Last night and this morning, I tried out four levels of the new leveling experience in the Troll Area. There are no spoilers here, but, mechanic wise it has been an amazing experience. If all the new player experiences across the races are this way, then, World of Warcraft is doing something right. Rather than tips, the mechanics of playing your class are introduced during game play as part of quests, before you have to even kill your first creature. Some of the first pieces of gear you get already have a stat and already look passable, rather than ragged. They are no Tier 10, obviously, but the gear is stylish enough to grab a new player, because they see an improvement to the character. There were other small things that surprised me. One of them, was an NPC who talked to me about how he was done with his training too and about the next quest area as I passed by him, as though, he was part of my same experience. The quest style mirrors that of the Northrend experience, in that, there are a mixture of kill quests, gathering quests, and quests with unique mechanics. All of them are setup differently, so that, you really understand you’re repeating the same things but the story makes you feel as though you are participating in different events. While I’ve only gone through four levels, I am wholly impressed that Blizzard could manage to make the game feel completely new using the area that I’ve seen for five years.
I am way behind in a few things. On Firan, I have a lot of important but busy things to finish up. I am hoping to find some inspiration to finish tomorrow. On World of Warcraft, I got decision paralysis over the sheer amount of things I could do. I finally chose the Diplomat title with the help of super tank, Tyrolos. The Diplomat title requires you to get exalted with three groups. I gathered the last feathers for the Timbermaw tonight. I always catch up, with time. The rest if this evening, well, it’s time to finish reading A Feast for Crows.
I haven’t done anything all week, because I was too tired. So, I don’t have much amazing to write here. Today, I finally feel like I can participate in things, so, I must have caught up with my lack of sleep over our Air Conditioning free weekend. Right now, my moderate project is to write some shipping code for FiranMUX. I’ve had this idea for a while, so, I’m putting it into play, as it should not take that long. Really, I already wrote the main command and just need to put things into action. The idea behind this is that the military will be able to send things back and forth between cities where they may be operating. This means wizards don’t directly have to be involved. More so, the way I am writing this code – players are solely responsible for their shipments. Anyone in the Coalition military can ship for free to the destination and civilians can for a cost that goes into the military operating account. We have code to handle the part in between and players still get to RP out the fun distribution of things. If all goes well this weekend and we don’t end up running around flailing like we did last week, I should have this done by Monday.
As a friend pointed out, it’s been a long time since I posted here about actual roleplaying. I tried to blog at night, when I had more time, but apparently, I’m not as fresh and can’t remember what I was doing all week. The coffee hour in the morning seems to be the best time to make a post. On Tuesday night, I did my only mission for war season this year. After Kinslayer, Brandon took over with this one and I took a break, so that I could be fresh for the fall/winter GMing. This was a gang mission. In previous war seasons, the Republic had made a deal with Thalos for some stenis. This made the gangs friendly. However, the Republic never made good on the deal and then Kinslayer happened and the Republic became a Coalition. Needless to say, the gangs had some hurt feelings here.
The evening started out with an explosion and a squirrely Thalos. Thalos is one of the Eesani cousins who runs the gang in the city of Ellish. Curtio is the brains and Thalos is the muppet arms. We never seem to play Curtio, even though he is the brains. I think this works out better, since Thalos isn’t as smart. He’s easier to manipulate in that way and in different ways that aren’t straight forward and also a little fun. Thalos spends the first part of the evening trying to cover for massive explosions that are occurring in the gang hideouts. Surprisingly, the players brought a woman dressed as a “naughty medic”. This played really well into the fact that Thalos was previously viewed to be a lecherous man. We were really impressed with the idea that players had taken the time to consider what Thalos would be interested in.
Ultimately, the players discover that Thalos found some small firebombs and stored them in a cellar. Some of them are unstable, and in trying to get rid of them before Curtio gets back from patrol, they blew up part of the hideout. The players made rolls to determine if the bombs were live or duds and then a roll to see if they could carry the bomb safely. It was a one failure or botch, one kill scenerio. A bomb going off would have ensured permanent injury/near death/death. Luckily, they passed their roll. While the players could not have known this at the time, just simply trying was enough to get Thalos’ buy in. However, they went beyond that and removed all the bombs, thus sparing Thalos from Curtio’s continued wrath (did we mention that Thalos accidentally stabbed and killed Curtio’s brother?). In return for their silence to Curtio, Thalos offered them gang members as guides through Ellish. In return for guides through Ellish, Thalos ended up with two chicks at the same time.
I love playing Thalos. It is such a guilty pleasure to be a little bit skeevy and a little bit humorous. While Ellish is, a serious and often scary story, I love that we are able to break the tension here and there. It makes it a real place, a place of joy and sadness for me.
Yesterday was a pretty stressful day. I managed to overcome it, but in that stress, I decided that I wanted to hear more of the story about Rapture and that I would pick up Bioshock 2 and give it a whirl. I don’t have much to write here today, mainly because, I am prepping to start the game and see how it goes. If it’s anything like Bioshock, then, I imagine I will really enjoy it.
This weekend, I was able to finish Bioshock. I am not great at finishing games, so, I’m really proud of the fact that I stuck it out through this entire story. Even though I completed the gut wrenching section; the resolution was well worth it. It wasn’t the same confusing ride, but, the ending was really unexpected and worth it. Well, I guess I kind of expected it but not fully. I am really excited to delve into Bioshock 2, but, I decided to finish some other games first. However, I don’t think it will be long until I get into a new Bioshock story. Originally, I was under the impression that Bioshock 2 was a sequel. But now, I realize it’s just another thread in a similar theme. I kind of like that style. There are many worlds which are so vibrant and very few of them take this sort of approach. For this reason, I think Bioshock Infinite will also be very cool. Also, SKY CITY. What more do you need?
I had not been playing it in favor of other games, but, a friend wondered why I had not finished Harry Potter, so, I picked it back up to see what work I could do with this one. This is short, that’s because Lego Harry Potter is on the TV. See you later! I must go zap blocks.
For those of you who have played the game, I restarted Bioshock last night and made it through to Neptune’s Bounty. It really did not lose any of the magic in the second play through. In fact, because I understood the mechanics better, I was less worried about how to handle the mechanics and able to enjoy the ambiance a lot more. It made it creepier when I wasn’t fidgeting for buttons and instead could spend more time listening and looking around. It gave me more time to absorb the diaries and the incredible storyline.
Today, I got a trial of Starcraft II running on my computer. Now, I have never played Warcraft or Starcraft. I am a complete imbecile at RTS games. However, I am pleasantly surprised that Starcraft has a storyline far deeper than I expected in campaign mode. When I think of RTS games, I think of peering over Bill’s shoulder while he made a bunch of things. It didn’t seem to compel me. In Starcraft, though, I really want to shoot hologram boards and free the people of the colony. I’m not sure how they manage to make those peeples (tiny people in an RTS according to me) bring that much emotion, but, they did it.
I’ve been playing Bioshock and I got to the Arcadia section and decided to start from the beginning. Let me explain, so, Bioshock is a game where you really learn as you go. There was so much I did not know how to do when I started that I didn’t poke into every corner. It’s really not a game that you shouldn’t go everywhere you can go. Also, in System Shock 2, you could shoot security cameras. I didn’t really understand how to deal with them and they nearly killed me many times. Now that I have these skills under my belt I want to restart, relax, and take it in more. The story line is really incredible and I’m really playing it for the really great, intense story that it brings. In case you are wondering, I’m going down the path of light first, though, I really want to be a jerk for a second round to see what happens.
Not really, but, I thought it was an amusing title. Tonight, I got our webcam working and I joined 2010 so I could use it to talk to family over Skype. I was really worried it would be a pain to setup. Plug and play peripherals like to be plug and spend hours figuring it out. However, we got a little HP webcam and it was really easy to work with and I didn’t have any problems getting it working out of the box. It was actually harder to figure out how to get it to stay on my monitor properly than it was to set it up. It’s amazing what you can do these days and it seems so easy! In my time, you had to take a picture, wait for it to develop for three weeks and then mail it. KIDS THESE DAYS.
