The fork is for scale but you can see the start of the second seed I planted a week ago.
Author: Leprekawn
Having witnessed it's glory days ago, I now hold the Malformed Fork and it's wisdom should be spread.
Yeah, I have hobbies. This is one of them. This is a moonflower during the first day of sprout. It’s already nearly twice this big.
Part of my journey in 2014 is trying out new and old games, their mechanical route and figuring out what I like and don’t. I’ve picked up more TableTop pencil and paper RPG books than I care to comment on. Among them stories and histories that I can’t always remember. I’ve started my run through Mutants & Masterminds, a journey that started some years ago as D&D 3.5 was offering it’s infrastructure to anyone who wanted it. This lead to various games with basic rules that were all the same and only the details changed. Crossbow here is a Lazer Kanon there. It was what we might call a second Dark Age after TSR got devoured by Wizards of the Coast (who was then eaten by Hasbro). History aside, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. Currently at it’s 3rd Edition it’s replaced some of that infrastructure for a simpler approach to Superhero gaming.
All you need is a single d20 and time. For RPG veterans, it falls solidly between Storyteller system and Pathfinder for complexity with combat being the only troubling point.
Character construction is very open and allows for a variety of powers in styles I’ve played in other games. Notably I rebuilt a City of Heroes character with the assistance of a sidebook they made “Power Profiles” which was easily the second best purchase I’ve ever made following a main book. There they make themed suggestions on powers and build them using the rules in the main book. No, there’s nothing new, no new powers or options. Everything you ‘need’ is in the main book from civil weapons and vehicles to animals and thugs. I took the time to build myself a resource document to see where Normal People sit compared to Supers.
It’s well done and and easily amusing. You enjoy superhero table games, give me a chat we could meet online and play a dash or if you’re in the PDX we could have coffee over smashing a car and stealing minds.
My amusement moves back and forth regardless of where I want it. Sometimes the same thing can amuse me for six hours and sometimes I can’t stand it for six minutes.
I like to blog what I’m doing but then I feel bad when “What i’m doing” is six hours of this game every week with no variations. That being said I moved in January and I’ve got time on my hands in volumes I’m not sure I know what to do with.
So here I am, blogging again. Let’s talk?
Before January I did a solid run around WoW as my roommate and I brought her boyfriend into the game. Leveling characters and running dungeons with great amusement. You’ll see some pictures and some comments in- or out-of-character as I see fit. This turned into some GW2 (Guild Wars 2) and from there I figured out why I play GW2 and drop it two weeks later.
As I was salvaging and collecting parts for what they call an Ascended Staff, I ran more than a few dungeons for money. It’s the players I encountered, the way they treat playing the game that ruins it for me. A sadness gripped me as I realized this and that I probably won’t go back anytime soon. It’s a very pretty game and you can see some pictures I made over on my tumblr site (I’m sorry, I was just testing out some ideas. I wasn’t cheating on you.) http://egoprovince.tumblr.com/
I’ve been in World of Warcraft again for almost a year now. After a friend threw 20 bucks at me to fish him up some pets ingame. After that it was just easy to leave my account on and join him for a weekly raid. Raiding isn’t my most favorite but I enjoy it enough to return once a week for 2.5 hours. Imagine if you will ~12 half-drunk people doing dumb things and getting killed and trying again. Amusing, yes? And that’s why I go back.
My new roommates play Star Trek Online and moving in started an amusing approach to STO and for two months I played the hell out of it. I’ll play again and again but I’m taking a break to do other things. Notably, Minecraft. Star Trek Online is a solid game and they’ve added and are adding more missions and story, players are building more stories for you to play and the ships are very Star Trek. I recommend it highly as it’s quite a good game (still).
I was playing a phone game, Hay Day, when the farming ideas there kept whispering to my brain. And so I turned my attention back into MC to run around my server and do some farming and exploration.
inFamous: Second Son released, after playing the first two I was an am excited to play it. I’m hoping to have my hands on a new Playstation 4 soon, but regardless you’ll hear my thoughts when I venture there. I’m tweaking some mental ideas about recording some of these games I play, posting to YouTube. We’ll see where that goes.
Comments closedIt’s got some amusing ideas. But on it’s own it’s not worth my 60 bucks. It’s all Multiplayer FPS, no single-player story. The “Campaign” is a military campaign as you fight back and forth.
Some people have called it CoD which may or may not be fair to either game. Regardless it’s not for me.
Oh, i’m back to updating. Time and Attention has recovered properly. Let’s talk about some other games, eh?
Comments closedI’m not deep into FPS games. They get old and tired.
Titanfall has shown promise since i first saw it and then forgot about it last year. It’s one of those rare gems I might buy at Retail Pricing.
Comments closedHere we have a new game coming upon the horizon. Wildstar catches my eye almost immediately for t he tongue-in-check characterization and evil villainy. I swear I watched this cartoon some years ago.
Bundled with the bright colors World of Warcraft was known for will be action-combat, secondary class mechanic choice and <gasp> player housing. I’ll touch on a few of these points, what so we’re sure to be on the same page later when I say “OMG, this is AMAZING..”
Action Combat is new variation in the approach in gaming. Where you can dodge the big red ring of “OH CRAP”, you can sing and dance your way through combat as you wish. Where you’re not arbitrarily locked to one place to finish casting your magick spells. It’s there in Guild Wars 2 and some other games where it shakes up the conventions nicely. The downside in some games is that you -have- to move a lot to avoid getting trounced in combat. It remains to be seen how bad Wildstar will be but in exchange for quality character animation I’ll happily endure the never-ending Dodge’em Up.
Class mechanics are an animal I study in every game I play. It’s almost scientific study with the subtle variations in character development having their own nuances and offshoots. Here in Wildstar you’ll pick a basic class what dictates how you trounce monsters and a profession that dictates what kind of quests and content you’ll encounter. If you go soldier, you’ll see a lot of combat missions and very few exploration, or so I’m reading. An interesting system as they’re tying in armor rewards and abilities to people who delve deep into their profession missions.
All in all an interesting sounding experience. The two great questions arise.. How Much and How Soon?
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And there we were, standing on a tower laden with five ballistae each capable of oblitering my team six ways from Sunday at least a half dozen times. Each ballistae stockpiled with ammunition that would spell out the aforementioned doom should any one of them detonate via sharp impact or fire. Being a aptly prepared wizard I did what I do best.. Edged what I’d call a leaning lightning bolt down a narrow 5ft line through five ugly dudes I really wanted to take off the battlefield.
They responded in kind by one of them trying to stab me with his impromptu spear at great disadvantage. I did my wizard thing with a spell called Mirror Image which always seems to amaze the DM. So several rounds later when the Barbarian had enough of the fight and the Ranger’s player, eager to recycle this character to the Great Beyond, exchanged what would be described in-character as a knowing look I started to panic a little. The barbarian, who I’d Hasted as a means of empowering us to kick even more butt, rushed me and picked up the fighter and myself as he ran us like a linebacker hauling groceries over the edge of the tower, down it’s side and out into the forest some 100ft beyond. Then the tower blew up.
I did that math. That was a scary fight.
Post Update: As the Barbarian is rushing over the side of the tower I remark “Wait.. what about my Clone!?”
Comments closedI liked Minecraft. A lie, in it’s simplest form. I love Minecraft. There are times I like nothing more than to roam and explore and Minecraft does that perfectly.
Cube World was being built as a “hey, this is fun but here’s something slightly different” at one point. And then Mojang brought that guy/team in-house. They’re still building it and it’s in Alpha but it’s very playable and from what I hear and see very amazing. Like.. “I totally don’t see why this isn’t released yet” good.
There are a lot of videos out there, I suggest you pull one down and watch it. If you liked Minecraft you’ll probably love Cube World.
A word of caution, they were under a DDoS for a bit and the site/store had a realm of problems staying up.
Comments closed..and I look forward to it. I never played much of the original. It was too early in my cognitive development, bedecked in details and structure and mechanics that I wouldn’t be able to grasp for nearly 10 years. By then it was too late. But I remembered the level of detail like scraps of legend about Manticores dwelling along a mountain road.
Procedural map, changing trade lanes and a detailed first person control schema. It was hard.
I haven’t read into it heavily now that they’re rebuilding it using new computers and bringing us a quality successor to the classic game. But i have my hopes.
Elite: Dangerous is to be a first person game with multiplayer where you can fly the galaxy, see strange new stars and get shot at by pirates while hauling precious alien brandies.
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