Sierra Kilo

Massively is a pretty good gaming site. The only problem is that there are a ton of posts each day and only a few have some meat. They had an article on crafting in Mythos that I found interesting, especially since I tried and enjoyed it this weekend. I’m not sure why the “complexity through simplicity” aspect of Mythos is so appealing to me, but crafting is an example of that. Once you have found a crafting recipe and gathered the ingredients, you can create the item. Enhancing the item’s properties increases the failure rate. Dead simple, fun, and engaging. A couple of things are missing from Mythos, however. First, I felt like I was playing a single-player hack-and-slash game (a bit like Gauntlet). I didn’t get much of the multi-player aspect. Second, a sense of permanency was missing. With so many items to collect, I couldn’t actually collect them because my inventory would fill up. Player housing would be a great addition (either that or a Dungeon Siege-like pack mule). Last, I felt no connection to the world. Why was I there? Why was I doing quests (other than money and XP)? Who am I, where am I?

The other good Massively article today asked “Is narrative important?” I say yes. That’s part of what’s missing from Mythos (n) : a story or set of stories relevant or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group; anything delivered by word of mouth: a word, speech, conversation, or similar; a story, tale, or legend, especially a poetic tale. Maybe I just missed it? I like the game, but I like to be a part of my MMORPGs. I want to live the life of my character in that world. I understand Mythos isn’t exactly for roleplayers, but it could at least have some grand story (like trying to defeat Diablo and free the land from oppression or something).

Despite all of that, I’d really like to play a little more Mythos…maybe even tonight. Maybe I’ll LFG and see how the multi-player side of things is?

…not the SNL-variety.

Friday, a friend and I went to see Rush in concert. It was great! Being in their mid-50′s, they held up very well for nearly 3 hours! They played most of the classics and the best songs from their latest, Snakes and Arrows. Limelight, Freewill, Dreamline, Subdivisions, Tom Sawyer, 2112…all rediculously good. Neil Peart played a 6+ minute drum solo, followed up by Alex Lifeson playing Hope on a 12-string. I can now say that I’ve seen one of the two bands I’ve wanted to see live…next up, Pink Floyd (when pigs fly?).

I got a little time to game, too. I’d been meaning to get on Dungeon Runners and Mythos for a bit and try to figure out what the difference was They’re both Diablo-esque hack-and-slashers. I found myself playing Mythos more. Maybe it’s the Diablo roots, but it just felt more familiar and fun. I wasn’t a big Diablo player, but I liked the idea of socketed items and item rarity. The RPG elements are all there as well as the skill tree. I’m playing a Gadgeteer, which is actually pretty fun. I’m using a shotgun-like musket and sending my little homing spider bombs to collect kills. There are plenty of quests and they’re nice and short. One could hop on for 15 minutes and complete a quest or two. So far, however, I’m missing the MMO part of it. Sure, I see a few people running around the common-area cities and see a bunch of text in the chat window, but it’s felt like a completely single-player experience. Maybe it’s the instanced dungeons? Mythos seems well suited for Achievers with a little for Explorers. As an EASK, it’s not completely lost on me. I would like to see more roleplaying and social elements. Owning a home and defending the city from an invasion would be a great way to give the player a sense of belonging and camaraderie. The crafting quests were slightly fun. More downtime activities could fill the roleplaying void.

Games:
With all of the MMORPGs being developed, why isn’t there one that I really want to play? Granted, there are a couple who have not released enough information (I’m looking at you Bioware and 38 Studios), but from what’s known, I’m a little disappointed in the future of the genre. One player in my disappointment is the lack of console MMOs (specifically XBox 360). I can jump into a CoD4 frag-fest and play for an hour or so in the evening. I’d rather play from my comfy couch in 720p on my 50″ TV than in the upright chair in the confines of my office. Maybe XBox Live is to blame? Is it not possible to develop an MMORPG for that console? Playstation 3 has their virtual world “Home” coming out soon, so it’s not impossible for that platform. It’s not the control scheme. With the chatpad attachment, it would be easy enough to map actions to keys rather than having to navigate menus with the controller.

Right now, I am actually looking forward to Stargate Worlds. It looks like it might be very interesting. I might even be able to get the wife to play with me. Earthrise and Fallen Earth are also intriguing (I’ve been following FE forever). Still, none to be played in my living room

D&D 4th Edition: Pen-and-paper WoW? I happen to like 2nd Edition AD&D best, but the online component to 4e looks interesting. D&D seems to use much less imagination lately, though. With all of the miniatures, rules simplification (yet complication due to the multitude of extra sourcebooks), and multi/prestige/hybrid classes, D&D seems much less about roleplaying and more about gaming. I’m interested to play a 4e game on “D&D Game Day” and read the rules, though.

Gadgets:
No updated Mac Mini yet. By the time they update it, I’ll probably be over the whole Mac in the living room thing.

The Goods:
Hellboy 2 looks much better than the original. Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth comes through a little, which is cool.

Yesterday was my 31st birthday. I celebrated Office Space-style. I did nothing! I watched TV, played games, and that was it. I had grand plans to wash the car, but news of rain stayed my hand.

I played Call of Duty 4, mostly. I gained a few levels and opened up a few new weapons and equipment. I thought about hopping on Dungeon Runners or Mythos, but never got around to it. In hindsight, there were a few other things I would have liked to do, too, but didn’t think of at the time. None would have broken up my day of doing nothing.

I saw a show last night about the 2007 Solar Decathlon. It was very interesting. I love the prospect of modular housing and wish it were more widely accepted. Many modern technologies are modular and upgradeable, so why aren’t homes? If my computing needs call for more memory, I can slap a new stick of RAM in my PC. I’d love to see a neighborhood in my area of North Dallas that consists of modular houses. The area is fairly progressive and tech-savvy, so it would probably do well. SIPs, recycled/renewable materials, energy efficiency, and smart home technologies are something I’d love to have in my house. If I could easily slap on an extra room in about a week for a few bucks, I’d be all about it. All I’d need is some land and money, I guess…

Tachevert of WorldIV got into the alpha test for Metaplace. He is the first community member to have a spotlight article. Congratulations Tache!

Now, about my Metaplace invite…

Our nanny had been giving us problems, so we fired her. We had to find a new daycare for our daughter that had availability, was willing to work with her disability, wasn’t too far away or too expensive, and that we felt comfortable with. We found a good one. We’re having to adjust our schedule a bit. The whole process has just been very stressful on everybody, but it’s looking up. They have a webcam in the room and it’s good to see her playing during the day.

We had some friends over on Friday night and finally got to play Munchkin. The flowchart I found helped immensely because the instructions were a little vague. After 3 or 4 turns, we were whizzing right along. After a while, we started sabotaging each other and really getting into the game. Laura’s friend’s wife won both games, despite my backstabbing and wandering monsters.

They had mentioned wanting to play D&D. It’s been nearly 10 years since I played in college, but I still have the books. I found an adventure for 1st level characters that I’m a little familiar with and think we’d enjoy, so we’ll probably try to set up an evening to geek out and roll dice. The adventure I found is Doom of Daggerdale, a 2nd Edition AD&D adventure set in the Forgotten Realms setting. It looks like it’ll be a lot of fun, but I need to read up on it a little. Since I’m familiar with the setting and there are plenty of resources, it should be easy to continue in that campaign should we enjoy it enough and find enough time. I’m definitely looking forward to it.

Games:
Game time has been short lately. I played a little co-op Rainbow 6: Vegas on Saturday night, a little Rock Band, and showed the frenetic, gritty combat of Call of Duty 4 to a friend who said it was actually entertaining to watch me play. I’ve played Rebelstar on my GBA Micro recently, too. Kongregate is still the 5-minute time waster now and then.

I still mean to develop a multiplayer game. I think the easiest route is text-based, since I haven’t picked up graphics development yet. I’ve been meaning to play with XNA, but it’s hard to self-motivate. I envision this: commands similar to ROM MUDs, room-based world (for now), Wiki-like interface for object naming/descriptions/pictures, web API for character info, integrated AIM communication.

Gadgets:
I think Apple is finding that people want the iPhone to be the next Newton. They want a mobile computing device, not just an iPod with a web browser that can make calls. Over 100,000 SDK downloads sounds like it to me. People are finding, however, that they can’t create applications that run in the background. Most of it probably revolves around battery life. Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) has the same problem, but at least they let the user decide if the loss of power is worth the application features. I’d still like to get one, but I’m trying to hold out for version 2 (the one with high-capacity [60+GB] storage, 3G data network, and true multitasking OS).

The Goods:
I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. It wasn’t too bad, but there’s one grass/weed that grows in thick clumps that has been my nemesis for a few years now. I plan on hitting them hard with Round-Up this week. Laura took the clippers after the bushes, so they look much better. I don’t think I’m going to experiment with planting anything this year unless it’s in a pot and easily controlled. I think I finally killed off the basil. It started in a small pot, took over the other pots, then started growing in the yard! The 8-inch branch of rosemary I got from Mom 2 years ago is now a bush 4-ft. in diameter. He says he wants to be called Claude now or he’ll eat my air conditioner. Yep, spring means outdoor enhancements.

The news of the iPhone SDK means a couple of things. Native applications will start showing up without having to “jailbreak” your phone. These apps will be simple at first, then get more useful as developers get used to the SDK (and in some cases the Objective-C language and OS X platform). It means more social. Someone will probably write some kind of proximity-based detection app that allows you to connect to nearby iPhones like the Zune. There will be native Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku, and maybe even Pownce apps. There will be games! EA showed off a simplified version of Spore (which probably has more to do with the name than Will Wright’s design). There was an interesting Wing Commander-like space combat game. Sega also showed off Super Monkey Ball that uses the accelerometer for control. AOL will have a native AIM client! All of these things are great. For those of you who are thinking about developing for the iPhone, here are some ideas of things I’d like to see:

- CommuterFeed Tweet writer: Set your Twitter username and your default city code, then use Google maps’ triangulation to determine your location and have easy one-touch buttons for what you’re reporting (accident, heavy traffic, construction, etc).
- RSS feed reader: Aggregate all of your RSS feeds into one scrolling list.
- Adium: Multi-service IM application! Use pictures from your contacts on buddy list and chat windows.
- Some kind of passive, location-based social game: Think virtual geocaching…like PMOG.

There’s an interesting read over at The Escapist about the X-COM series. The article is mainly about the official series, so they leave out the best X-COM successors: Pocket UFO (a remake of the original for PocketPC) and Rebelstar: Tactical Command (a spiritual successor, yet stand-alone game by one of the original creators of X-COM for GameBoy Advance).

Merci over at Terra Nova has created an interesting game. It exists as a Firefox extension and you “play” the game by visiting websites. Along the way, other players can leave crates or mines for other players. Crates reward the visitor with a present, while mines steal points. The concept is very intriguing. I especially like the “passive” element, being able to “play” the game without actually doing anything. I signed up for the beta test, so we’ll see how it goes.

Another interesting game idea comes from one of my favorite sites. Squidi’s node-based travel is very reminiscent of the old LucasArts adventure games (Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, etc). Each node represents a different area and gameplay happens in the different nodes. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the pixel graphics, but it seems like an interesting mechanic.

I think it would be interesting to take a game like Starfighter or Star Control II and put it in a fantasy setting. The base ship would be a player on foot. You could run from zone to zone slaying random goblins (ships) for cash or take a mission from a city (spaceport). Instead of upgrading your ship, you buy a horse, a better horse, armor for you, armor for your horse, better weapons, etc. Basically, take the same game and change the setting. I wonder how that would work out?