Monthly Update: June, 2015

Happy June everyone!  Unless June is an unhappy month for you, so in that case, "HAPPY JUNE EVERYONE ELSE!  And you too."

So updates from our gaming worlds it is now that we're on to talking about.

Within the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, I've come to the realization that I need to work on describing environments that the PCs are in when there are no descriptions prewritten from the module.  Sure I've got maps and whatnot, but for when the PCs are traversing along a well traveled road from morning to night through the grasslands of Faerûn, I need to do more than say "After you wake up, you continue traveling south along the road.  (Sound of a die rolling). . .The weather throughout the day is fairly windy and (die rolling). . . is uneventful.  You make it to about. . .here on the map by nightfall."  I also need to do a better job at describing enemies rather than by their name.  "A twig blight scuttles out of the bushes and goes after Dagnar."  I also feel that I should have a random name generator up because the few people that I've given names too have been "Joe" and "Bobby."

But Conklederp reminds me that people keep coming back so I must not be doing that bad of a job DMing descriptions.

I managed to finish Silent Hill on the PSP late last month.  It was about as stressful as I was expecting and after just over nine hours, I was able to see the fruits of my fingering labors.  There will be an article later in the week or the beginning of next week, somewhat akin to the Dead Space articles about my experience with the game rather than directly about the game.  It did come out 16 years ago after all.

I've also managed to progress a bit in Radiant Historia on the 3DS although I still find that I'm overthinking things as far as time travel and parallel universes.

In the PC gaming arena, Conklederp and I have been playing the proverbial fecal matter out of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.  Last week alone we clocked in around 17+ hours traversing the vast swaths of High Rock and portions of Hammerfell.  I don't know if we will keep pace this week as I have a lot of real world work I have to finish.

Lastly, there are going to be some changes coming up this month that DRoBOTTS and I have been working on for just about the last month.  We're both happy to see this happen (no we're not monetizing and no we were not bought out for 4.7 million after a tense bidding war between PC Gamer and Gamespot), so stay tuned for more vague updates.  I'm sure you'll enjoy our cryptic ramblings as much as we've had creating them.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Oughta Get Going

Monthly Update: June 2014

Happy June everyone.  I come to you from the past, specifically Saturday May 31st, 2014, but as you will be reading this on or after June 2nd, 2014, it will all be kosher.  I am join you with Joey Mjölnir Explosion (the cat) patrolling around my feet and a bourbon with Pepsi in my hand.  Well, it was in my hand before I started typing.  And now JME is attempting to eat my pizza on a plate across the room.  

May has been a pretty standard month, except that it hasn't.  Unemployment aside, I have had some time to spend on reading, playing video games and contacting lawyers (more on that after everything has been settled).

I have been playing quite a lot of Elder Scrolls Online and as previously mentioned, I am doing a very good job of playing an MMO like a good introvert: solo.  I might have around 40 hours clocked in the game (just an estimate) and I still have yet to figure out how to use the chat window to talk to other players.  It is not very high on my priority list of things to do in the game.  I frequently have my ass handed to me when I try to take on groups (read 3-4) of enemies whose level is on par with my own.  I have been invited to join three groups and have turned them all down as politely as pressing "X" can be.

One interesting thing I noticed about the ESO is that your character never sleeps.  Time passes in the game, about the same rate as it does in Skyrim, but sleeping and Inns are not a thing.  This first struck me as very odd, but then I quickly realized that that sleeping in an MMO game would be hard to do as everyone, at least in North  America , is on the same server to time jumping in-game would be a bit difficult to manage, quantum physics aside.  So I just imagine that my character hates me while I have him adventuring for five in-game-days straight then sleeps for a couple of weeks when I am not playing.

There is another MMO that I just started a couple of days ago although this one is a MOBA (Massive Online Battle Arena) in the form of the Dead Island: Epidemic closed beta.  I thought it an interesting idea coming from only having played the first Dead Island which is an FPSRPG.  The drastic transition of formats is like the difference between The Legend of Zeldas top down versus The Adventure of Links top down and side scrolling with levelling RPG elements.  The game actually reminds me a lot of Torchlight, although I have not played Torchlight co-op, so maybe it is nothing like that.  But  in  DI:E, you pick one of four characters with their own set of abilities and go from point A to point B and kill a shit ton of zombies/walkers along the way, usually culmination with a boss battle.  The 40 minutes that I have put in it, I did enjoy.  Maybe more on that later this month.

I am also in process of internally debating how much more aggravation I want to put into Assassin's Creed as I have hit a wall that I do not feel prepared enough to break through.  It seems to be one of those points in the game that you should feel comfortable completing but I think I may have missed a training session or skill set along the way.  I have no Yoda to help me this time.

Lastly, I broke down a couple of days ago and paid (albeit not as much as would have liked, but I am unemployed) for the Humble Weekly Bundle featuring RPG Maker VX Ace and a whole lotta DLC (6 DLC just for VX Ace alone).  As Dr. Potts recently postulated, I too have stories to tell, both in written and video game form; and in D&D module form for that matter!  I also have music to write and creating my own "game" just might be the kick in the tuchas that I need.  With the help/advice from a good many episodes of Extra Credits, I am in the process of writing a story before I get down to the creating part although I plan on tinkering around a bit before the story is finished so that I am aware of the limitations of the program.  A nightmare would be to find out that the program is incapable of doing storywise what I want it to do and I have been down that road before the the authoring tools in Neverwinter Nights.  I am also very tempted to take existing Ravenloft modules and turn those into games, but that might be in the future. 

So in the meantime, I am doing research for my story and hopefully the NSA reads this before looking over my cache and browser history and decides that I am a person of interest.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Whispering the Words You Never Should Have Learned