Category Archives: Games

Rambling update

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Made it through to Friday, pretty tired today generally.  Lovely weather outside, bright sunshine, crisp.  Bubbles is out there somewhere baking herself in what are probably the last few days of warm enough sunshine.  She’s got conjunctivitis the poor bugger.  We’ve got some ointment to put on twice a day, she’s been pretty good about it despite the whinging.

Watched Fright Night last night after recording it on Sky+.  Classic movie, how on earth did we find those special effects ((special in the loose sense)) scary?  Not even sure why it’s an 18, I guess some of the more fleshy scenes are the cause of that.  Evan watching stuff like that the experienced is improved with the surround sound, we’re still really pleased with it.

I got sick of paying for a Sky Movies subscription and not watching anything.  It’s because we don’t sit in front of the TV these days unless we’re doing so to watch something we recorded, so I went through the entire week ahead and set 4 movies to record (Clerks II, Fright Night, Deja Vu, American Gangster) and I’m going to try and do that every few days and record anything I’ve not seen or not seen for a while.  Pan’s Labyrinth was on a week or so ago too, so recorded that and not watched it yet, and Hairspray was on Sky Anytime so I’ve ‘recorded’ that for Grete.

Still pleased with the 5.7% HbA1c result.  Found this nice little chart in case you wanted to know more about the test,

HbA1c
Normal/abnormal
Average blood glucose
4-6.5% Normal for those without diabetes 3-8mmol/L
6.5-7.5% Target range for those with diabetes 8-10mmol/L
8-9.5% High 11-14mmol/L
Greater than 9.5% Very high 15 and above

I bought a Marathon bar ((yes, yes I know, but I like living in the 80’s)) on Wednesday to eat after I got the results, either as a celebration or a commiseration depending on how the results went.  Celebration was a good option.  I never ate a lot of chocolate or sweet stuff before being diagnosed, but I did enjoy a Snickers bar every now and then.  Almost amusingly, they don’t have a totally terrible effect on my blood sugar because of the high fat content, but as you can imagine I’ve had about three since I was diagnosed.

Roleplaying tonight, 4th edition D&D, first time we’ve played (rolled characters up last week), so should be interesting.  Always takes a while to get ‘into’ any campaign, never mind one with a new ruleset so I’m expecting tonight to be pretty slow.

My good friend Simes blogged about some TV he’s been watching.  It certainly feels like the TV schedule has picked up, mostly stuffed with American TV.  The Fringe pilot was cool, the Burn Notice pilot was also interesting and we’ll be watching that to see where it goes.  We’ve got quite a wait for the new series of Criminal Minds sadly, but Bones is back on and is as good as ever (I think).

And I’ll leave you with this,

And I think Pirates would kick both their asses.

The era of instant feedback

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I think one of the greatest changes the ‘net has brought about, or maybe faster and more global communication has brought about, and which the ‘net is at the forefront of is immediate product / action feedback.

The feedback is so immediate that it starts well before the product even hits the shelves.

In the past, maybe a small core of fans and people ‘in the know’ would start talking about a new movie or a new game or a new book long before it came to light, and there would be a bunch of people who knew about it but the vast majority would not.  Even those who did know might not have any way of sharing their concerns or joys with the people producing their product.

If we look at computer games in the mid-80’s, there were plenty of monthly magazines which talked about possible games, and reviewed existing ones.  They had some letters pages, people wrote in, but the market was small and the hype about games was still confined to small groups of people.  People making the games may have read the magazines, but what impact could three or four fans have?

Sure there was Fidonet and bulletin boards, and I’m sure there was chatter in those locations about stuff coming up.  But the big change I think is when not only fans but producers of products started using the same medium for talking.  I’m not sure when it happened and I’m too lazy to go and do a load of reading around the subject, but if you skip to today you can see the vast difference.

Now, months before a product is even seen people are claiming it is rubbish or the best thing since Jet Set Willy.  Fans claim products have ruined their lives long before those products ever turn up.  Movies, music, games, technology and everything else you can imagine, lampooned, praised and analysed months before they arrive.

Once the product is actually in the market, the feedback is immediate and abundent (if not always entirely objective).  Prospective buyers can trawl Google for a thousand comments on a product that’s been out for a few weeks, companies get to see the impact of their product almost in real time.

It’s a big change.

I was thinking about this in relation to 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons.  Long before it turned up, when Wizards were leaking/revealing details, people were worried and claimed it would ruin the legacy of D&D.  Some people said it would be fine.  Within days of it being released the ‘net was covered in feedback.  I wonder how that differs from the release of the Master edition of D&D or even the first release of 2nd edition AD&D?  I wonder how companies handle that information, if they do anything with it during the production phase ((which clearly the company who made Snakes on a Plane did)) and the post-release period.

D&D 4th edition more thoughts

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We went through character creation last night with C&C and OneOther ((yeh, I hate when people use acronyms, nick names and aliases to hide identity as well, but I also like making sure I respect people’s privacy)) so I’ve got a little bit more experience with the 4th edition PHB now.  It feels a little chaotic and unordered, certainly during character creation you’re all over the place, reading stuff at the end of the book in the middle of character creation, etc.  Maybe it’s because we’ve come from D&D -> AD&D -> AD&D 2nd Edition -> D&D 3rd Edition and we just find the format sort of jars.

One thing that I did finally nail down – I keep thinking ‘bah I can’t find the rule on xxxxyism this rulebook sucks’, and then it dawns on me there is no rule[tm].  For example, I was really struggling to find the rules on multiple attacks – until of course it dawned on me you don’t get any.  Sure, if you have a power it may let you attack more than one thing at a time, but there’s no concept of native multiple basic attacks ((let me know if I’m wrong)).  Likewise haste, took me a while to realise it wasn’t there.  Two-weapon fighting, it looks like you just get a bonus to your damage, and you can swing whichever weapon you feel like, but never both in the same round.  So there’s a bunch of what I would consider core elements from 2nd and 3rd edition which have been removed (in the name of simplicity) and it takes a while to get used to it.

It also only dawned on me half way through character creation that during combat, you’re going to be using your at-will powers virtually all the time.  It’s going to be a rare moment that you decide (as a melee character) to make a basic attack.  For example, fighters get to pick two from four at will attacks which are basically all at least equal to their base attack but usually superior in some way.  There’s no reason you’d make a basic attack unless you’re forced to (opportunity attack for example).  As a fighter, you’re going to be cleaving (hit your regular mob, do small amount of damage to an adjacent-to-you target) or reaping strike (do damage even if you miss) for example.  I quite like this, but it’s clear where the source for this change comes from (more in a sec).

Without having fought any combat yet I can’t say how much I’m going to like the even more square-based positional tactical side of it.  A lot of the powers for melee characters (and some for casters) really exploit positional situations (adjacent creatures, moving targets around, swapping positions), and if you don’t run combat in a way that enforces and benefits from that positional element a lot of powers become substantially weaker ((DM’s are going to have to work hard during fights with lots of creatures to ensure the bad guys take full benefit of positional tactics, it’s a much tougher situation for the DM, imo)).  To me it feels like it takes away some of the freedom and imagination from combat; some people might say that it ensures everything is fair, but if the aim is to tell a collaborative story a good GM will ensure the combat is smooth, exciting, fair and still free.  However, we’ll see how it plays out.

The computer-based RPG (and MMORPG / MMOG) influences in 4th edition are clear.  Balanced classes, no absolute requirement for a cleric, the breakdown of classes into party roles (defender, leader, controller, striker, or tank, healer, crowd control and dps as most people know them), the idea of attacks based on powers rather than just swinging a weapon are all clearly derived from the recent popular MMOG’s.  This isn’t a complaint, it’s clear that Wizards are hoping players who have discovered roleplaying on-line will move to paper-based if they can find some common ground.  It’s just an observation.

The deep irony is that paper based RPG’s are really the grandfather of the modern online RPG.  It’s interesting to see that cross-fertilisation and see things come full circle.  Those of us who remember loading up The Bard’s Tale in 1987 on our Spectrums or C64’s will no doubt enjoy that.

4th Edition D&D – First thoughts

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So I’ve read the PHB (Players Handbook) now, a first pass, taking in the major elements needed to create a new character.

  • It’s dissapointing to see so many typographical errors present.
  • Wow, is it me or is the section on Wizards, spells / powers and spell books hugely over complex or under-explained?

Once a roleplayer, always a roleplayer

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After not doing any tabletop roleplaying for a good number of years, I was thinking of selling the 80plus rule books, modules, expansions and add-ons that are taking up space.  I thought I was over it all.

And then some friends asked if we wanted to start up a little D&D group again, and we thought ‘yeh sure’.

So I ordered the 4th edition rulebook from Amazon, and it arrived.

And the excitement I experienced opening it and reading it is undiminished since I first opened the Red Basic D&D edition rules when I was in my mid-teens.

Up or Sideways redux (cross MMO communication)

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I wrote a lengthy blog post about vertical or horizontal scaling in online roleplaying games, and Leigh wrote a just as lengthy comment.   He made some interesting points which I thought I’d address in another post, rather than writing a lengthy comment in response to his lengthy comment.

I’m going to quote bits of his comment but you should really go and read the comment as well.

I’ve often wondered what a game can do for these types of people, who are, let’s face it, just after more experience, a higher level, or a bigger pot of gold than others in their peer group. While I do like the idea of more horizontal progression I think it ultimately leads to another dead end – it just takes players longer to get there.

Perhaps.  And maybe horizontal expansion of that kind won’t interest a lot of players either, but what I think it provides is a flatter range of power which lets new players get involved quickly, without totally destroying the ability of people to progress into new things.  If it’s done correctly.

How good would it be to have a chat system that shows all the channels available, makes it easy to set up your own and invite people, and gives a wealth of topics to talk about?

Without a doubt this is something I totally agree with.  It’s certainly something I don’t think many games exploit as well as they could.  There’s an increase in the tools to build web-based communities, but I know that a lot of players are only ‘in the game’ mindset, while they’re in the game, they don’t want to spend a lot of time outside of the game working on a forum or website.  If there were easier ways to communicate on a global level within the games, it would help build community.

One of my big bugbears with WoW is that you can’t (or couldn’t when I played) talk to people if you weren’t in their alliance (i.e. horde vs alliance).  You can’t even set them as a friend and see if they log on.  Ok, so there’s some big PvP element in WoW and you don’t want alliance members tipping off the hoard about their every move – except if they wanted to they could just IM them.  It’s stupid to prevent poeple talking to each other because of some in-game alliance mechanic.

Games should be doing as much as possible to facilitate communication, to allow persistent channels to exist, allow poeple to take part in those channels even if they’re not in the game perhaps.  As you said, there should be an easy way to view all those channels and take part.

That covers another big hatred of mine, which I’ve mentioned previously, enforced geographical splits.  Splitting up friends based on where they live to allow you to make support easier reduces community, it doesn’t build it.

Second Life doesn’t have a ‘game’, it doesn’t have a goal, it doesn’t have any progression mechanic, and yet it has huge communities built up around it, friendships, relationships.  I’ve not really delved deeply into the chat side of Second Life but I know people who spend a lot of time socialising there.  Which goes to show you don’t need a game to build a good community, but you do need good communities to build good multi-player games.

We’ve recently started using XFire to keep in-touch with friends spread through a lot of games.  A persistent channel we can join and read from within just about any game, even if chatting isn’t always easy.

Here’s what we should be telling MMO producers.

  1. Give us good channels, good communication methods and no restrictions
  2. Develop a standard for MMO chat
  3. Implement cross-game MMO chat services

How cool would it be if you could log in to your favourite chat channel (say #lunatics) and chat as EQ2.Realm.Nickname with WOW.Realm.Bob and LOTRO.World.Billy and SL.Vegas.Sarah.  Each of those people could be in their own virtual game world, using the chat system and communicating with their own native tools in the chat channel and everyone could take part.

I know MMO producers want us to stay with their game for ever, but if they provided a cross-MMO communication device that was standard, people wouldn’t feel obliged to leave a game just because a bunch of their friends had, they could keep in touch.

We want cross-MMO communication tools built into our games and virtual worlds, and we want them soon.

Sunday

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A week at work after a two week break and already I’m struggling to demonstrate any serious enthusiasm, ah well. Been a bit of a week, had various amounts of unexpected cash (Council Tax and a refund from British Gas) and ended up buying a surround sound system and a Nintendo Wii (obviously, it would have been more sensible to put the money away for the future, but then, who knows what the future will hold).

We’re late to the party with the Wii, but it doesn’t mean we can’t Rock Out! We got Guitar Hero III and it’s just really, really good fun! Despite the fact that I know it’s nothing like playing the guitar for real, it makes me want to play the guitar! I have to say, the Wii Fit surprised me, I hate exercise for the sake of it, but the Wii Fit certainly makes some parts of the process easier. Whether it’s the feedback, the tracking, the score system, the games, or something else I’m not sure yet, and I’m not sure how long the novelty will last and if we’ll use it once we’re past that stage, but it’s certainly been used more than any single piece of exercise equipment we’ve ever bought (which I admit, is a short list). I was firmly in the it’s a gimmick camp until I spoke to a few people and that was certainly fully dispelled when we got one. So fingers crossed.

It’s a long time since I sat down and played a computer game that wasn’t a MMOG of some kind, for 4 hours straight, which I did with Guitar Hero this morning. The Wii really is inclusive, it’s almost impossible to watch your spouse playing tennis without the urge to jump up and challenge them to a game. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick up a bunch of second hand games which are fun to play, I guess I need to start reading some reviews.

I still have to actually get the rear speakers for the surround sound stuff mounted, I’m taking it gradually because I don’t want to screw it up. Still not entirely certain what the best way to deal with the speaker cabling is, it’s not easy (possible) to lift our carpet and hide them, but we’re lucky with furniture placement. The main area of concern will be running the cable around the fireplace.

Cooking has been mostly successful, despite the mood issues that working for a living brings. Managed to cook more often than not this week rather than eating frozen pizza or (the admittedly better-than-they-used-to-be) ready meals. I need to find some more meals we can make in a single pan, like stews or rice/paste based dishes. We both really enjoy those kinds of meals, and they’re easy enough to make and freeze, and generally tend to be lower on fat than the other options. Also by making sure we choose the right accompaniment we can keep the GI low.

Made the entire week without eating bacon in the mornings, watched what I ate during the days. More of the same next week. Grete says it really does help her, which in turn gives me more incentive to keep it going. Fingers crossed there as well (running out of fingers).

My sister’s holiday caravan has been flooded somewhere in the North East of England (last night). They weren’t in it at the time (although they only didn’t go because the rain was bad, otherwise they might have been, but then it wouldn’t have flooded maybe). They’re checking insurance details today and the insurers are visiting the caravan park tomorrow so we’ll know more then about what is covered and how much they need to pay out. The kids love that place so I hope they get enough to cover any damage and repairs.

Roleplaying stuff

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I’m thinking of selling my roleplaying books. They’re not doing us any good taking up three shelves in the bedroom, much of it is entirely obsolete (D&D, 2nd Edition AD&D, old rules for other games, etc.) If we did ever happen to start tabletop roleplaying again we could pick up any rules we needed at the time, but I can’t imagine ever needing over three quarters of the stuff that’s there. But there’s that little doubt, that maybe it’ll only get more valuable over time and that if I took good care of some of it, it might be worth holding onto.

I wonder if there’s anywhere on the web that values roleplaying stuff, I seem to recall something ages back, maybe I’ll have a look on ebay for a while and see how much some of it might be worth before making a decision.