almost almost

I miss blogging... but I'll need another couple weeks until work and home cool down.



I worked 11 hours today. When the software test team is reporting major defects faster than the engineers can fix them, maybe, I don't know, call me crazy... but the software is not ready for release. Luckily I work for a company that is the 800 pound gorilla of its industry, which means we can delay a month or two and get this sh1t right. Not a great situation... but, gawd I hates saying this, polish counts.

I've purposely avoided blogging about the divorce. For obvious reasons such as this site is supposed to be about gaming not my personal life. But I have to say it's going relatively well all things considered... still one of the top five worst experiences of my life (hey... there's a not so fun meme for you). The "other parent" and I are working hard to make the split and transition easy for the kids (and us too). Sigh.

My daughter is using all her charms to talk me into getting a tabby cat at my house (like the one pictured above). I'm more of a dog person... but what can a daddy do when his princess wants something?

Dancing Queen

My friend's family has a beach house, and we did a "boys' weekend" at the coast. A few facts to put the trip in context: Oregon, January, rain and snow and wind, (very) small town, five guys, beer, rum, more beer. We walked down to the beach and in to town a few times, but hung out at the beach house most of the weekend. Much non-PC social gaming this weekend.

Pool. The beach house is decorated in classic 1970s style. However. The pool table upstairs scored big points. A decade ago I could shoot pool. Not so much anymore. Note to self, brush up on billiards skills.

Dance Dance Revolution. At some point late Friday night someone pulls out DDR for the Xbox. Not my idea... but I'm drunk and happy and what the hell. I felt dorky and self conscious at first... but, you know, after you let go of silly notions like pride and shame the game is fun. It works as a party game. I couldn't imagine playing it by myself or stone cold sober. We danced for 4+ hours. But it's not really dancing. More like stomping in time with beat of the techno music. My body was hurting the next day. I recorded a 30-second video clip on my cell phone. Black mail material. Or insurance that a similar clip on my friend's cell phone won't show up on YouTube.

Chess. Four player cutthroat variation. Five second clock. Playing in the local hippie coffee shop Saturday morning. The teams weren't fair though. Our opponents couldn't remember how all the pieces moved. Or so they claimed. All I can say is L2Play newbs!

Halo. Most of my friends are the twitchy console gamer types. They paid me back for slaughtering them at poker and chess. I tried. I died. Over and over. I'll admit I'm not good at these games, but I'm playing against someone who recently spent 10 hours playing PvP on his day off from work. The same guy who refrains from shooting or throwing grenades to "make it fair." Gee, thanks. Hehe.

Poker. Texas Hold 'Em. We played for beers later Saturday night at the one bar in town. I put the hurt to my friends and won 8 beers. I opted for 4 micros instead of 8 light beers. Not that I have anything against PBR, but I was already drunk and I've learned to listen to that little voice that says slow down.

Dance Dance Mortal Kombat. Sunday morning we had the bright idea of trying the DDR pad with other games. Halo was a no go... but Mortal Kombat 2 worked. You can move the characters and attack by "dancing" on the game pad. The "Finish Him" move looks ridiculous but got us talking about the future of how we interface with games.

Out of It

So... I've been out of it lately. That is, I haven't been writing new blog posts or reading blogs for awhile. See the unread count on my Google Reader widget?

Silly me forgot to take Monday off from work. Meh. Slow day and an empty office... perfect for catching up on my reading.

Ryzom First Impressions

Our family camping trip was fun but soggy in the end. The weather was partly cloudy mid-60s on Friday and Saturday. We hiked, ate smores, and splashed our feet in the lake. Saturday night the storm clouds rolled in and poured on us all night. We packed up early and wandered back down the mountain. Camping in Oregon.

Saga of Ryzom
Sunday night I created a character in Ryzom (Mumbles on Arispotle). The newbie experience is well done and easy to follow. My starting profession was mage but I'm free to dabble in other areas. In fact, I'm advancing steadily as a crafter too. Ryzom's crafting feature has more depth then Warcraft but is still simple to learn. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and I was crafting armor for Mumbles in no time.

Moment of truth... Ryzom is merely another "okay game" such as CoV, EQ2, etc. Ryzom has its faults (no z-axis is most annoying to me) but does enough stuff right to make up for it. I like its stylized graphics and more open character development. The community seems friendly to new players. The game's backstory unfolds in a series of well-crafted quests. The mix of sci-fi and fantasy is a refreshing bonus.

One aspect of Ryzom I find intriguing is the skill/spell editor. As Mumbles learns new spells, he gains the component blocks (called stanzas) of that spell. I can edit his current spells to change their affect, range, cost, cooldown time, etc. I can also create new spells from scratch in an easy to understand and use interface. For example, I have a few variations of the basic cold blast spell on my action bar ranging from my opening, long-range, high damage spell to my quick, cheap, almost-out-of-power spell.

I'd like to see spell editing in more games. Some people would be content using their default spells. Other people (such as me) could custom tailor spells to suit their individual play styles. I'm curious what kinds of stanzas the upper levels will bring. I'm tempted to subscribe for a month just to check it out.

Random Junk - Aug 17

Just a few game-related things to write about today. I'm taking off early for another camping trip. Unfortunately the weather turned sour here in the Pacific Northwest, which is unusual for late summer. Last August I took the family camping and the weather was perfect. We spent the days swimming in a mountain lake and catching crawdads. Oh well, I'll pack some balls and Frisbees instead of swim trunks and the raft.

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition
GameFly came through for me. I have the Godfather for the Wii now and I'm liking it. After a short intro, the game surprised with a large number of detailed customization options for my character. I was surprised again when my character "in game" actually looks like the one I spent an hour customizing. Compare that to EQ2 last week where my in game character had more or less the same color hair and wings but that's it.

The controls for the Wii are fun. When my character smacks around a store owner or throws some punk against the wall, I make those same movements with my controllers. Good stuff. I'm looking forward to when we plug our brains directly into the game... now that's immersion.

Saga of Ryzom
Ethic from Kill Ten Rats suggested I check out an MMO called Ryzom. The game sounds intriguing from a quick read of the official site and forums. A mix of sci-fi and fantasy genres. Skill-based character progression. Build skills and spells from scratch. User created content. Friendly, involved community. Sounds great. I downloaded the free trial of Ryzom and will check it out next week.

Lord of the Rings Online
My master plan has remained unchanged... I will play LotRO this October. No, not a free trial. I'll actually go to the store and buy the box and subscribe. The rainy season starts in October, so time to hunker down with a good MMO for nine months.

I'm a bit of a Tolkien fanboy, so I want my experience in the game to be pure and true and magical. I've stopped wearing shoes and started smoking a pipe. I tried engaging Avril in some hot elf-on-hobbit roleplay last night but she wasn't having it. Not true (but not a bad idea...hmm).

I finished rereading the Hobbit last week and started the Fellowship yesterday. I'll read a few chapters a week, finishing with (another) viewing of the movie in late September. I can't believe I just shared that info.

Speed the game

No, I'm not writing about the newest MMO feauturing a bus, explosives, and the voice talents Mr. Reeves. Now that would be a niche game.

I went camping with my son and his scout troop last week. During their down time, they played a card game called Speed. I played a variant when I was younger, so it was cool seeing the boys ranging from ages 11 to 17 challenging each other to quick rounds. Eventually we had to confiscate the decks so the boys would get back to their service projects.

Speed is a shedding type of card game where your goal is to play all the cards in your hand and draw pile before your opponent. To do this, you play cards from your hand as fast as possible that are one higher or lower than one of the cards on the discard piles. Players replenish their hands from their draw piles up to a max of five cards. If all players are unable to play, you put a new card on top of the discard piles from little side decks. There are no turns in speed. You play as quickly as possible. You can play runs of cards at the same time or block your opponent by laying a card on the discard pile first.

The game requires quick thinking and quick reflexes (and a quick wit helps to throw your opponent off with some well timed trash talk). Good qualities to improve. Yes, even the proper way to trash talk.

My son has been challenging me to Speed games every night since we've been back. While he's pretty good at it, he can't match my awe-inspiring skills, lighting-quick reflexes, god-like card playing powers. I kid. Another year or two and he will be beating me consistently instead of the other way around. There's been a few rounds I've one by mere luck.

Last night my five-year-old daughter asked me to teach her to play. She's smart so I knew she'd get how to play the game. But the quickness isn't there. She has troubles telling 6 and 9 apart and forgets the order of 10-J-Q-K-A-2. Ugh. How is she going to win the Junior Texas Hold 'Em Championship if she doesn't know the difference between two pair and a full house? What is her teacher thinking? Sure, she can read books and she's still in preschool, but how is she going to be competitive in the world of high stakes poker? I digress.

Oregon Trail

The first half of my vacation was spent rafting the Deschutes River in Oregon. Twelve guys celebrated a friend's upcoming marriage by floating, drinking, and camping. Good times. Still recovering. I could handle shots of Jager off the bottle ten years ago, but now I'm just hurting for days.

Saturday's stretch of water was easy, so I had time to stretch out and admire the scenery. Seeing rugged landscapes got me thinking about pioneers and the Oregon Trail. Growing up in Oregon means learning a great deal about this piece of history. As an adult, I couldn't begin to imagine the hardships involved with loading up your family on a wagon and traveling across the plains and mountains and deserts. But as a middle-schooler in the mid-80s, Oregon Trail meant playing that old school edutainment game (named, of course, Oregon Trail) on the library's Apple II computers.

I'd forgotten about how much I loved that game until I was daydreaming on the Deschutes, hung over and sun baked. The game may have taught me some history, but talk about fun. You created a family, got supplies, and then traveled across America to Oregon. I remember you had many decisions to make along the way and the consequences were serious. I don't know how many family members I lost along the way. Oregon Trail also had a shooter mini-game when you hunted for deer. A bug in the game could be exploited to give you near unlimited food or money. I can't remember the specifics of the loophole.

I want to play that game again, just to see if it lives up to my fond memories. I doubt it would. Things seemed so much bigger, better, and cooler through kid eyes. Oh well.

Tomorrow I leave to go camping with my son and his scout troop for the rest of the week. I may get a little game time in tonight. I read a review of Dungeon Runners and it looks intriguing.

-Link