NaNo WriMo Day 1: The Arrival

Chapter 1: The Arrival

Death sat as a thick fog before Castle Black. Bodies sprawled in contorted positions formed a patchwork base from which descriptive dark-stone castle walls stretched towards the sky. The corner towers: silent sentinels mirroring in shadow the stained ground below. Neither side paid proper tribute to the dead. Instead, all manner of opportunistic beast had taken to the task. The stench kept patrols from the precipitous battlements while cliff-side updrafts gave little reprieve to those buildings hugging the eastern walls.

Tucked away towards the beach and out of site of Castle Black, the Eastern Army’s camp sat idle in the midday sun. The only stir of external activity came from the northern approach as a single cart rumbled into camp. The music of iron on anvil wallowed out deep from within the camp. Ka tink!

Enlil woke unto a cold sweat. Ka tink! The soft rap of metal sung in the air as he stumbled to his feet. Ka tink! With fumbling hands he reached out for clothing only to find his padded, lizard-skin jerkin discarded at the foot of the cot. Thrinnnnnnnnk, a glancing blow rattled off the anvil. The extra sheeting within the tent forced him to guess at the time of day. As he kicked at the closest tent flap, beaded streams of light filtered in.

Ka tink!

Enlil slipped into a pair of worn sandles. Curious, he looked down. His toes felt bunched. Were these leather even his? Three months, as many men had occupied this tent. He wiped his brow tucking dusty brown hair behind his ears. He wondered how long he had slept, but before he could ascertain the answer, his awaking misery was interrupted.

A voice struck through the folds of Enlil’s tent. “The Fravashi have arrived.”

“Finally.” answered Enlil as he emerged from the tent, half-dressed. Light flooded his vision. Ka tink! He carried the jerkin to his side. His paid man, Govad, stood before him, six women in his wake. Enlil, startled and adjusting to the overbearing sun, threw the jerkin over his bare chest.

It was said the Fravashi were risen spirits of some sorry wenches drowned at sea, ritualized and worshiped as near-gods. To Enlil, they were tools, a hammer to apply to raw steel, and only women. He had only recently learned of the presence of Fravashi within the Key, a small strip of land connecting Alb to the north with Reichland to the south.

“Welcome ladies.” The greeting was flat. Ka tink! Enlil felt uneasy. “I hope you are here to put an end to this mess. My predecessors may have used this post as a farce; pig dancing with that bastard Orten Ben Fareen.” Thrinnnnk! Another glancing blow trebled off the anvil. Enlil paused. The name grated across his tongue. “But I intend no such dishonor during my service here. Unfortunately, the bastard is too well supplied from ships anchoring to the cliff-side and winching up supplies. With no support from the King’s navy and lacking material support, I’m at a stand still.”

Stand still was Enlil’s assessment of the situation. He had been assigned to a post that had fallen to a rotation of Wind Captain status-seekers. Political house brats seeking recognition and foraging for placement within the King’s army proper. The Reichland forces to the south and the threat of the King’s justice to the north held Castle Black in a vice-like grip. A safe post for doing nothing.

From scattered notes and orders left to him, Enlil could only discern that Castle Black was meant to be kept isolated. Overland transport to the castle was closed off from the north by the camp and control of the port within the bay. However, the series of pulleys and winches on the cliff laughed at the Eastern Army every time another barrel or crate was hauled over the castle walls. A failure upon which Enlil felt he could improve.

Prior to the arrival of the Fravashi, Enlil made use of his month old post and ordered a minor siege encampment below Castle Black’s undefended eastern walls, closest the cliffs: a gamble to weaken the spiderweb of pulleys and ropes on the cliff’s side.

At first, the siege encampment seemed to amuse Orten. Enlil caught glimpses of him on the castle walls, his laughter bellowing as he watched catch poles reach out for hanging lines. However, it was not long before Orten’s mounted cavalry launched a counter from the castle gates, splitting Enlil’s siege force. Enlil retreated with the main force while the cavalry slaughtered the remainder: soldiers armed with massive catch poles and ladders. Enlil realized in that moment that there was more to Castle Black than just a mocking winch and pulley system on the cliff side. The split took precision and experienced cavalry, two things requiring more than just a winch or pulley strung across a few rocks.

Enlil had washed away the defeat with ale. His mind lingered on the events since. Military supplies had languished and respect dissipated. Drinks and frequent trips to Gray Court had taken their place. Command became simpler. Enlil began to understood his predecessors. However, the presence of the Fravashi had sparked a bit of motivation.

He had awaited Govad’s return with the Fravashi, but admittedly knew little of their ways. His knowledge was limited to battlefield tales and training texts. The basics: where the Fravashi went, storms followed. Or was it where the storms went, Fravashi followed? Were they glorified weather merchants predicting the next storm or something else? Something far more deadly?

Enlil brought his wandering attention back to the Fravashi as the six women spoke as one. “We follow our Storm. Six for one. One for six. We come today, not for you Captain, but for the justice sought by the Thunderer.”

Ka tink!

Had he asked them a question or had they plucked his thoughts like some low hanging apple in an orchard. Enlil was agitated. “The Thunderer!? I am appointed by the Kings own hand...” He shuffled. No, not something to get into here, he thought to himself. “This is my post. I order you to finish what should have long been sorted. Take the cliff wall with your storms and wash their mocking contraptions into the sea.”

“You would be well served to mind your thoughts Captain,” the six women stated, as one.

Ka tink!

Tink!

The iron blows roared suddenly and Enlil found himself on his knees, hands crashing to the ground. Ka tink! The sound became deafening. Enlil’s eyes rolled forcibly back into his head. He reached out. Govad felt no impulse to aid his liege as his luxury of traveling with the six women had afforded him a front seat to far worse from the hands of the Fravashi.

Ka tink!

Across the bay Govad could see menacing clouds gathering above a curtain of gray. The waves lapping against the nearest dock jumped. The lone island at the bay’s inlet disappeared within the curtain as swirling winds picked up dust around the camp. The jangling of metal tools and the pothering of tent flaps could be heard as the smith closed up shop. The afternoon grew dark.

Word count: 1066

Working DOTA 2 Beta Survey Link

If you recieved an email from Valve in regards to the DOTA 2 beta and that you needed to take a survey and the provided link did not work, it is because they didn't wrap it in proper HTML tags in the email.

Here is a working link: Dota 2 Survey

*Make sure you have Steam running first and that you have updated to the most recent client version.

The email from Valve would have been something like:

You recently indicated you want to play Dota2. Before we send the first batch of invites we need to collect a little more information from you about your level of gaming experience and your gaming rig.

To begin the survey go to the machine on which you intend to play Dota2, start Steam and click this link: steam://takesurvey/1/ (if you haven't restarted your Steam client for a few days, you might need to do that before clicking that link).

To install Steam go to http://www.steampowered.com/about

Thank you
The Dota2 Team

My hypocritical copy of Battlefield 3

Fuck it, I bought Battlefield 3.  Too many friends are dieing on the field of battle for me to ignore it any longer. 

Bonus: here is a picture of my hypocrtical copy.

Mobile gaming: perfect example of free 2 play gone WRONG

Free 2 Play /wink

Back when I fought against the free 2 play (F2P) movement for PC gaming it was because I was worried about quantity outpacing quality.  The PC F2P scene fortunately turned the corner towards quality, but another market, mobile gaming, has turned into a classic quantity over quality scenario.  The majority of F2P games for my Android phone are nigh impossible to play due to spam advertising and required micro-transactions.  Most free apps couldn't even be considered legitimate previews of the game and feel more like a mugger trying to get at my wallet.  Mobile gaming makes even the worst offenders in the PC F2P movement look like saints.  If people were up in arms about something like Allods Online, then they'd be stroking out over the state of F2P mobile gaming.

The unfortunate reality is that F2P games on mobile are far more successful through spam advertising and micro-transactions.  The developer ends up making more with these methods than with one-time purchases.  This is mostly because the pricing model for mobile apps is in the basement and if an app is greater than a couple dollars, it is doomed.

I understand developers need to make money and for the mobile space it's easier to follow the trend instead of making a statement with a paid-for only app.  The problem is that both advertising and micro-transactions directly conflict with gaming on a mobile device.  Think of the size of mobile screens and almost always having to reserve space for an advertisement banner.  It is flat out ridiculous in most cases and when that accidental click of an advertisement occurs the player is usually dropped from the game completely.  To note, some games are able to do advertising in a responsible way (like in between turns in Wordfeud FREE).

Secondly, mobile gaming is about quick access and simpler mechanics (which doesn't mean worse games).   The in-app micro-transactions conflict with both of these.  Nothing kills a game worse than spending the first five minutes finding out you really need to spend 99 cents to unlock something to make the game actually playable.  Then another five minutes is spent figuring out which payment service the game is using and by the time it rolls around to game time the player is ready to move on to something else.  Contributing to this further is again the screen size on mobile devices.  Pages for the in-app payments have to almost always be seperate screens, further pulling players away from the game.

These are all reasons as to why I was very happy to read this article and see Rockstar talk about how they are going into mobile to deliver quality games and not just to make money:

Besides, individual markets and platforms aren't something that seems to greatly interest Houser in the first place. "This is my personal opinion, but I think a lot of people in the general mobile industry are more focused on making money than making good products," he commented. "We're a business, too --we have to think about how to build revenue and we value the knowledge you need for that, but we want to conduct business with superior products. Focusing on nothing but business is depressing to me; it's boring. I want people to understand that we make games for more than just to make money."

I believe mobile gaming is going through growing pains and as we see more big developers like Rockstar step in with true, quality games aimed at core gamers we'll see a reduction in the downward spiral of game pricing and F2P mechancis.  The current situation is not sustainable.  Only so much shovelware can exist before the market crashes.  History has taught us this.

Android Game Review: Fortunes of War

Fortunes of War is an asynchronous card game similar to the best-selling Dominion card game. It pits two (or more) players against each other in a game where cards are purchased from a “card market” and then played in turns. Along with a starting deck, cards purchased from the market and wounds received from in-game actions make up a players deck. A game is over when three separate cards become sold out in the market. There is no building of decks before hand and as far as I can tell, the cards available in the market each game are random (except single-player campaign missions which feature the same card set).

The game is a solid time waster and deep enough to provide committed players a long term experience. The fact there is no deck building reduces the barrier to entry for new players, but by no means does it mean the game is easy to pick up. At first look, Fortunes of War is confusing. It will take a new player some time, and really reading up on the tutorial, to get a feel for the game. From there it takes several games to understand how to be competitive.

The game features single-player and multiplayer. I found the single-player fairly difficult, at least in the free version. I eventually beat most of the available campaign missions, but it took dozens of tries. The biggest problem is that the player faces off against multiple computer opponents in most of the missions and those computer opponents are all on one team. This means attacks against the player do not also affect the enemy’s companions (unless the card specifically states it affects all players). The player is often in 3 vs 1 or 2 vs 1 situations which becomes a significant challenge, but I still found myself working to beat the campaign missions over and over. There is a certain addictive, puzzle-solving quality it.

In multiplayer the issue is removed as there are no teams. Every player is out for themselves. I played the free version only, so my multiplayer options were limited and I often failed to find any opponents online via the random start feature. Fortunately there is an option to fill in empty spots with computer opponents.

Overall I was impressed with the game. For the single player experience I would highly recommend the free app to any experienced board or card gamer. It offers a fantastic challenge and if the player likes, there is more single player content in the paid version. The lack of players in multiplayer for the free version made me question whether the paid version would be worth it. If more players or better options to connect players ever become available in the free version, I may look back into playing this game and maybe getting the paid version. There just wasn’t enough multiplayer experience in the free version to hook me.

The free version is available here. The paid version is $2.99 and available here.

The BIG Star Wars The Old Republic post



The Old Republic



Keen mentioned on his blog that no one in the authorized press seems to be taking a stand with the partial lifting of the NDA for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Well Keen, let me step in here and muddy the waters.  Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the largest disaster in gaming history, but Bioware says I can’t talk about the details.

My original plan for this post was to take the official press impressions of the beta and review them. The whole "review the reviewers" and "read between the lines" type of criticism I like to get into. Unfortunately the hawks at Bioware were on my tweet to Keen in a heartbeat and to my astonishment, before looking into what I was actually going to post about, they informed me I wasn't allowed to talk. Of course I tweeted furiously that they have no say in whether I cover the press previews in a blog post.

In turn I was basically called a filthy NDA-breaking blogger who "didn't care". Sadly, I do care or well I did care.  Instead of getting into some petty "you're talking about the previews, but we know you're really talking about your beta testing" argument, I'm just not going to talk about the game. In fact, this is last post that will ever mention the title on this blog. It will be the Brett Favre of /r/nfl and henceforth be known as "the game that shall not be named".

As for my original, long-winded post about the game?  All you need to know is that the game is under tight NDA wraps with less than two months until launch.

There are wins and then there are WINS

Complete domination in a game of Dominion in League of Legends. ROFL stomped their entire team with Fiddlesticks.

Hypocritical on Battlefield 3, Origin, digital distribution

I have drawn a line in the sand. I am a Steam user and I want my fucking games on Steam. Publishers should come to me, the consumer. I, the consumer, should not have to go to them. I have serious problems with Origin (and Battle.net and Steam for that matter). I DO NOT want exclusive digital distribution platforms. However, I am an avid PC gamer; a very hypocritical and easily fooled by “oh shiny” gamer at that.
This brings me to my current dilemma. I’ve all but said that I refuse to accept Origin and EA locking their flagship games into the platform. Especially because I own a half dozen of their other games on Steam and I really like Steam as my digital distribution platform. I’m disappointed that Valve and EA can’t work out their differences.

The EA vs Valve spat was not terribly unexpected. This has been playing out in the movie/TV streaming market for years already. The content providers are unwilling to sell the rights to their prime content to players such as Netflix or Amazon. Netflix and Amazon then get stuck with the re-runs and B rate stuff. The content providers meanwhile are wising up to the fact they can just as easily distribute their own digital content and just like hardcore game fans, the content fans will come to them.

The content I’m interested in is Battlefield 3. I’ve played and paid for all but two PC Battlefield titles to date. I loved the last two iterations: Heroes and Bad Company 2. I’ve always picked the Battlefield series over the likes of Call of Duty or Counterstrike. Battlefield games have always given me, the very unskilled twitch player, an excellent chance to thrive in the not-focused-just-on-shooting aspects. I played one hell of a medic in Battlefield 2.

I’ve been sitting around today watching videos such as the one at the end of this post and I’m absolutely drooling at the footage. Battlefield 3 is exactly the type of game I want. It’s an upgrade of Bad Company 2 and flat-out impressive. And I’m missing out on it because of some silly line I drew in the sand.

The problem is: can I really by the hypocrite? Again? My mind says no, but my heart (ha!) says “who gives a fuck?”. So this is me signing off, unsure what I’m going to do. In the mean time, I need to stop watching videos.



Du du, du, dun duh. Du du, du, dun duh.

Memoir 44 Online, thoughts on sustaining multi-player games

It is an undeniable fact that it takes money to maintain online games for players.  The revenue from initial sales cannot justify a game’s online existence past a set amount of time.  Subscriptions or DLC or micro-transactions are a reality (Guild Wars not withstanding).  Currently the Free 2 Play with micro transactions model is winning out.  Players get hooked on the freebie and then come back paying for more.  Some people view this as bad, but personally I view it as good and in my world it’s a way for me to reward the developer for giving me the game to try first before I invest.

This upkeep is one of the reasons I believe we have not seen many popular board or card games come to the multi-player online space, even when they are directly tied to an online game.  It baffles me that the World of Warcraft card game, is in fact, a physical card game.   Where is the UI mod that lets me play WoW the card game while playing WoW the MMOG on my PC? 

I can live without fluff card games such as the WoW CCG on the PC, but I have a significant itch for some good online multi-player board gaming on (and I’m not just talking cheap flash rip offs).  Fortunately, in stepped Days of Wonder (DoW) with Memoir 44 Online. 

Not only did they pick the right game to try out to scratch my itch, but they chose the right platform (Steam) and a solid business model (pseudo-subscription).

In order to play games online, players must spend Gold Ingots (GI).  For starters a player is given 50 GI, which results in them being able to play about 16 games completely free of charge.  From there they can purchase buckets of GI to play more games.  The amounts are various generous and I can forsee months worth of play for very little investment.

My only concern with the model is that it probably won’t work for games with smaller followings as after the initial freebie rush, the players start getting gated out.  I’d prefer to see a monthly recurring infusion of free GI to players so the free ride lasts.  If the game is good enough it will convert those free riders into paying players.  Free GI would actually be a great way to market the game.  Other systems such as refer-a-friend would work as well to reward players for joining up.

Memoir 44 Online is doing its best to show the potential of this system.  It’s a great, time-tested board game to begin with, so it was a question of implementation and DoW nailed it.  Anyone having played the board game can immediately sit down and be ready to go with the PC version.  For new players there is a well made tutorial and the game itself lends to ease of learning via right clicking to see the rule cards governing each piece of the game. 

Online match making is a little hard to understand as the same screen used for launching solo play is used to initiate multi-player games. After a quick chat in the main chat room, I was able to figure out how to start a match (but ended up being invited into a game by another player).  I didn’t fair well on my first couple of matches just due to the fact I hadn’t played Memoir 44 in ages and have far more experience with its fantasy-based sibling Battle Lore.


The game runs absolutely great on my laptop (Alienware MX11 R2) and hooked up to the big screen it’s a glorious site to behold.  The added flair to actions and combat is a nice touch.  And the biggest benefit to playing this game digitally is the zero set up and zero clean up of all the tiny plastic pieces!

Battlefield 3 ERR_LOGIN_DISPLAYTOS

Personally, I would find it embarassing if my company's flahship game had an error displaying the terms of service which then prevented players from playing.