The Inept Musings of TK

What's new and what's not

2011-09-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

Things I Currently Update:

Salem Information Post - 10/17/11

Things I Want to Create/Update:

Terraria Gameplay

Haven and Hearth Gameplay

Salem Gameplay

Dwarf Fortress Gameplay

Goblin Camp Information Post

Goblin Camp Gameplay

Elona Gameplay

Informational Posts just having details of the game and hard facts
Gameplay Posts being me actually playing through the game and discovering things.

Mostly on Tumblr

2011-07-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Rather than forcing content out of thin air I'll mostly be using Blogger as a creative outlet and to keep certain games I'm watching up to date. I'm liable to try and clean up the Salem MMO post as that's a consist source of hits. Might also create one for Terraria, who knows!

Definitely not one for Haven and Hearth though due to the busy schedule of the devs there just aren't things to keep updated. There are things planned but they're sort of private and I'm not at liberty to divulge them for the time being.

Thanks for putting up with me everything. I apologize that I'm not a journalist level blog and the Koala-Tea fluctuates greatly from post to post. <3

Fanime 2011 Fun

2011-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure much needs to be said besides this picture. Fanime 2011 was amazing fun and I'd love to post every picture to this blog but that'd be insane. Trust me on this one as I just did that to tumblr and facebook. I might do it to dA too, we'll see!

Ended up going to the One Piece gathering and the MSPaintAdventures gathering. Both were great fun and I want to give major props to the Don Flamingo and Eridan who were so amazing as to host the gatherings and keep us from wrecking everything =)

I was mostly in Four Aces Dave cosplay but I also did Monkey D Luffy. As simple and common as Luffy is, I have the right proportions, demeanor, and attitude to be Luffy so don't brush me off lightly =D

Haven and Hearth, Upcoming Changes

2011-05-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

So for anyone who plays Haven and Hearth we've known for a long time that updates have been slow and change even slower. While great leaps and bounds have been made in this time period, we've more or less come to accept that nothing has changed or is going to change -- or perhaps we're wrong.

It was a long held assumption that Haven was on hold until Salem was completed but it seems, according to Loftar, a big issue has been that Jorb has been moving. Thanks to unspecified complications, he has been in limbo for three months, severely inhibiting updates in Haven. Now that this big move is coming to an end, they're beginning work on large, world changing updates. When these will roll out is anyone's guess but it won't be soon. However, the weekly updates are going to start again.

"I mean, for one thing, I want to transition the server to the new object system, and that in itself means rewriting a lot of things." - Loftar

Among the big changes planned so far, we're going to see a new map generator. Loftar cited that the world is so homogenized and bland. Rare, unique, and beautiful features are so rare that they may as well not exist. So the goal of the new map generator will be to change this. Whether this means new terrain types or just larger variation within terrain types is anyone's guess but loftar mentioned things like glades within forests as an example. It also may mean Fractal worlds rather than our current in-land dotted with lakes and rivers. Large bodies of water are a feature that I've been longing for, for the longest time.

Flower and plant variation beyond crops and curiosities to beautify things may also be a feature to be seen. Terrain elevation, slow, weather, and seasons are among things that may see changes though not in the immediate future.

"Seasons are a lot of work, though, so I'm not sure when we'll do them." - Loftar

Out of all of this you should take two things: A new world generator eventually and Weekly Updates! I can't wait to see how things change again and can only hope that they change only for the better~

Salem and Everything is Minecraft

2011-05-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

New drinking game!
Every time a reviewer compares an upcoming sandbox with Minecraft, take a shot.
Every time a reviewer says it's based on Minecraft, take two shots.
Every time the article says Minecraft more than the game's name, finish the bottle.

Luckily it's not so bad with Salem, I swear. Everyone has the reminisce of Minecraft on the tip of their tongue when they see Salem but no one has the guts to say it. It is this fact alone that has kept me from degrading into a mindless rant of how not every sandbox (being) made is Minecraft.

<3

Terraria, Newbie Advice

2011-05-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Starting out in Terraria isn't too hard and it's definitely not meant to be such a wrenching experience as to dissuade you from attempting to figure it out on your own. However, in the event that you are looking for a bit of a hand starting, here is some sound advice to deal with things.

If you're looking to avoid cave exploration and dungeon diving, Terraria will advance much slower for you. You won't find as much treasure, earn as much money, or find as much ore. It is far from impossible though.
Store up:

This variety of goods is common enough to not be a problem though may not be immediately intuitive. Slime Gel is essential for two things: Torches and Healing Potions.

Acorns allow you to replant trees for a renewable Wood source. If you cut grass regularly, there's a chance that Mushrooms will regrow in place of the grass.

Sand can be melted into Glass at a Furnace and Glass can be cut into Bottles. Place a Bottle on your Workbench, Table, or Wooden Platform to turn it into an Alchemy Station to make Healing Potions.

For safety:
Slimes can jump up to 6 tiles high, so build walls to be 7 tiles or higher.
Zombies can jump 7 tiles high, so anti-zombie walls need to be at least 8 tiles high.
Demon Eyes, while flying, cannot move down through Wooden Platforms, making Wooden Platforms excellent defenses against them.
NPCs who move in decrease monster spawn rates in their immediate area, keeping the their home safe.

For the most part, you do not need to worry about Slimes hopping into your home and causing havoc. The real concern is usually during Blood Moons when all monsters spawn rapidly in their native biome. Zombies also gain the ability to open doors! At this time it's vital to board up your doors and windows to prevent Zombies from breaking in.

Wooden Platforms are still good for keeping Demon Eyes out luckily and this can be an ideal time to harvest Demon Eyes for lenses and money. Just build a small side-room that protrudes from your home. Make its floor wooden platforms and instead of a door into that room leave a hole in the wall for yourself to swing through. Demon Eyes will become trapped in the small room and bounce aimlessly off the walls even into the day time, as they cannot run away. You can safely swing your sword at them from the hole in the wall now and reap your spoils.
Wooden Platform pits that are too deep for Zombies to jump out of make a similarly profitable trap!

When dealing with NPCs:
Make sure every room you want NPCs to move into has at least 1 Table and 1 Chair.
NPCs will move towards the closest secured area. This means if they move too far down vertically and you have a cellar without a door, they'll claw at the cellar walls trying to get in rather than going back to their room.
Sometimes your game will bug out and you will get multiples of NPCs. This isn't bad at all and is, in fact, quite awesome.
Monsters can hurt NPCs so keep them safe.
To attract NPCs your room must be entirely covered with a non-dirt wall, must be at least 3 tiles vertically, at least 5 tiles horizontally, must have lighting of some kind, and must have a door.

For Digging, Cave Exploration, and Treasure Hunting:
Bring lots of Torches and Wooden Platforms. Hundreds of them both.
Wooden Platforms allow you to move around freely and Torches let you see something besides #000000.
Don't rely on scouring every inch of a cave. It's inefficient and often better to dig in a random direction to find more caves or random deposits of ore.
The deeper you dig the more resources appear but more difficult monsters do as well. Avoid deeper tunnels if they keep on killing you.
If you get really desperate, block off the opening behind you and keep digging.

You never know where a Chest or Heart Crystal might be, peek into every pond and on every ledge!
Shoot arrows into the sky to try and locate floating islands above ground. Every floating island, for now, has a shrine with a Chest inside of it.

When you can, fight skeletons as much as possible to get a:
Hook
To make a:
Grappling Hook

The Miner's Helmet from the Merchant and Chain Hook allow you to explore the underground without wooden platforms or torches!

That's all of the newbie advice I can give right now and I hope its been helpful! Best of luck to everyone =)

Haven and Hearth, Rewarding Bad Behavior

2011-05-24T04:51:00.000-07:00

To those of you unfamiliar with the political Landscape of Haven and Hearth there is a huge divide between the Russian players and the European/American players. Sometimes this divide is caused by the language barrier and other times it's caused by greed. This is one of those cases where it's both.

Russian players were exploiting a critical bug for days on end which was causing the server to crash and which gave them impossible stats and skills. For point of reference, after months of playing a character might have ~600 in a skill. On day 3 of the server they had upwards of 1.6 billion in multiple skills. The Devs asked the perpetrators to step forward and confess how this was done so that they could fix it, Haven and Hearth being an alpha and all. None of the perpetrators did so.

In response, a well known faction in the game devoted its resources to finding the cause and exposing it. They managed to do so and demonstrated how to do it to the Devs. In exchange, their characters were entirely erased from the game because of how buggy they now were but they were compensated with some nifty show items and some gold.

The Russian players flipped the fuck out that this faction was rewarded and they were not. Technically the Russian players had found the bug first, even if they hadn't reported it. They also claimed they were going to inform the Devs once they fully understood the bug. Their reward was just to have their broken characters deleted.

To most people, this situation sounds entirely reasonable. However, the Russian community has never forgiven the Developers or the faction that reported their bug. They have made endless complaint threads about it and have gone so far as to accuse the Devs of playing favorites. For a game that is only about 10,000 active players, this means roughly 10% of their player base is constantly rabble rousing.

Lets fast forward to the present where these complaints are still being voiced and are common place. At this point it doesn't even really matter what was going on or who did what, the main complaint is that one faction was rewarded while many others are not.

This insanity has led the Devs to want to revoke giving out any kind of reward or compensation for bug reports at all. Meaning there is no longer incentive to report a bug rather than just exploit it. I cannot get behind this idea personally, as conditioning your player base is essential to get the desired behaviors out of them. Reporting bugs, critical or minor, is vital. As a community, Haven and Hearth keeps suffering as players only reveal a new bug after they've abused it to the point of no return and someone else calls them out on it. This is a bad way to alpha test a game.

What I propose is rather than individual rewards, there are server-wide rewards in exchange for bug reports. Players who report bugs get to pick which reward is chosen. The rewards will be non-consequential and more or less benign. By having examples of good behavior displayed to all, everyone is programmed to some degree to want to achieve a global good. Whether it's just to be the one who chooses it or if it's to see the effects.

So what kind of rewards would these be? I was thinking along the lines of something silly like making cows have a party hat on for a few days. Perhaps add an oinking sound to wild boars for awhile. Fun, little things that are apparent to all active players.

For people who take this game as SRS BSNS and want the mechanical advantage of exploiting over improving the game or of fun rewards, then there was no hope of achieving the ideal behavior from them regardless. They would only report a bug if it benefited them substantially and that is not going to happen.

I don't know ~ Good idea or bad idea?

Salem MMO, the Woes of Assuming it's Farmville

2011-05-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is not an image of Farmville or Salem the MMO. This is an image of Haven and Hearth, the predecessor to Salem and the original game by the developers of Salem. At first glance you might mistaken it for Farmville, as you see some nice crops and lots of pleasant critters. In fact, many people go into Haven and Hearth thinking this as well. This is such a common occurrence that the number of angry posts detailing rage-quits on the Haven and Hearth official forums is truly staggering.

Now lets examine two things: What were they expecting in the game and how did the game violate this expectation so harshly?
Keep in mind that neither of these questions remotely imply that Haven and Hearth is a bad game nor that Salem will be. Quite the opposite, Haven is an amazing game and we all hope that Salem will prove to be as well.

This is one of the more mild posts on quitting but outlines a few very critical topics: Grinding and Death.

In Farmville you cannot die. There is no fighting, animals won't harm you, you can't drown, your feet do not blister and bleed, leeches don't stick to you as you trudge through swamps, and other players cannot harm you. You buy crops, grow them, and harvest for profit. A wonderfully simple formula that brings many people hours of entertainment. Entering games, many people immediately take on this very same mindset and think that this is the only way these games are meant to be played. You acquire crops, dig a mine, explore a cave, fish up something pleasant to eat, or go chop down a tree. What more is there to life?

The violation of expectation comes when you're out chopping a tree down to store wood up when a wild boar wanders into your field of view and decides you'd make a nice meal. Many players aren't used to animals being a threat. In many games, such as World of Warcraft, animals are so harmless that even a brand new player can quickly dispatch one without ever being at risk. In Haven and Hearth, as well as Salem, the natural environment is very deadly. Human beings are not naturally stronger than animals. In real life on Zweihanders, the very large two handed swords, there are a pair of pointed blades that protrude out of the base of the blade. These are known as Boar Stoppers because wild boars are so ferocious that they will run through blades to gore people. This says nothing of bears or the other critters that lurk in the woods.

A worse violation of expectation is that other players are not all peaceful either. Many of them are looking to get ahead as the point of both Haven and Salem is survival rather than just cooperation. One of the fastest ways to get resources is to just steal it from another player. Raiders who are more interested in your belongings than your well being are very common. Even innocent farmers and explorers will happily steal unguarded food or metals if you leave them out in the open. Why grind yourself when you can take what others grind?

What this turns into is a game that is not looking to foster your growth. The game, both environment and players, will look to take from you. The game is very harsh in how it handles death and property. Anything can kill you and anyone can take what was yours. Trespassing, Theft, Assault, Vandalism, and Murder are all aspects of the game. There is justice and there are ways to right wrongs through ranging, a skill that lets you track criminals and summon them to face your justice whether or not they're online. Having a wrong righted is not a cake walk though and there is no gain in getting justice. Your character is dead forever. Death is permanent. Killing them just kills their character forever as well.

Not everyone will give you a fair fight either. In Salem, witchcraft will be a means to getting ahead at the expense of your neighbors. Do you think that your neighbor will come to your door alone and fight you over your right to use witchcraft? Or will your neighbor round up all of the nearby players and raid your home to kill you for spoiling their crops and bringing demons to their doorsteps?

Do not play Salem with the idea that it will be a benign farming game.

"Be prepared for heartbreak, failure, and betrayal. Be ready for when your neighbor crashes into your home, shatters your cupboards, and threatens your life. Do not hide from these things -- not yet. They are necessary. If you hide from them, you will never meet the wonderful people that live around you and thrive. You will never learn how necessary it is to defend what you hold dear, to protect those who are precious to you. Revel in the searing pain as you witness them take the dried hides out of your tanning tubs before they were finished, only to dump them into the lake laughing.

There will be people who tear vicious words into your lawn. There will also be people who will help you grass away the obscenities and move on. Be ready to accept while learning how to be cautious at the same time. It's difficult to do and requires much practice, so get it while you're fresh and new -- when you can afford to lose everything."

Play Salem knowing that there are both spiteful people as well as well meaning people. Be prepared to deal with those who are malicious and be content with those who are well meaning. Who is who is up for you to decide.

Terraria Update v1.0.2

2011-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Update today, reported on Steam:
Bugs: Double Jumping isn't negating Fall Damage at the moment

Controls
Right clicking and holding on a crafting recipe will craft multiple of the same item to a max of the stack and/or until you run out of materials.

Items

NEW ITEM : Sticky Bombs, Requires 5 Gel and a Bomb.
(Max throw range of ~5 tiles, moves slow, ~2 tile blast radius in all directions, sticks to targets)

Sand Duping bug fixed.
Placing a bed far from the spawn no longer causes a player who has set their spawn there to crash on join.
Mining stone and other hard ores make a 'tink' noise now.
Hellstone and Obsidian now require at least a Demonite pick to gather.
Sand no longer spawns within a certain distance of the spawn location, This should remove the chance of spawning in a desert with no wood to use.
Hellstone now correctly takes as long to dig as meteor does.
The clay pot item now has the correct size.

Performance
Frame-skip is now correctly ON by default for new players.
Increased Client Side Multiplayer stability. Should resolve many crash causes.
Corrected a bug where players would intermittently not take falling damage.
The world file is now saved to a temporary file that is copied over to the actual save file. This prevents world corruption when saving is interrupted.
Fixed a bug that disabled some error handling. Overall game stability should be improved.

GUI
The version number of the game now shows on the title screen.
Typing numbers in chat no longer changes your selected item in your hotbar.

Server
Servers now listen to all IP addresses on the hosting PC, regardless of how many network connections are active.
Typing "localhost" instead of your own local IP address will connect to your own same-PC server.
The games default port is no longer ELEET (31337) it is now 7777.
Client will now resolve a hostname into its IP address, for example, if randomsite.org ran a server, you could type randomsite.org as the IP address and be able to connect.

More Terraria

2011-05-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

Welp, tried to flood hell again. Utterly bugged the server out. It's currently moving in rapid speed while the water crawls down. Just half an ocean to go and the server can be played on again, haha.

Terraria Issues and Solutions

2011-05-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

So a not so unique problem presented itself the other day while playing Terraria. I got into the underworld and decided that I wanted to mine for some hell stone! Now, there was a problem with this however. In multiplayer, the spawn rate is ridiculously high and so the perils were too great and I found myself being knocked into lava more than I was actually able to swing my pickaxe.

So after much deliberation, it was decided that it was necessary to take a faster route to the underworld than the current convoluted system of tunnels we had taken to using. The first suggestion I came up with was to utilize the nearby ocean to get there, as it was a safe drop and cleared the first 1,000 meters for us. The next 1,500 meters could be cleared manually or with pickaxes.

While digging down and perpetually being flooded by water along the way, we suddenly had an idea. Since we were digging down from the ocean anyway, why not just pop the cap and let the water flow into the underworld? This would not only guarantee as much obsidian as we'd ever need, it'd also make sure the lava could never hurt us again!

Better yet, it meant that imps and bone serpents were easy to access and kill. Did you know bone serpents only gather speed when moving through ground tiles? Equipped with a set of flippers each, we all descended into the newly flooded hell and wrecked havoc on the world below. The only problem the newly added water provided was the risk of drowning if you got careless. Compared to the risk of death by lava that existed before, this was still a massive improvement.

Lets see what other not-so-unique problems present themselves to be conquered!

Salem the MMO - Updated 10/17/11

2011-05-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Upcoming 4X sandbox mmo by the makers of Haven and Hearth. Persistent, terraformable world which boasts of permanent death.
Note: This post will be constantly updated and changed rather than new posts being made, preventing convolution or spreading out the information.

Also worth noting that Alpha begins sometime this week and I don't know if I'm confined by an NDA yet. So either tons of updates or none at all!

When: "Alpha Testing (Currently the game is in Pre-Alpha and we'll need an elite handful of players with proven experience in similar kinds of MMORPG's to start this withus) - This will begin as soon as we reach Alpha which is trending towards the end of September. It'll begin with a very small hand picked group and then grow to size(s) that make sense for testing and participation.

Beta Testing (This will be open to a much larger group with all those that were in Alpha Testing being grandfathered in) - This will start around the beginning of 2012 or when Alpha development is done and the game is ready for Beta Testing.

Open Beta (This will be as it sounds, open to everyone by registering) This will happen once the game is in a state to handle a much larger player base."

Note: The devs have said that Dreamlords players getting priority access to betas is a false rumor.

Looks: Game Art:

Newest < --------------------------------------------------- > Initial

What's in the game?:

Alchemy: Sulfur, Salt, Mercury, and Lead. Each ties into a humor and how it effects you. Ideally, you want 100% in one element and 0% in the others so that the food you're consuming will consistently raise the humor you want.

Combat: There will be Maneuvers, Moves, and Attacks. Movement and positioning will be critical. Maneuvers give you bonuses against attacks and to do damage with or move faster with at the cost of yellow bile. Moves allow you to temporarily stun or break the maneuver of your opponent among other things. Attacks are exactly what they sound like!

Constructions: Buildings and objects are built in much the same fashion as in Haven where you load materials into a sign and then build them. Good news though, you can rotate constructions and move them off the "grid" now.

Claims: How you own land and where you force summon someone to pay for their crimes.

Farming/Foraging/Hunting: Food and medicine acquisition. You'll need food to not just stay alive but progress your character! There'll also be fertilizer you can make to improve your crops either through compost or lime. Plant large swathes of seeds at once rather than one at a time.

Gluttony: You advance in the game by filling up your various humors by eating various types of food. To raise the cap on your humors, you enter glutton mode. In glutton mode you must fill certain humors beyond their normal limit. The problem being that food fills humors randomly. Higher quality foods fill certain humors more precisely. You appear to have a spread of 16 different numbers and glutton mode grabs one at random!

Humors: Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile, and Black Bile. Blood is your health against physical attacks. Phlegm is your non-combat stamina for chopping trees, and digging clay. Yellow Bile is your combat stamina for aggressing against others. Black Bile is your ability to learn skills. Running out of any humor will temporarily incapacitate you. If attacked while unconscious you die. You re/gain humors by eating food.

Inventory Management: All items in inventories will take up a single slot. No tetris. Also, some items are stackable! 4x4 Inventory.

Mega Constructions: Exactly what they sound like. "We definitely want huge projects like cathedrals and whatnot, because that adds a cooperative effort to the game." -Jorb

Mining: To mine you weaken walls with various tricks, such as lighting campfires near them or using dynamite. You then mine the wall to acquire a large stone. Most walls will only yield rocks but those that do yield ore allow you to mine the ore from the stone or put it through a processor to be mined for you. Processors are slow but don't drain your phlegm.

Monsters: Hidebehinds, witches, squonks, and who knows what else is roaming around looking to eat you. There will be only a few NPCs besides monsters, including NPC traders.

Native Americans: May be playable in the future? Not sure yet! The devs want them in but core features are more vital than another playable group at the moment.

Newbie Zone: A starting zone to familiarize yourself with the game. You'll need to understand the basic concepts and utilize a skill called Mountaineering to proceed into the full game. Welcome to Boston Harbor!

Night/Day: The light of civilization fights back the darkness. How many people living in an area, the number of houses, and many other factors not yet revealed will determine this. The further into the forest you go, the darker things get.

Permanent Death: If you die then you're dead for good! Be ready to make a new character and remember that it's part of playing a survival game.

Resources: Clay, lumber, soil, stone, water, iron, flux, and many more resources to work for and produce into valuable goods. Never underestimate the value of good clay and wood.

Silver Currency: “The economy will be based around a store owned by the "game" that players can trade and purchase items from, " explained Björn Johannessen, Creative Director. "When trading you'll receive silver based on the value of the resource traded. With this silver you can then buy inaccessible resources or ones you don't want to spend time gathering. The store will also offer the option to buy silver with real world currency. It's key for us that all items will be purchasable with the in-game silver only, so all players, whether playing for free or not, can buy any item for sale."

Tameable Creatures: Tamed animals will be bought with silver from the Old World. Horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and maybe even rabbits.

Witchcraft: Likely gives you short term benefits while inflicting harm on the environment or leeching quality/resources from the nearby terrain to yourself. Potentially even actively harming your neighbors.

Sources:
Tentonhammer Interview
Haven and Hearth Announcements
PCGamer interview
Salem Official Forums
Examiner preview
MMORPG.com preview
https://www.facebook.com/SalemGame

Just for Good Measure~

2011-05-19T08:13:00.001-07:00

I'll be at Fanime cosplaying as Dave from HomeStuck and Luffy from One Piece.

I hope to see lots of lovely people there and warn you now that I will let you fall on your face if you attempt to tackle glomp me.
Also, the Nami that I'm going with specially requests that anyone cosplaying as Sanji help carry her around. She's not used to high heels and thanks to One Piece proportions, she has to wear the highest of heels.

While we're at it, Haven and Hearth

2011-05-19T07:31:00.001-07:00

So I'm not sure why this was never a subject of great discussion for me in the past. Haven and Hearth is a truly exciting 4X MMO which pits you against not only the world but more importantly against each other. The goal of the game is survival through any means possible or necessary. What it takes to survive is unique to everyone who plays and rapidly shifts as you grow and move around.

Yadda yadda yadda, there is a lot of stuff in this game that does not need iteration. You're free to terraform, build a home, found a city, and compete with other players over resources. Animals tend to be especially lethal -- often as dangerous as starvation. Though as you escape from the clutches of barbarism and find yourself in a more comfortable environment with its own little farm fields and tall walls to protect it, the bigger danger becomes the raiders. Death is permanent in this game and valuable resources are finite, often taking a great deal of work to get too. It's to no surprise that other players have taken to aggressive acts to get what they want.

This is the fun part. Imagine a world building game set in an extremely hostile environment. There are raiders, language barriers, wars, thieves, and vandals. We bring with us cultural strife and stereotypes. This game reflects it all. It's wonderful.

Vast political landscapes emerge as hermits become settlements, become towns, becomes grand cities. You may watch diplomacy first hand and the intricacies of backstabbing and character assassination. Even combat itself presents mirrors into the human psyche as the stakes are all or nothing in battle, thanks to permanent death. Players panic, flee if outnumbered, and act desperately if anything out of the ordinary occurs.

We also watch drama unfold as ideas diverge and leadership is questioned. Everyone comes in with a set idea of how they want to play. No one is happy to be told that a village of 20 Blacksmiths will fail and someone actually needs to forage, farm, mine, fish, hunt, grow trees, farm silk, trade, explore, build homes, and so on. People grow attached to resources and become testy when others begin to leech more than they pitch in.

To say the least, more than one village has fallen apart because of a single glutton before, hoarding the best foods to themselves.

On this same basis, many villages have also sprung to life. Finding common goal in averting the lifestyle which drove them to hate one another.

Imagine a game where you may see cities grow, sprawl, and fall into ruin. Where there is no winner or loser, only the memories you take away with you or those that you leave on others. Ruins fade and nothing is permanent (Except for mine holes. Can't get rid of those darn things!) Worse yet, where there is often clear cutting and reckless destruction of natural resources. Where players maliciously wreck the environment around them, metaphorically salting it, forever destroying whatever it could have offered before. A wonderful game that (used to anyway) gets updated regularly.

Terraria and why it's not Minecraft

2011-05-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've found myself utterly addicted to a brand new game of no ordinary proportions. It's mildly special, I say in not so light of a manner, but still very young. This is Terraria and while it looks like it came out in the 1990s, it is truly something else. The game offers a very old approach to RPGs: there are no levels, all character improvement is done based on the changes you make to the world or the equipment that you own. You build your world while exploring it and develop your character while you learn more about your surroundings.

To progress in this game, you must build a home or village for npcs to move into. These npcs will offer invaluable resources to you, ranging from magical powders to potions to guns and ammo. You unlock npcs by completing objectives throughout the game. NPCs not only live to serve you but also make your home safer mechanically and make your world feel less desolate and more alive. Honestly, this feature is a major sell point and I wish more sandbox games offered it.

A lot of the systems in the game are reminiscent of Zelda: A Link To The Past. For those of you familiar with Zelda, you'll be happy to find such beloved items as the Enchanted Boomerang, Hook Chain, and the Ball O' Hurt. We see space guns, dungeon crawls, floating islands, Fire Flowers and there's even speculation from the rumor mill (Blue's twitter) that there will be air dashes much like we've seen in Castlevania. If you haven't heard the joke about it being a Super Mario sandbox RPG, I'm going to put that out there right now for you to have burned into your minds.

Beyond that, the game has a lot of the feel of Dwarf Fortress. You're establishing a settlement however you want and migrants are filling the work roles around you. You dig deep and dig greedily until you strike hell itself. The Goblin Invasions don't help to alleviate this similarity.

To put it bluntly, this game plays like a cross between a generic Sandbox RPG and the SNES. To say this is akin to being a Minecraft clone is like saying Hurf Durf Halo invented guns, I suppose. While it is true that it's a sandbox much like Minecraft is, Minecraft did not make sandbox games. Terraria offers a very different approach and implementation to how sandbox works and what it means to the player. The world generation and character implementation are also very different.

For Terraria, sandbox means establishing a town, digging into and through dungeons, establishing ports and passages, and eventually moving onto new lands or inviting others to yours if they weren't there already. Looking at Minecraft, sandbox means starting fresh in every world, digging down for the necessary materials to begin playing and shaping the world, then customizing your landscape in the day, hiding at night. Terraria has a more constant monster spawn harassing you while you initially build though it dies down once your town is established and secured.

As for world implementation, it goes without saying that the two games handle it very differently. Terraria makes sure that every world offers all aspects every time. Every world will have hell, a dungeon, a floating island, an ocean, corruption, etc.. Minecraft is more random in its approach and to see a variety of what it has to offers usually means playing single player (though that will change in 1.6), spawning off of seeds, or regenerating new maps constantly.

Character creation isn't comparable. Terraria lets you port characters through worlds, for better or worse, and puts a huge emphasis on the things you find in your exploration and combat. Minecraft rewards digging a lot for iron/diamond equipment.

To anyone on the fence about whether or not they'll enjoy Terraria, definitely watch the trailers they have out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGo7iMUcxLc
It offers a fairly realistic view of what playing will be like. The game is being updated constantly (We've had 2 patches in less than a week since release) and there are lots of promised improvements and additions on the way.

Whatever you do, if you do play it, don't just spam suicide to harvest rarer materials. It makes the game tedious, fast -- and worse cuts out a lot of the content along the way. Multiplayer also just makes the game so much more awesome and replayable.

Happy Playing~

Meh, to heck with it

2011-05-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm sick and tired of acting professional towards everything I do in life ~ even those things that I've long since abandoned. I'll talk about -- nay, rant about whatever I please in whatever manner I please. Besides, it was boring otherwise and who wants boring? We're here to have more than just a bit of fun and we're going to do it in a way that pleases me. You might think it trite but I'm the star of my own show.

None of My Business

2010-09-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

I miss that puppy dog, all na-tur-al face with its care free smile and woefully eager rows of white.
Before the make-up; before the scars. When your body was not a canvas and it was still uniquely yours to paint on and with as you pleased.
When you were freshly molded from clay and every dreary day disaster could be reverted with nothing more than lye and water.
Forgive me but your stony flesh is a window into that which torments you; to those that insecure you.
Whether it's for a cause or to affront the world, it still wets the clouds that there is ink beneath your skin.
Maybe it is traditional, rebellious, or modern. Perhaps it is how you define yourself;
That doesn't stop the sweet little bubble floating by my reminisce when you weren't a symbol.
Does it make you more of an individual? Is it bad that I've always thought you were?
Why does it make you more of who you are, if I've always been able to wrap my arms around you?
You always felt so whole to me.
That woefully eager smile, so impatient to grow up.

-TK
Sept 20th, 2010

Oceanic Adventure Check List

2010-02-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

Highly dissatisfied with all the charts I wrote up for a Mutants and Masterminds campaign before. They're all too basic and the established classes don't provide viable abilities for longer periods of time. Debating the different tactics in revising the balance of the system:
1. Classes with lower starting PL get buy-in abilities
Pros: Abilities can be established to allow a higher curve so they can be different but close to the usefulness of combat based classes which start with higher PL, satisfies non-power gamers, and allows for diversity.
Cons: They're dropping all of their PL points into abilities that aren't their stats, feats, or abilities, spreads players too thin, and a curve like that will end up with wizard like players from DnD, way too weak early on but way too strong later.

2. Establish a currency in addition to wealth points that these players will utilize more than other players. Their class establishes that they can use certain skills and stats to create 'things'.
Pros: Viable characters
Cons: New system, splat books, what the heck are 'things', more numbers to track.

3. Other
Pros: ENDLESS POSSBILITY
Cons: Brain storming

At the moment I'm tempted to go with option 2. It won't be difficult to match a currency system against a buy-in system and raise its power creep by an acceptable amount so that crafted items are viable.
Example 1: Engineer buys 5 levels of his special ability, builds a ship, add-ons become imbalanced and are ignored or require another skill
Example 2: Crew finds chest of gold, Engineer produces parts, ship is made, customized add-ons
Example 3: OTHER! ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!

Going to start brain storming on the idea of 2.

Alone with my thoughts

2009-12-14T05:13:00.000-08:00

A black voice whispers honey into me, wiping away the bleak veil that conflict brings. The vile, manipulative face has been my muse, filling me with twisted stories and clandestine thoughts. Perhaps they're wicked ideas but for right now they are reaffirming and clear so that's enough to be happy with. Maybe sweeter thoughts would make my mind sweeter but what matters is on the inside, or so they say, and I'm full of honey.

Anxiety strikes me and I speed up, it's the only thing I know how to do anymore. Speak faster, move faster, run faster, live faster, and don't you dare look back no matter what. The dark lull washes over me, weaving me, telling me that someone needs to slow me down. I'm rushing into nothing and leaving everything that matters behind and yet I can't stop myself. There's too much anxiety still in my heart -- it beats at my chest but I pretend it's not there. Someone needs to save me from myself, the voice tells me.

It gives me its life entirely, pouring itself into me so that my weightless frame doesn't fly off into abyssal blue. I'm warned that the taint of the cold never goes away and can never be forgotten. My will wanes; spend the last of myself ignoring the voice or fighting the urge to run free? Deep down, I know that the result is the same and to throw myself away to either is this puppeteer's plan.

But really it's all just a trap. Each trip and push nudging me ever closer to breaking down, opening up, and falling off my high horse. All of this, just to make me realize how desperately I need someone to hug me and tell me it's alright. It's terrifying to have my soul in the hands of such a demonic figure but there's no one else to entrust it to. The emotion is too raw, primal -- fear like this is unsettling. Someone needs to take it away from me, so I can return to being civilized.

Dragon Age

2009-08-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Dragon Age. Bioware. Ignoring the Terrible trailers. Yes? Anyone else looking forward to it like me? Here's to hoping they continue to be true to their word with their games and hype and this is a decent sequel to Baldur's Gate.

On Discussion of Guild Wars

2009-08-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

So ya, Guild Wars by NCSoft. Great company, great game. Not the best game in the world and not for everyone but lots of fun for what it is. Not a true MMO by nature, it's actually a very interactive single player game as there will be only a single instance in the game where you may interact with more than a total of 16 individuals at a time.

With that out of the way, lets present my beef this morning: people who believe Guild Wars was designed poorly on the basis that you can not play the game without other players. Now, without mentioning it, the game is actually very easy to play all by yourself if you're decent at theory crafting but that's not the real answer for this. If heavy theory crafting was the only solution then there would be no rage towards this. Rather, the game is very kind to you in that it will always offer alternatives to taking a player party. The most easily accessible of these options being the NPCs. Guild Wars offers you a specialist NPC of every class to fill any role you need, taking as many as you'd like up to a full party. The NPCs aren't as good as a real player but with even close to a full party of them, you can handle anything the game throws at you. Literally, anything. There will be no map that can't be done because you're taking only NPCs. Sure, you might fail if you offer nothing to the team and merely lead the party to death constantly but then that's no ones fault but your own.

A personal story if I may interject this rant for just a moment. There is a particularly difficult mission in the story mode of Guild Wars known as Thunderhead Keep. This is one of the few missions that can't be skipped and that you generally want to do because of the rewards offered in the area after it. Many players find themselves stuck on this mission for weeks trying to gather a party competent enough to deal with this mission. Among them I found myself one day, desperately trying to find seven other people who could moderately work together so as not to fail miserably. This went poorly for the first two days and I was just about ready to give up when my brother asked me why I didn't just go with computers if players were so incompetent. At first I scoffed at him, thinking that if players weren't strong enough what chance did computers have? With that in mind though I was getting desperate so I decided to give it a try. I was a warrior of course, probably one of the worst classes to take on this mission and least useful in a party of NPCs as I couldn't coordinate them as well as a someone who could stay in the back lines could. Of course, with all of this doubt and failure in mind, I was shocked and astounded when we won without a single casualty. A fluke, it must have been. So I decided to try it again and brought my Healing Monk and lo and behold, another success! Okay, I had one more character, lets try it on a mesmer now, they're much more fragile and the party will have to expend energy to keep me alive too so I may end up being a huge detriment; two casualties and one of them was me but the party pulled through! So then, I realized why it was so difficult to do this quest with players: anyone who was still there was so absolutely incompetent at this game that they couldn't succeed even if the computer was doing all of the work for them.

Okay back to the raging. So you have theory crafting and computers for you if you absolutely, desperately don't want to touch other players. There is no excuse not to use one or the other as even in traditional single player RPGs you generally have a party to help fill roles that you can't perform on your own. The game is also nice enough that you don't need to grind/farm for skills or equipment so no matter what you'll be well prepared with a quick stop at the npc vendor in town. Maybe this isn't good enough for you though, maybe you Demand to solo the game but you'll be Damned before you have to think about how to perform the job of multiple people! Okay, so the game has programmed events in that you can utilize such as catapults or cannons or bombs or what have you that will work just as well to go through a level if you're willing to slow down and setup traps for enemies.

NO! Absolutely not! There will be No waiting around and being prepared for the enemy! I payed for this game to play not plot. So you refuse to theory craft, no NPC help, and no traps or utilization of in-game help mechanics. Alright, if you demand o rush through the game so badly, then run through it. Guild Wars lets you run through it. Watch enemy maneuvers and equip one or two of those handy speed boosting skills you picked up along the way and Guild Wars will let you bypass any and every area or mission that you can't be bothered to do.

No cowardice! I'm soloing it so that I can prove how brave I am to all the internets! There will be no running. Only my own mettle counts towards bravery! -- Okay, that's fine, go to the PvP arenas to really show off how macho you are. If you win a few PvP games in a row, you automatically progress in the story.

But wait, this still isn't good enough. The game is still clearly forcing you into contact with other people and/or forcing you away from the story line. Well then I'm sorry, this game isn't for you and I hate you with a passion. Please just go back to Maple Story and never look back as you will not be missed.

/Nerd Rage

Yet another What do you do?

2009-08-17T21:31:00.001-07:00

A dryad has made her home in a small farming village just before winter. Heavy snow storms have closed the way for caravans in or out of the town so the populace are trapped with her, living in fear. The farmers need to leave their homes to gather wood and access their store houses else they'll freeze to death and starve in the coming months. The dryad has not openly harmed anyone yet but it is no secret that she can cause trouble without laying a finger on a single peasant.

Upon investigation of the Dryad, she reveals that she has relocated here because her tree was chopped down and used to build a home in the village and she desires to live beside it even in its death. She claims to mean no harm to the villagers and she is unwilling to leave her beloved tree either, as it was her rightful home. As per the laws of nature she has full right to execute those who perpetrated this and any in her way but she has chosen to live peacefully. You are unsure if she is true to her word or is actually exacting her rights covertly. The family living in the home can not afford to abandon the house or have it destroyed and no one else in the village can afford to take them in if they were to lose their home to the Dryad.

Another What do you do?

2009-08-17T21:16:00.001-07:00

You come across a troupe of meandering zombies making camp on the side of a major trade route. They don't appear to be causing any harm and don't take any notice of you or other travelers but they are very much so real. Any attempts to make contact with them are futile and their very presense alarms animals and forces trade caravans to turn tail and avoid the route, hurting any villages or towns that rely on this road.

There is a large magical aura around them that you can identify as neither arcane or necotic and the zombies are entirely pacified, not reacting even if you go so far as to stab them. You are unsure if they are actual zombies but they are causing a disturbance and are not illusionary in any way. You are not sure how long they've been here or how long they intend to stay on this road.

What do you do?

2009-08-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

A certain town has suddenly become tremendously successful, and the people within are living excellent lives far beyond what most would consider their means.Your party enters the town and detect a large amount of magic. They will also discover a strange plague that is slowly killing everyone in the town. This plague does not seem to be infectious, but it does strike people who live in the village for more than a week, so travelers be sure not to stay for too long.

After a harrowing journey of discovery and combat, you find out that the town's prosperity was caused by an illusion mage who had taken pity upon a wretchedly poor town. Unfortunately, being an illusion mage, he has no capability of actually helping the townsfolk. The strange plague is starvation and exposure, and the permanent townsfolk are all doomed to die.

Perchance

2009-08-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Perchance

Pertain that few likelihoods are to occur and that much wish will be lost to deceit.
Am I to be as was when I came, so lost and utterly disdain?
Perchance, once more, that I should see her face --- and at a whim, my whim will take my fickle heart.
To her, her sullen blouse of fate, that I must be the one both to call on and off this date?

- T.K.

Dungeons and Dragons: Candy Corn Vampire

2009-08-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

This post is a stub for an update coming later today~! Sorry, I really wanted to get this out by 8am this morning but business came up and I'm going to be a bit late posting today! My sincerest apologies but rest assured that it's coming out. In the mean time, the inspiration for todays post came from MSPaint Adventures by Andrew Hussie (Team Special Olympics) Definitely check it out and take a look at his wonderful printed and online comics.

Neko The Kitty

2009-08-08T10:43:00.001-07:00

Neko the Kitty by Gar Molloy. It's a web comic about a cat naked Neko and his cute misadventures. I don't need to say more, there is an adorable kitty circling the couch in the gif above you. If you have not already found the comic on your own upon seeing that, go there Now. http://www.nekothekitty.net/

Dungeons and Dragons: The Sexy Hat

2009-08-07T08:59:00.001-07:00

The Sexy Hat Level 10
This fur hat emanates with a resounding aura of absolute beauty that compels on-lookers to attempt to touch it.
Item Slot: Head 5,000 gp
Property: Gain a +2 item bonus to Diplomacy checks
Power (Daily): Standard Action. You can use this power when a target who is not blind is within 2 squares of you. The hat allows you to make an attack of CHA modifier vs. Will but can not provoke an attack of opportunity and does not invoke hostility. If the attack hits, the target is compelled to forgo their next action and attempt to touch the hat. They are considered prone and provoke attacks of opportunity from anyone within 1 square of them as long as they are attempting to touch the hat. Touching the hat takes 1 standard action. If the target is injured while under the effects of The Sexy Hat they are no longer compelled to touch the hat. A target can not be the target of The Sexy Hat more than once every 24 hours.

Dwarf Fortress?

2009-08-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

"So my militia of wrestlers is getting used to their new hammers while the traders are on their way to town, when the ranger gets ambushed by goblins. The traders take off at the first sign of trouble.

When they came back, I bought their entire inventory using goblin-bone crafts and totems, fashioned by my Legendary Bonecarver. How did she become Legendary? Her husband died in the goblin attack, and it sent her into a Fell Mood, whereupon she strangled their child and made a DOOR out of her BONES."

Dwarf Fortress~!

2009-08-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

It's that time again, to dorfen up my fortress!

Dwarf Fortress is a notoriously open ended world developed by Toady One (Tarn Adams) in which the player generates a world to their choosing then plays as a small dwarf settlement trying to survive in the harsh world. There is Very little that can not be done in the game and that which can't be done is being implemented sometime in the near future. Designing your fortress layout to however you want to scheme it, establishing lucrative trade with other civilizations and races, starting wars, masterminding world ending super weapons, farming, herding, fishing, hunting, sparring, glassblowing, appeasing nobles, flooding nobles rooms with lava, economy, smithing, trapping, taming, sieging, being sieged, dragons, ogres, caves, batmen, skeletal elephants, amphibious zombie whales, and however much else unscripted madness!

The game is originally in ASCII for its alpha development period but there are graphic packs that can be applied to it to make it more appeasing to the eye.

The game is also micromanagement intensive as, although dwarfs will do jobs on their own and have basics for self preservation, it's your job to tell them what their job is. Designating what is to be mined out, where to channel ditches, build walls, setup shops, what to make in those shops, establish storage areas, and even tell which dwarf to do which job. It's all very daunting at first but it's actually quite simple to figure out. After killing your fortress once or twice you'll get the idea that "Hey, maybe I should make someone a fisherman! Then we'll have food. I'm a genius." and from there you'll eventually be carving out mechanically controlled pit fall traps that drop entire enemy armies into lava pits, drains the pits after everything's dead, and allows your workers to collect anything not melted in the process (usually valuable iron and steel).

What I come to tell you about today is the list of things being added to the next release of Dorf Fortress expected sometime within the next 1-3 months. The list is extensive on the forum and not everything has been reported if you don't check very meticulously so I'm going to take some of the tedium away of figuring out what's going down.

Top of the list for this release is a compatibility break with the last version of Dwarf Fortress, so none of your saves will carry over! Just like when the game changed from 2D to 3D, the new version is setup so that you'll have more area at your disposal. The break will allow you to move your armies around the world map to explore, conquer, and intercept enemy armies. It will also allow for conquest and tribute from other cities and establishment of your own provinces once you've developed into at least a town with some form of nobility.

Combat is also being changed so that wrestling is more interesting than just "Grab enemy, hurt enemy." Scarring was also added for deep wounds that would otherwise remain open for the rest of that creatures life. Also, damage was rebalanced so that combat is a bit more fair. Also drill sergeants will oversee training. The more skilled the instructor is the less likely he'll be to permit your dorfs from training with masterwork steel axes and use the wooden ones instead.

Creatures will have better descriptions now due to their newly added DNA. Depending on what herds spawn in your world and how Darwinism plays out, you can end up with drastically different creatures than usual. All entities can increase/decrease their life span, change weight and height, alter amount of hair and coloration, increase/decrease nail size (claws etc.), etc. based on how they breed and what turns out to be most useful. This means Eugenics will now be a possibility in Dorf Fortress but as a countermeasure, creatures are being made to understand if certain traits are being purposely selected for execution. This will be most useful for herding to increase meat and milk output for domesticated animals. I know this'll be a great boon to me future mermaid farms.

Skills will now be assigned based on tasks performed and will decrease with time if they're not used. Also, mental stats are in for education. Some of your dorfs can and will have ADHD while others will be top level students. They'll change over time the longer they stick to using that mental stat!

Poison extraction and disease incubation is in! Along with an entire health care revamp. You may now have dwarf doctors apply splints/bandages/etc to injured dorfs to help them stay active while injured or to just speed up the healing process. On the down side, gang green and necrosis are going to be nasty to deal with in unsanitary fortresses so make sure that you give your dorfs some time to deal with their own health~!

On the note of health, dorfs will now bathe and use soap if it's available. In addition to that, they'll trim their hair and nails as they grow and even wipe the blood and vomit off of themselves once in awhile. Amazing!

Besides that, you'll have more control over your squads and more interesting things underground. More random civilizations spawning underground to find, arable land, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, caves, tunnels, chasms, etc. etc.

I hope that clarified everything that's planned for this release to anyone who's a big Dorf Fan~! And remember, if it doesn't involve magma, it's not dorfy enough!

Anno 1404

2009-08-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

Anno Domini 1404, an opaque name from an equally obscure line of games. However, to those familiar to the Anno line the title gleams forth some of the greatest joy they know for it marks a game for the ages. To those unfamiliar to the title, at the very least, it comes off with a cool ring to it.

A strategy/city builder by nature, Anno hails from one of the rarest game niches around, the 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) category. Clearly defined by its diplomatic essences, emphasis on trade, vast archipelago of a world, and desperate balancing act between the needs of its different citizens Anno comes out as incredibly intricate. Often not thought of as ones cup of tea, Anno is actually enjoyable for anyone who enjoys city building games: Civilization, Caesar, Sim City, Light of Altair, Dwarf Fortress, etc to name just a few. The concept is simple, take some wood and tools and go build a colony. From there, the player establishes how they intend to play, feeding their coffers through trade with other colonies, through taxation of large cities, piracy, or conquest. Then, inspired by greed and aspiration, the player may continue to expand into the Eastern cultures to acquire exotic goods either to sell or placate his growing populace. Of course you'll get nowhere without attending to the whims of the ruling class and acquiring their favor(s). Also there are pirates, lots and lots of pirates known as the Corsairs.

The game quickly advances in difficulty for those with ambition but never sets these goals as necessary for a player content with ruling a simple island or chain. A huge plus to the game is its beautifully streamlined trade routing system which is great for getting goods dispersed through your colonies, as not every island is capable of meeting the vast needs of her denizens, something not always seen done very well in similar games. Take Sid Meier's Colonization for example; love the man's games but Colonization loses a lot of its fun when you realize that your trade wagons aren't actually capable of moving from Point A to Point B on their own and that your ships can't seem to find their way back to Europe without you babying them. A major nuisance to a vital part of the game. Exploration in the Anno world, besides being breath-taking, changes the gameplay with every new discovery. Discovering the Sultan, for example, provides the player with access to new technologies for both ship building as well as city construction. Another example would be discovery of pirate islands who will begin attacking your ships and demanding ransom. Depending on how you play you may make allies and enemies with anyone you choose short of your mother country -- any of its colonies are fine though. Such alliances yield just as many benefits as any conquest would, often expanding technological capacities and rare trade goods/artifacts.

So for the meek and the ambitious city builders alike, try an island for once! You won't regret it one bit (Right up until your economy collapses because you forgot to establish a food industry for a colony and they spiraled into riots, leveling the island and collapsing your critical spice plantations, destroying the trade route and sending your main island into a similar tantrum.)

Don't believe me? Then try the demo! It's really a wonderful game that deserves much more exposure than it gets in the gaming community.

Of Manga and Mecha

2009-08-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to be a super hero in a pencil and paper game? Ever wanted to romp around as some over powered monster of a being fighting opponents of dastardly cleverness? Of course you have, you play dungeons and dragons after all. To this extent, if you've ever wanted to play as an incredibly high powered hero, you've probably considered an actual super hero supplement book. This is where Mutants and Masterminds comes in, one of the better supplement books for this task, offering a wide range of viable powers, feats, skills, and the rules to use them in a constructive environment. Of course people are wont to brag about "invincible" heroes in this variant, assuming that if they are immortal then they automatically win any fight by way of attrition. But just like Mr. Immortal from the Marvel universe, that doesn't mean you're particularly useful. So while those players stroke their egos, the villain picks up the bank vault and walks off, not paying a second thought to the taunts of the player. All in all, it's a fairly balanced system that allows for some wild things.

Now, I'm not just saying all of this because I'm bitter that the City of Heroes PnP book will never be coming out and that I won't be getting a refund on my pre-order, not at all. Rather, I'm saying all this because last week Green Ronin released the PDF file of Mecha and Manga for purchase on their website! To anyone who has wanted concrete, balanced rules to emulate any of your favorite cartoons or anime (I honestly don't understand the core difference between the two mediums, they're the same thing to me) for a table top game then this is your one stop source. Mecha & Mangawill boast a selection of rules to allow you to create Mecha (IE: Robotech, Gundam, Evangelion), Super Suit (IE: Guyver, Tekkaman Blade, Ghost in a Shell), Creature Capture (Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher), or any other silly variant that you could possibly want to play with your friends (One Piece, Bleach, Berserk, Akira, Kenshin, Tenshi)

Now don't get me wrong, running around in a dungeon crawl with a cleric, fighter, rogue, and a ranger is nice and all but a little variation is much appreciated! I wish I could give some concrete examples on what's in stored for you but all I have is what's already been offered online by Green Ronin. Unfortunately, I'm unwilling to buy the PDF version from them and the printed books won't ship for a bit longer but the moment that the order arrives you'll have as many details as I can possibly cram on a blog.

Spring Cleaning

2009-08-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

This is just a note that all posts made prior to July, 2009 and all posts categorized as 'Random' have been removed from the site. This is in an attempt to keep this blog as professional as possible. All removed posts have been been archived elsewhere. Thank you for your understanding and continued readership.

NetMonsters by White Mask Productions

2009-08-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

So while trapped in bed sick, I got into a conversation with a friend that brought me to a blast from the past, Net Monsters. A formerly popular PC based game which is reminiscent of Monster Rancher and Pokemon. The player is charged with stopping an evil entity located somewhere on the internet known as Shade. To do this, the player must either find or make web pages with a battle cage of them. Every url on the internet supposedly has some sort of monster on it causing mischief and the cage allows you to catch them. Some monsters are friendly and will join you peacefully, others are stubborn and must be convinced, and some will just outright attack you. There are also rare encounters that can pop up that give you special creatures, crystals to strengthen your Champion Monster, useless trophies, and bosses. There are 84 total bosses you must track down over the web (With multiple occurrences of them happening, so don't worry!) before you may fight Shade.

The entire game is rendered in 3D and is free to play but as a downside, it's a decade old now so the community for it is more or less gone and grown up. Likewise, the studio that produced the game has disappeared in recent years and no longer hosts the download. Some old members are still hosting the file on megaupload and if that link disappears, as it most undoubtedly will, I would be more than happy to put up the files myself for any who are interested.

The game also has a very heavy reliance on player interactivity as a lot of the data necessary to beat the game or just make your life easier in it is time consuming to track down on your own. It was originally expectant of the player to trade heavily with other users to amass this information. As such is the case, I would be more than happy to produce any of the information that is requested on NetMonster DNA or Language on this blog on request. So if you decide to give the game a try or are an old fan who just got nostalgia bombed, feel free to drop a comment with a request or send me an e-mail!

So, you ate the gnome?

2009-07-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Alright, so campaign building right now for 4e. Pretty much have the entire world mapped out and all of the paths and variables accounted for. Not to say that the entire game is scripted but there are finite things you can do. Say, after beginning your adventure you have the choice of going north, south, east, west, or sitting there doing something/nothing. There is theoretically nothing outside of those five things that isn't some sort of combination that can't be improvised based on knowledge of two or more of those. That said, my players made a literal East, crossed a forest and a cave, wound up at a haunted sea, swam across it, and wound up on an island. The island is populated by crabs, gnomes, mushrooms, and raptors. Don't ask how or why, that's just sort of how things turned up (Partly by request of the players, partly because of my own planning, and partly because the combination seemed awesome for their level).

Now, the players started on a campaign of gnome slaughter and eventual subjugation of the gnomes, taking them as servants and placing themselves as their gods. From there, things devolved into them eating gnomes and growing a taste for them. They now demand sacrifices every few months of treasure and gnome children. In exchange, they defend the gnomes from their natural predator, the velociraptors. This agreement has been going on pretty well and using what little I know about anthropology and biology I've been allowing them to develop a civilization off of this. The gnomes will develop customs and rituals, eventually technology and a hierarchy based on the actions of the players and how they interact with the environment.

So heres the dilemma that I'm in -- there is no BBEG at the moment. I planned the world to have a large number of mega monsters, literal pimped out critters who are bigger, more magical, and more terrifying than what a normal elite of their level would be. No BBEG means no set goal for the players, so do I continue on letting them develop part of the world on their own or do I stop adding fun to the island and force them to continue exploring?

I kind of like the idea of them having their own civilization at their beck and call, acting as physical gods among gnomes. Especially giving them an addiction to gnome meat and a reliance on gnomish technologies and equipments that come to being from all of this. From there, their presence can devolve as generations begin to attribute mysticisms too great for them to live up too and they sort of just merge with society or they can retain a seat of power as gods/kings/whatever. I don't know, it seems to lack the direction DnD tends to have/need to be fun. Maybe the free form game style will end up being more fun than combat based dungeon crawls and roll based talking would be?

I've got it! Enormous Enlarged Empowered Elite Giant Skeletal Sperm Whale is in the area. Literal hundreds of minions (None of them are wizards, glee) and the whale do battle against the gnomish army led by our heroes. This will be their low level BBEG. From there, imagination will have to help some more.

A Dress Shirt Issue

2009-07-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

An issue has arisen in formal and informal attire for myself, one that might only be odd to us in America. Here, normally, our dress shirts almost always have a single pocket on the left breast meant to hold napkins or pens or what have you. It has recently come to my attention that all of the dress shirts made in China that I own don't actually have these pockets. This is an alarming issue as, even if it is not actively thought about, the pocket makes up a great deal of how you are perceived.

To change your appearance in a dress shirt all you need is to apply a different object within it. A set of pens for the nerdy types, a pair of glasses for the charmer, a broacher for the touristy, a napkin for the ballroom dancer, or absolutely nothing for the formal/businessman. What then, does a lack of a pocket say about you? Traditionally, in Europe, a lack of a pocket means that you're casual. Not just formal casual but casual casual. It's like a plain white tee shirt and blue jeans. The point of a dress shirt isn't so one can look casual but to provide a serious appeal to ones character.

Now it's understandable that not everyone wants to look super formal all of the time -- that's why we have casual Friday at work after all -- but none of the brands that have their stitching done in China seem to have a breast pocket. This means that, if you aren't watching carefully of where the tag says it's made from, you'll end up with a wardrobe disaster. I'm not saying button ups should make and break your wardrobe but no one wants to be the guy coming in to work in a hot pink shirt. It's a social taboo here in America, so watch what you buy lest you dig yourself into a hole.