gothwalk | Entries tagged with gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Normally, my ramblings about MMOs end up on dukestreet.org, but this is literally just some thinking on what I want to play. I’m coming to the end of my interest in World of Warcraft, at least until the next expansion. The only real reason that I haven’t announced stopping is that I still owe a guildmate the best end of a thousand gold, and I want to grind that and pay it off. I’ll no doubt be back at the time of the next expansion, or if other games don’t hold my interest, because WoW is a good game - just the endgame is dull.
The game I’d really like to play is EVE Online. However, while I know a few people who play, nobody I know well is interested in that kind of strategy-tactics-logistics sci-fi game. Now, EVE is a game you can play casually and enjoy, logging in once in a few days to run a mission or do some trading. And since you can train skills whether you’re on or offline, you don’t lose much in the character advancement thing. But MMOs are social games, and while I’m a solo player by instinct, I prefer to have a guild (or corp, in EVE) there to talk to and occasionally exchange help with. I’m currently on a five-day free play bonus there, and I’m considering resubbing.
LotRO is where most of the people I know, and indeed, the core group I played with in WoW, are ending up (look for the Wild Geese kinship on Laurelin). LotRO is pretty, casual-friendly, has crafting, and hasn’t much raiding. It’s also going to have player housing later this year (currently expected around October). Given the presence of those people on LotRO, I’m defintely going to be playing it going forward. Also, it’s an excellent game.
WAR (Warhammer: Age of Reckoning) is coming soon, and it looks like it’s going to be a stonking game. If there were people I knew playing that, it could possibly draw my attention.

The decision I’m really having to make here is whether I want to have a second-string MMO, since LotRO takes the top spot. I’m not always certain I have enough time for my current stable of tabletop games and one MMO, and a second might be silly. On the other hand, I really enjoy playing EVE, more so than any other game out there.

Tags:

gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

The Pig, head writer at Wandering Goblin, has published an open letter to Uwe Boll on foot of Boll’s offensive 9/11-related opening to Postal, recently leaked on Youtube. His proposal is to fight Boll, in a boxing match, face to face, and if he wins, Boll is to agree to cut the opening sequence from his film. It’s an interesting proposal, and seeing as Boll’s methods of promotion appear to consist of being ever more offensive, I do hope it’s taken up - and that the Pig wins.

Tags:

gaming,
links

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I’ve recently begun running a new campaign. Instead of the d20 rules I’ve been using for the last while, I’ve moved on to using Fate 2.0. While the pros and cons of the system are still being ironed out, and we’re still learning it, the campaign itself is off to an excellent start. It’s set in a previously unplayed-in area of my campaign world, in the midst of a war between two island nations.
Nina has written up the first session as proper narrative, and it’s well worth reading: Chapter the First. She attaches a disclaimer that this is a narrative writeup, not an attempt to produce anything polished, but it’s still better than anything I could produce. Go read it!

Tags:

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Right. It’s up and running and should be accessible from all parts of the world by now, so I’m pleased to announce the opening of fireflymmo.com, a site to track news and coverage of the newly announced Firefly MMORPG.

Tags:

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Licensing has been agreed for a Firefly MMO. If this works at all, it’s going to be good.

Tags:

gaming,
links

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

For those gamers not reading the Duke Street feed (and why not, eh?), it may not have reached you yet that CCP have bought White Wolf. CCP are the people who make EVE Online, and White Wolf are responsible for the Vampire, Mage, and Werewolf RPGs, among others.

Tags:

gaming,
links

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

So I finished one book at lunch, and didn’t have another to start. I poked through a few of the charity- and second-hand bookshops in Dun Laoghaire, and found: The D&D Red Box. I am a happy geek this afternoon.

Tags:

gaming,
personal

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I just came across a truly excellent post titled A Nerd In A Cave, which explains a great deal about geek space, both physical and mental.

Tags:

gaming,
web culture

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

So I posted an article on dukestreet.org this morning, and stuck it on digg.com for purposes of experimentantion. The very first response is from some guy who buried it, with the comment “Buried because I don’t want competition.” How peculiar. I assume he’s talking about competition on the auction house, rather than on his website.
If any of you use digg, feel free to push this one up. If it looks useful, I’m considering putting “digg this” links on the site.

Tags:

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Those of you trying to decide between other appointments and the Starbound Economics Forum - go for the other one. A total of one person can definitely make it (that person being me), so I’m going to postpone it. Work is a bit berserk at the moment, so I haven’t the time to work out better scheduling right now, but as soon as I do, it’ll be up here.

Tags:

gaming,
writing

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I am trying hard to resist buying more games. Anyone local have a copy of Dogs in the Vineyard I could look over to decide if I need it or not?

Tags:

gaming,
writing

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

For those interested, I have some content up on the World Building section of Black Satchel. More may appear over the weekend, if the fancy strikes me.

Tags:

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Right, I’ve finally settled on a time and place for the Starbound Ecomics Forum. Following the excellent discussions on previous posts, I invite anyone who’s interested to turn up in the Westmoreland Inn on Westmoreland Street on Saturday 17th of June at 15:00, to discuss FTL trade and economics. I’ve yet to mention this to the Westmoreland, but I don’t think they’ll have any problem with it. That’s not the pub in the Westin Hotel, mind. RSVPs useful, but not essential. I’ll bring some notepaper, other people may bring laptops or the like for better note-taking.

Edit: Corrected “July” to “June” - see, I’m already living in the future!

Tags:

gaming,
writing

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

New House of Worms is up and live.

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Preeeesenting: House of Worms, Page 3.

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I’m not promising that I’ll continue House of Worms indefinitely. Most webcomics are indefinite, like old-style gaming campaigns, and I’d like to experiment with a definite storyline (most of it is already in mind). The screencap-posterise technique is easy enough that I might want to reuse it for other stories, though. I have a few more things I’d like to do, too - I’m not well up on current web comic where-it’s-at-ness, so these may be done already.

First and foremost, no sad girls in snow. Megatokyo, back when I read it, was a reasonably good comic, except that the consistently apologetic artist/writer, Piro, would occasionally have a dead brain day, and be able to produce nothing but a pretty manga chick in a late Victorian frock, looking up at the point of view with a sad expression. No background, hence snow. This is probably my impression, rather than what actually happened, but I am resolved: if I can’t post a comic, I won’t be posting a filler.

Second: No regular schedule. In these days of feeds, the comics will come to the people, the people don’t have to go look for the comics.

Third: No breaking the fourth wall. I had to have this idiom explained to me a few years ago, and I do consider it something to avoid if at all possible. The characters in HoW will not address you, advertise real-world stuff, or comment on the writer. Nor will they comment on the oddities of their reality (except when plausible, as with the Forsaken commenting on how odd it is being dead).

Fourth: No thought bubbles. They have their place, but I don’t like them - I dislike showing a character’s thoughts even in prose, unless it’s first person. Probably my background in gamesmastering coming through.

Fifth: No commentary. No “Later…” or “In Orgrimmar…” in a little box at the top left. Those things drive me spare; if you can’t show it in the art or the speech, don’t tell me, it’s clearly not important.

I think that’s it…

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I’m a bit puzzled by the fact that House of Worms, as seen on a CRT monitor, is considerably darker and harder to read than on my own flat-screen. I’ve brightened both pages, and increased the contrast (about 30 seconds work during lunch), but I’m going to have to wait until I get home to see how that looks on the flat screen. Anyway, anyone who was having trouble distinguishing characters from backgrounds, my apologies - wander along to dukestreet.org and try it again. I think the fonts should be a little more readable with higher contrast as well, although Chalcedony may be a little difficult to understand still. That’s ok, Wormson doesn’t understand her either.

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Here’s the second page of my World of Warcraft comic, House of Worms:

Naturally, advertising this far and wide for me will result in more comics.

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I am pleased to present the first page of House of Worms:

(Click through for a bigger version!)

(And I’ve no idea if there will be more - it’s rather time-consuming to produce.)

Tags:

art,
gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Move shelves downstairs
Move stuff downstairs to put on shelves
Dispose of leftover stuff upstairs, deemed unworthy of shelving
Move old desk into shed
Fetch strawberries looted from freecycle list
Plant strawberries
Redesign dukestreet.org in more civilised colours.
Mow lawn, plant some more rocket, weed herb bed
Schedule Starbound Economics discussion
Write like mad for Kingfisher’s Way, as pesky players now thinking too clearly
List more businesses on inranelagh.com, and pester people unmercifully for links

I think that should be enough to be getting along with…

Tags:

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Cities

Baby, You Mean The World of Warcraft To Me

Tags:

gaming,
links

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

I had stomach upsets and no sleep last night, so took the day off from work to get better - which has more or less worked. Nina brought home a copy of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and I’ve been attempting to install it on her machine. Or rather, it installed ok, but playing it is very hard because it’s running, with everything turned right down, at a magnificent 1 frame per second, or thereabouts. It was actually worse at first - I think, it’s hard to measure - and this is with various tweaks applied. The machine is well above the minimum spec and is very nearly the recommended spec, so I have difficulty believing that hardware is the problem. If anyone knows a neat solution to this, do let me know, as it’s not playable yet.

Tags:

gaming

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

There’s a definite similarity in use between “homeboy” and “guildie”. Discuss.

Tags:

gaming,
personal

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

For the non-WoW players, I apologise for this incomprehensible content.

1. Thou Shalt Spell Correctly.
2. If Thou Needst To Invent Words, Let Them Look Plausible.
3. Thou Shalt Not Claim To Be A Half Demon.
4. Nor Shalt Thou Describe Anything As Shimmering.
5. Thou Shalt Not Compress Two Pages Of Tolkien Into Thy Description.
6. Thou Shalt Not Have Scars, Because Everyone Else Already Has.
7. Thou Shalt Not Describe The Reactions Of The Viewer.
8. Thou Shalt Remember What Thou Hast Written.
9. If Thou Hast Contravened The Third Commandment, Be Prepared To Deal With The Reaction.
10. Further, Thou Shalt Not Claim To Be A Half Dragon, And Particularly Not A Half Dragon Half Demon Forsaken Like That Idiot I Saw In Orgrimmar Last Week.

Tags:

gaming

It seems like a good time to post plans for the next while.

The major thing I would like to do this year is to go back to college, and do English and some other subject in UCD's modular evening courses. The "some other subject" is under debate, but at present in order of priority, it goes: Geography, Medieval History, Any Other History. This is all dependent, however, on the no-college-fees things extending to the modular course, and there are indications that that's not the case. If it doesn't cover that course, then it's simply not affordable, and that's it. It says on UCD's Horizons FAQ that "at present, part-time students are not funded by Government", which is not encouraging. And the Department of Education and Science site (after considerable searching) says "Under the free fees initiative, the DES meets the tuition fees of eligible students who are attending full-time undergraduate courses". I'm going to make a few phone calls tomorrow to confirm or deny this.

However, one way or another, I do intend to take a break from running games (it'd be impossible while doing an evening course). While I'm not burning out on it yet, I can feel burnout lurking nearby. I'll finish out the currently running campaigns, and Age of Legends events will still take place occasionally, but I'll not be starting any new campaigns for about two to three years. After that, I plan to run some space opera material that I'll be developing in the meantime.

Not running games (which currently takes about 9 hours a week, on average, in running games, and around 25 in preparation and plotting) will free up a lot of time. If I'm not doing the course, I'll be moving some of that time toward A Political Education and dukestreet.org. Expect me to become opinionated on politics and even more opinionated on science fiction and fantasy.

And finally, we'll be going to India in September, for a bit over two weeks. I'm really looking forward to this, and already doing some research (which, as

inannajones will tell you, is only just short of a miracle). It'll be just after our five-year wedding anniversary, too. I may be cheeky and set up a paypal "India Fund" that people can chuck some money into rather than giving us anniversary or birthday presents, because it's not going to be a cheap trip.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: WoW noises

Tags:

Big Easy players - how many of ye will make it tomorrow evening?

yrthilian, you still on that course?

Locksmith's Folly players, no game this week, but if you want to get details about any aspects of Elsaive, or anything else that requires a lengthy response from me, now is a good time.

And we need to coordinate a time for the next Kingfisher's Way game, too.

Tags:

gaming,
schedule

Nights are drawing in, there are pumpkins and masks in the shops, the mornings are misty, that means it's that time of year again: Gaelcon!

Who's going? And are you planning to be anti-social and play scheduled games, or wander round and play pickup stuff in a sociable manner? Pub quizzing, or available for some food thing one or more evenings? Planning to buy vast quantities of stuff, or is it just going to happen anyway?

Tags:

gaming

I've no idea which game it was supposed to be tomorrow night, but I'm not going to make it - I've been late in work every day this week, and probably will be for those remaining.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien

Tags:

gaming,
work

A quick enquiry... in this world, when we say someone is "powerful", we usually mean they can get things done, that they have people around who will do what they're told. In fantasy worlds, however, it can mean "can drop-kick you over the horizon", "can melt steel with her mind", or "can blow up continents with 2.5cc of mouseblood and a bit of concentration". Is there an adjective in English to describe that kind of inherent power?

Tags:

gaming,
writing

olethros has set up a wiki for Davon, my campaign world. I'm not linking to it yet, though, because there's (almost) nothing in there. It will work as a kind of encycopedia for the world, in both the modern and old eras. I'd like to get content in there, and will be starting to transfer stuff from other media fairly soon. I'd appreciate, though, if players past and present could give me a list of entries they'd like to see soonest. Essentially anything that's a proper noun for now; entries on things like "Magic", "Economics", and "Travel" will come later. So, what would ye like to see?

(The icon is Mardoc, btw, for those who know him.)

Tags:

davon,
gaming

Big Easy Players - my schedule is becoming rather jammed, and this Thursday's game is going to be the major casualty. Sorry about this; the schedules should settle down again soon. I'll see most of you at the barbecue, anyway.

Tags:

gaming,
social

Big Easy players in particular, please welcome

firsanthalas, who plays Walks With Shadow, to livejournal. Another one in the groupmind. :)

Tags:

gaming,
livejournal

I've been using Amphetadesk as a news aggregator for the last few weeks. Today, while poking at it, I came up with a few ideas and mailed them to the guy who makes it - Morbus Iff - fully expecting them to vanish into the ether. A few minutes later, I got a mail back saying that two of my ideas were going to be in the upcoming new release, and that the third would be as well, and he attached a new template file with a way to do it already. That's service, so y'all go and download Amphetadesk now.

What it does: It fetches the XML RSS feed from a wide variety of sites, and puts it all in one file on your desktop, downloading fresh material up to once an hour, whenever you're online. Cuts down the clicking through lots of weblogs and news sites to reading one local file, and clicking through if you want more information.

Morbus also runs gamegrene.com, an excellent gaming site. Is there nothing the man can't do right?

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Bob Marley - Slave Driver

Tags:

There's a useful looking tutorial here for using the Aurora toolset in NWN. And a sample module to download... and a series of howtos.

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Bis - Punk Rock Points

Tags:

gaming

Is there any point to me making comments possible on Mnemosyne? Is anyone even reading it? Not that it matters, since it's just an open notebook, really...

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Sick Of It All - Pass The Buck

Tags:

gaming,
research

Neverwinter Nights rocks. Glen picked up the necessary hardware for us - a video accelerator, and Nina and I got the game itself on Saturday. Neverwinter Nights was finally gotten running at about 00:15 on Sunday. It rocks, and that's just the single-player game, because I haven't really had a chance to play with the module creator yet. The interface is fantastic, the gameplay is great, the visuals are nothing short of stunning. The only problem is the plot, which isn't, frankly, the hottest, and the characters, which are annoying. I'm sure some of them will grow on me after a bit, though - it's happened with other games. I'm really looking forward to trying some other modules.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: VNV Nation - Burnout

Tags:

gaming

Looks like Wizards is undergoing big changes again. According to ENWorld, they're selling off Dungeon and Dragon, and cancelling the Chainmail miniatures game entirely. Someone - can't remember who - was saying that it's a pity Wizards is such a big company, since a small company likely wouldn't be so obsessed with profits, and might actaully concentrate on the games. I hope the magazines don't change too much in the selling... I like and read both of them.

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Alanis Morisette - Hand in My Pocket

Tags:

gaming

There is a game tonight, and as per usual for these days, I haven't written it yet. Truly, I need something like C-3PO to follow me around saying "But Master Drew, what will the players think?". The problem today is that I have too many ideas. There are at least ten ideas in my head for each characters, most of which need to happen now-ish if at all. However, it'll probably all resolve and combine into a decent game by the time I start to write this evening. The usual thing is, though, that when I have a billion and one ideas like this, the players don't actually like the game all that much - or so it seems, anyway.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Jethro Tull - Slow Marching Band

Tags:

gaming,
writing

Man, that weather is bad. It's a kind of sneaky cold that gets right inside, and stays there. I've been inside for two hours since the trip to work, there's a heater going full blast not two metres from me, and I'm still freezing - my hands are numb. There must be something wrong with the weather this year, I normally stride around in a t-shirt in 4 degrees and still have warm hands. Not enough meditation, perhaps.

So it was a busy weekend. On Friday evening, we had the penultimate game of Spellbound. It came out that just about the only way forward was for Ki (a deity, and one the PCs were rather fond of, one of them being his father/High Priest/Proxy) to well, sacrifice himself. So things were unhappy there, and all three players were crying, and I was trying not to.

Saturday afternoon and into evening, we had the first meeting of a pagan circle, which was very successful, and I'm looking forward to the first working meeting. I'm going to be "doing homework" in the form of essay writing, which should provoke me into reading some more of those books I keep meaning to read.

And then late on Saturday evening, Nina/Urda came up with a way out of Ki's sacrifice, by using the enemies' resources against them, in time for the last game of Spellbound on Sunday afternoon. So, thanks once again to to Urda's brilliance, the campaign had a happy ending, and everything is set up for the sequel - Spellbound : Major Arcana. It's the end of an era, three years after we started the campaign - but not an End, if you see what I mean. I really liked how it finished up, with plot threads all tied away neatly, and everybody happy.

My head is buzzingwith stuff for MA, and I'm really enjoying planning for it. And work is less hectic now for a bit, so I can actually take the time to think, and plot, and write stuff down.

Tags:

Today is a hard-at-work day, with plenty of stuff on the to-do list, but I'm going to take a break and write a bit.

Dave repaired the SSIs on my website for me today - in view of my continuing inability to get an ssh connection out of here for more than about 30 seconds - so everything there is working again, at last.

Weather outside is being sunny, but cold, yet not cold enough to be satisfying. The weather boards on weatheroutlook and the BBC are both predicting a cold snap at the beginning of February - and indeed some real cold on Friday, as well. What I want, perversely, is the kind of weather that leaves me shivering at the bus stop, and genuinely glad to get inside again. I know the memory plays tricks with regard to weather, but last winter seemed much much colder than this one.

I'm starting in to think seriously about the followup campaign to Spellbound- Major Arcana. It'll use Tarot spreads as a kicking off point for themes, ideas, and so on. I'm also reading James Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces, so as to get some more inspiration on the archetype ideas, which fascinate me. I'm looking at making it much more character driven - much more player driven - than Spellbound, and with less of the vast, world changing DM actions. Davon has changed enough over the last few years, and I want to settle down and examine the changes now. It might be nice, from the point of view of interest in ongoing events in the world, to speed time up, so that a month in real time is two or three months of game time, but I don't know about this - it does make the in-character-but-out-of-game sessions more difficult to pinpoint. On the other hand, it's far easier than trying to run things the other way round, so that a day or two of game time takes place over two weeks of real time, which I find frustrating.

I'm currently writing a series of day-in-the-life pieces from people in the Royal Haelthannic Navy. For purposes of this, I'm doing research into real navies, mostly the British Navy, which seems to be an extremely complex edifice, with a great many odd traditions and unspoken rules. Several people have recommended the Hornblower novels, which I should probably investigate. I must find out where Dun Laoghaire Public Library is, as well.

The cat managed to terrify myself and Nina completely last night by appearing on the windowsill of Nina's study - on the outside- when we thought she was asleep somewhere in the house. How she got out, we're not at all sure, and teleportation seems to be the only reasonable explanation. She's already sleeping on the bed, of course, but I'm not showing any allergic reactions at all - unexpected but pleasing.

Tags:

Finally back at work and settled in. I'm working for Swiftpay in Dun Laoghaire, which is a very good place to work, in terms of both actual workplace and the village.
I'm in a room with three other people, all of whom are human and able to hold a conversation. They're a DB admin, a graphic designer, and a marketing person. Elsewhere in the building are the copywriter, an administrator, one or two support guys, and the MD. That's it for this side of the water, although there are more in Canada - Montreal.

Spellbound is winding toward a close, and I'm starting to think about the next campaign. It's been decided that Nina and Kathy will keep their current characters going forward, and that Dave will take on one of the NPCs - assuming the nPC in question survives the troubled latter days of Spellbound. The name and thematic elements for the new campaign still elude me, but I'm working on it.

Tags:

gaming,
work

OK, so it's been far too long. But I was following links today off pages that I visit once in a while - in this case helena's page - and came across this. And I figure that if a 14 year old can do a diary, so can I, dammit. So I'm writing this in work in vi, and I'll cut and paste it into diaryland when I'm done.

So what's been happening? Erk. Work, mainly. Preparing for wedding. Getting that inheritance, finally. Being busy. Joining a gym. Having long Too-Much-Information conversations and getting very drunk and being hungover in work.

Playing Battlefaeries. Reading Salon and Nerve. Being annoyed by one customer in particular, who will remain unnamed. Playing D&D, starting a new campaign to go with the old one, and playing in Mac's Alternity Game (which is tonight). Planning the Yule Party.

We went to the Smashing Pumpkins gig in the Olympia. It rocked freely. It was fantastic. Did I mention that it was good?

Stuff.

Tags:

gaming,
life

Work again, and again bored. There seems to be very little to do right now. The stock price is way up, which makes me happy, becuase if it stays there, I'll be rich on leaving. So I'm spodding, and reading House of Leaves on iuniverse.com, which is excellent, and poking around other stuff curiously.

I want to learn more PHP, but I'm not in the mood.

I went through my campaign notebooks last night, and out of curiousity, tried to figure out how long it would take me to wrap up the campaign NOW, without any other material. 27 sessions, I discovered. At an average four sessions a month, that's more than six months. That's into September.

I'm going to have to start other campaigns in the meantime - Faction War, when I get hold of it, and possibly the Middle Kingdoms game, just to get SOME of this stuff out of my head. And then there's Other Dublinto write more of... and all of the now two Sanctuary lists to read a backlog from. And it's a huge backlog.

So much to do, so little of it essential, so much of it essential.

I'm amazed, sometimes, by the amount of stuff I can hold in my head. Writing up Innard's Wardlast night, the spell description went on for two foolscap pages. My hand was cramping, and the pen ran out of ink. And before I started, I thought a paragraph or two would cover it.

Speaking of cramps, I woke up last night with a bastardof a cramp in my left calf. Could barely walk this morning. Add that to a coughing fit, and the overall effect was not pleasant. I do wish I could shake this cold once and for all. Maybe sleeping in over the weekend will deal with it.

Lunchtime, eh? Cheese sandwiches. For some reason, cheese tastes really really good these days. Nothing fancy. Red Cheddar. Not even very red. Almost as good as buttered eggs, and the pancakes from last night. And tea and coffee. Simple tastes. Right now, I would killfor a bowl of stew and some brown bread. I'd maim for soup. And I'm sure there's soup in the canteen, but I'm too lazy and too broke to investigate. Yes, I'll maim for it, but only if I don't have to move.

Tags:

Back in work. Ugh. Network connection horrible. Ugh. Still coughing. More ugh. Just ugh in general.

There is some stuff to be done - mostly forms and things. I can't imagine how they're going to work these things after we're gone...

Have exchanged mail with Ivan in CSR, so I'm expecting something back anytime soon.

Nina just discovered that there is a Baldur's Gate II coming out soon. 'puter games don't come out fast enough, that's the problem. Especially the replayable type - ones that are customisable, or replayable, or whatever. I'm thinking here mainly of Civ, which you can play again and again (and again and again and again...) and the forthcoming Neverwinter Nights. Drool.

I'm thinking strongly of running Faction War as a summer campaign or something, for when people don't have essays and similar crap to worry about, and we can generate new characters at fifth level or so and run from there. This is mostly Nina's suggestion, but I do like the sound of it. I might even invite in some new players, since the world isn't going to be that personalised or anything.

It'd mean some calculating, though, since the Faction War events would need to take place, from the Davonian point of view, some years in the future. Maybe even a totally separate setting, or something...

I've been reading the Neverwinter Nights boards for a bit, and there does seem to be a fair amount of intent to create new modules and adventures and campaign settings, so that will at least be expandable. I fully intend to put scenarios up for download...

I wonder if anyone has developed Starcraft scenarios or campaigns for downloading... must go look.

Tags:

Hair. Bastard stuff. My hair is curly - tangly might be a better word it, and just beyond shoulder length when wet. When I haven't combed/conditioned it for a bit, it forms a dense, impenetrable mass. I spent half an hour last night hacking through the worst tangles with a hairbrush, and trying not to scream as my scalp went at leaving with the tangles. Ugh. And already, I can feel another knot developing back there, and that's after I brushed it this morning.

Anyway. Still out. Coughing, just, and still unwell feeling. Should be good to go back tomorrow, for what it's worth. Have played more Civ. Not sure why I bother - it's evident that I'm going to be crushed, bug fashion, in the late game, but I'm taking a vindictive pleasure in stomping on the Chinese.

Speaking of Chinese, I've been reading, in off moments, a Chinese cookery book. I like cookery books, although they make me want to have a real kitchen. I'm not quite sure what a real kitchen is, although it may involved the twin miracles of having every possible foostuff within arm's reach and never having to wash up. However, with some judicious shopping, the kitchen here can be made semi-real. It's a pity I can never quite harness these urges properly.

Not just one, but two copies of Dragonhave arrived, and I fully intend to sit down and read them cover to cover. I spent a lot of yesterday evening, while Nina translated Latin, in reading stuff on rpg.net. There's good, discursive stuff there.

I'm approaching a zen state of contentment at the minute. I have no money, but I have money coming in soon, and this means we won't starve. I spent a while starving in college, and have no intention of repeating the experience. So for the minute I can do nothing, but am content to just be.

I'm also planning stuff for Other Dublin. I plan to have it much less intensive, and much less work needed than on Angwels. The main channel of output will be the mailing list rather than the website, I think, the website serving more as a nice interface to an archive than anything else. This cuts down on the need to put everything in HTML - all I need to do is look down through incoming stories, and forward them to the list. This is good. If I get really lazy and really clever, I might even hook up a mail-to-web program that will take in a story by mail, and store it on the website. That'd be nice.

I'm eating instant Pasta Napolitana from a black bowl. It looks good. It tastes pretty good, too. The smell reminds me exactly, though, of the smell of oxtail soup from National School. My school had a kettle, which would be ritually boiled every day at lunchtime from October through March, and tea or instant soup or Bovril made. Nobody drank coffee back then. I usually had chicken or vegetable soup, usually, to go with the egg sandwiches that I ate every school day for eight years. I still like egg sandwiches, although I've gone off oxtail soup.

We really need some more non-stick pans. The saucepans we have are stainless steel, and while they're good, stuff does stick to them. I'd prefer good old cast-iron pots from a cooking point of view, but they're bastardsto clean, even if they're enamelled.

And we do need a new frying pan. That one is falling apart now. There's an old cast iron one at homehome, which gets sandblasted or something every few months, and has lasted for centuries, it seems. Certainly, the same pan - different handle - is the one my mother taight me to fry eggs in. Eggs in enough grease that you could flip it up onto the topside, so the yolk became this pink blister. I must look up her recipe for fish pie, too.

After I finish eating, I'm going to make myself some coffee - unusual enough at home, cos it requires more thinking than tea - and read those magazines. Comfort. Good.

Tags:

[archive entry; from diaryland]

Ugh.
I've been home all day, not in work. Sore throat, sore head, dizzy when I stand up. But I wrote a second chapter of Other Dublin, and played more Civ. Kicked Chinese and Viking butt. Damn Jamaaicans're gonna stomp all over me in the late game, though - the chart is the rest of us at about ten degrees out of the horizontal, and the Jamaicans at about forty-five. Fun.

Nina says it was really hot outside, blazing sunshine. I barely registered the sunshine, to be honest - too focussed on the screen.

Got the Official Letter of Job OfferingTMfrom Kerna. 19K, as Junior Networking Engineer or somesuch. Unless I get a ridiculously good offer from elsewhere, I'll be going there. I was supposed to interview for Critical Path today, but it's been put off until Wednesday lunchtime. I MP3'd Welcome to Earthlast night. Really must remember to get the rest of the MP3s off my work machine and onto dogma or somewhere else safe like that.

If there's enough between layoff money and share options, I might stretch to a new computer - so that there's one for each of us in the house. I'm trying to make up my mind whether I want another desktop or a laptop. I'm notgetting a Vaio or anything - too small a keyboard.

And then there's the need for extra hardware for this box - the CD drive is on the verge of falling over, and we could really do with a modem that's not a Winmodem. So we can finally put a Linux on it.

My head is too full of Other Dublinstuff to think clearly about anything else, but Nina says that if I want to read that history book, I gotta do it tonight, as it goers back tomorrow. Such hardship...

Tags:

[archive entry; from diaryland]

It's sunny outside, and even though I'm sure it's chilly out there, I'd like to be there. But I have a cold, third or fourth this winter, and so I'm stuck inside. I've been tinkering with HTML for these pages and for my own, and answering some old email, and deleting more.

There's also a bizarre routing thing preventing me from getting directly to dogma, unless I go via magmom in London. Most odd. I'm starting to like ssh more than telnet - it seems cleaner or something.

I'd love to know WHY I've gotten so many colds this year. Used to be I got one, if that, every winter. I blame the central heating, cos that's the main difference between here and homehome - we have it here.

I'm listening to the Apoptygma Berzerk CD that Dee won last night, and will go on to the sampler I won in a bit. The Dominion Crew weren't too impressed with the sampler, so I'm leaving that 'til last. Welcome to Earthis cool, though.

I wrote the first section of the first story for Other Dublinthis morning, and I might write the next if I'm bored. This series features a spooky kid, literally, called Leery. I want to develop the technomage concpet too, before anyone else gets thier hands on it.

I want a new 'puter game. I finished Torment a few days ago, and could, I suppose, play again. And I do have a demo of Age of Wonders, which I haven't defeated yet, and I have yet to even start on Brood Wars. Civ just doesn't cut it... anyone who wants to take me on in an email game of CTP, drop me a line, please :) But yeah, I want Neverwinter Nights, like now.

Ah well. Brood Wars will do.

Tags:

We did it all for the Glory of Love

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags