packs of Gehenna, a box of Nights of Reckoning, a box of Third Edition, and about ten starter decks.

[Okay, returning you to NERDCON 5. Close the silos and stuff.]

My good friend the druid wondered recently as to how I managed to engage in this lunacy without destroying my household. I assured him my wife's constitution was part of the alchemy. I can further assure him, and you: this event has tested that alchemy. She is a remarkable woman, as it turns out.

What Does That Have To Do With WoW?
You see... when I say that I haven't played WoW in ten days, I may have given you the impression that I was somehow temporarily cured of my insanity.

You may draw your own conclusions as to whether or not that is the case. Either way, I spent Saturday, Sunday, and a good portion of Monday and Tuesday opening, sorting, alphabetizing, recording in my Excel database, and filing, over three thousand new cards.

For a game that something like twenty people in the greater Bay Area play.

Does anyone know if there is a pill I could take? Some kind of supplement?

It Takes A Hero

I got this in my inbox the other day.

Kaiser wrote:

[el darklordo], man, you are still my hero...

...but I must humbly request just ONE non-Wow-related blog entry. Only one. And then you can WoW report us to death for the next dozen months. I know, I know, this is your vehicle of expression and I have no right to drive it, but there was a time when you would blog about Not-WoW quite naturally--without special request from your fans.

What do you say, man? Sneak one "mundane" blog entry in there before the rest of the world drops into Burning Crusade with you.

Besides, if you're playing all this WoW, how are you playing Trauma Center on the Wii?

Thanks!!!

O.o

My first reaction to this was, "Heh, well, I guess he might have a point."

My second reaction was, "Hey, eight of the last ten posts I've made have been non-WoW related. Well, actually, I guess seven. That one about the vampire cards had a big long WoW card game intro in it."

My third reaction was, "Wow, I gotta post more World of Warcraft stuff. I'm falling behind."

But! That is not the point here! Let it never be said that the darklord does not respect the requests of his fan(s)!

(Although... I think it is clear that this request is little more than a thinly-disguised plug for Trauma Center. For the record, I am not playing this game currently, as I do not yet own a Wii upon which to play this marvel of interactivity. Soon, though, let us pray, hallelujah.)

Non-WoW-related post you want? Non-WoW-related post you shall get!!!

...mostly because there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about anyway.

That something is my recent love affair with Guitar Hero.

For those of you living under a sand dune in Darkest Escarpion, Guitar Hero is something of an out-of-left-field smash hit rock-and-roll rhythm game, who's sequel (the aptly named Guitar Hero 2) came out just last week.

It's... a game where you play air guitar for points. Pretty much.

It sports the most amazing add-on controller ever: this marvelous creation called the mini-Gibson SG, a device that is so like a musical instrument as to be indistinguishable from one:

Note that I did not say it is indistinguishable from a guitar. Because, of course, it is in practice, comparing the mini-Gibson here to a real guitar is a little like comparing a kazoo to a trumpet. True, both require breath to make noise, and both require some skill (in varying amounts) to operate... but there is where the similarities end. One is a maker of sound, and the other is an instrument.

That said, there is an enormous amount of skill one can apply to this stupid game. Just imagine: Dance Dance Revolution, only with a guitar:

It's unbelievably fun. And, I'm really good at it.

Now, I wouldn't normally make such a bold claim. Modesty is, after all, a virtue, and it is important to keep your perspective in such things: there is always someone better than you out there, and it's best not to over-celebrate your own successes. I feel these things to be true, in my bones, and in no way wish to misrepresent my accomplishments.

So I brought proof.

Before we talk about that, though, I wanna break this game down for you a bit, and discuss its genius. It's one hell of a game.

To begin our discussion, let's establish the Facts:

• In this game, colored dots scroll at you while a song is playing (see above for screen shot), and you have to "play" the right "note" at the right moment. If you succeed, yaay, if you miss, boo.
• "Playing" a note means pressing the right colored button, and "strumming" the little lever that represents the strings. It feels amazingly like playing a guitar, in practice.
  
• There are four difficulty levels in the game - Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.
  

In "Easy" mode, you only ever have to worry about three of the five buttons. This is nice for the uncoordinated, as you never have to move your hand, and the notes come at you in a nice, liesurely pace.

In "Medium", they add the fourth button, which you have to either press with your pinky (often awkward), or shift your hand position (tricky to do). And they expect you to be able to handle faster notes, and more of them.

You can imagine this, I bet: it's a timing game, like many others, with the added cool factor that it really feels like a guitar. Hit one of four inputs, at the right time... if you played PaRappa the Rapper, you're not too far off here.

...and then the wheels come off.

In "Hard" mode, a couple of important things happen. The first thing you notice right off: the notes come at you literally twice as fast as in the previous two levels. The second thing is that the fifth button starts to appear in songs, which makes the skill of relocating your hand on the neck a requirement, no longer optional.

And... well, you kinda have to start playing the solos. Which means chains of tightly packed notes, all in a row.

They mean it. It's hard.

The two most difficult songs (and, not surprisingly, the last two songs in the game) are Cowboys From Hell by Pantera (oh yes, yes, more metal, bring on the metal) and Bark At The Moon by Ozzy Ozbourne. It... took some time, and the development of whole new playing techniques, to overcome this obstacle.

...

See, this is where it starts to get crazy. "Expert" mode is something completely different.

In Hard mode, one has the impression that the designers are aware of your fear of the fifth button. They tease you with it, as if knowing that every time you see one of those babies appear on the screen, scrolling towards you, your stomach cramps, and you hope you'll get it. In contrast, the designers working on Expert mode have only disdain for this fear. "Get used to that button," they say, "because you're going to be hitting it whenever we damn well feel like you are."

Gone, too, in Expert mode, is any pretention that you will not be hitting every goddamn note the lead guitarist played in the song. In Hard, they let you off the hook here and there, and allowed some notes to "represent" note phrases. This was in order to preserve your sanity. Note to self: the Expert mode designers are trying to drive you insane. Was the sound in the song a chord? You'll be hitting two buttons at once. Was it played at speeds few humans can even comprehend? Join in the band, brother, because that's your job now.

As an aside, I want to say that it is very strange how much playing this game is like learning an actual instrument. Anyone who has struggled with real-world instruments knows the cycle of learning one goes through, and that same cycle repeats itself here. I would go for days and days without progressing, banging my head against the same goddamn song, and then one day I would pick up my "guitar", and a song that was insurmountable the day before would be simple.

I get better at this game when I sleep. Just like the real thing.

I only have one more thing to say on this topic, and it is this:


...

p.s. As remarkable as this accomplishment is to me, I can assure you, my performance in no way comes close to what is seen at the other end of this link. That guy, whoever he is, is my hero.

I Was Beginning To Think They Didn't Exist-or-8/8

I had quite a weekend. As I write this, I am shaking visibly with barely-constrained enthusiasm. I have had to hit the backspace key far more often than I normally do.

I have laid out in some detail the nature of my (and by "my" I mean my imaginary avatar, Allora's) excursions into the Molten Core of Azeroth. I have further laid out to you, here and there, the slow, arduous ascent I have been engaged in collecting together what is knows as the "Lawbringer Set" of armor.

I slowed the reporting on this recently. You have been experiencing a kind of "media blackout" on the progress, since I hit 7 of 8 pieces. The reason for this is that I have been at 7 of 8 pieces for three fucking months. The last piece I needed was the Lawbringer Legplates.

Note the use. Of past. Motherfucking. Tense.

Just so we all understand each other: in nearly a year of raiding Molten Core every weekend (yeah, that's right, I said it, I'm a nerd) I have seen these goddamn legplates once. According to the illustrious Thottbot, they have a 10% drop rate. Apparently, the rate is actually (10% - Allora_Special_Case_Magic_Number), because I've killed that stupid goddamn dog at least forty times, so you would THINK that they would do us all a favor and show the fuck up once in a while.

Well, last night, ladies and germs, I got my wish. One of my guildies was actually ahead of me in the DKP rankings, so technically he could have taken them, but he knew they would complete my set and so let them pass. Thank you, Gamon.

I must say. I look sexy.

You would think that that would be enough madness for one weekend. You would be emphatically wrong.

I think it is somehow fitting that the next topic dovetail in the same post with the previous one. It is as if they were fitted, by dwarven hands, to nestle together, one after the other.

The Molten Core is, of course (and the anxiety I am experiencing in bringing this topic to your attention is mammoth) only the first high-end raid dungeon in the World of Warcraft.

There are several more. A few of these we (the guild) have been already engaged with, but they are all roughly equivalent to the Core, both in power needed to tackle them, and in rewards that one receives for removing them of all living inhabitants, smearing their walls and floors with the blood of your victims. They are known as "tier 1" dungeons.

The first, and most significant, of the "tier 2" dungeons (I'm getting a chest cramp as I type) is a place known as Blackwing Lair. I'll save you the trouble of following that link and quote from it here:

The mighty fortress carved within the fiery bowels of Blackrock Mountain was designed by the master dwarf-mason, Franclorn Forgewright. Intended to be the symbol of Dark Iron power, the fortress was held by the sinister dwarves for centuries. However, Nefarian - the cunning son of the dragon, Deathwing - had other plans for the great keep. He and his draconic minions took control of the upper Spire and made war on the dwarves' holdings in the mountain's volcanic depths, which serve as the seat of power for Ragnaros the Firelord. Ragnaros has uncovered the secret to creating life from stone and plans to build an army of unstoppable golems to aid him in conquering the whole of Blackrock Mountain.

Blackwing Lair can be found at the very height of Blackrock Spire. It is there in the dark recesses of the mountain's peak that Nefarian has begun to unfold the final stages of his plan to destroy Ragnaros once and for all and lead his army to undisputed supremacy over all the races of Azeroth.

Yeah. I speak nerd.

Our guild has been banging it's collective head against the first boss fight in this new dungeon for some time. Months, in fact. It's a fight with a pleasant fellow known as Razorgore, and this fight is well-known for being a brutal introduction to methods required to take on the higher-level bosses in the game.

He's a fucking pain in the ass, pretty much.

I won't go into too much detail. It suffices to say, there's up to 40 elite mobs running around the room trying to kill us at any one time, one of us is controlling the crazy dragon guy with an orb thing and making him break eggs, if you let the boss die too soon he explodes and kills the whole party... lunacy.

It's been at least three months of brick wall time with this fight... until Saturday. Saturday, he went the fuck down.

It's funny how anti-climactic it was. We, I think, were all so focused on the fight, and have gotten so used to getting pwned by this guy that when he actually went down, we all kinda looked at the corpse in surprise. "Huh!" we said. "I guess we killed Razorgore!"

He dropped some warrior gear, and we went on to get our ass handed to us over and over by the second boss in the instance, a guy named Vaelastrasz the Corrupt (who, as it turns out, is actually a really nice guy... he's just got an "I'm possessed!! Flee before I kill you!!" sort of problem).

Now, you should be made aware...

um.

Yeah. You should be made aware that the Lawbringer gear I have shown you is what is considered "tier 1" gear, as it comes from "tier 1" dungeons. I... well...

So I have 1 item of the "tier 2" set: the Judgement Crown.

It's... 1 of 8.

The Eternal Struggle, Reprise

Yeah, so if you read my last post, you know about my recent estimates on my collection of VTES cards. I believe I said something like "5000+".

This weekend I finally completed my organizing spree, managing to stuff all my cards into three large boxes. Curious, then, as to what the actual total was, I measured how far 100 cards was, and then counted up 1 row... and then multiplied...

I rejected the number I came up with. I tried it again, with a 200 card measurement.

Yeah. I have 12,000+ cards.

I can't say anything more about that without throwing up. Here is something to distract you from this topic.

If you viewed that page, and have survived, I applaud you. You are made of stern stuff, and should consider a career in the military.

The Struggle Is Eternal, It Seems

Over the year(s) that I've been blogging here I have come to believe that some large part of the entertainment value (if I may be so bold as to use that phrase for what I have done 'round these here parts) that folks derive from reading about my exploits has to do with something I think of as a blended mix of fascination and horror at the level of obsessive behavior I struggle with on a daily basis. "How can all that crap be done by the same person? And... his poor family!" is something like what I imagine people think when they expose themselves to my latest fascination.

I am opening in this way for a reason. I... I think I'm bracing myself for what I have to divulge next.

As you may know, I play a lot of games. There are, in fact, not all that many games that I haven't played, in one form or another. If it's got orcs and swords and magic and stuff in it, chances are I've at least picked it up and tried it. If it's good, chances are I was obsessed with it for a while.

So it was with some trepidation that I read of the horrible alchemy of the (then-impending, and now readily available) World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

Some of you may not have been exposed to the nightmarish world that is these collectible card games (CCGs, or, as the WoW game has apparently re-christened them, "trading card games", or TCGs). If that is true, I can say with the sternest of faces and the most serious of voices: if you derive any joy from collecting stuff, and in particular from completing sets of things, stay the fuck away from these games. They will cost you thousands of dollars.

In brief, here's how they work: there are hundreds of different cards (and sometimes, in a mature game, thousands), all of which are useful in some way. Some are 'common', some are 'uncommon', and some... some are the elusive prey known to the Card Hunter as 'rare'. What does this mean? You may ask... but only if you are strong of heart. God knows, I was not.

It means that they sell you these cards, these nefarious slices of demonic power, in "packs", which come in various shapes and sizes. Usually, there's something like 12 cards in a pack. Nine of these will be 'common'. Feh. Three of these (say) will be 'uncommon'. And one, and only one, will be 'rare'.

$2.75 a pack, or sometimes as much as $4.00. Buy now!!

It's the worst kind of evil: the kind of evil that steals hundreds, nay thousands of dollars, from children. Babies, mostly.

I can only imagine that Blizzard feels they have not managed to extract quite enough cash from their World of Warcraft franchise. They (I imagine) must feel the urge to keep up with the Joneses, and build their own skyscraper. Or, perhaps they want to use $1000 bills to wallpaper their studio. For, what other nefarious impulse would lead them to decide to enter into this horrendous fray? What would make them release their own trading card game??

Whatever else it is, it's evil.

Now, you may at this point be imagining that I am going to reveal to you that I have fallen into this WoW:TCG hole. You may imagine that I am, at this moment, up to my eyeteeth in cards with names like "Sunder" and "Arcanite Reaper". You might further imagine that I have emerged, penniless and broken, my life destroyed by this marketing juggernaut. Indeed, my past behavior would give you good reason to expect this outcome!

Aha!! Fear not, o fearless reader! I have, in fact, purposefully led you astray in this narrative. (Unkind, I know.) For, you see, although you may have come to believe that I am completely without self-control and willpower when it comes to my gaming obsessions, I can assure you: that is not. the. case.

No, friends. I am steel. I am made of iron.

I have been down this road before, and I know its evils. I knew what lay in store for me on the other side of that threshold, yes, friends!! I am strong!!

That's right. I took one look at that damn card game Blizzard was getting ready to release upon a fragile and unsuspecting world, and said to myself, "Boy, that WoW game sounds kinda dumb. Hey, didn't I used to play a different card game with vampires in it? I think I have a bunch of cards lying around somewhere... I wonder what they've done with that game since the last time I looked? Hey!! Wow!! Look at all the new expansions I've missed!! Holy crap! I don't have any of these cards!! And look!! You can get 'em cheap on eBay!! Oooooo, they just released the third edition!! Where's my credit card!!"


I am not exaggerating when I say that the rest of my world has pretty much come to a full stop while I engage with this titan. By way of demonstration, let me describe a project that I just recently completed: White Wolf (the blessed publisher of said game, having retrieved the rights back from Wizards of the Coast some time ago) has on their site a .csv file that lists every card ever published for the game, all 3,000 or so of them. I didn't like the way they had laid out the data in this file (it cramped my style, you see), and so I learned Python, wrote a parser, and completely rebuilt the file. Now, after several days of massaging and bug-fixing, I have an Excel file that allows me to...

...if you have small children with you, you might want to avert their eyes at this point...

...count and catalogue my entire 4000+ card collection, in minute detail, so that I can better determine what I'm missing and what I really should not get any more of. I am about 80% done with the counting as of this morning (in which I digested my collection of cards from the Dark Sovereigns expansion).

I... also have at home now two (soon to be three) new card boxes, in which my collection has been being filed. Alphabetically.

My friends are no help. In passing, I mentioned this recent fixation to a buddy of mine at work. "Oh, yeah!" he opined. "I played that! I have a bunch of cards at home! I'll bring 'em in for ya!"

O.o

Apparently, the gaunt, hung-over, "I've been alphabetizing for three days" look had no impact on his empathic systems. Twenty hours later, this friend buried me under his collection, which had apparently been sitting in a back corner for years, mewling piteously, in search of its true master. And, apparently, that was to be me. So I (wonderously) got to add ~750 cards (including something like 50 of the elusive rare variety) to my collection. This, as you can imagine, did not do much to dim the fires of my obsession.

I'll try to post some pictures later. I've been too busy counting and alphabetizing to take any pictures, you see.

p.s. For the love of all that is holy, does anyone have a Talbot's Chainsaw??? It's the only card of the first release that I don't yet have. /cry!!!

p.p.s. I...

...also bought a case of boosters packs (36 in a case) and two starter decks for the WoW game.

But that's it! I'm not getting any more!

The Same Side Of Two Coins

Here, for your perusal, rejection, and eventual acceptance, are two interesting post on my current favorite topic. (And by "favorite" I mean that which consumes 1 in 3 posts on this goddamn text experiment I call my semi-wheneverthefuckIfeellikeit webzine. You guessed it.)

First, a tale of woe from a World of Warcraft addict, who describes the depths of despair that drove him to (gasp) quit.

Now, as an addict myself, I feel obligated to chastise this person publicly, and tear apart his arguments with bitter invective, thus decreasing the impact of his message to my own person, and further rationalizing my own behavior.

...

Or, not. Here's the other side of the coin. Or, if you prefer, the same side of another coin: a response from a person (who the gender noun used in some of the responses seem to indicate is a woman) who is still playing, and in the same guild as the above gentleman.

I gotta say: to me, this second article so completely describes how I feel about my own participation in this game that I... very much want my wife to read it.

Of course, the "life killing soulwrecking madness" from the first article in no way reflects on me. I can quit any time.



p.s. There was an interesting follow-up to the first post: it includes a brief disclaimer by the blog site owner (who is not the post author), along with reprints of the comments from the first post he found the most interesting. Worth scanning.

My... Birthday... Present... Precious...

I often come to you with descriptions of the kind of rampant interactivity-centered madness that my life revolves around. I have been forthcoming, I think, about how utterly consumed I can become with tiny avatars of humanity... pawns, perhaps (or, maybe ambassadors is a better descriptor) that I maneuver around a wide variety of imaginary, conflict-laden grounds. It's my thing, I think. It may not be "news" to any of you that I have a lot of these little guys, both virtual and physical.

I play with dolls.

Fast-forward to Now... into this atmosphere of collective avatarism arrives an innocent looking white cardboard box.

This box is rumored to bear a collection of metal and plastic Ork reinforcements to supplement my Orkie hordes. I have a friend, who you all know on this site as "The Todd". The Todd played and collected Orkies waaaaaaaaay back in gaming prehistory, and decided this year that it would be really funny to bury me under his collection, and see how long it took me to dig my way out.

But... see... there are already a great number of Orkies at my house.

So, it behooves us on this occasion to take a step back and assess what it is we are actually talking about here. Hand me that wide angle lens.

I command three Warhammer armies. 2 for Warhammer 40,000 (or, "WH40K" as it is affectionately abbreviated), and 1 for regl'ar ol' Warhammer (or, "Warhammer Fantasy" as it is affectionately extended). Each of these "armies" number in the general area of 5000 points.

...

I know, that means nothing to you. Let me put it to you this way.

The bulk of my Space Marines are something like eight squads of these guys (yes, that's eighty figures). I have Four squads of these (20 figures total). Three of these things. Like, twelve of these guys. One of these, him, a couple of these, two or three of these, and a couple of special banner dudes. Aaaaaaand, then I have like twenty five of these guys, with another ten of this kind of those guys, a couple of random ones of these, and like ten of these. They drive around in two of these, and I've got two squads of these guys (which really will fuck your shit up, I can tell you), and I just got this guy (finally). Oh, and like two squads of these guys. Soooo, that's like 200 figures.

Aaaaaand so my Tyranid forces are controlled by two of these, who are guarded by three of these guys. I have three of these, and three of them... who spit out lots and lots of these (so I have like twenty of them). I can deploy four of these guys, much to the chagrin of my enemies. I have sixteen of these, which is just not enough to be useful, as I can attest from lots and lots of experience watching them die. I need 16 more. Nine of these, ten of these (getting those was a bitch, I can tell you), and three of these that I have recently brought back from the "all of my arms have fallen off" graveyard. There are a bunch (like, twenty) of these lying around, but they don't get any action because they suck. Aaaaaaaaaand then of course I have something like eighty of these... (thirty-two of the pointy-clawed ones, and the rest are the guys with guns). And I have him, and he leads... a whole bunch of these. Five squads of twelve, what is that? Sixty. So, okay, that's like 250 models.

Hooo.

My Orc Hordz are lead by these three maniacs. Somehow, I manage to accumulate around eighty of these guys, um... uh... Okay, it's one hundred and forty of these. I can admit it. They are supported by sixteen of these, twenty-odd of these, and around forty of these. I recenltly acquired twenty of these. I have two of these, one of these, and two of these. I have like four of these fine fellows, and six of these (and as my opponents can tell you, they are the bloody beating nefarious heart of my army). I command twelve of these guys, and a nice big unit of these delightful things. Six of these. And, everyone needs one of these in their army. Um, oh dear lord that's almost four hundred models.

...

Like I said. Around 5000 points per army.

It's okay. I can quit any time.

Do you begin to see the absurdity level here? You remember the white box of yore? The box that contains another player's nearly complete Orc army??

So, I open it.

Keep in mind that I'm only showing you the new figures in these pictures. Everything I already told you about is behind me, in shelves, neatly tucked away.



I may never recover.

What The Fuck?

Hrmm.

Let's start this by identifying that I'm fundamentally dissastified with where this blogging thing has gone of late. In that I haven't posted in over two weeks. That, I think, is the root of the dissatisfaction, radical as that may seem.

See, I miss all the fun interaction that happens between my readership (if I may use such a brazenly vast word for the modest collection of what are admittedly outstanding individuals who frequent this here site). But, fucking apparently I don't miss it enough to actually post.

But let's take a step back from self-flagellation here. I mean, I enjoy this process, it's something I do because I love it, so if I find myself in a spot where I take a break for a while, I suppose it's within bounds. Maybe right along the edge of within bounds, surely, but not enough to stop the play.

So, what the fuck? I mean, why?

Here's what I think is the fuck.

1) The first The Fuck is that I hit this spot in my life recently where the most important thing to me was staying out of the goddamn food, and re-developing my spirituality. Now, let's declare that this process is certainly of some interest to me amigos two whom I am speaking here on teh webz0rs... but... when I sit down and write about it...

Well, to be perfectly frank, it comes out really goddamn boring. I mean, fuck, it bores me to write it, and then when I read it I faint from the effort. Generally, when I return to consciousness, I find that I've filled the blogger text buffer with the letter "w", having collapsed during service to the keyboard.

All the same, it is the center of my fucking universe at the moment. Or...

I suppose I should say it has been the center of my fucking universe. Because of late, I've found that it's feeling a little more integrated into the normal scheme, maybe. Perhaps I've settled into a routine of sorts, perhaps I've gotten bored with the constant aggressive pursuit of insight, perhaps I want to play WoW more, whatever. The Fuck is that it's shifted around a little bit, and now...

...well, I'm playing WoW more.

2) The second The Fuck is that my work life expahfuckingsplode-ified a few weeks ago, and I went from "ahhhhhhhhhhh... some day I'll have to do work again..." to "holyfuckingshitIhavesevenpeoplewhoneeddesignsfrommebyyesterday!!!" literally overnight. So, for the past few weeks, I've been what is affectionately described as "cranking" on prototyping, rip-o-matic making, designin', pitchin', writin', and a whole bunch of other -in's that are necessary to take a project from zero to moving forward.

And god damn it takes some effort. But I'll tell ya: I'm on board. I'm willing. I'll get out and push, man. Have I mentioned that I love my work?

I'm down.

3) The third The Fuck (and long-time readers knew that this was coming) is that I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft.

Now, you must understand: I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft before, and I will (no doubt) continue to play a lot of World of Warcraft in the future (mmmmmmmm, Burning Crusade). So, we're not necessarily talking about an increase in the amount of time I've been putting into it.

No, friends, what we're talking about is more of a mental shift. A turning of the head, if you will. Something rather profound happened recently, and I've been... unable... to turn away...

To convey what this shift is, it's important to establish a few key facts. Ready?

FACT #1: Paladin Do Not Do Damage

This is well understood. Paladins are tough mombajimbas, it is true; in fact, many would say that they are well nigh un-killable, when stacked against the other classes. They wear plate, they heal, they have invulnerability options... yeah. Tough cookies. The do not, however, pose any kind of immediate threat to anything near them.

Oh, sure, they'll kill ya. It'll just take three minutes. Plenty of time for you to summon a bunch of friends. "Hey, I'm being attacked by a Paladin!!" "Okay, we'll just finish up this dungeon run, and head over and help ya! We should be there before your health gets to 30%!"

FACT #2: I Play A Paladin

I have proof. I'm just not going to show it to you.

FACT #3: Farming Gold With A Paladin Is Like Watching Paint Dry

Easy enough. The problem here is that the amount of time that it takes to bring a mob to yoke (which is to say, convert him from a damage-dealing threat into a loot-bearing corpse) as a paladin is significantly higher than the value derived from said corpse. Folks who haven't played as a Paladin have a tendency to poo-poo this: to them I say go try it. When you wake up from your stupor, you'll see what I mean.

FACT #4: Paladins Do A Lot Of Damage To The Undead.

This, I think, is not surprising.

Okay! Having established the facts, let's introduce some new data.

NEW DATA #1: Allora recently was convinced to respec into what is known as a "protection spec" pally (if you have a life, a "spec" is shorthand for how you have spend your "talent points", which is the way in which you can customize your character's abilities in this here "game").

Basically, I was running a holy spec before, which made me a Healadin. I enjoyed this immensely, but it badly exacerbates the lack-of-damage problem described above.

I... really had no idea by how much, however.

NEW DATA #2: Allora recently got herself some pretty handy f'ing equipment. Notice the amount of "I hurt you when you hurt me" stuff.

Suddenly...

Suddenly, Allora can run around in the Western Plaguelands, aggro something like ten level 52-54 undead baddies, and then let them simply destroy themselves against her.

...

I. Can. Farm.

I've killed, say, 1,000 undead in the last few weeks. Help help, I'm trapped in a MMORPG!!

Vs.

The following paragraphs will be written in the confessional style. You should assume that my tone is meek, conciliatory, and slightly embarassed.

It happened again, you see.

There I was, at the head of a marvelous three day weekend, ready to rock and rule the world. Ready to change. Three day weekends have this wonderful sense of possibility about them; during the Friday evening commencement period, one can believe that nearly anything is possible. You could wash your car. You could invent a new truth serum, and stop terrorism. You could open a new franchise of your business. You, of course, do not currently have a franchisable business, but damn, man, you've got that extra day in there, so who knows...

On this particular three day weekend, I was going to hang out with my family, maybe play some Vampire: The Requiem with my buddy(ies), maybe have a 40K game or two... clean the house...

And, then I turned on World of Warcraft.

Let me give you some idea of my headspace on this. Because, you see, it disturbs even me.

Some Idea Of My Headspace On This

You may be aware of what is affectionately known in the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Rationalized Payment for Gluttony) as my "main". My "main" is Allora, and I do so appreciate her efforts to become the very bestest Paladin on the block. Here she is.

I've made some progress with Allora. In fact, I made some progress on Friday. Those of you who still tune in to the darklord's blog every week, even though the show has clearly jumped the shark, will know that I have been collecting my Lawbringer gear; a set of plate armor that is so goddamn holy that the mere sight of it makes women chaste and men drop to their knees in repentance. It's quite a thing.

The reason you haven't heard anything about this lately is that I have been hovering... poised, and ready to pounce... at 7 of 8 pieces.

I have the Bracers. I have the Belt. I have the Gauntlets. I have the Spaulders. I did finally get the Chestplate. I out-rolled another paladin for the Helm, for which he will be eternally bitter. I got the Boots, even though they hadn't dropped for us in over a year. They did drop, and I did get them.

7/8.

And now, every week, we paladins gather around the shattered, destroyed form of Magmadar (the giant two-headed fire breathing hell hound), and pray silently as the master looter inspects our prizes... and, every week, the goddamn Lawbringer Legplates refuse to drop. It's been seventeen weeks running that we haven't seen them. And yes, we are counting. We all need them, you see.

I did get myself a little something this weekend, however. I've only seen it drop twice, and it is a thing of beauty.

So, there we have it: Allora in all her glory. One must put into this context that I am also working on Tyridane (my 42 hunter), and Crystalline (my 43 priest). It suffices to say that I have already spent way more time on this shit than I reasonably should.

Okay.

What I've Been Doing Up Until Now

So, see... [embarassed voice] I...

Well, I have this character that I've been using as a bank. I send her extra stuff that my other characters don't have room for (like the 25 stacks of Dark Iron Ore that I'm hand-delivering to the goddamn fascist con-artist Thorium Brotherhood on a weekly basis).

And, at some point, I decided it might be fun to make her an enchanter. Just, you know, to explore the mechanics. It's research, people.

My inclinations leaning the way they do, this rapidly converted itself into a game. She was level 6, you see, and I wanted to see how far I could push a level 6 character. How skilled could she be? Intriguing!! I want to know!! Hell, I bet everyone would want to know!!

Not very, as it turns out. But! If you get to level 10... so I did. And this is where the trouble started. I decided ("decided" in this context is meant to be interpreted in the same way that a cocaine addict "decides" to have another line... a really good line this time...) that I would let this character get to level 19, and see just how much experience, skill, and general ability I could stuff into her.

So, in short, I've been leveling her, get this, as slowly I as I possibly can. In order to maximize the other stuff I've been collecting along the way.

Which Brings Me To This Weekend

Does it fill you with horror? Perhaps if I were to list out the ways in which I have been extending my gameplay (for example, using this character as a way to fill in my Gatherer database of the location of every herb and ore vein in the low-level areas... while leveling her herbalism)? No?

Well, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.

And, then, Saturday rolled in, like a fog bank... and I noticed an un-filled bar. A measure of progress on my character sheet that had been hitherto untouched by me. And, not just on this character, on any of my characters.

The PvP faction bar. Specifically, the Silverwing Sentinels PvP faction bar.

In english, that sentence translates to "the bar that measures what the good guy armies who offer the quests for fighting in the Warsong Gulch player-versus-player battle map think of my exploits". It is a measure of how much time one has sunk into defeating other human players, who are not of my race, and are, thus, evil.

And who says games don't teach morality.

The bar was empty. Devoid. Vacant. "How hard could it be?" I asked myself.

The rest is kind of a blur. I know a few things about the weekend: I did drive my kids to a barbeque once, and I did interact with real humans on more than one occasion. I also know that my rhythm was as follows:

1. Put my character into the PvP queue for Warsong Gulch (waiting for the server to decide that there are enough interested and well-balanced characters to start a new match).
2. Park said character at some location that wouldn't generate "rest". (Because, see, that would mean that I would be getting more XP from my kills, which... yeah.)
3. Restart my audiobook version of George R.R. Martin's Feast For Crows.
4. Move to my Warhammer Geek painting station, and paint Squigs and Squig Herders.
5. Paint, listen to book, and wait for the HORNS OF BATTLE!!!! to sound, indicating that a new battle for Warsong Gulch was about to start.
6. Put down the paint, turn off the book, sit down at machine.
7. Kill virtual extensions of other human beings in a fantasy setting for between ten and twenty minutes.
8. Win. Like, 14 ot of 15 battles.
9. Rinse, and repeat.

I did that for...

...at least twenty hours over the weekend. Ten of those hours were on Monday.

In Conclusion

I have, at the end of my long weekend, achieved the following:

1. I have reached "Friendly" faction with the Silverwing Sentinels. The primary benefit of this is an aching need to go fight more.
2. I have a 95% of the way painted Squig herd. They look pretty goddamn cool, I must say.
3. I totally blew off my buddy that I was going to play Vampire with.

Which brings us to the point of this behemoth of a post:

Uh, sorry, Dave. Maybe we can play later or something.

That's all I've got for ya! Good night, and good luck!

The Late Ragnaros

Let me just get this out of the way, before we get too far into this discussion.

I KILLED RAGNAROS ON SATURDAY!!

(Well, actually, I and 39 of my online friends killed Ragnaros. But let's not split hairs.)

I have been coming to the Molten Core for...

Uh. If the records on this topic are complete and accurate, it appears that I have been doing this one dungeon for over six months.

...

Whereas that concept might be enough for mere mortals to shrivel up and die in shame and humiliation, I, as a member of the gamerus superiorus, take that as a boast! A sign of glory! My chest swells with the bravery that I have shown in the face of my foes!

...

Lies, actually. I'm rather shaken by the notion. Strangely, though, my gamer side shrugs that off with no hesitation whatsoever. Six months? Feh.

So, as you may (or may not, gods willing) know, Ragnaros is the tenth (tenth!) and last boss you fight in Molten Core. He is the ultimate. The Big Cahuna. He's the Man.

He's an extraordinary pain in the ass. Get this:

1. He has an area-of-effect explosion that knocks anyone that does not have at least 200 fire resist back something like 100 feet (and waaaaaaaaaaay up in the air). (For those of you not pouring your life into digital distractions, 200 fire resist means you have a full set of armor that you have collected just for this purpose. Certainly doable, but also certainly not trivial.)
2. If (this is the kicker) at any time he does not have someone actively beating on him in melee range (like 5' away), he does this thing where he explodes flame into the entire chamber, and does like 6000 points of damage to everyone in it.
   

So, if you can't prevent him from knocking your tanks back, he wipes the whole raid instantly.

And that's just the price of entry. From there, it gets hard.

We've been beating our heads against this guy for something like the last three months. It's hard. It's a complex fight, and all of the members of your 40-man raid party need to have a certain level of gear (fire resistance, mainly) that takes some time to get. Also, it's hard.

And, then, quite suddenly, I found myself standing there on the edge of the lava spiral that he stands in, healing my mages and priests, helping keep enough of the raid alive that we had a chance... and his health was at 20%... 15%... 12%... and it hit me.

We had 45 seconds left to kill him (before his Sons emerge, and we all die)... and that was enough time to do it.

I couldn't believe it. But, man, it was gonna be close. Over my headset, our raid leaders had started to say things like "Unload! Get in there! Hit him with everything you've got!" And, they were right.

Man, I got right in there. I jumped into the lava, hopped through it, and got right in there next to that big ol' towering column of flame and rage, and gave him everything I had.

Which, admittedly, isn't much. I am a paladin, after all.

The feeling of satisfaction when that titanic sonofabitch finally disintegrated into nothingness, leaving only his gigantic hammer behind as a reminder of his unearthly presence was nothing short of ecstatic. My shout of delight startled my children in the next room.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the Ghosts of Retribution, and their really big hammer.

Check out the look of satistfaction on that avatar's face.

Uh, through the armor, I mean.

Random Zombies

Before we get started today, you really need to watch this.

That's how I always did that level.

...

Now, I have something else for you. At work here, we sometimes get involved in what I would describe as less-than-productive behavior. This is, perhaps, not entirely uncommon in my industry.

That said, rarely has a day been so completely destroyed than the day that my office-mates and I found The Zombie Game.

I am grislyness. Grislyness, the zombie. As of right now, I am ranked 672nd. I rule.

Unfortunately, I am currently being held captive by my malicious overlord, the UnTrevor. But let me assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that will not stand. No. The UnTrevor is going down.

Here's the thing about this game: it's just a freakin' website. It's... it's... not even really a game in the way we have come to think of it. It's more like a play-by-mail game where the turns are very, very fast.

Must admit, though. Draining the vitality of my minions to serve my nefarious ends is pretty satisfying. Even if it's just a website.

I will be sending out infection invitations to many of you. This will insure my ongoing power. Do not fear me; together, we can rule the known universe. Also, it will add your name to their spam list, which is always a good thing.

Mu hu. Wa ha. Wa ha.

Fan Mail

Today, let us respond to two startling questions, from two different readers.

These are, quite possibly, 2 out of 3 readers that I have.

druid writes:

Congrats. First, on resisting the urge to ninja the helm (although, dammit, you are a Paladin, and there's a truly special level of hell reserved for Paladins that steal drops). And second, for finally getting it to drop.

My thanks. But what's your question?

So. Big picture time, here. How long do you expect to continue playing WoW? Until it's not "fun" anymore (I dare you to say that running Scholo 42 times is still "fun")? Until the expansion? Until you have full Lawbringer? Until you've experienced all the content (Ony, AQ40, soon Nax and the expansion)?

It's one of the issues that always gets to me with MMOs - there's no end. Hence, my experience with them almost always ends up being sour, because I play them until I can't stand playing them any more (otherwise, why quit)?

The answer to this question might terrify you. It certainly terrifies me.

I will be done with this game when:

1. I have a character (most likely Allora) that has experience every piece of geo in the game, and beaten every monster. Progress: 90%.
2. I have a character (horde and alliance) that has completed every quest in the game. Progress: 60% (alliance: 98%, horde: ~50%, there is a great deal of overlap at high levels)
   
3. I have a level 60 character of each class. Progress: 15% (Paladin: 60, Priest: 43, Hunter: 33, Warrior: 33, Shaman: 24, Rogue: 29, Mage: 8, Warlock: 3, Druid: 0)

...

I really think that speaks for itself.

Dave writes:

I command you to write an interesting, not WoW tinted, blog of epic proportions. Reading about the “Lizard’s Gizzard” for the 400^th time is uninteresting.

Hmmm. An interesting point. Let's take a moment and discuss.

1. See above converstaion for a rough idea of what your chances are of not seeing WoW-related posts on this site in the near-term.
2. By some coincidence, I have been building momentum towards a blog post of said epic proportions, as you describe, but have been unwilling to post it. It's intensely personal stuff, you see, this topic that I wish to blurt. I've been running a fucking gauntlet of emotional bullshit over the past two months, and...
3. I'm chicken, basically.
4. So, if the blog has been a little dry of late, this is why: much of the normal intense darklord crap has been happening offline.

So be it.

Prayer Works

I (meaning, my virtual avatar, Allora) hit 60 some time ago.

Uh, we're talking like nine months ago here. Just for perspective.

Those of you unfamiliar with the lay o' da land once you "max out" in the Warcraftian World may find it startling to understand that the journey has only really just begun. (I did some discussion on this topic a while ago, illustrating in some small way the level of insanity that is required to achieve pleasure from the game at this level.)

Let us say this: many of my more stable friends who did play this game stopped when they hit 60. Because, they reasoned, what would be the point?

I have for you a tale of the point. It is a tale of faith... of hope... and most importantly, how the power of prayer can help you. No, really.

Let's set the Wayback Machine to somewhere's around two weeks after Allora had hit 60.

These were hopeful, naive days. I was happily adjusting to the fact that I could (*gasp!*) log off anywhere I damn well pleased, because the rest I was accumulating by logging off at inns gave me extra experience points, and... I was all done with that!

I had me some green gear that I found quite fetching. ("Green" in the previous sentence refers to the color of the text of the item, which reflects its rarity... yeah. Nerds.)

(Come to think of it, I still find that fetching; Alabaster Plate is one of the best looking suits of plate in the game, IMHO. It looks... authentic. And, this was in Allora's "I'm a Holy Paladin, Don't Fuck With My Gods" phase, so it was very appropriate.)

Ahhhh, young I was. So young, in fact, that I was only just beginning to explore this whole new thing that I knew was to consume the rest of Allora's gameplay time: grouping. Specifically, grouping for instance dungeons.

I knew little about this, so I decided to go at it slow and easy, so as not to make vast, long-reaching mistakes that would haunt me for the next nine months of gaming.

...yeah.

You may or may not be aware of the various armor sets that exist for the collecting pleasure (ahem) of the upper-level character. It suffices to say that traditional XP-based leveling after level 60 is replaced by two things: faction (which we have discussed) and armor sets.

These armor sets contain within them the stat bonuses that would normally be granted by leveling up. See how that works? It's as if you had to go and kill a dragon (over and over... and over) until he decides to randomly drop your new level, as treasure. You equip it, and bang! You're 61!

Kinda. It's not quite as cut-and-dried as that, but that's the gist.

So, there I was, quite suddenly, in my first high-level instance group. It was, by chance, a run into Scholomance, a marvelous place with high stone ceilings, lots of books, and undead legions filling every hall who are happy to take your coat, hat, and soul, if you give them a chance. Very excited, I was polite to a fault. "Hi, hi, how are you, yes I have Blessing of Kings, no I haven't done this before, hi, hi..."

One of the members of this party of illustrious adventurers was a paladin as well. Shortly after we were under way, this fine fellow messages me, and asks if I have the Lightforge Helm. After all, the end boss of Scholomance is the only place it drops.

At the time, I genuinely had almost no idea what he was talking about. I mean, I knew there were these sets of armor, and I knew that I would be seeking them... but beyond that, I was still virginal in my approach.

"Nope!" I chirped.

His reply went something like this: "OKAY OMG LISTEN I'VE DONE THIS RUN 42 TIMES AND I'VE NEVER SEEN THE DAMN THING DROP EXCEPT ONCE AND I GOT OUT ROLLED AND I HAVE EVERYTHING ELSE I JUST NEED THE HELM SO IF IT DROPS CAN YOU PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOT ROLL OMG OMG!!"

...

"uh... sure?" I said. Seemed reasonable.

Fast forward.

BRLLIRBILRIBLBLBRBLRLIRLIRIB--wiped on the goddamn spiders--LRIBLRILBRBRIRLBILRIRP--green gas sucks sucks sucks, and I died again--RLBPIBPLBIPLIBPRIBP--Ras Frostwhisper fell before our mighty swo--LRILRIPBPBIRLLIRBP--and Darkmaster Gandling collapsed on his goddamn face, YEAH BABY!!! We BAD!! We SLICER-DICERS!!

We loot... and, of course, there it is. Lightforge Helm. Ding ding ding.

I hesitated. I had, after all, promised this guy who I didn't know and would never see again that I would let him have it. But... holy crap! Look at those stats!

...

Nah, it'll drop again. Pass.

[ ASIDE: if you find yourself in a similar situation, and you have this thought? Destroy it. ]

Fast forward.

...actually, we need to skip forward through several of our vast archives. In fact, we need to run all the way up to last night.

Becuase, you see, I've run Scholo a lot since that day. It's a very Paladin-friendly place, what with it being populated almost entirely by the living dead. I have a way of exploding undead brains that makes for very fun gameplay. I can tank there too. If you don't know what that means, I envy you.

By "I've run Scholo a lot", I mean, like, 42 times. And the goddamn thing has never dropped again.

Those of you following my tales of woe will know that I am currently in Molten Core, and have been collecting my Lawbringer gear, which is, in fact, far superior to the Lightforge stuff. Lightforge is twiddly n00b stuff compared to the Lawbringer gloriousness.

But... man. It's a classic, you know? And I haven't gotten the Lawbringer helm yet. So, I keep going back.

[ ASIDE #2: You know where this is going, but I have a message I want to pass to you along the way, so hang in there. ... It won't be worth it, by the way, but hang in there anyway. I dunno, what else do you have to do, work?? ]

So, last night I did a Scholo run for a guild member: a warlock who is working on getting her Epic mount. We pulled a group of guildies together, and went down into the depths of this undead-riddled "school".

It was a lot of fun; good run, everyone was on the Vent server, so we could all talk to each other (which helps enormously). Our warlock complete her quest, we turned the immortal lich Ras Frostwhisper into a human and then hacked off his head, got good loot... a pleasant run.

...and Darkmaster Gandling collapsed on his goddamn face, YEAH BABY!!!

And suddenly, we are all standing around the fallen corpse. I breathe in fearfully (as I always do when we reach this point in the run), but this time, I say into the mic, "Ladies and gentlemen, let us all take a moment to pray, silently, for the Lightforge Helm to--" and then someone looted, and there it was.

I peed myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the press, assembled dignitaries, I give you...

...my Ronald McDonald hat.

You see? It's all clear to me now, and this is my message to you.

Prayer works.

...

Now, the fact that I prayed every single other time for the exact same thing to happen, to no avail, has no bearing on my conclusion. I am convinced. And so should you be. In the immortal words of George Michael, ya gotta have faith.

...and, if you think I'm gonna walk around with that horrendous thing showing on my head, then, in the immortal words of Judas Priest, you've got another thing comin'. That is why the WoW gods put "Show Helm" as an option.

W00t!

Hey, Matt, I Builded Yer Raider

And, here is a word about that. If you, or anyone near to you, has it in their head that it would be a good idea to:

Paint a Dark Eldar Raider with black tacky primer while it's still on the sprue! That way it's easy!

...please, do yourself and them a favor and punch them in the mouth.

I can assure you. It is not an easy thing to glue together a plastic ship with glue made for plastic when there is a thick layer of crap between the glue and the plastic. Nossir.

Either way, though, England prevails.


The raider is the one in black. Here's another way to look at that:

Yes, it's true, that crab-scorpion-lookin' thing is out of your worst nightmares. It's no fun, and I mean that as a Tyranid player.

The little guys are jetbikes. Matt has 85,000 of these that I intend to assemble, regardless of whether or not he wants me to. His comment about them when he dropped off all this marvelousness was "...meh." I can tell, he's only hiding his enthusiasm in order to throw me off guard. I'm sure that when he sees his Dark Eldar jetbike fleet, he'll warm to the notion.

Or not. Either way, I gets ta build 'em.

Onyxia the Dwagon!

I know, I know, I haven't been keeping you all up to date on my most recent WoW exploits. A day does not go by that I don't get a flood of emails in my inbox requesting more information about my progress through Molten Core... or how my alts are doing... people, I can only tell you so much about WoW. I have other topics that I need to address from time to time, okay?!?

...

But not today. Today is all about the fact that I finally (finally) got my Drakefire Amulet. Which is the thing that lets you into Onyxia's lair... so you can fight the dwagon.

But before we go into that, I must say something about this goddamn quest chain. Holy fucking shit, people. I mean, I've done some pretty ridiculous shit in my quest for Better Gear(tm) in this game, but this one...

I honestly have no idea how they expected anyone to be able to assemble forty people who had completed the whole thing. (Forty people, of course, being the number of people you kinda need to kill the Dwagon; more on that later.)

Let me sum up.

...

No, there is to much. Let me explain the whole goddamn thing, so that you may share in my pain. And, I gotta warn you in advance, a quick scrub of your browser's scroll bar will give you some idea of how comitted I am to inflicting on you the pain that was inflicted on me. (Also, the pretty pitchers are hanging out at the bottom of this post, so there's yer quick fix. Who loves ya.)

Consider yourself warned. You are now entering...

THE DARKLORD'S INSUFFERABLE GUIDE TO GETTING INTO ONYXIA'S LAIR (for Alliance, and yarbles to the Horde!)

Welcome, fair traveller! So, you seek the glorious drops that only can be had from the corpse-ification of the most notorious of all dwagons, Onyxia? Or, perhaps you simply want to see the great dwagon fall? Regardless of your motivations... son, you are in for a walk.

But do not be dissuaded! Difficult though your path may be, it is, in fact, not insurmountable. Evidence can be found hanging from the gates of Stormwind nearly every Friday and Saturday. Hey, man, if they can do it, you can do it.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. Get to the Burning Steppes.
2. Be 55+. Better, be 60.
3. Make sure you have friends. Or, at the very least, develop an ability to pretend like you like other people.
4. Prepare yourself to spend a lot of time in Blackrock Depths. You know, the least popular dungeon in the game? The 55+ dungeon with no drops whatsoever of interest to 60+ characters? The vast sprawling caverns of Dark Iron Dwarves and Fire Elementals with no XP and not much cash for anyone with their first tier gear? Yeah, that dungeon. The one you've been avoiding, because no one every puts together runs for it. That one. Go get all the Blackrock Depths quests you can find, 'cause you might as well.
   

Ahem. Let us begin (as so many things do) at the beginning.

1. Helendis Riverhorn hangs out in the Alliance outpost at the Burning Steppes, and she has your first quest. It's called "Dragonkin Menace", and it seems innocuous enough. Killing whelps, that kind of thing. It is not, in fact, innocuous. It is your doom, but you have no way of knowing that. Don't beat yourself up about it.
2. This leads you to a six stage introductory quest chain called The True Masters. It's a Fedex, so don't worry. All you need to do is not go crazy with all the goddamn running around.
3. The Marshal Windsor quest, however, is an entirely different story. Marshal Windsor is, in fact, where things start to come apart at the seams.

See, you have to find Marshal Windsor to complete that one. The brave Marshal is hanging out in a jail cell, in Blackrock Depths. So, to get to him, you need to get together four of your friends, and git him!

But don't forget to get the Prison Cell Key! You can't open the cell door without the key, you see, so you have to go kill High Interrogator Gerstahn (or, as of some patch, one of his flunkies). He's in the middle part of the jail section, so it's not far. No worries! No worries!

It just ain't easy. ;) Oh, and none of this is in the quest log, so you gotta figure it out. Get used to that.

Okay! So, Marshal Windsor, what's happnin'!! Good to see you, my man, lets get-- uh--

"Bolvar is a fool. I was gathering his precious 'proof' so that I could shove it down his throat.

"He is a blind buffoon. Proof stands two feet away from him and he does not see.

"As for my data, it's lost. Gone. Unrecoverable.

"Should I ever find Ironfoe and make it out of this labyrinth, my first stop will be Stormwind, to place my hammer in between that reptile's eyes.

"Leave me, Allora."

Uh.

Okay then! I'll just... leave you here in this dank cell to die. Sounds good!

4. Looks like we've Abandoned Hope. Return to Marshal Maxwell at the Burning Steppes, and give him the bad news. His response can be summarized as "Drat."
   

Now we come to the unbelievable part. At this point, the quest chain dies. It literally disappears. There is no follow quest, nothing. You're done, congratulations, take your XP and go about your business, thanks. Many people, I imagine, are on this step, and don't know it. Because, of course, the next step is to:

5. Fight in Blackrock Depths (you know, the least popular dungeon in the game?) with random mobs until A Crumpled Up Note drops. This gives you the quest... uh... A Crumpled Up Note. (I hear this can also drop off the slaves outside, but still. Whothefuck goes down there if they don't have to?)
   

Now, nowhere in the world is there a clue that tells you that fighting in the least popular dungeon in the game is the right thing to do. But it is what you must intuit. Or, at least, ask Thottbot about.

6. Take this note back to Marshal Windsor. He's still locked up in Blackrock Depths (BRD) where you left him (the... least popular dungeon in the game?) He will send you looking for A Shred of Hope.
7. Specifically, he wants you to get Marshal Windsor's Lost Information from General Angerforge, and Marshal Windsor's Lost Information from Golem Lord Argelmach. They are both in BRD. Yes, you have to run it again.
8. Bring these back to Windsor (in BRD). Finally!! He's willing to
leave this hellhole!
9. Now, run Jail Break!.

Ahhhhhh, Jail Break.

In Jailbreak, you get to escort this crazyman Marshal Windsor as he strolls around the Dark Iron prisons looking for his buddies. Remember: clear every mob group in the jail section before doing this. We're talking about something on the order of thirty groups of thirty groups of 4-6 55 elites. It's an hour's worth of clearing, easy. And, booooooooooooooo-ring.

Also, note! There will be no reward for this process. The only boss you fight is Rokkor, so good luck finding people to help you out with this part. I had to literally trick my rogue friend into coming along.

It's... not popular. Fortunately, it's not hard. The hardest part, honestly is getting a party together to do it.

Okay! So you've saved Windsor! He has proof that... um, well, we're not sure yet, but he's got proof of something, and he means to confront someone in Stormwind about it!! He tells you he'll meet you there, sends you back to Marshal Maxwell in Burning Steppes, and with a "hi-yo Silvah!", he's away.

So:

10. The Great Masquerade is underway. Meet Marshal Windsor at Stormwind.

Getting him to spawn at the front gate of Stormwind is actually quite a trick. (And, we are talking about the front gate, not the "portal" across the bridge. The big gate is where he dismounts from his horse.) My best guess on this is that he spawns something like 10 minutes after you start the quest. So, what I did was flew back to Marshal Maxwell, abandonded the quest, accepted it again, and flew right back to Stormwind. I call this "quest hax0ring". I am teh l33t qu3st h@x0r.

Of course, my skills were not awesome enough to prevent someone from stealing my first Windsor when I was trying to do this. Stay sharp: anyone with the quest can steal him from you. Yeah.

Windsor will walk to the throne room, say mean things to Lady Prestor... who, as it turns out, is not Lady Prestor but is instead Lady I'm Gonna Breath Fire On Your Raid Group Until You All Die, a.k.a. Onyxia the Dwagon. One would think that this would mean bad things for you, the player, but, instead... nah. Just watch admiringly as all the dialogue and combat scrolls by you.

Almost there!

11. Once the fight is over, Highlord Bolvor Fordragon (that's mister Highlord Bolvor Fordragon to you, son) will give you The Dragon's Eye. And... man. I gotta hand it to the designers on this.

    "You must search the world for a being capable of restoring the power to the Fragment of the Dragon's Eye. The only information you possess about such a being is that they exist."
    

12. So, someone needs to make this Eye thing whole for you. Someone. Somewhere. In the world. Stare at this quest. Then, give up. Ask Thottbot, or a friend what the deal is.
13. Yaaay for Thottbot! Find the crazy elf Haleh up in the Winterspring to show the Fragment of the Dragon's Eye to. Getting to her is a trick in itself; there are webpages dedicated to how to do this without having to fight every goddamn dragon in the cave over which she is standing. I recommend this route.
    
14. Haleh informs you that in order to get the Drakefire Amulet (oh my god, oh my god, oh my god), you must obtain "the blood of a black dragon champion". There's only one more fucking painful step left! You're so close! You're almost there! You can hear the dragon's snores, for cryin' out loud!
15. Get nine (9) of your closest friends together, and do an Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS) run, and go aaaaaaaaaallllllll the way to the end. There you will find General Drakkisath.
1. Kill him. This is, shall we say, easy to fuck up.
2. Know this: he will drop between 2-4
Blood of the Black Dragon Champion. Yes, this is a fact. If there are more people in your (10-man) group that need the blood than drop... well, you're gonna have to roll for it.
3. Fail the roll.
4. Repeat until you succeed. Try not to shout obscenities about unfair gods and please oh please end my suffering. Remember: you are paying for this game.
16. You got the blood! Return to Haleh (in Winterspring), turn in the blood, and get the amulet.

Bing-fucking-go. Rarely have I felt such a mixture of satisfaction and utter exhausted disgust than I did when I finally had this bad-boy in my inventory. Gotta tell ya, the urge to rant is high.

...

Like, say, for example, this blog post.

...

Anyway. Onyxia hangs out in Dustwallow Marsh, down in ye olde Wyrmbog. Yes she does. And, on Sunday, yours truly ventured into those hallowed halls, and got his/her/it's first live-and-in-real-time peek at the Onyxia, the Dwagon.

With great gusto, and a merciless battle cry of "WE ONLY HAVE ONE PREIST WTF!?!?!?", the battle was entered.

With... predictable results.

Someday... someday that dwagon is goin' DOWN. I'll letcha know.

o.O

People... are really freakin' funny.

You may (or may not) be familiar with the Elder God C'thun. He(/She/It) is the end boss of An'Qiraj... which, if you have a life also might need some explaining. It's a dungeon in World of Warcraft, of course, one of many.

Well, yesterday I hooked up with C'thun's MySpace. He's a swingin' fellow, as it turns out. He just wants some mortals to consume, is that so much to ask?

Turns out MySpace is becoming quite the popular hang out for the World of Warcraft named mobs. How these virtual entities are managing to reach across the interstellar void of existence itself (as, you know, they only exist in the most thin of interpretations of the word) to, you know, dink around with HTML and construct a homepage on a social networking site... well, perhaps it's something best left unexplored.

The complete roster, however, is certainly worth a look.

My apologies to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. This shit is way funnier if you've fought and killed these jerks 45 times. But, I think it might still be amusing (assuming you share my twisted perspective on humor) even if you haven't been farming these guys for drops.

Ahem.

Blackrock Mountain (various):

• Nefarian (who seems to take his job very seriously... I respect that)
• General Drakkisath

Ahn'Qiraj:

• C'thun
  
• Emperor Vek'nilash

Zul-Gurub:

• Hakkar (sometimes an Elder God just needs a hug)

Molten Core:

• Ragnaros has two pages, it seems. He seems to be experimenting.
  
• Majordomo Executus (coward)
• Magmadar (the cutest giant two-headed lava dog in the world, who'sagoodboy, who'sagoodboy!!)

Various other instances:

• Onyxia (the Black Dragon Queen)
• Baron Rivendare (who has chosen a tastefully framed pic for himself)
• Lord Kazzak
• Archmage Arugal
• Cookie (the ship's cook), who's taste in homepage music is nothing short of exquisite...

Folks who are Outside:

• Sylvanas (you know, the Banshee who freed the Undead from the shackles of their masters, giving them free will? Yeah. She sounds kinda confused about it though.)
• Prince Thunderaan, The Wind Seeker
• ...Auctioneer Wabang? God damn it, I knew that dude made a lot of money, but... WOW! How do I get that job!?!

And, my personal favorite:

• Hogger

...

The Internet... is the best thing ever.

E x E x E

On Thursday, yours truly flew down to the greater Los Angeles area, and struck, single-man-insertion-mission-style, a lightning reconnaissance on the enemy. The folks at E3 never knew I was there.

This, of course, has almost entirely to do with the 150,000,000 other people who were there, many of which look kinda like me. Also, the bass was pumpin'. The 100' tall video screens didn't hurt as a distraction, either.

The ability to pick perfect venues for lighting reconnaissance makes or breaks the mission.

Lemme tell you. There are some games coming out. And soon.

A few notables worth examining:

• Heavenly Sword - Oh. My. God. After seeing this gameplay (that's gameplay footage, people; I recommend "Heavenly Sword - E3 2K6 Gameplay HD"), I went over to the God o' War II display, and went: "...feh."
  

• Lost Planet - The strangest thing for me about this game is that I know it's going to be big, even though I only glanced at the preview movie, and stood watching someone play for about three seconds. Why? Because everyone (and I mean everyone) at the show who I talked to asked me if I had seen it. Gotta admit, it looks cool.
  

• The Burning Crusade is, of course, going to continue to ruin my ability to enjoy anything else.
  

• I will be playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Prey, and Spore.
  

There were a few wonderful surprises lying in wait:

• Warhammer: Mark of Chaos looks soundly enjoyable. They have my Orkies, and big stoopid giants, so, pretty much, I'm there.
• Tabula Rasa... you know, I've been skeptical, and as much as I have wanted to believe that Richard Gariott was going to pull it out, it's been looking dicey. But... hmmmm... he put... that magic symbol thing in front of the chick's hand, and all of a sudden his sci-fi mistake is starting to look like something that might actually be unique... I'm getting interested.
• Crysis looks cool, although not really my cup o' meat.
• Lemmings PSP is the perfect PSP game. I will buy a PSP just to play this game.
• I really want Dungeon Runners to be as cool as Rogue and NetHack were back in the day... but it won't be. *sigh*

Here's a page for people who want to taste how goddamn overwhelming it is to attend E3. Go ahead. Read about 'em all. I dare you.

All in all, I gotta say... I think the age of invention is over. What I mean by that is that for the last 30 years, folks have been struggling to invent this new entertainment medium. And, it looks to me like the work has been successfully accomplished. Nice job!

Now begins the age of competition.

It's Coming Back

I...

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to get a little burnt out on WoW.

Maybe it's because for the last three weeks I've been averaging 4-10 hours of play per day. That might have something to do with it.

It's not that I don't want to play the game. Not by a long shot. Indeed, I'm signed up to go raiding in Molten Core this very weekend, last weekend my goddamn Lawbringer Spaulders dropped, and I got them.

That's right. 2/8. ZOMG.

But... still, I'm a little burnt. It manifests itself in a strange kind of naseous fatigue that begins the moment I see the logon screen. I'm assuming, for the time being, that this is a bad thing, and that it means that, at the least, I should see if the Real World is still there, alive, and intact. Perhaps take a census of still-living friends.

Of course, this extra time only allows room for other interests to invade.

For one, there is Tomb Raider, which a friend of mine has graciously loaned me a copy of.

...

[ ASIDE: Yeah, okay, so while collecting that link for you, this happened:

Normally, I hate desktop buddies. With a passion. But, I've gotta admit: having Lara Croft walking around my desktop scaling my windows seems perfectly reasonable. I'm a sick, sad little man. ]

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah!

Hell of a game. Tomb Raider: Legend is a true evolution of the franchise. Crystal Dynamics has succeeded where Core had failed: bringing Lara across the console generation gap. Core clearly leapt, missed, and let Lara fall to her death in a little crumpled heap (as she is want to do). Crystal reloaded their save game, made the same leap, and cleared it.

Although, barely. It's short. Too short for some, but not too short for me. Lara is nearly perfect, and the innovations in climbing gameplay that the game has to offer will certainly become standardized within a single product cycle.

It's also the first new game I've played in something approaching six months. And, get this: I've been busting out with some DDR action of late. I love that game.

Video games are not the only obsession re-emerging. Witness:

That's blood on the stairs there, coming from the blood gutters cut into the tile around the sacrificial altar. Yes... yes. Turned out pretty good. Still needs some grass and stuff, so that's next, but for a first "invented and built entirely from scratch with no plans or anything" effort, it doesn't suck. It's also extraordinarily heavy, being made entirely from plaster. I love my stone block molds. Yes I do.

I've been painting my Orkies, too. And, Dave & I had a rip-roarin' game of Warhammer 40k on Saturday. (Dave learned an important lesson: don't let the Genestealers get into your back rank. Ever.)

As a whole, not playing WoW constantly seems to be gently re-opening the doors to other pursuits, and I'm meeting this brave new world as any true hero would: cringing in fear, and blinking and wincing at the bright thing in the sky, my pasty skin and huge irises having been evolved for survival in a subterranean environment. I hope that with some integration therapy (and a little light surgery) I might be ready to be released into society at large within a few weeks.

I'll let you know when that's likely, so you can bar your doors at night.

GDC Found Art

I've recently been showing you (y'all) various interactive thingymajobbers that can be engaged with on the web. And, I... seem to be unable to stop myself.

I attended the Game Developer's Conference last week. Normally this is an excruciatingly pleasant affair for me; I really dig swimming around in academic-style higher-learning thinking, and reminding myself of the fundamentals of what we do.

This year? Not so much. I was fighting a flu of some kind, and when I get sick I get stupid. So, I missed most of the talks I wanted to see, the talks I did see sucked badly, and I just generally walked around and went "duuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh..."

However, I did find something I want to show you.

The Independant Games Festival (IGF) is a hoot; folks make games for free, and then compete for a cash prize and the prestige of their fellow game developers (which hopefully translates into some kind of distribution deal--HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *wipes tear from eye* hooo, boy I crack myself up sometimes... no, seriously though, I think someone one time got some money for it, but I can't confirm that).

The IGF benefits me directly, because I get to play their games. Most times, they are not so good. Lots of love there, but...

Common mistakes repeat themselves endlessly among the new initiates into the realm of entertainment making, and games are no exception to that. But, every once in a while, you get a rare gem. Something that could not ever possibly make money, but is so completely captivating that it can only be described as art.

Palette is that.

Before you click on that, here's a couple of hints to help you navigate the unbelievable overdone website. Click on the door, and then... don't panic. Everything's okay; the little window that just exploded and then resized itself is the game. I know, I know, it's just a black window. Wait for it. Wait... wait... it'll load. Do not try to click back to the main site; it's useless to you now.

There you go. Now, as a favor to the latent stained glass artist in all of us, spend ten minutes with it.

Oh yeah, and turn the sound on. It's just not the same game without the sound.

Here's something that isn't obvious until you've dumped four hours into it (like I might have done, I don't really remember, it's all a blur of color and light... so... beautiful...): there are several color layouts for each "window". When you replay, you will likely have a completely different problem to solve than the first time you played it.

Not sure if you care that much. God knows I do. But, I'm starting to wonder about my sanity.

Here's Something For Ya

I have spent about 30 minutes with this thing so far. It is...

Well, here, take a look for yourself.

There is this whole new experience that the vile alchemy of Teh Interwebs + Flash + Creative Geniuses + lots of free time has created. Let us call this branch on the tree of entertainment "Amazing Things That Should Not Be Free But Somehow Are". There are many examples of this, some of which can be found on the sidebar of this very blog. Yes indeedy.

Actually, let's just remind our readership (all two of you) about some of that.

If you haven't played Tower Of Goo... well, what the hell, man. Do I have to spell it out for you? C-L-I-C-K... T-H-E... L-I-N-K. I know, I know, "But I have to download it, man. How come I can't just play it?" Yeah, shut up. Download, play.

On the topic of The Swarm, it is important to understand that my daughter, once hooked in to a particular challenge, is pitbull-like in her inability to release the tether until she has somehow pegged an impossible score. She did this with the "keep the red box from hitting the blue boxes game", and she did it here. I think the macabre nature of the piece in question helped keep her attention. I believe her highest impact velocity was 218mph. Beat that.

There are more. So many more. I hesitate to even link; I fear the destructive power such a post might have.

All of this coalesces into the strange world that is the Now; a world where we can casually drift across a vast network of information, and occasionally be entertained by objects of such beauty and simplicity that ten years ago, and rolling on back four million years, they were impossible. I caution you: the future has more of this coming for you, and it's coming soon.

It's Like Heroin

druid writes:

Congrats on your mount. BTW, is that...um...a fiery enchant on your sword? O_o

Have you gotten *any* of your MC gear yet, or have all drops really gone to other people? What's it like running MC (what's the time investment per week)?

Oh, and as a debuff class, it's painful to see you are running Decursive now. Nothing kills me (literally) more than having some Paladin hit a key and wipe away all my carefully placed DoTs :)

P.S. Lvl 53 now...

So good to hear from the youth of today's WoW players. The young, not-yet-60-but-been-playing-the-game-for-over-a-year crowd.

To wit:

Yes, that is a fiery enchant. My guildmaster gave it to me as a "welcome to being an officer" gift. I'm working on getting a Crusader enchant; almost have enough for it.

Nope, I have gotten no Molten Core gear yet. But, I've only been in the guild for two weeks. I didn't really expect to show up and be suddenly in the earn. Surprisingly, they don't have a DKP system yet, so it's a free-for-all. I just might get something soon. (Don't worry about it if "DKP" is meaningless to you; it's still mostly meaningless to me. We'll talk later.)

Molten Core is... it's quite a thing.

Completing Molten Core (which I've never done, and I'm not entirely sure my guild has done) takes two or three 4-6 hour runs. We generally go on Friday and Saturday nights.

...

Yep, it's 8+ hours of gameplay. And if you're lucky, you might get 1 piece of equipment out of it. Oh, and you get no money, and in fact need to pay for your repair bill.

Taken as a whole, it's quite possibly the most fun I've had yet. Let's talk.

Molten Core is a kind of initiation into the higher game echelons. One reason is obvious: you have to bring 39 of your closest level 60 friends to have the barest hope of succeeding in there. Less than that? Certain death. More than that? Not an option; there's a40-person limit on how many people can go in together.

The other reason was not so obvious. Here it is: after 15 months of sort of dancing around the lip of this high-level-content precipice, now, thanks to my upwardly mobile guildmaster, I find myself... Well, that's just the thing. I find myself in a completely different category of gameplay. And, more importantly, players.

Where before I was bumping along, enjoying the scenery, killing stuff and taking their treasure, and chatting away with great wit with my guildies, I now find myself being swept along at a pace that I can only describe as professional.

You don't chat in guild chat in my new guild. You state your business. We're here to play the game, people, not socialize.

...

The part that really startled me about this whole thing is this: I am, quite suddenly, surrounded by people who are more than willing to burn two hours grinding on random high-level monsters for an incremental gain in faction (or some other abstract goal).

See, before I hooked up with these ultra-nerds (who are, in actual fact, an elite squadron of nerds that are gathered together to handle high pressure situations that many strive for but few attain; nerd ninjas, in a word), I would generally be able to extract about 30 minutes of running around and just killing stuff from people I met before they got bored and wandered off. It was a constant struggle, finding new peope with which to endlessly repeat the same challenges.

In this new gaming world, I find that it is an unstated assumption on everyone's part that we are just going to quest for whatever is in front of us, forever, until work or some other real-life requirement extracts us from the task. It's not even discussed.

For example. The other day I was in Silithus, and I saw a guildie ride by. I sent him a tell ("Hey, by any chance could I interest you in grinding a few mobs? :) :) :)"). No response.

Then, an invite. He's got another guy with him, and with a curt "hey there", we are off. We spent the next two and a half hours killing Twilight Cultists, summoning their Elemental Lords, and killing them. Maybe ten sentences were spoken during the entire duration of the run. None of these sentences even mentioned any awareness of how long we were spending at this task. And then, after summoning one of the big ones, we were quite suddenly done. Everyone left, and I ran off to go turn in the 10 Twilight Texts I had collected during the massacree, much to my joy (and personal reward: I can now make Darkrune Helms).

This happens all the time now. I don't even know who these people are. Sometimes I hear them talking on the guild chat server, but I have no clue who is who. I have a suspicion that they don't either, and, further, that no one really cares. We're all just happy to have gotten rid of the players who get bored with our special kind of gameplay, and don't want to rock the boat.

They don't even joke about it. You know that kind of light embarassment you (WoW players) feel when the topic of how long you've played comes up? It's gone. Utterly absent. Every now and then someone mentions WoW being a life-destroyer, but that's it. I'm in the darkest back corner of the opium den, surrounded by my comrades, who have also all accepted that they will die in the embrace of their drug, and are simply pleased to have the pleasure of my company.

So, in short, it's nothing like the game that you've been playing. Nothing at all. And, once you start down the path, you'll never look back.

Quit now, before it's too late.

Epic Loot

A couple of things have happened.

For one, there is this:


Some of you may recognize that immediately. And, of course, turn green with envy. Or, at least I'd like to imagine that you would.

For the rest of you (those with lives), that is the Paladin Epic Mount.

Mounts in World of Warcraft turn out to be a really big deal. Since you spend a huge amount of time walking from place to place (just like in real life!), getting yourself a more efficient mode of transportation makes things much more pleasant. It reminds us of what it must have been like for our distant ancestors, before the invention of alternative forms of locomotion. Yes, it's true: playing World of Warcraft reminds you of history. Yep.

...

Not really. But it does suck to not have a horse. Which is the case until level 40, where you are able to purchase your mount, and suddenly your world becomes 60% faster. Yaaaay!

But, of course, this is an MMORPG, and so that 200+ hour investment is just the beginning.

[ Quick aside: I'm playing as I type this, and out of curiosty, I typed "/played", which tells you how long you have spent playing as the current character. Mine says "32 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes, 37 seconds". Help me. ]

There is a second mount available to you at level 60. The Epic Mount. For most players, this is just extremely expensive (1000g, or the equivalent of most of your free time for a month). For Paladins, however, it's extremely expensive (~600g) and time consuming: you have to quest for it.

Or, I should say, you get to quest for it. It's really fun. :)

So, after months of procrastinating and struggling and hewing my way through various challenges, it's over. I have my horsie. My world is now 100% faster.

So, that's cool. But that's just bragging.

...

Let's brag some more. Let's brag about Molten Core.

Several months ago I landed in this really cool guild. Nice people, kinda chill. So, just recently, my (rather ambitious) guildmaster got our whole guild merged into another, larger guild, that is doing Molten Core runs.

Again, it is rude of me to assume that any of you know what the fuck I am talking about. "Molten what??" you are saying to yourself. Let me es'plain.

...

No. There is too much. Let me sum up.






Molten Core is just that: a lava-filled hole in the ground. It also happens to be full of nasty, monstrous, and very angry boss monsters. Boss monsters that kill me, over and over. Boss monsters that also drop loot. Epic loot. By which I mean rare and powerful armor and weapons. All of which end up going to other people in the group. Sigh.

I have more to say on this topic, but it suffices to say that I am no longer playing this game. No, friends. I am now engaged in a pursuit.

Flintlocke. Yes, Really.

I love the Internet. Let me just set that straight. I've heard these "the Darklord hates the Interweb" rumors, and I'm saying it here for the record: it's a dirty, damn lie. And I've paid good money to have it squelched, so let's just let it end here. Cool?

I specifically love web comics.

I grewed up reading the funny pages every damn day. I remember this one time, I brought a bunch of Peanuts collections to keep me entertained during some religious meeting my father was was attending at a friend's house, and ended up embarassing him horribly because I was giggling away in the bedroom to Snoopy while the adults were trying to commune with the big "G" or something.

I really haven't changed much since then. I still loves me a good comic strip. Yes I do.

And, for those of you who don't know, the goddamn Internet has changed the entire face of this delightful medium. Yes it has. For you see, it had long been understood that there were only twenty-seven or so comic strips in existence (only enough to fill a page and a half in your local newspaper), and it was further understood that these strips had to be bland, banal, and pretty fucking stupid, generally, or else the editors of said papers would cut them.

I like to think of this as the "Dark Ages" of comic-ery. Comicary. Comic... itude?

Then, lo, one day I was browsin' me some interweb, and I stumbled upon the best online comic strip story of all time. Sluggy Freelance is not so much a comic as it is an epic exertion of hilarity and drama, exerted out of its creator apparently by sheer force of will. It's outstanding.

If you haven't read it, start at the fucking beginning. Don't think you can just drop right in or something. Because you can't.

For me, see, this was a bit of an eye opener. "What's this??" said me befuddled noggin, "A comic strip, written for adults, that is funny, serious, witty, disturbing, and clever?? Whaaaaaaaa?"

Such a thing did not exist, as far as I knew, outside of Calvin and Hobbes (defunct) and Bloom County (also defunct). But, as it turns out, there are many, many more of these available for your viewing pleasure.

Flintlocke is not one of those.

No, friends. No.

Flintlocke is one of those things that can only exist inside the web. It is a horrid, awful abomination, a merging of ideas so foul that it should only be tasted in two's and three's.

...

I'm almost all the way through the archives. Oh. My. God.

Episode 1: Guide to Maiming Meat that Walks is... pretty much required reading. If you are a geek. Which I know you are.

And, anyone who has dumped more of their life than they should have into WoW pretty much needs to read Episode 2: Ogre Killing in 56 Easy Steps.

Beyond that, you have no one but yourself to blame.

The Smallest Pac

Why?

Because it's possible, apparently. Genius.

Believe it or not, the little arrows are to pick other games. The site actually starts here.

Something Brotherly. Something... Mario.

I'm afraid I have to show you something. I'm unable to prevent myself. And, I'm aware that, in total, I will not be bringing you joy. No, in fact, what I offer you is a vacancy.

However, I would point out that the road I point to you now is paved with joy. Pleasure is what has shaped the bricks that you will walk upon, so in that, at least, I am satisfied.

...

That's actually a lie. I just have to show you this shit.

I should get this out of the way right off the bat: there is no last chapter to the story I'm linking here for you. And, let's be clear: the lack of that final chapter is the origin of the suffering I mentioned above.

Yet, if you are wired as I am (and, if you're reading this, I gotta assume there's a reasonable amount of correlation there), after seeing

Mario Brothers - Part I

you will be unable to prevent yourself from treading, in full knowledge, into the empty abyss that awaits you.

Here's the path: Mario Brothers - Part II, Mario Brothers - Part III, and... uh, Mario Brothers - Part IV...

I'll put this here, just to fuck with you: Mario Brothers - Part V.

And, if you are one of those lucky bastards who don't mind a tale with no end, who can cavalierly accept the joys of the moment, without needing a closed, meaningful resolution, then fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. I'm not jealous of you, and I wouldn't admit it if I was.

...

Have you watched at least the first one? Go watch it. Yes, all the way through.

...

k.

So, here's something I want you to think about. The startling thing to me about this kind of presentation is that the amount of emotion I'm capable of generating over this stuff is roughly equivalent to the emotion I churn at a pretty good movie.

But that's people. This is a flash animation of a 2D side-scroller.

The same principle applies, I think, in anime. Anime as a style has distilled the communications necessary to generate emotion in the viewer down to their barest essence. Sudden shot of dramatic event (say, building collapsing), with our hero in frame, seeing what we are seeing... flash cut to their face, with pure amazement and/or fear, shaking camera... and that's all it takes. Amazing thing... character we empathize with in presence of amazing thing... emotion of said character... yaaaay! Entertainment!

There's more to say about this... specifically about how American media differs in their approach, but it's complicated, and I haven't really gelled the thought yet. Maybe later.

Okay, So I'm A Nerd. So What.

Play this.

So, the confounding thing about this is that it is "From the creators of Diner Dash™". Can anyone, anywhere, tell me who these people are?? I want to know. I mean, I know that PlayFirst is covetous of their exclusive relationship with their money tree, but still! I mean, are we talking space aliens here?

Who makes these games?

And how can I get more?

[edit: Oh, and if you haven't played Diner Dash, then goddamn it, I thought I told you to play it. ]

Power Failure = Bridge Pics

Grr. I just lost a huge post because the power failed in my office.

I don't have the spirit to re-build it. Sometimes, what you are writing is a process on it's own, and reproducing it is next to impossible. I think this was one of those posts. Maybe I'll return to the topic later, once I've finished stabbing this screwdriver into my goddamn defective battery backup system over and over and over.

On the bright side, my wargaming bridge got painted over the weekend, and I'm startled by how well it turned out. This picture is, of course, horrible, and does not really get across the detail that the model contains, but you can kinda see the green ink job I did for moss in the stone cracks...


And, more marvelously, the bridge was bloodied that very day.

Those are unpainted Chaos Warriors on the left, being (as it turns out) overrun by painted Beasts of Chaos on the right. Which just proves the age-old adage that painted figures always win.

Which helps explains my losing streak. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm crying myself to sleep.

No Time!

No time to blog! Must play WoW!

I'll blog during the scheduled server downtime tomorrow. See if I don't.

Once You Start Down The Dark Path

Yesterday, I go wandering into one of my designer's cubes. He's working away on his XBox dev kit, but (clever boy) he left a Darklord trap right there on his screen. His web-browser was pointed at... at...

Well, at this.

I have mentioned, have I not, how much I appreciate the indy games industry? Yes? Well and good. Now, there is another games industry afoot; one that is strange and multi-colored. Here and there, you can find these websites that are basically full of very, very addictive flash games & puzzles.

That you can play for free. Until you pass out. Or manage to pry yourself away from the screen.

Now, this particular incarnation of the free flash game is particularly insidious; it's half logic puzzle, half guessing-game, built around the idea of discovering the rules that govern this strange little world it's creator has fashioned, and then winding your way through the maze of possible triggers to find the win condition.

You poke it until it brightens up. Along the way, funny things happen. You know, games.

There are others of this sort, of course. They will also destroy your mind, if you let them. (I have not yet solved either of those two prior links, FYI. Taunt me at your leisure.)

Point to the Darklord: I solved the GrowCube. And I'm going to post the solution here.

Now, I'm not posting it for you. You should go and solve it. But, see, the best way for me to record the solution (so that I may later taunt my friends with my mad skillz) is to write it down. And, believe it or not, this here blog is currently the most reliable place for me to store information that I want to keep and be able to refer to later.

Does that scare you? It scares me. It certainly scares my wife.

So, here it is, for my record keeping.

People,Water,Seeds,Pot,Pipe,Fire,Dish,Bone,Spring,Ball

Don't cheat!! Solve it yourself!! It's freakin' bizarre, and totally worth it! Don't give in to the dark side, and peek at my solution before you solve it yourself!!

[evil laugh]

Again With The Blocks

These may well be the most fun toys I've ever gotten.

Just to be clear, what's happening here is that I'm taking molds like those shown at the right (and also shown in a previous post) that were purchased from Hirst Arts, and casting blocks out of plaster.

When I say "casting blocks out of plaster", one must understand that this is a significant threshold that I've crossed.

Plaster, you understand, is one of those craft materials that only grandmothers use. It's so fasionable out-of-date as to be historically quaint, in this era of plastics and uber-clay of all shapes and sizes. Why, the very notion of casting something out of something else is itself quaint in many circles. That would involve work, and why would you do that when you can just go and spend money?

Yes, but see...

The molds cost between $25 and $50 each. You can use them (get this) hundreds of times. They are not, in any sense of the word, disposable. You buy them with a certain commitment in mind, something like "boy, I'd better use these, or my wife will slice off my testicles with them, and wow, they are dull." Hypothetically speaking.

You need plaster to cast with. Plaster, for those of who who have lingered on the edge of craftyness, but have never actually dipped your toe in the waters, is a white powdery stuff that can easily pass for cocaine. You mix it with water (or, as I have learned, sift the plaster slowly into the water, thus allowing it to absorb more evenly... lumps are bad), pour it in to the mold, make a huge mess, and then wait for it to dry. It hardens into something that resembles stone, although is more fragile. It is, in a word, invented by God himself for constructing wargaming terrain.

And, it's like $3.00 a box. I've spent like $9 on plaster so far. It's cheap.

Beware, though. Once you first discover within yourself the ability to create your own Lego blocks, the future may become clouded and uncertain, filled with constant 40-minute casting cycles in which you generate more and more and more construction material for your constantly inflating plans. This may be unhealthy for those prone to obsessive behavior. I may suffer from this disorder; no conclusive evidence on the topic has yet escaped my minion's suppressive powers.

Once the blocks have been cast, they must dry. I can now measure the dryness of plaster blocks by touch. And, perhaps more chillingly, by smell. I dry my blocks our tiny oven, on cookie sheets. They don't taste as good as cookies, but they provide much more joy. Imagine that.

What do you do with a pile of plaster blocks? What wizardry is needed to assemble them into something intelligible?

Wood glue. Lo:

I give you, the Traveller's Bridge, Darklord-style.

What boggles my mind is that I modified their design on-the-fly while building this thing. The bridge steps in their version are narrow as sin, and are far too steep for my tastes. So I extended them and lengthened the bridge. Try that with a terrain kit from... some... other company that sells terrain... things.

Not only that, I can make a giant phallic symbol!

This is from this Egyptian mold they make.

A question: can you tell me, off the top of your head, the difference between Mayan and Egyptian architecture?


...

Well, fuck you, so you can. Who asked you anyway. My Mayan architecture that I'm building for my Lustria campaign is going to be graced with heiro-fucking-glyphics. Deal with it.

And what Mayan setting would be complete without a ziggurat? You know, a ziggurat?

It's on its way. I'll let you know when I'm done.

Hee hee hee

I love my toys.

Some time ago, this wacky friend of mine bought a metric truckload of molds from Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture Inc.

At the time, I called him crazy. ... I also called him a diety, and washed his feet with wine, and my hair. See, because these are some of the coolest damn toys of all time. Imagine: Lego, except you can make all you want, and they're textured like stone.

[drool]

This weekend marked the first actual excursion into the land of Casting Plaster Blocks. And, I've gotta say, it's really, really fun.

First thing you do, see, is...

Well, wait. The first thing you do is read the instructions. Over and over.

Okay, then, the first thing you do is make yourself a litle casting station.

Here's the recommended station, from the website:

And, here's mine:

Mine's better. Mine isn't a goddamn STAGE SET.

In short order (like, within an hour of getting started), I was cranking out a bunch of these:

I have, at this point, a reasonable collection of blocks. I need more (oh yes, I need more), but for a first day's work? Not so bad.

My first attempt at assembly will be something resembling a bridge, although I'm going to have to modify the original plans some to accomodate the width of a Warhammer movement tray.

(If the phrase "Warhammer movement tray" means nothing to you, don't sweat it. You're normal.)

Here is the current status of said bridge:

Dude (and by "dude", I mean the goddamn sugardaddy who hooked me up with these badass toys; that's right, I'm talkin' to you), you have no idea how happy these things have made me.

It's stupid, but... I really like making bricks out of plaster. Go figure.

You'd Think It Would Have Been Easier

So, I started playing Warcraft in August of last year, when a friend of mine got into the first beta test. I played in the next beta test as well, and the one after that.

I hold down a job and a family, and something that resembles a life, so I can't claim to be among those who count their achievements in the number of level 60 characters they have; alas, I only have 1.

Even so, I have something of a fetish for armor sets. Many of us do; Blizzard, and many other game developers (including myself) in fact depend on the existence of this fetish to drive players forward, lemming-style, into the black abyss of the Collection Mechanic.

I have a fairly bad case of this mind disease. I've filled several Playstation memory cards with 100% completed saves from the likes of Crash Banidicoot, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and many other platform-y excuses to collect shiny things.

So, you would imagine that, upon hitting the vast arid tracts of land that is Westfall, and discovering the earliest armor set in the game (that would be the Blackened Defias Armor set of leathers), that I would have quickly gotten myself a set of those.

Yeah... no. Was playing a Paladin, you see, and Paladins wear mail, not el-flimso leather. Feh.

Actually, truth be told, what actually happened was this: it turned out that the drive to collect experience points was in fact stronger than the set collection urge, in my case. I blew right past that experience with a longing glance over my shoulder, like a kid riding in his parents car who drives by an amusement park. I pressed my nose against the glass and stared longingly at the full set of Defias armor, and then *poof*, it was gone.

Fast forward. As I may have mentioned, I'm crazily making new characters. Don't ask why; just accept it, and move on. I have, and I'm much happier for it.

There are five items in the Defias Armor set (boots, gloves, pants, belt, and chest). The first four pieces you can buy from the Auction House. I know; this is what I did to get them. Some may rail against this. I, however, just wanted the goddamn set.

The last piece, however (the chest piece), you can only get by killing one Edwin VanCleef, head of the Defias Brotherhood, who lurks deep in the Deadmines. At the end, in fact. He's a pain to get to: it takes a minimum of an hour to do a run, and you need to bring a bunch of friends (or 1 very high level friend). Once you kill him, the armor only drops every so often.

I started my runs at level 20. At level 24, the armor set really starts to become useless, as much more powerful gear starts showing up. Thus, this project had a half-life.

• 1st run: the armor dropped, but this jackass punk kid Hunter (who turned out to not even have been fightingduring the run, thus earning him the title of jackass punk kid Hunter) out-rolled me on it. Seething.
• 2nd run: Cloth armor dropped. Made level 21.
• 3rd run: Cloth armor dropped. Made level 22.
• 4th run: Cloth armor dropped. Despair began to clutch at my heart.
• 5th run: Oh yes. I love everyone. I love the world. I love the birds and the rocks, and even this lovely corpse of Edwin VanCleef. Love love love.

That, my friend(s), is what a full set of Blackened Defias Armor looks like.

In case there is any doubt, here is verification.


I am happy. I am a bit collector. I collect 1's, and I collect 0's.

I Hate Myself

I...

Okay, so here's the thing, okay? Listen, it was just...

So, see, what happened was that my buddy calls me Saturday night, and he's all, "Hey, man, I was just thinking about going and helping out the poor and the defenseless in Westfall." And I'm all, "Hey, wow, this might just be perfect timing, man!" 'Cause, see, we've totally been trying to hook up (in Azeroth) for months now, but I've been busy, and...

Yeah.

So then, we're playing, right, and he's like, "Hey, let's play with my buddy!" Only he's level 10, and I'm level 24, so I switched characters.

That was the big mistake, I think.

Have I mentioned that World of Warcraft is a really fun game? Have I? I don't know that I've managed to get it fully across. Of course, those of you who understand are already consumed by the muse, so I don't need to convince you. And those of you who don't understand... well, you probably don't want to. Which I respect. And admire.

Sunday, yeah. Sunday was a total blur. I spent 12 hours straight leveling my stupid hunter from 13 to 18. I have a pet spider, I learned all kinds of skills... goddamn it.

I thought I had escaped from this stupid game.

See, at this point, I have very little preventing me from indulging my every obsession. You see the portrait at the right there? That's my hunter character (Tyridane, if you must know). Notice that miss 'Dane is decked out in a full set of inscribed leather armor.

Is inscribed leather armor more powerful in a set? No. Is it particularly collectible? No. Is it even all that interesting to look at? No.

No, the sad truth is that since I have a level 60 paladin (Allora; yes, all my characters are female) who is saving up for her epic mount, I am, as the wise men say, awash in cash. Couple that with the idea that low-level gear is very inexpensive (at the auction house), and you get... yeah. I bought my 18th level night elf avatar a full set of matching gear, just so that she'd look bad-ass. It didn't even really hurt at the time.

It's only looking back on the weekend that I shudder in fear.

See, I had escaped. My kids found the game several months ago, and had so completely filled their free time with World of Warcraft-ification that I was able to just go, "Well, I should just let them play, and I'll play later." This is how the addict escapes the clutches of the beast, you see. By convincing himself he's not actually quitting; he's just letting someone else have the glory (for now).

Yeah. Send help.

Dawn Of War Is Cool

'Nuff said.

Now That Was A Hiatus

Two weeks that stupid post was up. Milestone madness has hit, and I wish that I could blame that, but...

The fact is that I've been overwhelmed with games.

I have, for example, been playing Dawn of War every morning with my office-mate. We got the Winter Assault expansion, and ever since the morning hours have been dominated by the hew and cry of intergalactic war. I've become reasonably proficient with my Eldar minions, and can at least hold my own. Whereas before I was meat.

Dawn of War is a funny case; it's not really that great of a game. It's what I would describe as a very competent RTS. It sports one or two genuine innovations (upgrading your units in the field, for example, is a lot of fun), but on the whole, it's a resource race like any other RTS. It's certainly no Warcraft.

But god damn it is fun. For fans of the Warhammer universe (which you might say I qualify as), it's a fucking kick in the pants. Watching my Avatar go toe-to-toe with a Bloodthirster of Khorne is more fun than I ever imagined I could have.

Enough about that. Because, see, that's not all that's been destroying me of late.

For example.

I'd been waiting for Shadow of the Colossus for quite some time. And, I beat it, three days after I bought it. Oh my god. Go play it.

[ASIDE: I can say with some pride that I figured out the whole game myself. I nearly cracked at one point, but I persevered, and pulled through. No walkthroughs. Yaaay, me!]

Controversy! This brilliant game caused something of a stir at my workplace. Said stir centered around the often violent collision between framerate and gameplay.

I will summarize for you. Whereas it may be appropriate to judge an individual game on its technical merits, and whereas framerate does certainly directly impact gameplay, those that play this unbelieveable title and snivel about the framerate choppiness I hold in the same contemptable category as folks who watched the Lord of the Rings films and sniveled about fictional accuracy.

Get. Over. It.

Would you, perhaps, prefer that you not be subjected to this entertainment masterpiece? Does the fact that the Playstation buckles from time to time under the weight of the developer's ambition put you in a frame of mind where you are wanting to get your $50 back? Are you ignoring the absolutely stunning imagery passing through your eyestalks and tickling your cerebral cortex, because there's a stutter or two in play, and this doesn't meet your quality bar?

Get off your high horse. To quote myself: "You can criticize Shadow of the Colussus on its technical merits when you, yourself, have created a masterwork entertainment experience of that quality. Until then, shut the fuck up."

Ahem.

And, you would think that that was all. No.

Lost in Blue is a game for the Nintendo DS that a co-worker of mine turned me onto. The premise is simple: you're a teenage boy stranded on a tropical island with a near-sighted teenage girl who was on the same boat as you were on. Survive.

It's basically The Sims in survival mode. And, for some goddamn reason, I can't put it down.

My cave is tricked out, man. I've got beds, I've got shelves, I've got a water drum filled with water (which is awesome because it means that I don't have to walk the near-sighted girl down to the river every day to drink, she can -- get this -- take care of herself), I've got tables and chairs, man. I'm a survivor.

I also spend a lot of time doing this:

Which is surprisingly fun. (That's fishing, by the way. I'm a fishing God.)

Nintedo DS?? Awesome. Who'd have thought. Certainly not me. I was a PSP believer all the way. And then, I got a DS for my birthday, and it's kicking Sony's ass.


A fine example of that declaration is Trauma Center: Under The Knife (which I'm most of the way through).

This game has proven, for all time, that you can make a video game out of anything. I'm going to make a video game that's about filing paperwork someday, just to demonstrate the truth of this axiom.

And THEN... there's We {heart} Katamari. Which I have also been playing.

Did you play the original? You outta. No, really. Really, you should. It's bizarre.

Quick story about Katamari Damacy: I attended the G-Phoria awards show last year (to accept the award for Best Male Performance in a video game, on behalf of Mr. Pierce Brosnan... yeah, that was fun). Useless night, all things considered, but out in the liquor mixer hall before the show they had Katamari Damacy up on a plasma screen for folks to play. I hadn't played. So, what the fuck, right? I was half drunk, I'd give it a shot.

I started rolling. Roll roll roll. Now, if you've ever played this game, you know that the object very quickly becomes to get big enough to roll up cows and people. Rolling up tacks and pins and shit is fun, but when the thing that you roll up screams in fear, that's when the real game starts. And, I have a loud, booming laugh that I let fly when I'm having a good time destroying virtual civilizations.

And, so, shortly, me and this other guy were exploding with cheers and hoorays every time I rolled up something that I was previously too small to roll up. I mean, we were having a ball(no pun intended), rolling up cows, and trees and buildings and shit, and whooping it up... and I kept noticing that our hoots and hollers were being joined by more and more voices. Finally, the level ended, and I turned around... we were standing at the center of a half-circle of maybe forty semi-drunk game developers who were having what appeared to be a grand time watching my compatriot and I roll shit up. There was applause.

I put to you: there are not many games that could generate that kind of spontaneous event. Katamari Damacy is one of them.

So.

...

Yeah, a lot of games. This is all in the past two weeks. The next few months look like they will be providing no relief. Send help.

Revolution!! Or Something.

I want to talk about this Manifesto Games thing. (Here's some more. Oh, and this, and this. Maybe some of this, but only if there's time left over after Q&A.)

Boy, he sure did generate a lot of press!

I have the greatest respect for Mr. Greg Costikyan and his inciteful writing. When I was on my own, and struggling to try and make something out of nothing in the games industry, his direct, take-no-prisoners style writing and clear thinking about what makes games games kept me warm through the long dark night.

But...

Okay, so as far as I can tell, the pitch here is that the games industry sucks, and that the way out is for Mr. Costikyan to incite revolution (with a new company that he has announced very publicly) that will change the economics of games in a way that gives more money to the creators.

Foundational to this idea is the notion of Scratchware, a term he coined (watch out for popups on that link), which is defined as follows:

"The phrase scratchware game essentially means a computer game, created by a microteam, with pro quality art, game design, programming and sound to be sold at paperback book store prices."

I would like to respond to the assertion that Mr. Costikyan and his brave revolutionaries are going to generate a whole new industry, filled with scratchware, and free himself (and other oppressed creators like him) from the shackles of The Man.

*ahem*

• PopCap Games
  
  
  
  • - Insaniquarium
    
  • - Zuma
    
  • - Heavy Weapon
    
  • - Bejeweled 2
    
  • - Chuzzle
    
  • - Feeding Frenzy
    
  • etc.
    
  • PopCap also has a Developer Program which allows you to use the PopCap Games Framework for free.
    


• PlayFirst
  
  
  
  • - Diner Dash (this game is AWESOME)
    
  • - Oasis
    
  • + many more
    


• Retro64
  
  
  
  • - Platypus
    
  • - Cosmo Bots
    
  • + more
    


• Digital Eel
  
  
  
  • - Strange Adventures In Infinite Space
    
  • - Plasmaworm
    
  • - Dr. Blob's Organism
    
  • - Big Box of Blox
    
  • - Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space (coming soon! yaaaay!)
    


• Kraisoft
  
  
  
  • - dozens of games
    


• Sigma Team
  
  
  
  • - Alien Shooter
    
  • + lots of Alien Shooter expansions (yaaay, shooting aliens!)
    


• Moonpod's Starscape
  
• Wik & the Fable of Souls
• War World
  
• Alien Hominid
  
• RAKEINGRASS's Jets'n'Guns (w00t! blow shit up!)
• NinjaBee


• Outpost Kaloki
• Void War
  


• Chronic Logic
  
  
  
  • - Bridge Construction Set
    
  • - Gish
    

• WildGames
• Fate


• Shrapnel Games
  
• Reflexive
• Iron Will Games
• Ashen Empires
• Skotos
  
  
  
  • - Castle Marrach
    
  • - Grendel's Revenge
    
  • - Lovecraft Country
    
  • - The Eternal City
    
  • + many more
    


• Iron Realms Entertainment
  
  
  
  • - Aeotolia: The Midnight Age
    
  • - Lusternia
    
  • - Imperian
    
  • - Achaea

(Well, hell. I guess I'll just have to include them all.)

• Game Tunnel (the Independent Underground)
  
  
  
  • - Top 10 Indie Games of the Year (2004)
    
  • - August 2005 Indie Roundup
    
  • - Action games
    
  • - Adventure games
    
  • - Arkanoid games
    
  • - Puzzle games
    
  • - RPGs
    
  • - SIMs
    
  • - Sports games
    
  • - Strategy games
    

...

WTF is he talking about??

Two Things

Thing The First: The Revolution Controller.

It's nice to see Nintendo finally take off the gloves, and just admit it.

"We admit it," this controller says. "We admit that we're tired of you guys not getting us. We're tired of having to invite you guys to all of our parties. We just want to have some fun, you know? Fun? You remember fun, yeah?

"So, here's the deal: from here on out, we're going to make all of our own games. Yeah, that's right. Turns out we don't need any of your ports, because, well... our games are all better than yours, and it's... frankly... getting kind of embarassing.

"So. From here on out, we'll make the system, all the games, and you guys... well... just try and keep up, okay?"

About a year ago, Nintendo's new prez-guy Saturo Iwata gave a talk or two in which he laid out in some detail the analysis that was (and is) driving Nintendo's recent seemingly bizarre design decisions. In short:

The appeal of new technologies in display will become less and less important over the next decade. Thus, as a whole the gaming industry needs to figure out what it will look like once (say) we can create worlds that are indistinguishable from reality, and can no longer innovate with more polygons. Nintendo believes that part of the solution is changing the interface with each new iteration, to provide a springboard for new ideas that will seem fresh to the consumer.

...

You know, he just might have a point there.

Thing The Second: Final Fantasy: Advent Children leaked to the web.

Yeesh. It's very strange, living with the dawning awareness that the longer I stay in this here games industry, the more folks stealing the work of entertainment professionals is starting to bother me.

I haven't reached the "passing judgement" phase yet, but it does raise a certain amount of ire. This, unfortunately, puts me squarely in the "uncool" division of media consumers. *sigh* And, I was so cool before now.

I had this moment a while ago: there's this kid I worked with at [--titanic game company's name deleted to create false air of secrecy--], name of [--names have been erased to protect the innocent--]. Brilliant engineer, and a hell of a nice guy. Turns out his dad was one of the orignal founders of the games industry, an early entrant into the biz. This one day, I mentioned to him the idea that he could just "borrow" a copy of a video game to see if he liked it, and his reaction pretty much permanently changed how I thought about that practice. He laughed and said, "No, no, I don't steal any video games. Every dollar I've ever had in my entire life came from video game sales, so, as much as I can, I want to give other people the opportunity that I had, and let them make a reasonable living off of the sale of their work."

I kinda sat there for a while, just a little stunned, and mulled that over. And, see, now I don't steal my entertainment.

*sigh*

So, when I saw that FF:AC had been leaked, I clicked to the site, read through some of the comments to see what was going on, and then left. My main emotion was (and still is) sympathy for the folks still working on the title. It is, perhaps, one of the unfortunate side effects of my time in the industry that I'm getting all creaky and unsympathetic about this topic. C'est la vie.

But, I will say that it is nice to hear that people like the film, at least.

I Am Going To Bitch

It's Tuesday again.

During the months school is "in", my morning routine goes something like this:

1. get up
2. pull kids out of bed onto floor
3. bathroom stuff, best left undefined
4. eat
5. let dog experience brief, illusory freedom, then tear away, crushing hope
6. drive kids to school
7. be at work earlier than everyone else in my entire industry (8am)

At this point, see, I have 90 minutes to kill before anyone else shows up. I am, for example, writing this very post during such a window.

...

The reason I am not playing World of Warcraft during this window is that it's fucking Tuesday. And, on Tuesday, the goddamn servers are down while they install new software, buff the cable connections, eat nachos while laughing at their enormous power, and generally prevent me from having access to my narcotic.

This... has to stop.

...

Upon typing that, I realized that it is literally true. Not the "them taking their servers down on Tuesday morning to fuck with me" thing, because that's not going to stop; I understand that. What I mean is, this whole "filling in every free 90 minutes of my life with a WoW session" thing.

I am, on the whole, philosophical about this.

Take, for example, this lovely notion. The basic idea here is that World of Warcraft is so successful that it is negatively impacting the rest of the game industry, as it's such a huge time sink many gamers aren't buying new games.

What does this mean to me? Well, it means a couple of things: one, it means that I'm not alone. I take solace in that, during the wee hours of the night, when I'm hunched in front of the amberglow of my monitor, imagining that I am a (female) paladin on a noble quest for more powerful magical war gear, certain that I will be returning to my family... in just a sec... just one more drop, honey...

Two, and more interestingly, it means that something is afoot. This... this whole thing... this WoW release and huge taking over of the whole world thing... seems to me like one of those events that won't be soon forgotten, and may, in fact, have a wider impact than any of us are able to understand right now.

It reminds me, in fact, of the seminal imagination bomb that was dropped on the mind of geeks everywhere that was Dungeons & Dragons. Do you remember the world before D&D? I barely do; I had my hands full with figuring out how to walk and stuff, but my understanding is that prior to D&D gamers mostly kept themselves occupied with war simulations of varying complexity. One's menu of choices ranged from Risk to Really Complicated Risk, which was great and everything, but it apparently left some kind of an itch unscratched, because some guy and this other guy created this thing that pretty much destroyed every geek in the known universe (and took out a goodly number of curious, open-minded friends-of-geeks as well).

Where were you when you first played D&D?

I was in the seventh grade. I remember it vividly; it was at school, I played a goddamn illusionist that someone else rolled up for me, and my "friends" were all terrible at it. I cast wall of fog, and the hill giant still killed me, and it was horrible and embarassing, and I left in utter disgust, hating those ex-friends of mine, and went out and bought the game that very day. I devoured it, over and over, in the weeks that followed. I never looked back. It was fifteen years and a full family later before I shook the roleplaying habit, and it still lingers, wanting to come back and play with me again.

(In fact, if you know anyone who's running a good group, have them call me.)

See, and now...

Well, I'm not really one to make broad predictive statements. But let me just say this: I would not draw a breath in surprise if in fifteen years we were remembering where we were when World of Warcraft showed up and changed everything. They haven't done anything we didn't already kindof know could be done, and in fact have done almost nothing new. That said, it has a hold on the minds of human beings like nothing else that has come before it, and... I just wonder what the world will look like in ten years, changed by the impact of this meteoric idea system they have devised.

...

Damn them. Do you understand what I have just done?

...

I have taken my morning 90 minutes of solitude and spent it writing about their stupid fucking game, because it's Tuesday, and their servers are down. I sure hope it's the new patch they are putting up there.

Break It Down For Me Fellas

So the July Monthly Indie Games Roundup is up.

(By the way, if you haven't tried Ye Olde Truck Dismount game, well, ya should.)

This gets me to thinkin'. (I'm obsessive that way.) I've read the Roundup every month since I found it, and I just keep wondering. These guys talk amongst themselves (if filing a one-paragraph review on a game can be described in such a manner) casually about how a certain game "is a Diablo II clone, and much better than most" or "is another R-type game", and it sets my mind to spinning...

...how many kinds of games are there? Is it, perhaps, a finite set?

Of course, that notion is absurd. However... when you throw out every type of game that doesn't score a 9 or a 10, the field shrinks dramatically. I'm starting to believe that there is a finite set of interesting games that can strike the fancy of humans. One list might look like this:

- the diablo (top-down iso real-time RPG with random dungeon generation)
- the rogue (top-down turn-based RPG with random dungeon generation)
- the xevious (top-down game-paced top-scrolling shooter)
- the commando (top-down player-paced top-scrolling shooter)
- the r-type (side scrolling game-paced shooter)
- the mario (side scrolling 2d platformer)
- the metroid (side-scrolling 2d platformer + shooter with up and down scrolling)
- the arkanoid (paddle-based ball & wall)
- the marble madness (or, the hamsterball if you prefer)
- the bejeweled (pattern matching grid game)
- the tetris (pattern matching time pressure game)
- the street fighter (2d fighter)
- the duck hunt (shooting gallery; also known as the hogan's alley)
- the bioware (top-down iso RPG)
- the kotor (3rd person turn-based-combat RPG)
- the zelda (3rd person realtime-combat RPG)
- the wolfenstein (1st-person shooter)
- the hitman (3rd-person shooter)
- the minesweeper
- the pinball
- the [insert all sports types]
- ...?

There are more, I am sure. Help me out here.

[Edit 11:11am: I've been helped! Here's my digestion of the brave Druid's post:

- the starcraft (top-down RTS)
- the battlezone (first-person RTS; lo, may we someday again meet one of your elusive kin)
- the sim city (city simulator)
- the civilization (turn-based cultural RPG)
- the sims (people simulator)
- the tamagotchi (pet simulator)
- the [insert all card games]
- the risk (turn-based unit-based map-based warfare)
- the advance wars (turn-based tactical warfare)
- the mario 64 (3D platformer)
- the druid is a sarcastic whiner (text adventures)
- the myst (1st-person clicky adventure)
- the police quest (3rd-person clicky adventure)
- the ddr (rhythm game)
- the robotron (swarm-based speed shooter; also known as the sinistar)
- the space hulk (turn-based squad-based action)
- the pac-man (speed-based vacuum game; also known as the katamari)
- the insaniquarium (swarm-based speed vacuum game?)
- the tempest (something completely unique, and never repeated; also known as the qix)
- the panzer dragoon (3D rail-shooter)
- the lineage (3rd-person iso massive online RPG)
- the world of warcraft (3rd person massive online RPG; also known, by heretics, as the everquest)
- the house of the dead (action-arcade shooting gallery)

...we're doin' pretty good! Are there more?]

[Edit 4:16pm: A few more occur to me:

- the contra (2D player-paced side-scrolling shooter)
- the kirby (2D player-paced side-scrolling fighter; also known as the rygar)
- the gauntlet (1 to 4-player top-down brawler)
- the dragon's lair (interactive movie)
- the resident evil (3rd-person survival horror)
- the grand theft auto (3rd-person urban life simulation)

...?]

Quick! 60!

I don't have much time, so I'll try to be brief. See, the World of Warcraft login server is down, and that means that my primary impulse is momentarily unable to be satisfied. I may have to sign off at any moment.

Hang on, I need to check if it's back on yet.

...

Nope. Okay.

How to describe it? I hit 60. Actually, I hit 60 over a week ago. And, much to my surprise...

Well, let's just say that they may have done it to me again.

See, the game so completely fails to stop at level 60 that it makes one wonder why they even bothered to stop the levels there. I mean, the main difference seems to be that my XP bar has turned off. Other than that...

Actually, I exaggerate some. Let me offer this: the first few hours of gameplay after hitting 60 were like walking around in a newly purchased house. I walked from room to room, ecstatic at the accomplishment the mere existence of the place indicated, and, slowly, realizing that I had signed myself up for a whole new, uncharted realm of challenge and... work.

It took only two hours for the desire for experience points to disappear entirely, leaving behind it only the urge to claim treasures. This was well-televised before I got here, and thus was not particularly surprising, but it's sometimes stranger to experience something that you've seen hundreds of other people experience before you, and to find that it's something that you have to come to on your own terms.

Does that make sense? What I mean is, I had to decide to keep playing after 60. It feels like I poked around and found this other game they want me to play, on my own. But... well, so did everyone else, and clearly it was designed for this... but...

A tad quirky, that. Hang on.

...

Nope, still down. Okay.

I have several friends who have completely rejected the post-60 gameplay. And, I must say, I'm still on the fence about it.

But...

Well, see, I found Scholomance. It's this wizard school, right? Like, but it's been corrupted? And it's all full of undead, and dark warlocks, and stuff? And it's designed for beginner level 60s to go poke around in and get used to this new, entirely equipment-based game that they've built? And... and...

I gotta go.

56... 57...

All goddamn weekend, what did I do. What. I ask you.

I mean, did I clean the house? No. Did I save the known universe from a Farkithxyian attack? No. Did I, say, leave the house?

No. In fact, here is what my weekend contained:
Friday:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Sleep

Saturday:

1. World of Warcraft
2. 2 Warhammer Fantasy games
3. World of Warcraft
4. Sleep

Sunday:

1. Take child to airport, wave goodbye nervously
2. World of Warcraft
3. Sleep
4. World of Warcraft (new character! Warlock! woohoo!)
5. Put flock (fake grass) on my wargaming trees (yaay! trees are done!)
6. World of Warcraft
7. Sleep

Notice anything? It's subtle, so I'll give you a second to go back and look again.

There, you see it?

Goddamn game is destroying my ability to think. And the really sick part is that this is the seventh time it's done this to me. SAME GAME. Same game. Same!

I have actually entered the end game now, and, contrary to the experience I was expecting, there is in fact more content in this game for the level 60 folks than there is for the other kin. It's strange, realizing that for the past several months you've been playing the little game. The baby game, the one they have for the wittle kids who just want to goof around. But when you get all growed up there's this whole other thing waiting for you.

It's called "Dungeons".

In the past two levels of play, I have come across and been pointed to no less than four completely new dungeons (huge, monstrous things) that you have absolutely no business presenting yourself to if you are less than58th level. I am aware of at least two more out there that I haven't been pointed to yet, and both of these are what I understand to be the hardest dungeons in the game.

Now, for those of you who, perhaps, have been wise enough to not dump your entire life into the exploration of virtual crawly monster holes, let me give you some idea of the scope of the experience we are talking about here.

The very first dungeon one is introduced to (in Alliance lands, anyway) is the Deadmines. In the deadmines, you must:

1. Fight your way through a sprawling mine, battling at least twenty miners, overseers, and wizards, on your way to the entrance to the dungeon.
2. Once inside, you have another large mine section to pass through, containing a plethora of miners(say, 30) , but the problems here are the elite fire wizards. Fight them. Many of them.
3. You come to a large door, guarded by a VERY fat Ogre. He is a badass. He kills everyone who fights him the first time, as they are completely unprepared for the challenge level.
4. Okay, he's dead. Open the door. You've got another (shorter) section of mine to fight through.
5. Be advised that a patrol has spawned behind you, and is about to come waltzing up on your rear quarters.
6. Next: door that opens into a square room; Sneed is here, with his goblin miners, piloting his giant mining robot. Defeat it. Open the door.
7. Another (short) mine section. Kill fifteen hapless miners.
8. Door opens into the Forge. This is a long, circular ramp that winds down to the bottom of this cylindrical chamber. Here, you must fight goblin inventors, who summon little helper robots, who are not, in fact, very little. Don't die.
9. At the bottom, fight Gilnid, the head goblin. Other than having a large head, he's not that interesting.
10. Open the door, another small mine section. More innocent miners meet their demise.
11. Get the keg o' gunpowder, us it to BLOW OPEN THE DOOR! BOOM! What I want to know is, who put that cannon in front of that door, who aimed it at the (closed, locked, and sealed) door, and who left the keg o' gunpowder lying around. That's what I want to know.
12. Okay, big... check that, huge chamber. This chamber contains a pirate Battleship. I know how that sounds, but trust me. Planked docks wind over an underground lake, taking you to the three-story high pirate ship with no sails and very large guns. It's a battleship, and it's underground.
13. Fight more pirates than you can really handle. There's a lot of them. By a lot I mean like 50.
14. Get to the top. Kill Mr. Smite, the second in command. He'll probably kill you the first time you get up here, because he's a badass.
15. Okay, you're at the top of the ship. Step forward, and Edwin Van Cleef comes out, bringing his elite bodyguard with him. Fight, fight and try not to die.
16. Got him? Good; hop down the other side of the boat, kill the ship's cook (a Murloc, ewwwwww), pick off one or ten more pirates along the way, find the back tunnel, sprint out, and you're free!

*whew* I went through this excercise to make a point, and here it is: this Deadmines that I speak of is actually one of the smaller dungeons in the game. Remember way up there when I was talking about extra content for the high-level crowd?

Six more. That I know of. And, I can't realistically set foot inside these places for another three levels.

The scale of this game boggles me. Game designers, take note: Blizzard has done it right, and it was a lot of fucking work.

World of OhMyGodCraft

I thought I had escaped. I really did.

I hit level 52 with my Paladin, see, and it all kinda petered out. My Warcraft buddy & I started playing other games again, my kids got all into it (so, see, I couldn't be on the account as much), and my life generally returned to focus.

Well... I'm level 54 now, and I'm a mere 1.5 bubbles from 55. I'm so close to the peak, the end, that glorious pillar known as Level 60, that I can taste it.

(For those of you with little or no World of Warcraft knowledge, level 60 is the highest level you can reach. A "bubble" is a piece of your experience bar, for reasons that become clear when you see the interface. And know that the internal counter they provide for you to track the level of your addiction reports my time logged on this one character as nearing 400 hours of gameplay.)

So I want to talk about two things today. 1) Yetis, and 2) Being level 54.

1) Yetis

I can now speak with some authority on the topic of Yetis. In particular, the Yetis that make their home (or, made, anyway) in the snowy Winterspring hills near Everlook are of some passing familiarity to me.

See, there's this goblin woman in Everlook, who (get this) wants to make a Yeti Robot of some kind. It's a hair-brained scheme at best, but heck, she's payin' for Yeti pelts & horns, so off we go.

See, though, it's the horns. She wants "Pristine Yeti Horns". Not "Dented Yeti Horns", or even "Roughly Handled Yeti Horns". Nope. "Pristine".

Which is all good! I mean, I'm all for hiring my sword out to the utter decimation of an entire species for the recovery of a few pelts & horns. (The fact that they respawn like mad alleviates my guilt some.) But, MAN!

We two, Paladins both, killed, oh, I don't know... 400 Yetis? Something like that. That might be an exaggeration (I wasn't exactly keeping track). We got into this zone where the Yetis were falling left and right, one after the other, with hardly a pause between fights, so it is all rather blurry in my mind... all white ice, fur, horns, and snow.

We didn't get our horns. We're going back, I fear.

2) Being Level 54

The game has opened, in some funny way. I went to the Eastern Plaguelands on a whim last night, and had this strange sort of feeling come over me. Understand that the Eastern Plaguelands are, in many ways, the End of the Game. It's pretty much where the game stops adding new map sections to explore. All the monsters are 50th-60th level, there's this HUGE dungeon at the far end of it... so I came in, and pretty much everything I saw I could reasonably fight. Or, would be able to in like 2 levels.

Contrast this to the experience of going into every other new section of land. Which is: you walk in, enjoy the scenery, and then immediately start seeing creatures that you have no business fighting. "Ahhh," you say, "I'll be fighting those in a few levels." You chuckle, and, sure enough, are soon stomping them into the ground with abandon.

I feel as though I've come around a corner, and quite suddenly can see the end. It's exactly 6 levels ahead, and has lots and lots of dungeons in it. After so many hours of gameplay, it was a moment I wasn't quite expecting. I suppose one imagines that the end of a great road will be filled with fanfare. It seems that this one is more filled with a gentle familiarity.

Yeah, That Was The Point

If there is one thing that I have found to be consistently true about me, it's that getting me to do anything consistently is a chore. Take blogging, for instance. At the slightest disruption (you know, leaving one job for another, little things), my routine is OTFW: Out The Fucking Window. Routine and I have a passing relationship at best already; adding OTFW to the equation... well, let's just say it doesn't make things improve.

This isn't always a bad thing. For example, my brief hiatus over the past week has brought forth evidence that there are people out there (actual human beings) who reading this skree. I was astonished and humbled at this. Hello there, Dear Reader, whoever you are.

It's a little bit like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (an absolutley marvelous play with a not-so-marvelous movie attached to it); here I was, lingering in my own secret backstage null-zone, blabbing away, only to find that the audience had crept in. Very strange.

Anway. That's neither here nor there.

I posted a while back about text adventures (and will do so again! I cannot be stopped!), and got some interesting responses. Here's one, from one of my eloquent friends:

So, I finished Spider and Web. It was surprisingly addictive (I got it the same day I got God of War, and yet I still haven't played God of War,because I wanted to finish this). [ ed. note: If you haven't already, go play God of War. Right now. Put down the keyboard, and just walk away. ]

In the end, I only had to look at the walkthrough once to [ put a big spoiler in my email. ] Admittedly, I got lucky with the "Big Puzzle" - I knew that my [ spoiler ] was being brought to the [ spoiler ], so I decided to hook the [ big spoiler ] up to the [ shhhhh ] so I could [ I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you ]. Imagine my surprise when I [ spoiler'ed ], only to have [ I ain't telling you the rest ].

Anyhow, despite all my obsessive playing, I'm not entirely sure that I *enjoyed* it. There's just this element of frustration (punctuated by brief periods of Aha! pleasure) that seems endemic to the genre. To be fair, this game had some of the most logical and least arbitrary puzzles I've seen, but it still felt like you are playing the game in shackles, looking at everything through a keyhole, if you know what I mean.

This is exactly what I was hoping would be clear. Let's read that again.

To be fair, this game had some of the most logical and least arbitrary puzzles I've seen,

Word. And, the point that I'm trying to make is that illogical and arbitrary puzzles have nothing to do with the genre of text adventures. They have to do with the fact that text adventures were last developed at a time when all video games suffered from illogical and arbitrary puzzles (that would be the late 80's). Every single one. I don't know if you remember, but think back. Finishing a game at all didn't used to be a testament of stamina, but was instead an indicator that you either a) were a frickin' genius, or b) you asked someone how to do it.

The corollary to this point is very simple:

Applying contemporary game design principles to the text adventure genre would completely transform genre into something pleasureable and unique. This is long-overdue; too long have text-adventure aficionados mimicked the ancient mistakes of the old masters. They didn't know any better, guys, and they aren't making games in that way any more. Neither should you.

My friend continues:

It's a tough balance. Either you severely restrict what the user can do/see,in which case the user feels constrained, or you give the user lots of freedom in which case the puzzles get really hard because there are just too many possible solutions.

No, no, see, this is what we've started to figure out in game design of late. What you do is you give the player many things to do in your interactive world, which generates immersion. You insure that only a few of these things to do will permute your puzzle space (it's safe to be able to move items around, but it's dangerous to be able to flood the whole complex). Then, you make the solution(s) to any puzzles you put in front of the player clear, but challenging. That is to say, it should be clear what you have to do, and the how should require some kind of mental dexterity (and require few, if any, short mental leaps. Long mental leaps are excluded entirely).

The best text adventure puzzles are built this way, and are deeply satisfying to complete. Say it stronger: the best games are built this way.

There is a list of items about 10,000 long that text adventures need to blow through to come up to speed. They include things like checkpoints, a "main menu", clear help systems, clear reward / scoring / objective systems, tutorials...

Simple enough to think about. More complicated to do.

But, it's text. It can be done.

I'm glad I played the game, though - it's definitely memorable. Thanks for turning me on to it.

You're welcome.

Week of the Unending Madness

I despise apologetic blog posts about not posting often enough. With a passion. One of the webcomics I read reg'larly does this a lot (that would be Megatokyo), and it drives me nuts.

...

I declare this week the Week From Hell In Which I Switch Jobs, Train My Replacement, Start A Full-Fledged Warhammer Campaign, And Play A Bunch Of 40K. And Not Blog Very Much.

It is not for lack of things to blog about. Ye gods, no.

There is, for example, this, which is indirectly in favor of that text adventure thing I was going on about last week.

I got two other interesting responses to that very topic that I want to discuss.

However, all that will have to wait. May our collective breaths be baited.

> write blog entry

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

>

See, yeah. Even now, in these days of multi-pass shaders and 5,000-polygon character models, there's something there.

Admit it. You want to open the mailbox. I know, so do I.

> open mailbox

Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.

>

Yeah, and this is where the slippery slope begins.

Admittedly, a large part of the appeal of the text adventure back in the day was the simple fact that it was immersive and interactive. That portion of the appeal has now been claimed by the Half Life 2s of the world. Resoundingly. I mean, look at it.

So complete was the takeover that many fans of interactive entertanment ("gamers", for those of you keeping score at home) convinced themselves that there was, in fact, nothing left behind. That the world of text adventures was nothing more than a cored out husk, dry and brittle. A kind of technological mummy: interesting when observed in a museum, but only to provide historical edjumacation.

To these folk, I say, bah.

The best argument I've found to demonstrate why I still am interested in this ancient word-based form of entertainment is Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web. There is, quite simply, no better way to convey this kind of experience than through interactive text.

[ A technical aside: in order to actually play the .z5 file that you'll find at the end of that link, you'll need Frotz for Windows. The way this works is you download the game file, and then run it with a "player", which is what Frotz is. In Frotz, do File->Open on the .z5 file. I know, I know. They're working on it. ]

(I am making the unreasonable assumption that if you aren't using Windows, you are likely capable of figuring out what steps to take to find a player for your system. Believe me when I say that there are players for Every Goddamn Platform Known To Mankind.)

There are others out there of that quality as well. And, the thing that makes me go "hmmm," is that these people are all unpaid fans. Imagine what would happen if there were actual companies out there who were making these kinds of games full time.

There's hundreds of dollars to be made out there. Maybe even thousands.

That, however, is the really interesting thing. Games as a whole are large enough now that even a 2% slice of a niche genre is enough to live on. I like it.

I Have Fallen Into A Hole

So, everything was cool this morning. The world was revolving as it should, I had coffee with my egg thing for breakfast, and woke my children from their slumber. Then, this happened.

I clicked, see. I clicked, when I should have turned away, disinterested.

Let me give you some background.

I have a deep-rooted interest in the evolution of the independent game development community. For years upon years now I have suffered the complaints and gripes of my fellow corporate slave monkeys who "wish there was some way to make money in games", who would "love to make their own game" if only "there was any money in it".

There are 10,000 variations on this line. The general idea is that where we are is all there is, and no one could possibly be doing the thing that we wish we were doing (which is making games that are fun), because clearly if that was possible, we, of course, would be doing it.

Let me apply an opinion to my otherwise dry and empty rhetoric. That, my friends, is a load of crap. So says I.

Thus, I watch with loving, adoring fascination as the independant games industry emerges from it's chrysalis, and spreads its wings. The last two or three years have been amazing. I've said to several folks that the independents of today as a whole look to me like the whole industry did about 6 years ago. That is to say, small teams, some very high-quality product (with some real stinkers in there), and some folks that are starting to figure out how to actually sustain a profit.

There is, for example, PlayFirst. Oasis is an outstanding game, one that I dumped a vast quantity of time into over the last month. It's the one that convinced me that it's all up and running. Diner Dash has eaten my children. It had me in it's foul grip for some time, but I believe I have escaped.

SO! Back to our thread. So I click. And I find Game Tunnel.

I had no idea these guys existed, and how can that be, but who cares, they have the Top 10 Indy Games of 2004! Shit, is that Wik & the Fable of Souls? I've played that! (It's awesome, btw.) And, other stuff... and... and...

So you see, it's been like this all morning, with no signs of abating. I have found, in the very same moment, proof that indy games are a viable alternative to the Big Guns (proof that I can send in an email no less), and found a rich, verdant jungle filled with mad gaming weirdness. HamsterBall?

It's going to be a long week.

E3: X-Box "Fans" Not What They Seem

I love this Machiavelian shit.

http://www.satori.org/blog/archives/000270.html

Love it! Hire the beautiful people! I saw the same thing at the G-Phoria awards show; the crowd was all these 20-something gorgeous young actors from the Film Extras Guild or something, and they looked great, grinding and gyrating to the music and screaming ecstatically whenever one of the announcers completed a sentence. It actually made pretty good TV, and I figure that's what Microsoft was thinking.

The politically-motivated bastards. What, are they trying to win, or something???

I've Played Most Of These

And the ones I haven't played, by golly, I should.

The Top 99 Games Of All Time (Reader's Picks)

p.s. This is actually a pretty good list. It has less of the Prostrating Ourselves Before The Altar Of Interactivity stuff that the magazine editors & industry folks put together. Most of these games are just actually fun.

Oh my god

Genius. I certainly ain't the first to pass this link along, but god DAMN it if I can't keep myself from linking:

http://www.experimentalgameplay.com/

In particular, Tower of Blobs must be played.