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Fist of the North Star, ftw?

Ok, apparently a Fist of the North Star “MMORPG” is about to go into beta. I say “MMORPG” in quotes because it really isn’t anymore a MMO than say, Quake or Unreal Tournament. Sure, gazillions of people can play, but not at the same time in the same universe. I’m beginning to wonder if the game industry even knows what a MMORPG is supposed to be anymore. I have already decided that the mass media has no clue (hell, those guys have even lost sight of what “news” is supposed to be).

For you younger folks, Fist of the North Star is old school manga/anime. You can see some graphics over here and a little more information here.

What is next? Ikea MMO? Ferris Bueller the MMORPG? or maybe “Speed Racer Online” and “One Tree Hill, the super fabulous MMORPG” (totally “next-generation” of course).

Yeah, I died a little inside when I saw this stuff. It seems like the industry is really trying to grasp at straws for “new” content by dregging up old properties. Even the few companies trying to do something original simply end up with chocobo racing omgmmorpgwtf!

I want something really original for a change.

Conventions of the Game

Pulling is inherently a weird notion. You have to wonder about the guy next to the one who was pulled. “Did Bill just get shot in the shoulder? Meh, I guess he can handle it.” These aren’t villains, they are horror film extras, wandering into the woods one at a time, where an insane gang of SCA-wannabes lurks.

That is far from a new insight, but other oddities struck me. City of Heroes enemies have relatively small aggro and pursuit ranges. I regularly run past enemies with no stealth on, since they will shoot maybe once or twice before wandering back to their spots. We call it “Tanker stealth.” “Intruders! We’re under attack! Ah, eff it, he’s way over there. Not my job.” This is why the archvillains lose: their henchmen are lazy and stupid.

I was playing my Sonic Defender tonight. Staying out of that aggro range, I flew merrily above my enemies’ heads to get to their drug stashes and boss. Sonic Defenders have huge, spherical force shields. “Guido, did you see a giant orange bubble zip by us? No? Maybe it’s just me.”

: Zubon

City of Shuler

Did you know that Douglas Shuler plays City of Heroes? Being nerds, you might know him best as an artist from Magic: the Gathering. Serra Angel was one of his. He recently posted a link to a poster he made. He made 3D models of all 41 members of his supergroup, and posed them on the Atlas Park steps. Remind me to recruit a professional artist to our supergroup. The best we have is someone who teaches pottery.

: Zubon

Help the Competition

Tobold has his own mini city. It’s like Sim City, “Only there is no gameplay. The only thing you can do is to post links to your city…” Great, so we can send him thousands of useless little people by clicking on the link once a day and getting all our friends to do the same. By the look of it, we can flood him with criminals if no one clicks the link to add security. You know, if you are into that.

: Zubon

Dinner as Metaphor

Sweet and sour chicken, here we go. I stir fry it with no breading (I do not like breading), but it is still recognizably the same thing. Mix it with some peppers, onions, and sauce, and we are golden. I don’t have sweet and sour sauce right now, but this pad thai sauce will work in a pinch.

The chicken in the fridge is a bit old. How long ago did I defrost that? I would hate to throw a whole pound of chicken away. I probably should have cooked it sooner, but I had a busy weekend. I forgot to defrost something new before heading to work today, so we will just go with this. Add more sauce and spices, it will cover the taste.

Excellent, all done. The wife thinks it tastes a bit off, but she has always been picky. I’ll eat anything. See, this tastes fine. Okay, that bite was foul, I’ll admit. Maybe I got lucky with the first few pieces of chicken. The awful thing is, it was a big mouthful, and I have no idea which bit of chicken was bad. Now it’s all half-disgusting. Do I spit it out or quickly chew and swallow?

I’ll just start taking smaller bites. If I hit a slightly rancid bit, I can spit that out and try the next one. And these peppers, we just got them from the farmer’s market, these are fresh. Granted, I overcooked them to sautéed instead of stir-fried, so they are flaccid, but they’re still excellent peppers. I can enjoy this food, at least 90% of it is good. And I have a lot of leftovers, so I can make several meals of this.

: Zubon

Media Misuse

A frequent problem we have is folks writing for the wrong medium. We have great stories that make lousy games. We have people who want to write the great American novel and are trying to insert it as NPC text. And so on with lousy movies made from books, lousy novelizations of great or lousy movies, etc. If you are writing for a game, it must contribute to the game, and if that stifles your artistic dreams, you should probably be writing for another medium.

I was reminded of this by the D&D website. They have a video answer of the day. To save you the time of watching it, the answer is “yes, but we’re not going into specifics yet.” For ten words of content, you want text, not a video of someone talking. On a broader note, I have gotten sick of logging into the various parts of that site to find content that might have been useful text a few months back, so please stop using all the fancy web toys someone sold you and just give us information.

Okay, I feel better.

: Zubon

Escort Service

Few things give me more irritation and grief than your common, garden-variety escort mission. Years ago I came to the personal realization that, well, I didn’t have to do them. I like to think my life has gotten better as a result of that. I can say that I’ve been reasonably free and clear for years.

Yes, every now and then I’m forced to take a hit and do one or two. But believe me, it’s not by choice. A designer somewhere had the idea of putting one of those in the middle of a primary quest line, or even worse as the necessary step to perform in order to progress into another area. That’s how it is. I hate them. With a passion. But sometimes we’re forced to do them. I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Just what is it about escort missions that make me feel as if I had eaten week-old meatloaf?

Continue reading Escort Service