May 30, 2009

Back Home: The Nerdage Continues

Hello all. I am back in IL, and I finally have time to blog about the things that I care about. April and May were ridiculous months and I'm hoping that things will be less ridiculous now that I am a graduate and looking for a job. Technically I already have one, but I'm considering my options and wondering what I want to do with my life.

So what nerd things have I been up to?

My last Friday on campus I played a one shot of the World of Darkness: Innocents setting. Now I'm usually not a fan of World of Darkness, but not only was a friend of mine running it but I was intrigued by the idea of playing someone between the ages of 7 and 12.  I played a very effeminate third grade boy that had a pet rat named Priscilla.  When I look back now that kind of character would've been better for a campaign than a one shot, but I had a great time.  I still find the World of Darkness system kind of annoying, but that's always been an instinct, nothing ever based on real facts in front of me.  Again, a great time and a fantastic idea that was implemented well.

After graduation I walked around Time Square, and going into the huge Toys R' us reminded me that I STILL need to see the Star Trek movie.  Tell me NOTHING!  I'm seeing it this Thursday and I will cast my judgement then.  But I still want a phaser and a tricorder regardless.

Finally, I am keeping up with some of the stuff going on with E3 and I am most excited for Mass Effect 2.



It looks like the story is still going to be intrguing.  I'm hoping the gameplay is still great.  I'm friggin' excited!  I'm also excited for Prototype, which is so far looking great still.

I'm going to miss my friends from school, but with the Boyfriend and some other great people, the nerdage continues.


May 26, 2009

Graduated!

This Sunday I graduated college, and this Monday I did my last day of my campus job while training the person who's taking my place next year.

Unfortunately April and May have been sparse on content, and I apologize, but I will be back in the groove soon. But right now I'm going to spend some time in NY with the boyfriend before heading back home to wonderful Chicago.

When I get back, gaming season it is!

May 18, 2009

Meet the Spy Video

There are two things that will almost win me over for any video game. Either that's good humor or good story. The former is the focus on today's awesome video find.



For those of you who don't know, the spy says at the end "My little cabbage." It's actually a traditional term of endearment in French.

I also haven't ever played Team Fortress 2, but I support its existence nonetheless because it has proven to be an awesome game to everyone else who I know has played it.

May 17, 2009

Lakitu gives the news.

I like keeping up with a lot of the stuff on the Escapist site. Interesting articles and hilarious videos, including the mini-series There Will Be Brawl. It plays out like a drama but it is so funny when you know who all the characters are.

The latest video is hilarious, whether or not you keep up with the series. It starts with Lakitu giving the news, but then you get to see how he is when the camera isn't rolling.



In other news I can't wait to graduate and be able to do more of the things that allow me to post in my blog. When I get back to IL I'm going to start doing more with RPGs and video games on my own, not just random link sharing. Keep on the look out for awesome content.

May 13, 2009

ASU snubbs Obama



Really Arizona State? You really couldn't give an honorary degree to the President of the United States? Let alone the first African American President of the United States.

Let alone the first open trekkie President of the United States?

Dude, that's cold.

May 12, 2009

Newsflash: You can legitimately use the word noob!



Apparentely noob is the millionth word added to the English language by the Global Language Monitor. Well I'm having a hard time finding that article on the GLM website but the countdown to the milionith word is on there site if you want to check it out.

I wish I had known, since I just turned in my last undergraduate essay last night. Should've worked 'noob' in.

May 8, 2009

Three Years of Adventuring: Honoring the Player Characters

Last night was my last D&D session for my game here at college.  I'm honestly extremely sad about it.  I didn't realize it until about 3 hours into the session and by that time the huge baddy that had been the influence of the whole campaign was dead.  

The thing that made this the best game ever was the way the PCs balanced each other out by the time my game ended.  Here, I would like to pay homage to who was at my last session, and how they've grown.

Torrin was the one multiclassing PC in the game, and luckily this wasn't because of munchkining.  Okay, not completely.  Torrin was a Chaotic Good Rogue/Ranger/Shadowdancer.  He was introduced to the party by a very powerful NPC, and as soon as he got in he helped the party release an ancient god from her prison.  Torrin was really good at sneaking around things, and helped the party get info and treasure.  He had some good luck with the deck of many things the party encountered, and was the only one to escape a research facility alive and in tact.  The guy playing Torrin was a very good sport about being a campaign with a lot of undead, considering all his sneak attack bonuses were lost.  Torrin's epilogue: he's taking over the gang he infiltrated for the Cornwellian Kingdom (the one the party worked for the entire campaign) and trying to make it a good bunch of unlawful drug sellers and pimps.  Good luck with that, Torrin!

Illiana was a Half-Elf Ranger who was looking for the human side of her family when she was recruited, around the same time Torrin was.  Her main objective was to kick Yuan-ti butt, and boy did she ever!  Great archer, and also found the best way to implement spies: talking to animals.  She helped the party find out a lot of information, and always had a lot of spirit.  Also played by the calmest person in the group, which helped somewhat considering she was helping my counter four rowdy nerd guys.  Illiana's fate after the campaign was to keep on pushing the Yuan-ti back away from her homelands, with the assistance of the Cornwellian Kingdom now that she's earned a lot of respect.  I'm sure they're scared of you now, Illiana!

Tyberius was a political man from day one.  After seeing that the Vidrigez Kingdom wasn't recognizing his genius, he joined the good guys as their resident Cleric (Half-elf Lawful Neutral Cleric of St. Cuthbert to be exact) and rebelled against the country who didn't treat him with the respect he felt he deserved.  Because of his aid, the facility that had damaged the rest of the PCs so much was peacefully taken over, and the heal spells were a plenty.  Although Tyberius was a man of action, he did take a couple of months off after Queen Elish promoted him to the Councilmen of Religion for the Cornwellian Kingdom.  He established political ties, and even got married to the best housewife one could ever wish for.  Tyberius was helpful in keeping some reason in the party, although that didn't stop him or anyone else from having a little fun.  He now continues his position in the Cornwellian Kingdom, with the added benefit of having his former boss as a pet rabbit at home.  Gotta love that baleful polymorph, eh Tyberius?

Zenal was the resident psionic, a Xeph Telepath.  With the ridiculous amount of power points at her disposal, Zenal was always ready to raid someone's mind for information.  She had been with the group since day one, where the blessed NPC Danacia explained to her and her compatriots the late King's situation and need for aid.  Although the kingdom was wary of psionics, she was able to earn their trust and taught them a bit about it.  Zenal became a bit of a loose cannon over time, but she kept things lively with encouraging band practice and asking villains inappropriate questions with her psychic powers.  She was an essential team member when it came to retrieving information, though she occasional would throw off her plans when asking a warforged if it needed some sleep.  She continues to work for the Cornwellian Kingdom with their elite team of female spies.  Keep them on their toes, Zenal!

Grey was played by someone who was able to creatively bend the will of the 3.5 rules to his advantage, and I enjoyed watching it.  Grey had originally been from the Vidirgez Kingdom until the racist Half-elf rulers kicked his human family out rather violently.  He signed up in the beginning along with Zenal and some of the other players, partially in hope of finding his lost brother.  Unfortunately is brother had been converted to a half-golem, and there was no turning him back.  Grey then proceeded to aid the Cornwellian Kingdom against his homeland, and gained a lot of political prestige by name alone.  Being one of the few people that saw Queen Elish as a person, and not a unwelcome heir to the throne or a woman in the wrong position of power, he soon found himself in love with her, and had promised by the time the conflict was ended the two would be married.  Having been the one to kill the former King of Vidrigez in a battle right outside the castle of the Cornwellian capital, he's following through on his promise to her, and still staying active in the local politics.  Hope y it's good to be King, Grey.

I also can't forget some people who we met and left on the way:

Lelania, who was a Elf Druid with a firey attitude.  Standard trick was turning into a bear, and it was a pretty good trick.  Now in control of a Duchy in Vidrigez, she's helping establish some order in a place that used to be run by slavery and violence.
Dave, a Rogue who just didn't know how to keep his ass out of trouble.  Was helpful from time to time but also proved to be a liability, especially when he stole swords in the same kingdom he was working for.  The Queen punished him to being a tester of the local university's potions.  Dave's brain is a bit fried now.
Bumpledock was the first cleric to serve the party, and was a Gnome Cleric of Kord who would keep a sword a size too big for him in Kord's honor.  Because of his help in releasing an ancient god, Kord rewarded Bumpledock with the ability to actually raise that sword. Bumpledock served the party well until the facility mysteriously took him, making the party wonder where he was, until finally they found out that he had died but had been brought back by Kord to serve him.

It's obvious how much I'm going to miss this campaign.  Maybe I'll "re-run" it from the beginning if anyone wants to invest the time in it back in Chicago, but we'll see.  

May 7, 2009

Investigating the Darkfall Incident

So in my last post I briefly mentioned that the creators of Darkfall Online felt that Eurogamer gave them an unfair review. You can read that review here, and Darkfall's complaints here.

My first reaction? What the heck do other reviewers say? Well the only thing I could find was this one at the vault at IGN, and the reviewers response can be sumurized as "Not perfect, but you can still have fun." That's just one other review to compare with Eurogamer. Though, it definitely went into a LOT more detail than the Eurogamer review. You can definitely tell the guy did a good amount of play to figure out his character and the game.

Eurogamer is doing a fair thing by offering to review the game again. We'll see if this new person agrees with the original assessment, but until then we can only speculate if the orginal reviewer, Ed Zitron, actually played the game for a substantial amount of time.

What's a fair amount of time? More than the three hours that the Darkfall team alleges Zitron played. They also claim that 2 hours of that was character creation. Really? Two hours on character creation? If that's true he better play a good amount more time in the actual game, because the only reasons you spend that much time in character creation are becaue you're a developer testing something, so invested in the game you plan on playing it every day for a while, or a really detailed reviewer who likes to examine EVERYTHING from EVERY ANGLE.

Zitron claims he played nine hours. Is that a fair amount of time? Well, if he did spend two hours in character creation, then I'm going to say no, because then that's just 7 hours of gameplay in a game that is skill based and has its own working economy. 9 hours if you spent 20 to 30 minutes in character creation... then I could possibly see. But then I would expect a general review of the game, not anything in detail. For all I know Zitron looked at the IGN review and used that, because all of his talking points are based on the negatives things that the IGN reviewer pointed out (and then proceeded to think was no big deal overall).

Darkfall has every right to be defensive. 2/10 is failing. However, from reading some of the other things I've seen from their site and the other review I found, Darkfall seems to be at mid-range quality. It has some unique stuff, but it looks like some people are suffering from glitches and some of the features are a little lackluster. Maybe Zitron just got tired of the glithes and that anger pervaded his writing. Or maybe Zitron is tired of MMOs, and he wants to play something more exciting.

I'll try to keep up with this, because in the end I want to know who's going to concede the point: Eurogamer or Darkfall.

May 6, 2009

All we are saying is give Darkfall a chance

Don't have a lot of time to investigate or write on this development, but it seems Eurogamer published a review where the person hadn't even played the game.

More in depth investigation later.  Today is my first day without classes and I'm reveling in it super early in the morning.