8/10/2024 Saturday Post

 Oh hey; there was a football game yesterday which means I need to get back to my posts about the games.  Which means a few minutes in Paint.net making something that amuses me.

1-0 ... undefeated in the preseason baby!

My Gaming Mouse: Glorious Model I

 Simple Saturday post to round out the "Introduce Yourself Week" of Blaugust 2024.  Here is my current gaming mouse of choice: Glorious Model I (wired). Skip down for some thoughts.

Model I (wired)

Reasons I like the mouse:

1. The mouse is lightweight which I didn't realize I liked until I started using light weight mice instead of chunky "gaming" mice
   
2. It has the classic shape that I've loved since my early days of PC gaming with similar shaped Logitech mice
3. There are four side buttons

The only aspect I don't like about the mouse is the feel of the scroll wheel.  It is not my favorite scroll wheel but is not enough of a detractor to make me want to switch.

 If you are in the market for a new mouse I'd highly recommend checking out Glorious and their selection.

Inventory management should NOT be a mini game!

 It is "old man rants at the open sky" time.  Games, especially RPGs, should NOT make managing your character's inventory a game in and of itself!  It is irritating and detracts from otherwise great games.

 This topic came to mind after I read Nerd Girl Thoughts post on Crashlands.  She describes how the game has the audacity to have an unlimited inventory:

Did I mention you can carry, well, everything? One of most annoying parts of crafting-focused games is that you never know what you’re going to need later, so you’re spending resources crafting a million chests just in case those early game resources are needed again later on. Not in Crashlands, because your inventory is infinite. If you can pick it up, you can carry it. No inventory management, no chests, no worries.

 The "crafting a million chests" hits close to home for me right now playing a lot of Once Human.  My house has chests... everywhere.  Chests for all the logs that I keep piling up.  Chests for overflowing collections of disassembled parts.  Chests for that thing I may just need a week from now.

 Fortunately Once Human at least lets crafting supplies be sourced from the crates without having to go and get it out of the crate (well at least most of the time; some inconsistency with some of the crafting stations that don't do this).  Also Once Human lets players carry a lot of misc items for free in their backpack.  Nice but still irritating with so much in the backpack.

Ashes of Creation's inventory

 Even with the quality of life features Once Human has it still has "manage your inventory back at base" in it's core loop which is a common offender for my "old man rants at the open sky" trigger.  It makes sense that you go out on an adventure in a game and then return home to prepare for the next adventure.  But it's a game so I want to relax and enjoy my home; not micro manage inventory!

 Another big offender in games is various currency tokens.  Massively multiplayer games especially LOVE their currency tokens and even more than that they LOVE being inconsistent about the tokens.  Some go into a currency bank and others go into inventory or sometimes it goes to some hard to find account wallet you don't even realize you have.

 Once Human as a recent example for me is a poster child for inconsistency.  Where did that starchrom you just picked up go?  Oh it's just tracked as a number on your inventory screen.  Picked up some stellar planula?  That is in your backpacck.  Got a blueprint fragment?  That is in the blueprints screen.  Oh you got the other thing called blueprint? That is in your inventory.  Once Human content creators are making bank on just explaining the inventory management interfaces in this game!

 If it's not obvious by now I don't like managing inventory which is why you will see me barking about games like Ashes of Creation planning a "tetris like" inventory management system or why you will see me rolling my eyes at a game like Star Citizen trying to make an entire career path in the game for "loading a ship".  Just stop.   Let me play the game; not an inventory UI!

New World just can't win right now

Not bad? Not good? Not sure.

 

 New World posted about their wrap up of the closed beta for the console release.  They were rightfully called out on Reddit for the lacking quality and content of this update.  As /u/randrogynous broke down:

In the spirit of sharing statistics, the official News Article that this was pulled from contained 240 words. 81 of those words were a reminder that the Closed Beta was under an NDA and breaches would be treated seriously.

Over a third of their 'recap' of the Closed Beta was a reminder/threat about not talking about the Closed Beta.

New World is starting to resemble Fight Club. The first rule of New World is you do not talk about New World. The second rule of New World is you DO NOT TALK ABOUT NEW WORLD.

 Ouch.

 It is never a good situation when developers are more focused on NDA enforcement than building excitement and Amazon has made the rounds having videos and other content taken down that came out of the beta.

 The worst part is most of what has leaked out is so minor in nature it baffles me why there was an NDA in place.  Does a new artifact and some changes to some quests need to be behind an NDA?  Do a few tweaks to some weapon skills along with other balance changes warrant an NDA?

 Damn it AGS stop digging New World's grave.

Blaugust: What is a favorite Quote/s, and tell us why?

 Uninspired today so grabbing an item off the Blaugust prompt list: What is a favorite Quote/s, and tell us why?

 One of my favorite quotes: "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing wrong"

 I cannot say definitively where it originates but I first heard it from Joel Salatin during a Mother Earth News Fair speech he gave about homesteading.  Looking around the Internet I found that the quote "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing wrong" is often associated with Murphy's Law, which emphasizes that taking action is more important than achieving perfection.

 That last bit "taking action is more important" is where I wanted to focus because it's relevant to Blaugust and highlights why I really love this quote.  Some folks want to blog for Blaugust and they will spend time on social media wondering what to post about.  Analysis paralysis is a real problem.  At that point the desire to do something right is irrelevant if you never do it.

 This is why I like the weekly focus areas for Blaugust.  It helps me form a plan and take action for that week.  Then when my brain gets stuck the prompt list is a good backup to get that drive to action. Underlying this is the reality that blogging has no rules except for those that you make for yourself.

 A blog post doesn't need 1,000 words.  It doesn't even need to be edited.  There is nothing wrong with grabbing a screenshot from your favorite game, writing a sentence about it, and publishing it.  That counts.  Check the box.  You blogged!  I even recommended this yesterday to a fellow blogger that was getting stuck.  Since the rules of blogging are your own only you know if its right or not so be flexible with yourself and you can find success!

 In the real world I am in senior management and oversee a lot of projects.  My team is well known as the "get sh!t done club".  We do lots of things wrong but we do them fast. We get feedback and work to get them "right" (which is often 80% of the way there since the last 20% of anything is perfection and not worth the squeeze).

 I've been asked numerous times by more senior folks how we do it.  I always answer with some form of "we just get going".  There is also an aspect of breaking big things up into small things.  People understand small and are less likely to get analysis paralysis when presented a puzzle piece vs the entire box of puzzle pieces.  Big things don't get made into smaller things without getting started and just getting started is often where so many projects fall down.

 

Stars Reach

 This blog is my blog.  It goes where I go.  I am probably one of the biggest Raph Koster fan boys out there.  He even once posted on his blog about me.  Yes, me!  Now Raph is making waves in the MMO community with his new game Stars Reach.  So why haven't I talked about Stars Reach yet?  Well that's simple: I've been playing games and blogging about them.

 Blaugust is a great chance to switch things up a bit and talk about fresh topics and Stars Reach is right up my alley.  It also fits well with the "get to know me" week of Blaugust because in order to talk about Stars Reach we need to step back and talk about Star Wars Galaxies (SWG)!

 First I should note that I am a huge Star Wars fan.  I can't pinpoint specifically where in my life that I became a fan, but I do have a core memory of sitting on the living room floor as a kid and watching the opening scene of A New Hope being broadcast.  My family didn't go to the movies so catching a movie on the TV was about it.  Eventually I was known to check out every Star Wars book from the local library and the rest is history (and I still maintain the original expanded universe, now called Legends, is far superior to what Disney is doing).

 Now take a love of Star Wars and combine it with the early days of massively multiplayer games and throw in a shaker of Raph Koster and we got Star Wars Galaxies.  For me personally I saw a lot of Ultima Online in SWG and that was exciting.  At the time I didn't know much of Raph Koster but through being in early alpha tests for SWG I learned about him and found myself nodding along to most things he was saying.

 I ended up having a love-hate relationship with SWG.  I loved that it was Star Wars and that it was an open world where I could build my house anywhere and be the moisture farmer I always wanted to be in Star Wars.  I hated though that the game didn't focus on the moisture farmers and eventually with the infamous New Game Experience (NGE) it was clear combat was the focus.  SWG never delivered on the promise for me.

 Fast forward today and we have Raph Koster hard at work on a spiritual successor to SWG.  He even went so far as to say the words out loud: Koster calls Stars Reach a “Star Wars Galaxies 2.0,”.  So what does that mean?

 It means an online game that is focused on more than just combat. A game that is trying to do so much more than  just be a themepark.  To do the scope justice let me pull from Raph's announcement blog post:

Stars Reach uses simulation to a degree never seen in an MMO before. We know the temperature, the humidity, the materials, for every cubic meter of every planet. Our water actually flows downhill and puddles. It freezes overnight or during the winter. It evaporates and turns to steam when heated up. And not just our water — everything does this. Catch a tree on fire with a stray blaster bolt. Melt your way through a glacier to find a hidden alien laboratory embedded in the ice. Stomp too hard on a rock bridge, and watch out, it might collapse under your feet. Dam up a river to irrigate your farm. Or float in space above an asteroid, and mine crystals from its depths.

 That is a lofty goal and takes me back to memories of SWG.  For example; SWG had dynamic materials that could be gathered from the world.  There was an entire path for players that wanted to be nothing more than gatherers whereby they improved their ability to scan for and find materials.  That information could then be sold to others and it had value.  Why? Because the materials in that exact state with those exact variables were finite and once mined were gone forever.  Those materials then were used in blueprints that could only use those materials resulting in limited runs of items such as blasters and armor.  Materials gone?  So were those specific outputs.  The inner moisture farmer in me was jumping for joy.

 Stars Reach is aiming to take this level of dynamic world to another level and multiply it across a universe.  That has me super excited for what they bring forward as a game.

Monday Screenshots: The Many Faces of Heartlessgamer

 It is time for Monday Screenshots but with a Blaugust slant!  As we are in the "Introduce Yourself" week what better screenshots to feature than the many faces of the characters I've played recently across games.

 

New World

Throne and Liberty Global Beta

Once Human

Pax Dei Alpha Test

Enshrouded

Battlefield 2042 playing as Irish with my favorite skin

Call of the Wild: the Angler

New World open beta

Oldie but goodie - my Guild Wars 2 launch character... ummm yeah

Shout out to Massively OP's Global Chat

 Just a quick shout out to Massively OP for featuring me in their Global Chat feature post.  As much of as an honor when they mentioned my comments on their podcast about how I listen to podcasts at 2x speed in the shower.  If you want MMO news and insights then Massively OP is the site for you.

Blaugust 2024: Kicking off Introduce Yourself Week

Welcome to week two of Blaugust 2024; outlined below:

 "Introduce Yourself Week (August 4th – August 10th) – The idea behind this week is to have some structured time around getting to know the other bloggers. I realize that those of us who are veteran bloggers might have already written half a dozen introduction posts by now, but it is a great time to share anything interesting you might have in your arsenal."

 As a veteran blogger I do have lots of different posts introducing myself.  I will refer you to my first post of Blaugust this year if you want some links and more info.   I also shared some info about the Real World me in that post but I left out one of my favorite hobbies: fishing.

 I've fished since I was a kid and used to spend every summer day down at my local fishing spots.  I was fortunate to grow up in a small town in the midwest with a local lake that I could ride my bike around.  Even when I finally got into video games with Sega Genesis I jumped outdoors every chance I got to go fishing.

 Speaking of video games I am a big fan of fishing games from Super Black Bass all the way to more modern takes like recent adventures in Russian Fishing 4 or Call of the Wild: The Angler.

 My dad also took us fishing from time to time and some core childhood memories were watching my dad rake away weeds near shore so we had a spot to fish for bluegill/sunfish (our local lake was very weedy at the shorelines).  Then we'd usually end up at A&W or Hardees for a lunch afterwards.  My dad always got a strawberry shake.  Good times.

 Also I am posting this as a dad myself who is getting ready to take my kids fishing later today.  We don't have a small town lake we can ride bikes to so it's a bit of a drive for a good fishing spot here, but I hope the memories for my kids form the same.  Though we won't be stopping at fast food afterwards today; if we did it would be Culvers (since they are now down here in the south).

Need Blaugust inspiration? Use the prompt list dummy!

 Want to post for Blaugust 2024 but stuck on what to blog about?  Then I suggest you hit up the prompt list, grab a D20, roll that beautiful bean footage and count down the list to the prompt you rolled.  Then get writing!

2

In classic D20 fashion I rolled low; a 2.  That prompts me to write about:

What are some key sources of media (games/movies/etc) that have shaped your worldview?

 One of the best parts of the prompt list is that there are no rules, and the questions are open to your interpretation. In this case, I get to ponder what to do with "worldview" in the question. My gaming worldview or my real-world worldview? Hmmm. Let me think on this. Since I've shared a bit more about the real me this Blaugust, let me stay in reality and focus on one piece of media most may not think of: football announcers in the '90s.

John Madden

 Growing up, I religiously watched the Packers games (we were practically in the shadow of Lambeau Field). While I am obviously influenced by being a Packers fan, one aspect that went hand-in-hand with the Packers in the 1990s was John Madden. I will admit to not knowing a ton about John Madden outside of football broadcasts, but what he did inside those broadcasts left a lasting mark on me. That mark was one of positivity, keeping things simple, and a willingness to say the "duh" things out loud

 The infamous Madden joke goes something like, "Well, you see the team who scores the most points wins the game." - John Madden ... probably. For diehard football fans, Madden's basic statements seemed unwarranted, but to many others, they made the game infinitely more approachable. There was an entire cast of extended family members in my orbit who bounced in and out of the living room to catch Madden's updates on the games. He delivered his commentary with such flair and simplicity that it met them right where they were as passerby fans.

 Another part of this puzzle is that many in my family have entered the teaching profession; you could say it is in our blood. I personally did not, but every time I coach my kids' sports teams or lead my son's scouting activities, I always get asked if I am a teacher. I have a way with kids, and a lot of it comes down to just talking to them with a bit of excitement in a simple manner and saying the "duh" things out loud that so many adults skip over.

 Nowadays, I am a director at my company and lead teams on big projects. We have a reputation for getting stuff done on time and above expectation—seriously, to the point where I have senior vice presidents saying, "That is just not how projects go in business.  Good job." I am good at what I do. You know a big part of it? Simplicity and laying the "duh" things out.

 If you are following along, you can see that this sounds a lot like what passerby fans got from John Madden. As a Packers fan, I am fortunate that he covered so many of their games and was there for our Super Bowl runs in the '90s. I really do think of Madden when I am laying things out for folks, and I use him as an analogy anytime I am working with a newer manager struggling with working with employees. No doubt most of my employees are the football fans and not the passerby, but the power of keeping things simple and breaking things down for the passerby also reminds football fans how they got to be the fans they are. I feel like a bit of John Madden is narrating when I lead.