Thursday, December 21, 2006
Ah, vacation time.
So far, I've watched 6 episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, catching me up to the current episodes. Then I watched all of BSG season 3. Just under four hours until the first 11 episodes of Heroes finishes. I hope it's good because the global commercials make it seem like total ass.
I beat NWN2 earlier this week - an superb game, although I can't rate it as high as BG2. The side stories for party members left me frustrated with the stupid quest flow. It is also really easy to break the story if you try and play both sides in a conflict, causing many an annoying reload. The game was hideously unstable before the most recent patch, causing SAVED GAME CORRUPTION which means hours of replaying scenes. The boss fights and other special combats (such as the seiges) were freaking, awesome, however. The next RPG I am looking forward to in this same line is Dragon Age, which is directly from Bioware and uses their own IP instead of D&D.
My WoW game time has dropped off signifigantly with all the server issues and the half-ass update they did leading into the expansion. I find it really hard to play when anything I do now will be basically useless in a month. PvP isn't much fun right now as everyone is grinding the new cheap equipment - which means you get shitty players on your team that have never PvP'd before (but are now lured to it for the easy rewards) or you get people that are just trying to farm a specific aspect and not actually PLAY. Additionally, with all the gear available, it just isn't fun getting two-shotted when I can't do the same to others. The new "contribution" chart in BGs is depressing. I find myself at the top of the list for damage and healing done, yet always with less kills, and thus reward points, than my shitty peers. Very frustrating.
I'm sure I'll get back to it when I'm bored enough. There is really a lack of quality PC games. Do we really need more WWII shooters? How about another fantasy MMO? Blech. Supreme Commander still looks promising, but it's in a closed beta and they haven't been releasing any new media. It's hard to get excited about another RTS - I think all the fun I had with Starcraft has really jaded me for playing anything else in that genre. Unless the story or competition is really compelling, I imagine I'll be done with this game the second I beat it for the first time.
I find myself really craving metagame aspects - have been for several years. The Battle For Europe was a player made one (arranged games between two clans in Day of Defeat to battle for and win Europe, one country at a time) and really held my attention for an excessive amount of time. It was really competative, it had a great community, and the actual game was so much more fun for it. Planetside was another great one for the same aspects. I want a new game like that...
In the meantime, I've been trying to put together a D&D campaign for any interested parties in the area. I'm trying to come up with something with a bit more story and cohesion than before - looking back, most of my DMing has consisted of individual player story lines that occasionally cross over others that usually results in PvP conflict. While that can be entirely too intriguing, it feels really disjointed; more like a series of random events than an epic story of high adventure. I think that may be related to the longevity of my campaigns as well - there's no major story to drive the characters (which is horrible for new players since they tend not to have personal goals for their characters) and not as compelling to experienced players who are, at least partially, looking for adventure to find them. I hate the idea of forcing characters along a story path, so it really just comes down to offering the right rewards for the characters to entice them. The biggest problem with that at this stage is I don't know what characters will be in the group. With the hojillion different options available in character creation - not to mention character stories/personalities! - it's impossible to determine what kind of things to work into an ongoing story as rewards.
SO, it comes down to providing a bit of back story on what the campaign will be like and then allowing interested parties to get an idea of what they want to play - and then telling me about it so that I can make sure they will all have a reason to party up. To keep stuff organised, email DMasterT@gmail.com and I'll reply with a campaign document, rather than pasting the whole thing here in this already massive ramble.
Now I eat pizza.
So far, I've watched 6 episodes of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, catching me up to the current episodes. Then I watched all of BSG season 3. Just under four hours until the first 11 episodes of Heroes finishes. I hope it's good because the global commercials make it seem like total ass.
I beat NWN2 earlier this week - an superb game, although I can't rate it as high as BG2. The side stories for party members left me frustrated with the stupid quest flow. It is also really easy to break the story if you try and play both sides in a conflict, causing many an annoying reload. The game was hideously unstable before the most recent patch, causing SAVED GAME CORRUPTION which means hours of replaying scenes. The boss fights and other special combats (such as the seiges) were freaking, awesome, however. The next RPG I am looking forward to in this same line is Dragon Age, which is directly from Bioware and uses their own IP instead of D&D.
My WoW game time has dropped off signifigantly with all the server issues and the half-ass update they did leading into the expansion. I find it really hard to play when anything I do now will be basically useless in a month. PvP isn't much fun right now as everyone is grinding the new cheap equipment - which means you get shitty players on your team that have never PvP'd before (but are now lured to it for the easy rewards) or you get people that are just trying to farm a specific aspect and not actually PLAY. Additionally, with all the gear available, it just isn't fun getting two-shotted when I can't do the same to others. The new "contribution" chart in BGs is depressing. I find myself at the top of the list for damage and healing done, yet always with less kills, and thus reward points, than my shitty peers. Very frustrating.
I'm sure I'll get back to it when I'm bored enough. There is really a lack of quality PC games. Do we really need more WWII shooters? How about another fantasy MMO? Blech. Supreme Commander still looks promising, but it's in a closed beta and they haven't been releasing any new media. It's hard to get excited about another RTS - I think all the fun I had with Starcraft has really jaded me for playing anything else in that genre. Unless the story or competition is really compelling, I imagine I'll be done with this game the second I beat it for the first time.
I find myself really craving metagame aspects - have been for several years. The Battle For Europe was a player made one (arranged games between two clans in Day of Defeat to battle for and win Europe, one country at a time) and really held my attention for an excessive amount of time. It was really competative, it had a great community, and the actual game was so much more fun for it. Planetside was another great one for the same aspects. I want a new game like that...
In the meantime, I've been trying to put together a D&D campaign for any interested parties in the area. I'm trying to come up with something with a bit more story and cohesion than before - looking back, most of my DMing has consisted of individual player story lines that occasionally cross over others that usually results in PvP conflict. While that can be entirely too intriguing, it feels really disjointed; more like a series of random events than an epic story of high adventure. I think that may be related to the longevity of my campaigns as well - there's no major story to drive the characters (which is horrible for new players since they tend not to have personal goals for their characters) and not as compelling to experienced players who are, at least partially, looking for adventure to find them. I hate the idea of forcing characters along a story path, so it really just comes down to offering the right rewards for the characters to entice them. The biggest problem with that at this stage is I don't know what characters will be in the group. With the hojillion different options available in character creation - not to mention character stories/personalities! - it's impossible to determine what kind of things to work into an ongoing story as rewards.
SO, it comes down to providing a bit of back story on what the campaign will be like and then allowing interested parties to get an idea of what they want to play - and then telling me about it so that I can make sure they will all have a reason to party up. To keep stuff organised, email DMasterT@gmail.com and I'll reply with a campaign document, rather than pasting the whole thing here in this already massive ramble.
Now I eat pizza.
