So tonight is supposed to be the big night where I first get a shot at killing a bunch of player characters. I'm not that crazed about killing PCs, really, but I don't mind doing it if it happens. I finished up with the input of the needed monsters from the Monster's Manual and pretty much all of the Player's Handbook, so I'm in good shape there. I decided to just add stuff I was interested in to the existing library, at least for now. As time goes on, I will probably resort to splitting out a Supplemental Module that contains both Monsters, Skills, Classes, Races from other sources, but the ones I really like I will incorporate into the Core versions that I have. As it stands now, I can see the Dragon rituals, the Star Pact powers, Warforged, Artificers and the non-named Scales of War monsters making it into my core. If I get ambitious, I'd love to allow playable Dopplegangers, Lycanthropes and some other monsters, but I think those would need some collaboration to get working right.
I've spent the last two nights fighting with Firewalls, trying to make sure that players will actually be able to connect to my campaign. It still didn't work last night, so I'm fairly well concerned about it tonight. It will be an adventure unto itself, no doubt. Hopefully, everyone can show up and get connected long enough to get characters rolled up, and if we're really lucky, maybe we can run a quick battle to make sure I know how these things work.
Up next week (assuming this week works!) - starting entering Siege at Bordrin's Watch into FG and updating the ruleset to 1.1.0 and the new parsers (now with rituals!). Fun fun.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Getting Ready to DM
I've been pretty quiet here for a while now, I'm just not that into recording my thoughts on the various games I've been playing: it takes too much time away from playing them! My biggest thing, game-wise, that I have going on now is getting ready to use Fantasy Grounds II to run a bunch of GWJers through Dungeon Magazine's Scales Of War Adventure Path. I've probably spent 15 hours on adding maps, story blocks, characters, monsters so far, and I'm not even done! I finally had a breakthrough in getting the parsers working, so I can start the painful data entry with tools, instead of trying to hand-do everything. Once I get a good part of the PHB and MM entered, I definitely want to get a bunch of stuff from the magazines entered, too; I just need to decide if I want a third (and fourth) Library, or a beefier set of two - I'm leaning towards two.
My plan is to actually keep some sort of a journal of what I did to DM this here, and update the Wiki with the story parts. It will be a lot of work, but I think it might be really fun, too.
My plan is to actually keep some sort of a journal of what I did to DM this here, and update the Wiki with the story parts. It will be a lot of work, but I think it might be really fun, too.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Stack Pop
Bioshock is complete!
I really enjoyed the game, even if I felt there was a bit much after the pivotal moment. The game got almost shockingly easy in the later levels, it makes me wish (yet again) for more developers to put in a sliding scale for difficulty through the whole game. To this day I don't know any game that does that. Let me make your game go Easy mode for the first few levels, then make it more difficult when I want, then REALLY HARD or back to easy at any point. Great atmosphere the whole time, and just creepy enough to make me nervous, but not so much that I can't play. Up next? Either all-Gold in Mario Kart Wii or Overlord, maybe System Shock 2 (but that is terrifying!).
I really enjoyed the game, even if I felt there was a bit much after the pivotal moment. The game got almost shockingly easy in the later levels, it makes me wish (yet again) for more developers to put in a sliding scale for difficulty through the whole game. To this day I don't know any game that does that. Let me make your game go Easy mode for the first few levels, then make it more difficult when I want, then REALLY HARD or back to easy at any point. Great atmosphere the whole time, and just creepy enough to make me nervous, but not so much that I can't play. Up next? Either all-Gold in Mario Kart Wii or Overlord, maybe System Shock 2 (but that is terrifying!).
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Objectivism in Bioshock
I have not read Ayn Rand, so my exposure to the notion of Objectivism is limited to other people's discussions of it with regard to Bioshock; the most excellent and engaging shooter from Ken (System Shock) Levine. In summary, I take Objectivism to be the notion of applying the purest following of Capitalist theory to one's life. Bioshock takes place in Rapture, an underwater city created by Andrew Ryan to be an objectivist utopia. [WARNING] I have not finished Bioshock yet, but I have had some story elements spoiled for me, and will be discussing those spoiled parts, and the parts of the game I have gotten to - parts that really impacted me when playing - in this post.[/WARNING]
The game opens on a plane crash in the ocean, from which you are apparently the only survivor. By a crazy coincidence, the flaming wreckage is near a small island that has a submarine that will transport you to Rapture. When you get there, things are in a state of utter disaster: people addicted to ADAM are running around, insane with their addiction, willing to kill for no provocation; and thumping around the city are huge, well armed and armored in scuba suits are "Big Daddies" protecting freaking "Little Sisters" who are harvesting the ADAM from corpses. As you explore, a radio voice named Atlas talks you around the place, and you draw the ire of Ryan, listening to tapes people have left behind to expose the story of the fall of Rapture. Ryan's dream is that people can accomplish whatever they are capable of, and no one has the right to slow them down or get in anyone's way. This is where the city started to get in trouble; as science made the breakthrough of genetic modification, but the first cost was to create these creepy girls, and the later costs were insanity. Being big believers in a free market, the citizens of Rapture made the market of ADAM very rich, with nothing to slow it down. Ryan seems to see the decline, but idealistically is unwilling to act against it. Yet at the same time, he has created a level of authoritarianism to keep his city intact, going as far as to execute criminals, and putting lethal security drones in place to kill trespassers and thieves.
I'm not clear on Atlas's reasons for hating Ryan initially, nor Ryan's reasons for wanting to capture and kill Atlas, but by helping Atlas, your character is put into Ryan's crosshairs. Sadly, the story element of your playing as Ryan's son was spoiled for me very early: before the Christmas break when I had planned on playing the game. The other major story element that was spoiled for me was the existence of the battle against Atlas at the end of the game. Considering your lineage, the Atlas battle makes sense, especially given the (unspoiled for me, anyway) murder of Atlas' family by Ryan, apparently in an effort to spite Atlas. At the point of the game that I'm at (hunting purified water and honey), I hate Andrew Ryan. The man sat back and watched as his creation, Rapture, fell apart around him, letting people suffer and die because the market willed it. I think of myself as a Libertarian who votes with the Democratic party because the civic freedoms of the party combined with the humanitarian leaning (or socialist leanings!) of the party are closer to what I want to see from humanity than the economic freedom at the cost of compassion and civic freedom that I see espoused by the Republican party. So far, Bioshock has soured me on the blind following of a free market that I would have liked to see when I was younger, and made me look at how important some level of control is. It's not often that a game makes me think about the shape of the world, let alone change my mind about a good way to run things.
The game opens on a plane crash in the ocean, from which you are apparently the only survivor. By a crazy coincidence, the flaming wreckage is near a small island that has a submarine that will transport you to Rapture. When you get there, things are in a state of utter disaster: people addicted to ADAM are running around, insane with their addiction, willing to kill for no provocation; and thumping around the city are huge, well armed and armored in scuba suits are "Big Daddies" protecting freaking "Little Sisters" who are harvesting the ADAM from corpses. As you explore, a radio voice named Atlas talks you around the place, and you draw the ire of Ryan, listening to tapes people have left behind to expose the story of the fall of Rapture. Ryan's dream is that people can accomplish whatever they are capable of, and no one has the right to slow them down or get in anyone's way. This is where the city started to get in trouble; as science made the breakthrough of genetic modification, but the first cost was to create these creepy girls, and the later costs were insanity. Being big believers in a free market, the citizens of Rapture made the market of ADAM very rich, with nothing to slow it down. Ryan seems to see the decline, but idealistically is unwilling to act against it. Yet at the same time, he has created a level of authoritarianism to keep his city intact, going as far as to execute criminals, and putting lethal security drones in place to kill trespassers and thieves.
I'm not clear on Atlas's reasons for hating Ryan initially, nor Ryan's reasons for wanting to capture and kill Atlas, but by helping Atlas, your character is put into Ryan's crosshairs. Sadly, the story element of your playing as Ryan's son was spoiled for me very early: before the Christmas break when I had planned on playing the game. The other major story element that was spoiled for me was the existence of the battle against Atlas at the end of the game. Considering your lineage, the Atlas battle makes sense, especially given the (unspoiled for me, anyway) murder of Atlas' family by Ryan, apparently in an effort to spite Atlas. At the point of the game that I'm at (hunting purified water and honey), I hate Andrew Ryan. The man sat back and watched as his creation, Rapture, fell apart around him, letting people suffer and die because the market willed it. I think of myself as a Libertarian who votes with the Democratic party because the civic freedoms of the party combined with the humanitarian leaning (or socialist leanings!) of the party are closer to what I want to see from humanity than the economic freedom at the cost of compassion and civic freedom that I see espoused by the Republican party. So far, Bioshock has soured me on the blind following of a free market that I would have liked to see when I was younger, and made me look at how important some level of control is. It's not often that a game makes me think about the shape of the world, let alone change my mind about a good way to run things.
Monday, May 26, 2008
May gaming summary.
There is a small chance of me posting more before the end of the month, but let's be realistic, this is the only post for May.
Gamefly sent me Call of Duty 4 for the 360. I did well enough on the tutorial mission for the game to recommend "Hardened" difficulty, but I went with "Normal" instead. Very glad I did that, since there were loads of sections on Normal that took me long enough to get past that I was almost ready to give up. I hear that was a common complaint about the game. I did start it back up on Veteran difficulty (looking for more Achievements), but that drove home the game's weaknesses: the AI scripting that is so typical of the Call of Duty series was driven home, the varying difficulty just meant that the AI shot faster, and took more bullets to die, while I took less. The game took some serious risks with the story, and I thought they paid out extremely well. So many of the moments in the game will go down as high points in recent year's gaming experiences, or at least some of the disturbing moments. The first mission involves killing sailors in their sleep for god's sake! The game was excellent, and anyone willing to be faced with a seriously adult game (no sex, but damn was it 'real' violence) should rent it without question. I don't think it is worth buying, but it is absolutely must-play.
Props for Gamefly on turnaround. I put CoD4 in the mail on a Tuesday, and got the replacement disc (Raving Rabbids 2) on Saturday. Not much time invested in RR2, but from what I've seen so far it feels like a bit of a turn-key game, lacking some of the joy of the first one, but all of the games are better tuned, and the "story" mode is put together in a much, much better way.
This month saw the release of Mario Kart Wii. I got it day one, of course. Reviews have been brutal towards it, and I'm getting pretty fed up with the bullshit bias. Two days after MKWii came out, was GTA4: probably the most hyped release in a year, and that includes Halo 3. There are arguments against Mario Kart, some design decision that I disagree with, and the usual Wii complaints, but it is a solid entry in the Mario Kart family. The frustrating part for me is the types of complaints people are spewing, especially considering the GTA4 reviews. Fawning over GTA's evolution, building upon previous versions, fixing some of the flaws of the older games, but maintaining the same base game play. Then Mario Kart deals with reviews that savage the game's adherence to the old formulas, compaints of only adding online play and motorcycles to the game. I don't understand people sometimes. The game is fun, they update the number of racers from 8 to 12, they put in motorcycles, they added air tricks, they removed snaking, they put in the best on-line on a Nintendo system so far. Nothing major, right? Oh, the game is very similar to the DS version of Mario Kart, like the biggest change is bikes and no snaking. Bikes are a significant change in game play. I'm not much of a fan so far, but they are cool. There is no more double dash action, which sucks. In a perfect world, I'd like to see bikes, karts and two-rider karts. The on-line works to a nearly XBox 360 level, without the voice. They even put in an ability to get the game-specific friend codes just through the Wii friend code interface. Big step in the right direction, Nintendo, keep it up.
In Burnout Paradise, I completed my final license, the Elite! Very satisfying, but it started to get tough at the end. I needed half a million points on three different Stunt Runs, which in theory is easy, since I nailed a 2.5 million stunt run. No way! it took me ages to pull those off. Good times, though, now I just hope to complete two sections of online challenges to get the last car unlocked, and hope to do it before they release the new set of challenges. Online for this game is going to explode with the new patch: Stunt Run, Marked Man, Road Rage and timed challenges.... I'm so psyched! I love that game.
I grabbed a bunch of Rock Band songs over the course of the month, missed the one McDonald's promotional song I wanted, but barely played Rock Band at all. When I finally booted it up, the number of songs I had that I had never played was crazy! I still have tons of fun playing that game, but it can be hard to pull out all of the fake plastic toys to rock out when it has such a high wake-the-family score.
I hope to either add more to this post, or toss in another one to close out the month, maybe with some Bioshock chit-chat. Anyway, see ya.
Gamefly sent me Call of Duty 4 for the 360. I did well enough on the tutorial mission for the game to recommend "Hardened" difficulty, but I went with "Normal" instead. Very glad I did that, since there were loads of sections on Normal that took me long enough to get past that I was almost ready to give up. I hear that was a common complaint about the game. I did start it back up on Veteran difficulty (looking for more Achievements), but that drove home the game's weaknesses: the AI scripting that is so typical of the Call of Duty series was driven home, the varying difficulty just meant that the AI shot faster, and took more bullets to die, while I took less. The game took some serious risks with the story, and I thought they paid out extremely well. So many of the moments in the game will go down as high points in recent year's gaming experiences, or at least some of the disturbing moments. The first mission involves killing sailors in their sleep for god's sake! The game was excellent, and anyone willing to be faced with a seriously adult game (no sex, but damn was it 'real' violence) should rent it without question. I don't think it is worth buying, but it is absolutely must-play.
Props for Gamefly on turnaround. I put CoD4 in the mail on a Tuesday, and got the replacement disc (Raving Rabbids 2) on Saturday. Not much time invested in RR2, but from what I've seen so far it feels like a bit of a turn-key game, lacking some of the joy of the first one, but all of the games are better tuned, and the "story" mode is put together in a much, much better way.
This month saw the release of Mario Kart Wii. I got it day one, of course. Reviews have been brutal towards it, and I'm getting pretty fed up with the bullshit bias. Two days after MKWii came out, was GTA4: probably the most hyped release in a year, and that includes Halo 3. There are arguments against Mario Kart, some design decision that I disagree with, and the usual Wii complaints, but it is a solid entry in the Mario Kart family. The frustrating part for me is the types of complaints people are spewing, especially considering the GTA4 reviews. Fawning over GTA's evolution, building upon previous versions, fixing some of the flaws of the older games, but maintaining the same base game play. Then Mario Kart deals with reviews that savage the game's adherence to the old formulas, compaints of only adding online play and motorcycles to the game. I don't understand people sometimes. The game is fun, they update the number of racers from 8 to 12, they put in motorcycles, they added air tricks, they removed snaking, they put in the best on-line on a Nintendo system so far. Nothing major, right? Oh, the game is very similar to the DS version of Mario Kart, like the biggest change is bikes and no snaking. Bikes are a significant change in game play. I'm not much of a fan so far, but they are cool. There is no more double dash action, which sucks. In a perfect world, I'd like to see bikes, karts and two-rider karts. The on-line works to a nearly XBox 360 level, without the voice. They even put in an ability to get the game-specific friend codes just through the Wii friend code interface. Big step in the right direction, Nintendo, keep it up.
In Burnout Paradise, I completed my final license, the Elite! Very satisfying, but it started to get tough at the end. I needed half a million points on three different Stunt Runs, which in theory is easy, since I nailed a 2.5 million stunt run. No way! it took me ages to pull those off. Good times, though, now I just hope to complete two sections of online challenges to get the last car unlocked, and hope to do it before they release the new set of challenges. Online for this game is going to explode with the new patch: Stunt Run, Marked Man, Road Rage and timed challenges.... I'm so psyched! I love that game.
I grabbed a bunch of Rock Band songs over the course of the month, missed the one McDonald's promotional song I wanted, but barely played Rock Band at all. When I finally booted it up, the number of songs I had that I had never played was crazy! I still have tons of fun playing that game, but it can be hard to pull out all of the fake plastic toys to rock out when it has such a high wake-the-family score.
I hope to either add more to this post, or toss in another one to close out the month, maybe with some Bioshock chit-chat. Anyway, see ya.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Stack Pop
Psychonauts is complete. The "last boss" was just a precursor. I had some kind of odd bug which prevented me from being able to beat him in my first try. I actually had to die 5 times to get the continue, so I could load the game without this one board protecting the glass brain case on the giant tank. I thought this boss was too easy, and the game more than made up for it. The final level of the game is just sick sick sick. Time limits, impossible jumps, another pseudo-boss-fight, and a new type of play for the final boss with some new magical powerup in order to beat him. At least the ending cinematic was pretty good, even though the weak sales of this great game preclude it getting the sequel so hinted at. All in all, a really solid experience, and until the last level, I highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested.
My 360 should be back by next Monday, but by then Lars will probably have bought Burnout Paradise, and I intend to get some progress on Overlord this weekend. I have a hard choice to make when I get the 360 back: Bioshock or Overlord. I really want to get Bioshock done so I don't have to worry about spoilers, but Overlord is ready to be played right now. I think I'll do what I can in Overlord this weekend, and evaluate the Bioshock dilemma when I get the 360 back. I miss Rock Band!
My 360 should be back by next Monday, but by then Lars will probably have bought Burnout Paradise, and I intend to get some progress on Overlord this weekend. I have a hard choice to make when I get the 360 back: Bioshock or Overlord. I really want to get Bioshock done so I don't have to worry about spoilers, but Overlord is ready to be played right now. I think I'll do what I can in Overlord this weekend, and evaluate the Bioshock dilemma when I get the 360 back. I miss Rock Band!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
March failure
I almost made my goal of beating Psychonauts in March. I probably would have done it, but with the 360 out of commission, I was missing the social aspect of gaming, so I jumped on one month of WoW. Just in time for the 2.4 patch, which raised the experience given from quests, so I was able to go from 51 to 53 in two days. Granted, 51-52 was based mostly on Kevin helping me out with his level 56 Hunter. We were able to blast through 5 quests in no time. I was able to do level 53 all by myself, just by cleaning up a few straggler quests and getting some Alterac Valley quests. That obviously means I got to try AV. I sort of hated Warsong Gulch, as a Priest, but I loved Araethi Basin. Even AB pales in comparison to AV. The massive, massive battles, tons of players clashing over snowy fields. Even though I am the bottom of the rung at this bracket, and unable to wear any armor heavier than cloth, I get to participate, sometimes just by following some level 60 Warrior and keeping them healthy (until the Alliance punks realize that you always kill the healers). I hold out some small hope that I will hit 60 with some help from Kevin and his group of players before the month is up, but in the meantime, AV is a lot of fun, and well worth 15 bucks if I get some more play time on it.
This past weekend I focused on getting Psychonauts finished up. I didn't quite make it, but I did make good progress. I was in the insane asylum, and had figured out the three people I had to help to get to the top of it. The thing is, I wasn't expecting each of these three characters to be a full-blown level on their own. With that in my way, I only managed to finish one of them on Sunday, then the other two Monday night. Late Monday night. Then I stayed up later trying to get to the real end, and that was another 25 minutes, just to get to the final boss. So Psychonauts remains uncompleted for March, but I figure as long as I have it done before this weekend, I can call this a triumph. Huge success.
This past weekend I focused on getting Psychonauts finished up. I didn't quite make it, but I did make good progress. I was in the insane asylum, and had figured out the three people I had to help to get to the top of it. The thing is, I wasn't expecting each of these three characters to be a full-blown level on their own. With that in my way, I only managed to finish one of them on Sunday, then the other two Monday night. Late Monday night. Then I stayed up later trying to get to the real end, and that was another 25 minutes, just to get to the final boss. So Psychonauts remains uncompleted for March, but I figure as long as I have it done before this weekend, I can call this a triumph. Huge success.
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