What's been going on.

As a part of my effort to update this blog more often, I bring you the following.

What I've Been Playing:
Well, school has started up again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've decided to go back to school for my bachelor's degree. Add that to a full-time job, a toddler, and a list of chores and repairs that come with owning my own home, and it's a wonder I have time to play at all.
But this isn't a blog about why I'm not playing, it's about what I am playing. Lately I've been playing mainly Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Sims 3, and Minecraft.
First: Star Wars. Sometime recently I was clued into the problem with shadows in The Old Republic. In case you haven't heard, there is a huge performance hit if you have shadows on. I've heard that having shadows set to high does not have the same issue, but I can't confirm that. If you are experiencing lots of performance issues in Star Wars, make sure your shadows are set to "off". This was such an improvement that I can actually play the game on my laptop, though still only at the lowest settings.
So, I've been playing more Star Wars. My main when I played World of Warcraft was a Paladin tank. I really kinda liked tanking in WoW, though I was better at healing. So, for my first character in Star Wars I decided on a Jedi Knight, figuring I'd probably roll a Consular next. So far the storyline for the Jedi Knight hasn't been anything spectacular, it's nice but just about what I'd expect. I'm sticking to the Light Side, though, and I'm guessing that the story can be a lot different if you chose to focus on the Dark Side. I may chose to visit the Dark Side when I roll that Consular, but I just find it hard to justify a Dark Side healer.
As far as crew skills go, I chose to go with Cybertech, Scavenging, and Slicing. Cybertech allows me to create modifications that can be applied to most equipment that will accept modifications, which makes it kind of all-around useful. Later on I think it will also allow me to create earpieces and maybe some other gear. Cybertech suggests two compatible skills: Scavenging and Underworld Trading. The great thing about Scavenging is that a lot of times I get to loot droids for their spare parts. I decided to go with Slicing over Underworld Trading because it allows me to get cash which can be used to buy anything including the uncommon materials I need for my Cybertech.

Next: The Sims 3. While my previous rant about how Story progression needs to be fixed still stands, the addition of the ability to create a Young Again potion and the ability to give gifts to other sims does mitigate this to some degree. Given these factors, I finally decided to turn aging and story progression on in my game and start watching all of our friends grow old and move away. After all, I can always just add new copies from the tray later, right? We'll see what happens there. So my family is now aging and having kids, but none of that is going very fast. One funny thing, though was that when the first child was born I set the Sim lifespan to Epic, then I noticed that it had been several days and my baby still hadn't turned into a toddler. It turns out that on Epic setting, the baby stage lasts for 32 days. So I changed it back to Long, which reset my existing toddler's age to 1 day while Mom was pregnant with Baby 2, the end result being that Baby 1 is only 3 days older than Baby 2, such is life.

On to Minecraft. As I said in my last post, in Minecraft you have to make your own fun. The good thing about that is that I've been making a lot of it. I decided when I started that I wanted to do everything legitimately. The world is infinite, so if I run out of diamonds, I'll just have to go find some rather than hacking my save file or getting a mod that will generate whatever I want. I've also been looking at a lot of the machines that people have been building and I've started making some of my own. My current project is a monster spawner and killer that is taking a long time because I have to light up all of the places a monster could spawn to ensure they spawn in my machine. I'm hoping that my design will actually be able to trap slimes, but we'll have to see about that.

That's pretty much what's been going on the past week. I'm hoping to play some more Savage Worlds soon, so I can tell you all how that's going. If anybody wants to say Hi on Star Wars, I'm on the Hedarr Soongh server and my main is Haledar.

Good Gaming.

Happy New Year!

To all my readers, “Happy New Year.” This past year has been wild. Many new things have been going on in my life and the lives of my friends, but one thing has remained constant: gaming is still my number one pastime.

What I’ve Been Playing:
Since my last post I did manage to beat Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I liked it a lot, though the boss fights were frustrating. I thought the story was great and I was really interested to uncover some of the secrets of Jensen’s past. Unfortunately, those secrets are never really revealed beyond a bunch of hints. I was also disappointed with the endings. There are 4 different endings, and if you save after the last boss before you chose your ending, you can see them all in one play-through. I was hoping for some nice cinematics and some plot resolution; what I got was a collection of still images, some stock photos and some generated for the game, accompanied by a voice-over explaining what happened after the end of the game. Yawn. Nevertheless I still enjoyed the game and I jumped right back into it to try to get the platinum trophy before Kevin moved away. I didn’t make it, but I did get a few other trophies I’d missed.

A few months ago I mentioned that my group was planning on starting up a Savage Worlds supervillian game. We managed to get that started, but we’ve only had a few sessions so far. Look for more information on how that game is going in the near future.

I also said that we had found a couple who was trying to start a Rifts game. Unfortunately grad school and pregnancy got in the way, but hopefully we’ll be able to get together with them in the future.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic since it came out. As I mentioned previously, my laptop isn’t exactly up to running Star Wars. It makes a good effort, but it just can’t handle it. Fortunately my wife’s laptop is a bit newer and manages the game a bit better. The side effect of this is that I have to borrow her computer to play Star Wars, which means that I haven’t been playing as much as I might have under other circumstances. Technical issues aside, I’m loving this game every bit as much as I did during my beta weekend. I managed to get my smuggler out of the bug I ran into in the beta and got to play around some with that class. Normally I’m okay with “glass cannon” classes, but the addition of the cover mechanic really detracts from it for me, so I don’t think I’ll be spending much time as a smuggler for a while.

I also picked up Minecraft which is great if you can make your own fun, but doesn’t really have anything in the way of quests. And I’ve been playing a lot of The Sims 3 since I got the Ambitions and Generations expansions over the holidays. One thing I can definitely say is a technical achievement in The Sims 3 over The Sims 2 is that you can actually install the expansions out of order and they still work properly.

What I Have Planned:
The biggest thing I have planned right now is building a new computer that will be able to run Star Wars and Diablo III. It will be a while before I can actually do that, but I’m still planning on it.

The Playstation Vita is coming out on February 22nd. I’m still looking forward to it, but based on things I’ve heard from the Japanese release, I may wait for a few software patches, and maybe a hardware revision, before I buy it.

A while ago I had an idea for a con game using the Desolation system. I may still try to get that all planned out for Who’s Yer Con in March, but I’m guessing it’s going to get pushed off until later.

What I’m Looking Forward To:
Diablo III is still slated for a first quarter 2012 release, I’m looking forward to that. I’ve already pre-ordered the collector’s edition even though there is a distinct possibility that I won’t be able to play it until I get my new computer.

We have a local tabletop gaming convention here in Indianapolis called Who’s Yer Con (link above) that’s coming up in March. Maria and I are planning on going and are thinking of joining the Pathfinder Society and going to a couple of their games.

That’s pretty much what’s been going on. Lots of exciting stuff has happened and is on the way, so stay tuned.

Until next time,
Good Gaming!

My preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic

This weekend I got to play in the beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I thought I'd take a moment and tell my readers who didn't get the opportunity what I thought about it. My first experience with The Old Republic was basically what I expected, I got on around 11:00 on Saturday and was told that I was approximately 500th in the queue to get into the server. Fortunately, I occupied myself with designing a lightsaber I've been thinking about building and the queue only toke me about 20 minutes. After that point I only had one other time all weekend when I was in the queue, so I was pretty happy about that.

First, a note: If you are worried about spoilers, don't be. I only got out of the starting zone with one character so I really don't have any spoilers to reveal. The only story-related points that I'm going to talk about are things that you either can guess without too much trouble, or will learn within about 10 minutes of playing the game.

The first thing that I noticed about Star Wars: The Old Republic is that it is Star Wars. I mean it really IS Star Wars. They got the feel, the atmosphere, the stories, the music, everything just right to make this game really feel like Star Wars. As far as I can tell, here's the storyline setup for the game: Once upon a Time there was an empire ruled by the Sith. Eventually the Sith Empire was destroyed and the Republic was formed. 20,000 or so years later (sounds like a long time for any government to last in my opinion) the Sith returned, destroyed the Jedi Temple, and started seizing power across the galaxy again (that part is in the opening movie). Some time later (seriously, I can't find anything that says exactly how long it's been since the opening movie) the game starts and your character arrives on the planet you will be spending your first several levels on.

The first thing you do in any MMORPG is create your character. Star Wars has two factions, The Republic and the Sith Empire. The first time you pick your faction you get a fully rendered movie detailing a bit about how things are going for your chosen faction. Later characters that you make for that faction won't trigger the movie, but you can view it at any time from the server select or character select screen.

Next you select your class. Republic players have access to the Jedi Knight, Jedi Counselor, Republic Trooper, and Smuggler classes. Empire players have access to the Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent classes. Once you reach level 10 (the current level cap is 50), each class has two options for Advanced Classes. My experience was that after gaining their advanced class, most players stopped referring to their character by the base class name all together. They became Snipers, Guardians, Scoundrels, and Commandos.

The class you chose affects the races that are available to you. I did not go through all of the options to check them out, but I found that some races were only available to Force wielding classes. Some of the races available for play are Humans (who seem to be able to be just about anything), Cyborg (again, can be anything but only on the Empire side), Twi'lek (the people with the head tails you see in Jabba's palace in Episode IV. I don't think I saw them as an option for the Empire), Miraluka (a race that looks exactly like humans except they have no eyes. They perceive the world through the force and thus are only available as Jedi), and Sith Pureblood (turns out that the Sith got their name from a race that has been exterminated. The name Pureblood is not really true, they are of mixed blood, but they show the characteristics of their ancient ancestors. Sith Purebloods are only available as Sith characters). There are other races, but I did not check them all out. Each race does have a unique ability, but none of them seemed to be combat related or really have any in-game use, only a bit of flavor.

Finally you chose your gender and start working on your appearance. Unlike most other MMOs that I've played (City of Heroes being the notable exception) SWTOR actually allows you to change your character's body size. There are only 4 or 5 preset models, but I was impressed by the options because it can make gear difficult to attach to the model. There are several choices for face, which actually change the character's head model, so they will have differently shaped noses or jaws instead of simply having different shading. most characters have scars that you can add. They range from cuts to claw marks, to burns, and not all of them are pretty. It's an important reminder that the galaxy is at war and there are consequences for that. Many races also have tattoos as well as different hair colors and styles. One perplexing slider is complexion. It's not skin tone, there is a slider for that. Complexion actually alters how your character's face flushes in different places and is a very, very subtle effect.

After you finish creating your character you get the iconic Star Wars logo and a block of flying text that is tailored to your class followed by a short cutscene showing your decent to the planet. Every time you log into your character from the character select screen you will get a few paragraphs (that won't fly across the screen) that will update to follow your character's progression through the storyline.

I've stated from the beginning that I'm a casual gamer. That means that I don't have anything resembling the latest hardware for my computer. In fact, my laptop is four years old and it wasn't top of the line then. This technical limitation definitely affected my play experience. I turned all of the graphics options to their lowest settings and still the game was choppy and difficult to control. Other people online reported that they had no problems, so I feel pretty confident that it was my computer that just couldn't keep up. Even with the graphics turned down I was impressed with how the game looked. It's no Skyrim, but it was amazing. not only were the visuals were exactly what I wanted from a Star Wars game, but the environments were beautiful for any setting.

As I said before, my limited computer resources affected my play experience, but I still had a blast. By level 4 my Jedi Knight was flying across the countryside pouncing hostiles with his practice sword. My Bounty hunter felt appropriately cool firing off rockets and barrages of blaster fire as soon as I started playing. Every storyline that I experienced started out by telling me how I was special in some way, and the game did a great job of making it feel that way.

I simply can't get out of this blog without talking about the storytelling and missions in this game. The class stories are great. They are specifically tailored to the motivations and characteristics of each class and you start the game in a series of missions that are custom tailored to your class. Even though most (maybe all) of the classes start in the same area as another class, the majority of the missions are completely separate. Every mission start and end is a voiced interaction with conversational choices that sometimes can give you Light Side or Dark Side points based on what you choose. This method of giving quests has a way of pulling you in and making the quests more interesting than just a block of text that doesn't end up meaning very much.

It's very difficult to find much to complain about with Star Wars: The Old Republic. I had a blast playing it and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Star Wars, or who has gotten bored with World of Warcraft or Everquest. I've already pre-ordered it and I know that I will be upgrading my computer so that I can play Star Wars to the limit.

[Insert Generic Title Here]

So, it's been a month. Considering my track record that's not really so bad. In this post I'll talk about what I've been doing recently, what I'm planning in the near future, and what I'm looking forward to in the coming months.

What I've Been playing:

Being a parent is time consuming. At some time in the future I'll probably say something about how gaming and parenting affect each other, or about how they're similar, or something, but that's not this post. I bring up parenting because I've been doing a lot of that. A lot of parenting and not a lot of gaming.

My son is 17 months old, so he doesn't play games with rules yet. He plays a lot, and I love playing with him, but it's so freeform that I'd hesitate to call any of it a "game". Also, since he's so young I can't play any violent video games while he's around. In general I don't like to play video games around him too much because I think it's important that I get down on the floor and play with him.

When I wasn't crawling around mountains of Duplo blocks with my son, I managed to beat Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines for the PSP. I got all of the accomplishments except for the three pertaining to getting combo-kills. I never really figured out how to do combo-kills, and I don't care quite enough about getting those last three acomplishments to go back through a significant portion of the game.

Kevin bought a Koei game called Warriors: Legends of Troy. Man, was that game ever frustrating! I was expecting essentially a Dynasty Warriors game that was set during the Trojan War. To pe perfectly fair, that is what I got. I won't say that there weren't some good parts to it, but the game angered me so much that I put it down and didn't look back. If I were serious about trying to write reviews for games, I'd switch it over to easy mode and slug my way through it, but there are plenty of venues out there for people to get well-informed reviews.

Kevin also bought Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He finished that game and has now loaned it to me. Now I'm not good at shooters. I'm zen with this truth. So, I don't get into competitive shooters very much, but I do enjoy a good RPG/Shooter hybrid. I liked the first Deus Ex even though I never finished it. I'm really enjoying Human Revolution. It feels really good, and I don't mind too much that I get shot in the head a lot. One thing that bothers me, though, is that I can't use my sniper scope from cover. I have yet to find a situation where I can be hidden and shoot someone, rather than just have them looking the other way.

What I Have Planned:

Unfortunately there were problems with the Pathfinder game, so that's not happening anymore. On the plus side, we met a couple that's running a Rifts game from Palladium. Maria and I are really excited about that, and hopefully we'll be able to join in soon.

Also, we're getting together with some of our old gaming group that has moved out of town and we're planning an online Savage Worlds game from Pinnacle Entertainment. We'll be playing in a savage setting called Necessary Evil where everyone will be playing a supervillian. It'll probably be a lot of fun. We're going to be getting everone together online over a product called Epic Table that I picked up at Gen Con. Expect more information on that in the future. It's still in beta, but I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.

As far as the blog goes, I'm trying to get a video card that I can take some screenshots of my console games with. I have some plans for a couple of things I want to do with the blog, but they're on hold until I can get this.

What I'm Looking Forward To:

I already preordered Star Wars: The Old Republic. I've been looking forward to that one for a while and now I finally know that it's coming in December.

Diablo III recently got puched back to 2012, but long-time Blizzard fans have gotten used to the company's "It get's released when it's finished and not a moment sooner" attitude. I'll admit that I'm a touch worried that it will be a monotonous click-fest, but only time will tell.

There was a rumor that the PlayStation Vita will be coming out at the end of February. I'm excited for the system, but part of me is glad I won't have to fit it in with my other holiday season purchases. Also, the closer it gets to the end of my current cell phone contract, the better. If everything goes according to plan, I'll be able to use the PS Vita for all of the functions I have my smartphone for, allowing me to drop to a regular "dumb" cell phone to make way for the Vita data plan.

I'm still upset that Sony decided to make AT&T the exclusive carrier for the Vita data plan, but I'm sure there were plenty of financial reasons for making the commitment. Also, it looks like I can add a wireless hotspot to my cell phone plan for probably the same price as the Vita data plan. Plus I can use it if I get a tablet.

So, that's what I've been up to, what I've got planned, and what I'm looking forward to. If anyone is actually reading this blog, please leave me a comment. So far I'm not really sure there's anybody out there, and it would be pretty cool if I found out somebody actually read this.

Good Gaming!

How EA can fix Story Progression in The Sims 3

My last post was about Gen Con, and that was two weeks ago. The last couple of weeks have been pretty barren as far as gaming goes. I cancelled my World of Warcraft account again. I got a free month of Rift at Gen Con so I’ll probably check that out before too long. Then Star Wars: The Old Republic will be coming out some time this year and I’ll check that out too.

Mike and Kevin hadn’t seen Portal 2, so I played through that for them to watch. I love that game. The concept is smooth, the puzzles are well designed, and the writing is amazing. I love everything that comes out of Cave Johnson’s mouth. The replay value is a little sketchy. There were some rooms that took me forever to figure out the first time I did them, but once I’d figured out the solution it was really easy to remember the next time I played.

On the tabletop games front, I’m getting into a play-by-post Pathfinder game that is going to be following the Carrion Crowne adventure path. I’ve never done play-by-post before, but I’m excited to see how it goes. I’ll be playing a Halfling Paladin. I’m going to do my best to play a lawful-good paladin without being the giant d-bag that the class is known for. I’ll let you know how that goes.

On Monday I went to my friend Nicky’s place for her weekly game night. I played a game called 7 Wonders that I had heard good things about but hadn’t had the opportunity to play. I really liked this game. The sequence of play was very simple and after a few rounds we had it figured out, but the strategy is really involved. There are about six different ways to gain victory points and several of those involve the cards that the players on your left and right have played. I didn’t win either game that I played, but I had a great time anyway. Another group there was playing a game called Telestrations that also sounded like a lot of fun, but I couldn’t work in a game.

This brings me to the meat of the post. I’ve beenn playing The Sims 3 on my PC for a while. I’m trying an experiment this time. I’m making a family specifically so that they can make Ambrosia. Then I’m going to make them friends with all of the characters in the game that I’ve created to represent my friends. I plan on keeping my immediate circle of friends young, but allowing their children to grow naturally. I don’t know how well it will work, probably not at all, but that’s why it’s an experiment.

One thing that I’m somewhat disappointed about with The Sims 3 is the way they decided to handle Story Progression and Ageing. When the game launched you could turn Story Progression and Ageing on and off (seperately) for the entire town. Then they released a patch where they said that if you had directly played a household then Story Progression (and I think ageing as well) would be off while you were playing other households. Well, that didn’t work out apparently.

What I did in my experiment was I created my family and our circle of friends and placed them all in the game. I built each family’s house and played them long enough for everyone to get a job. Then I created my Ambrosia family and pretty much ignored the rest while I was working on their skills, confident that my sims would remain exactly as they were aside from relationship scores. Then I send one of the Ambrosia family to the house of my wife’s and my characters to make friends, only to discover that we had both aged to Elder and had children. I was unhappy with this and immediately turned story progression and ageing off for the entire town intending to delete the existing characters and replace them at a later date. I hope that works out the way I intend.

What I would really like to see, and EA can take this one for free, is for Ageing and Story progression to be able to be affected on a per-household basis. Just give me a little toggle when I’m on the Edit Town screen to flip those settings for each household as I see fit. I can’t imagine that it would really be that monumental a programming challenge. And if it’s not something that can conceivably be worked into a patch, at least work it into The Sims 4.

That's all I've got for now.
Good Gaming!

Another year between posts.

Well, it's almost Gen Con again. it looks like the last time I actually wrote a blog I was also talking about Gen Con. Excuses aside, it's been a long time. What's that? "What have you been up to, Mike?" I'm glad you asked.

General Life:
Dante's a little over a year old now. He's really cute. I know some people say that all babies are cute, but they're lying. Dante, however, really is cute. He gets that from his mother.
My friends and gaming cohorts, Elly and Mike, got married in December. Elly got into The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme so she and Mike are moving to Japan for the next one to three years. Other friends and gaming buddies, Victor, James, and Solomon, are moving to Chicago. We really need to find new blood for our tabletop group.

Tabletop Games:
I really wish I had more to report on this one. We finished our end-times mage campaign. I personally stiched Ananasi and the Weaver back into one being. We released the Wyrm. And the Wyrm destroyed the world. we all died, but we got the satisfaction of knowing that the Tellurian was preserved so the world could be remade within it.
After that we really haven't tabletopped other than the occasional board/card game like Dominion or Red Dragon Inn. I'm working on a bite-sized Desolation adventure that could be run at a con, but it's kind of stalled for the moment. I would love to get back into a tabletop RPG. Time to start looking for new bodies.

Video Games:
This one I have been doing a lot in. I finished God of War III, Dante's Inferno, Portal 2, and Bayonetta. I started The Force Unleashed, Assassin's Creed, Infamous, and Mortal Kombat. I've been trying to earn a platinum trophy on Final Fantasy XIII, so I haven't finished that one yet.
Cataclysm came out. I got it and took launch day off of work to play it. In February I was still only 83 and let my account lapse. I started it up again in May and finally hit 85.

Stuff I'm Looking Forward To:
I'm really looking forward to Star Wars: The Old Republic. I wouldn't consider myself a "huge" Star Wars nerd, especially compared to other huge Star Wars nerds. Having said that, I have high hopes for The Old Republic.
Along with a significant portion of the population, I am eagerly awaiting Diablo 3. Hopefully we'll get more information at BlizzCon. Also from Blizzard, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm has been revealed and looks awsome. I really need to finish Wings of Liberty. And I am really hoping to hear about Blizzard's new IP MMO.

That pretty much sums it up. I promise that I'm planning on updating more regularly. Luckilly, I'm not really apologizing to anybody because no one reads this blog anyway. Who knows, maybe that will change soon. My next post will most likely be a Gen Con recap.

Until then,
Good Gaming.