ErikPeter

More Borderlands

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:18:08 GMT

I've played Borderlands obsessively over the past week. I finally beat it (the first play-through, anyways) with my level 35 Mercenary, and have a half dozen alts in the twenties, mostly sitting around after reaching New Haven. It's a lot of fun.
Reviewing Borderlands is difficult. New games are challenging our perceptions of what makes a game good, and the games are changing faster than we can change the discussion. It's not that Borderlands is challenging the standard of gaming (despite being an innovative mashup). Any comparison to Diablo is well-earned, though mechanically they're totally different they appeal to the same primal instinct of collect and improve. Plus it's an FPS. The difficulty comes when you try to quantify How good is it exactly? and end up with apples to oranges comparisons. Borderlands is fun but lacks the emotionally charged narrative that many modern games are able to provide. Should that be considered a failing of the game, which otherwise excels in being what it is? A question which provokes the discussion on what games are and where they are going and whether or not game-ness and narrativity are inseperable or in fact completely separate.

Suffice it to say I've probably had as much fun with Borderlands as I did with Mass Effect (a game I boldly suggested was the best game ever made), but I did not get as much out of it.

I learned that while it's fun to play online with friends, public games invariably have one guy who puts the I in team and consequently, the F.U. in fun. Also, final boss issues (how's Brick going to use his action skill in that fight?).

Borderlands

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:25:03 GMT

Borderlands is quite fun so far. It was exciting to find a shotgun with the added ability of "Holy crap! It fires rockets!" and I gleefully await using the cool rifle i will be able to use once i hit level 19.
The only faults I've encountered seem related to the dual-platform release. The friends system isn't hooked into Steam's friend list, but instead uses GameSpy. I suppose that's just because it's not a valve game, but at the time I was flubterred by it. I played multi with Lem last night, we had a few problems at first but once each of us had gotten through the tutorial type stuff it seemed to work. Apparently the voice chat support is along the lines of 'on all the time', which we couldn't get to work (maybe talking too quiet), which was a bit frustrating. Skype, or I suppose steam voice chat would be easier, next time. Hopefully we can get a group of 3 or more going. I think I'll run the other two characters through the tutorial stuff just to be available in case that role is taken when we do.

Dinner time.

I talk about co-op games again

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:35:44 GMT

there's this new game, Borderlands, that is some sort of FPS with loot and character progression, which is apparently fun co-op. if you buy a four-pack off of Steam it's $37.50 instead of $50 ... are any of my friends interested in perhaps going splitties on it?

I talk about games

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:26:42 GMT

Double XP/Reactivation Weekend in City of Heroes was a lot of fun. I got to play with quite a few people, and gained quite a few levels with a handful of characters. Now comes the odd process of shopping for cool enhancements and figuring out what powers to focus on.

Even though double XP was over, I had a milestone day today as Completist on Guardian. That's the character I keep at level 10 and collect badges and other lateral achievements with. I did a couple rikti raids and got the Adamant and Celebrity badges. Celebrity requires gaining 500,000 influence over the course of your career and is usually achieved in the mid-20s (as influence rewards increment steadily over time), and getting Adamant means taking a million points of damage, which is pretty much insane for a level 10 to have, but a bit easier to do when sidekicked up to high-level content. Beyond those, the last badge I achieved was The Unwavering, for accumulating and paying off 50,000 debt. Seeing as Level 10 characters get debt in intervals of 160, it means that character has been defeated at least 313 times. (Indoor defeats only count for 80). Games are fun.

20% of the way to my Talsorian Bow. Hot stuff.

CoH

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:42:53 GMT

From Thursday to Saturday, all City of Heroes accounts will be reactivated for free, and in addition, it's Double XP weekend. So if you used to play, sign in and let's hit it up, I know there are a few villains who are tantalizingly close to 50.

L4D

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:34:59 GMT

I've been playing quite a bit of Left 4 Dead. It's fun. That creepy, all-the-zombies-suddenly-perk-up-and-sprint-at-you-screaming thing is really awesome. Also it has a bit of gameness that is enjoyable, e.g. the different types of special zombies that keep you on your toes, healing allies, searching for ammo and pain pills, the whole deal. And while the basics are pretty repetitive, e.g. make it from point a to point b, then hold out until transport arrives, each campaign has a distinct flavor with unique challenges.

Also right now you can buy it for 4 people for $45. I would be happy to buy it for 4 of my friends if you are one of them and interested. You know, people with Steam accounts who have played Team Fortress w/me in the past.

Edit to add: The sale ended yesterday while I was being dumb and unable to figure out the order process. I'm going to see if I can't finagle something through the customer service process.

Rad-Gammon

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:51:56 GMT

Rad-Gammon, a game for two players. (DRAFT)

In Rad-Gammon, players take turns rolling the dice and moving, trying to get their pieces to the opposite end of the board, like in backgammon--except it's more rad!

The board:
The Rad-Gammon board does not wrap around like in backgammon, but is functionally similar. It consists of 12 field spaces divided by an area consisting of 3 spaces called the Melee. In addition, there are two home spaces, where units reside until they enter the board.

There are two sets of units (Red and Blue), one for each player. Each set consists of 1 Ninja, 1 Robot, 2 Zombies and 6 Puny Humans. Finally, you need two dice.

Rules: All units begin on the home base of their respective player. A player wins when all of his units have left the board (escaped) by landing on their opponent's home base.

Play progresses in a manner similar to backgammon: On their turn, a player rolls both dice and must move his pieces according to the values shown on the dice, either moving one unit twice or two units. For example, if a 3 and a 4 are rolled, he may move one unit three spaces and one unit four spaces, or move one unit three spaces and then four spaces, provided the moves are legal (see below). If doubles are rolled, a player moves twice for each die, e.g., on a roll of 2 and 2, you may move four pieces 2 spaces each.

A player may move any unit they wish--unlike in backgammon, where a player must re-enter the board with his pieces before moving any others. When moving multiple units, a player can consider the moves happening simultaneously if it is to his advantage, for example, to attack a space with multiple units, or move a few units out of the Melee. However, any moves must be fully resolved before before moving a given unit again during the same turn.

A unit may legally move if the space occupied contains no enemy units, or if the unit is able to capture the space, or if the unit is moving into the Melee. In addition, units may not move out of the Melee unless their army is in control, and there are special rules for leaving the board (see below). A player must move if they can, and if they cannot make any more legal moves, their turn is skipped.

Capturing: A unit may capture a space provided the total attack value is equal to or greater than the total defense value of the units in that space. If a player is able to move two (or more, in the case of rolled doubles) units to a given space in the same turn, he may add the attack value of each unit moved to capture the space. All units that were captured return to their home base.

The attack and defense values, as well as special abilities, for each type of unit are as follows:

Puny Humans: 1 Attack, 1 Defense. Puny Humans attack and defend like the checkers in backgammon.
Zombies: 2 Attack, 1 Defense. Zombies can overrun pairs of puny humans. Whenever a zombie makes a capture, immediately move it one space (as if you had rolled a 1), if the zombie would legally be able to make that move.
Robot: 2 Attack, x Defense (special). A space with a Robot may not be captured, except by the Ninja.
Ninja: 3 Attack (special), 2 Defense. A ninja can capture any space, ignoring the defenses of all units in that space.

The Melee: The Melee is a special space. The Melee may not be captured, and can be occupied by by both players' units at once. In order to move out of the Melee, your army must be in control. To determine which player's army is in control, add up the Attack values of all units on each side. Unit special abilities and Defense are not used. If you have the higher total, your army is in control. If the total Attack of both players is tied, both armies are in control (note that leaving the melee will weaken your army and force you to lose control).
When moving over the Melee without entering it, it counts as 3 spaces (for example, from the outside edge, you'd need to roll a 4 to get across it without landing in it). When moving out of the Melee, proceed as if it were a single space in the center of the board.

Leaving the Board: In order to leave the board, a unit must move to the other player's home base; any enemy units still on home base are ignored. A unit may not move past the enemy home base, unless that is the only possible move to make with that die (like in backgammon). E.g. Normally, if you're 3 spaces away, you'd need to roll a 3 exactly to escape. However, if you roll a 5, and none of your other units can legally move 5 spaces, you may move that unit past the enemy home base and escape off the board.

Winning: Once a unit is off the board, it remains out of play until the end of the game. When all of your units have escaped, you win!

Now I'm tired. I think the board is 2 spaces too big (I think it'd be good to get right into the melee when rolling a 6) but not going to fix it. And, you know, it hasn't been playtested and the rules aren't written to be readable. But hey. Rad-Gammon. I think the final version will go in a donut with some sort of battery-operated plastic tower in the middle. Kidding about the tower.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:51:21 GMT

Let's say I was designing a board game, based on a name you give me, and I need the most awesomely bad-asstacular name that you can think of, one that is provocative and evocative and just totally freakin' sweet. What should it be called?

Nerd!

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:38:45 GMT

I played a couple games of the Battlestar Galactica board game yesterday. It seemed very solid and entertaining. With the secret faction and betrayal element, there's probably enough Werewolf/mafia meta-gaming to keep it interesting for a long time. The play mechanics are simple/elegant, usually leaving you desperate for more actions (always a good sign), and actually do a very good job of adapting the feel of the show (incredibly surprising for a TV tie-in that you can find without going to a game store). Not the shortest game, but still pretty quick to set up and explain. Way to go, Fantasy Flight Games.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:12:34 GMT

My favorite thing about http://tvtropes.org is when a phrase comes to mind, like Holy Hitmen, and it's there already.

Travel

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:01:06 GMT

My week in Minnesota was nice. I missed a couple days of gaming in my new group, but oh well, and I'll be level 3 next time we play. Like a true board game geek I logged my plays. Almost twenty games of Race and a half dozen games of Monopoly Deal, which was silly but fun for a casual group of cutthroats. (I play a hell of a lot of card games.)

We got some baby-related hand-me-downs from Britta, somel hundreds of dollars worth, which is just really fantastic, but forced Laura and I a little further back into the acceptance that we really are going to be parents, returning us to the fringes of the denial stage. "No way this baby stuff is for us!"

Danebod was entertaining. I played golf, and am thinking I might take a lesson or two here in CT.

I think i'll try to travel with Laura from now on, unless I'm off on some side trip (like a potential space shuttle launch later this year). I did have fun on my own before she arrived, but logistically it was sort of a wash. Since our return the cats are really nice, and really crazy. Scout was following me around from room to room, purring, staying within a few inches of me the whole time.

Oh yes, and when Laura and I were leaving Keys (where we had just eaten breakfast), Norm Coleman happened to be sitting there a couple booths over. Upon seeing him in person, I was surprised I didn't feel like punching him in the face, not at all. My aggravation over his pissing on MN for months and months just wasn't there. He was just some guy in a lime green polo. Punching people is not the right way to do things. So I guess I just let it go.

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:02:24 GMT

I'd like some help with game theme ideas. Namely I'm looking for about 20 of the biggest, baddest monsters or villains from mythology and the public domain. Any supernatural danger that an elite cadre of monster hunters would go up against.

What are your favorites?

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:55:20 GMT

I played a game of Arkham Horror today. It was okay, but the game was spoiled by a gate burst early on. The gate bursts could heighten the excitement if you were close to winning, but when it happens to the first gate you've sealed it ruins any suspense (e.g. We're back to square one, except much closer to losing). I think gate bursts would be a stronger element if they were used as a negative feedback mechanism, e.g. if there are no open gates, or no monsters on the board, which is a relatively 'safe' position, it would ratchet up the tension and excitement (and therefore, fun.) As it was it just made the rest of the game feel like a pointless spiral towards inevitable failure.

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:27:23 GMT

I'm joining a local D&D group on Sunday. Rolling up a character with the D&D character builder is easy and effective, but it turns out if you make a Dwarf cleric/warlock hybrid multi-classed with rogue and take the Planeswalker paragon path and the Undead Hunter and Dwarven Durability feats, the program breaks. Not really too surprising, since it's an unwieldy combination that results in the healing surge value being +1 +Wis +Con. Just saying, that's how nerdy I am. I broke the program.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:42:18 GMT

chess is really old
like not geologic but in terms of
fu

I met a couple of random geeks today, had a beer, talked about playing D&D. They seemed like nice guys. Let's hope it pans out.

In that vein I have been enjoying my board game group. Last night I played Small World, which I recently picked up, and had a good time. It seems pretty fun and smooth. I also played El Grande for the first time, and two games of Race for the Galaxy, which, if I haven't mentioned it is really, really fun. I won all four games, which is pretty bad-ass.

Surprisingly little to say about Laura being pregnant. Especially over the internet. It should suffice to say that I am excited, and only a little scared.

I'm currently working on a solitaire/cooperative card game, maybe about dragon slayers, still some X-Com ruminations, the over-used adventurers vying for loot theme, and I'm interested inthe idea of piecepack game systems and the like for abstract game design, though invariably the ones I find don't interest me, and I think that says something I should be listening to about esperanto game systems in general.

Books

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:30:28 GMT

Mass Effect: Revelation is a prequel/ramp-up to the video game series, written by the creator of the Mass Effect universe/IP, who also has a couple novels in the Star Wars universe under his belt. Not surprisingly, it wasn't great, with cardboard characters, a straightforward plot and cliched, um, everything. The amazon reviews, taken as a whole, sum it up quite well. Still, as a fan of the game I enjoyed getting a bit of the backstory. And despite this first entry, the Mass Effect universe has a hell of a lot of narrative potential. It's got a lot of familiar sci-fantasy elements (bipedal aliens, space marines, telekinetics), which are justified by the fiction instead of pulled out of a mystical ass. And you gotta love it when AI research is illegal only to forestall the inevitable galactic conquest.

The Game Players of Titan was simply fantastic. I don't know if I've read any Philip K. Dick before, but I started reading this book and had to keep reading until I finished it. It is delightfully mind-blasting and strange, with just the kind of paranoid freakiness that I enjoy. And precogs. The epilogue was your typical 'slain bad guy opens his eye' kind of dealie (not literally) which only lessened the satisfaction a little. Still, tons of fun.

Ubik, also by Philip K. Dick, was decent but felt much more like a drawn out short story. I admit the setup--a hand-picked cadre of Psionicists going up against an unknown enemy--intrigues me more than where it ended up. Still, it has plenty of, as Wikipedia puts it, "the confusion of real and unreal", which keeps it enjoyably mind-bending. Once again, it had a "twisty" final page that diminished the story a smidge. Remember the Planet of the Apes remake? Yeah.

My time in Free Realms

Sat, 30 May 2009 00:25:21 GMT

I've been playing a lot of Free Realms for the past couple days.

It's essentially an attempt by Sony to take a real bite out of the MMO market, create its own niche with young gamers, and find a decent way to make money off of Bejeweled-style casual gamers: There are a lot of ways to spend money in Free Realms, whether it's on a ($5) monthly subscription to access subscriber-only content or buying virtual items (pets, trading card booster packs). I'm twice as old as the demographic. Despite this, I have gotten a lot of enjoyment without spending a dime.

I feel like drawing a comparison to Puzzle Pirates, but it's not really worthwhile. I'll just say the business model is similar, but Free Realms offers a lot more bang for your (zero) buck(s). Because Free Realms is an MMO.

Players can take on a bunch of different roles, like Brawler, Ninja, Chef and Postman. Beyond the normal mechanic of fighting monsters for loot and completing quests, advancement in some jobs comes from playing a variety of minigames, which is really the genius behind Free Realms from a games standpoint--that and the variety of things to do. Playing the mining minigame in Free Realms gets me iron ore and garnets which can be used to craft things (which (like the Chef job) uses a Cooking Mama style microgame series), not to mention levels in the Miner job (allowing me to mine harder and more valuable minerals). And it works, because mining is fun.

A lot of time in Free Realms feels kind of like you're dinking around. You explore the world, you start a collection of mushrooms, you play a game of checkers, you catch an escaped pig, you fight a ghost. But that's kind of why it's fun.

I like the trading card game that's built into it (My character is already a level 20 Card Duelist) and it's great to be able to play against a computer opponent. It reminds me that CCG's (or TCG's, as they're apparently called now) are enjoyable, as well as an interesting avenue for design.

Is Free Realms going to be my new MMO of choice? No. Free Realms lacks my favorite thing about RPGs--character building--and besides, it's aimed at young teens. But I do see it as a sign of evolution in the world of gaming. The most exciting prospect is that minigames don't have to suck.

Minigames are a good way to replace die rolls with a player's actual skill. As an example, imagine if hacking in Planetside wasn't just an automated process that took 15 minutes, but optionally a minigame that a good player could defeat in 12. A team would want a good hacker, allowing players who are less skilled at the FPS combat to excel in something else. If no one wants to hack (or enemies prevent it), the automated process takes over again. That would be so cool.

Minigames can also help solo players have fun in a multiplayer game. During my short stints in DAoC and LotRO, I was one of the people who sat there for ages, clicking 'go' and waiting for a progress bar to fill up, finally declaring whether or not my crafting had been successful. Having the process be more engaging, let alone actually fun is a huge improvement.

kworks

Thu, 21 May 2009 07:24:06 GMT

I don't know much about quarks. What i've gradually learned is that there's pretty much two kinds, up and down, which make up every proton and neutron. There's a bunch of other ones which they've theorized and then found in particle accelerators, but up and down (in three 'colors') are the ones that are stable and around. But when you're just looking into it on wikipedia they don't really let on to this, which makes basic quantum physics more difficult to understand than it should be: "Here's eighteen quarks and their antiquarks and a bunch of leptons and gluons and shit". I realize it's important to gather as much information as you can about the formation of the universe (for the sake of completeness, akin to a chemist discovering if element 118 is a noble gas like it should be), but it would really help if they just had a paragraph of introduction explaining that 90% of it has nothing to do with anything.

That is, unless the field of particle physics is just the world's biggest $600 hammer, and everyone's in on it. I could see that.

Also charm and strange should be high and low for the sake of regularity, but hey. Strange = down-type, I guess I can remember that.

Sat, 16 May 2009 21:53:52 GMT

Yeah, Wolverine was pretty bad. Not offensively bad, but pretty goddamned preposterous. My movie ticket said "X-Men 4" so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, I just got my hopes up after a couple of recent comic-book movies that were actually good.

Tue, 12 May 2009 02:26:31 GMT

What I found striking about the new Star Trek movie was how all of the characters just save the lives of one another over and over. And no one's like, "Wow man, I owe you one". They're all just doing their jobs.

final episodes

Fri, 08 May 2009 05:47:48 GMT

The final (2 part) episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was on and I got stuck watching it. I love that show.

And I watched the final (2 part) episode of Scrubs. Actually I watched the first part and then went and did errands, had dinner, played some Race for the Galaxy against the friggin' robot, watched the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation and NOW I am about to watch the final part of the final episode of Scrubs. So I'll let you know how that goes.

Thu, 07 May 2009 04:27:25 GMT

Games: Been playing a ton of Race for the Galaxy lately. I recently bumped my rating up to a 10 on BoardGameGeek; it's really fun. When Charlie and John weren't helping feed my Race addiction, we played a bit of the Galaxy Trucker Big Expansion, which was usually brutal and always entertaining. In one game, my Enterprise (IIIA) was blasted down to 12 tiles remaining, but I still managed to finish.

Comics: I took advantage of Free Comic Day by spending about fifty bucks on two Angel: After The Fall books and the most recent softcover compilation of The Incredible Hercules. After the fact I realized they were having a 25% off sale. Yay me.

I'm a fan of Angel, and "Season 6" is great. Whereas the Buffy season 8 comic is really entertaining because of fan service and campy glee, the Angel comic is a mix of humor and "Wow, that's so awesomely sad" moments, i.e., it remains very true to the series, and the plotting is fantastic. If you're at all invested in the characters and wished the series hadn't ended, I heartily recommend it.

I got into the Incredible Herc series right after World War Hulk ended and Herc took the reins. I like Amadeus Cho, seventh-smartest human being (with pup in tow) acting as sidekick and confidant to Herc while they have adventures. The book I picked up comprises the Marvel-wide Secret Invasion. Herc leads a God Squad through the dreamlands to kill an ancient Skrull god. Pretty entertaining.

As for the free comics I got, I liked the Avengers and Spider-Man, as well as Savage Dragon (I remember reading the first handful of issues back in like 1993). The Public Enemy comic, and a copy of Queen and Country (leftover from Free Comic Book Day 2002) were pretty bad.

While I was out having birthday dinner I made another stop at the comic shop and bought the second volume of the Starman omnibus. Simply put, Starman is nothing like the other comics I read. I can't find the words. But it always makes me think of Keith, which is appropriate since I'm finally reading it on his recommendation.

nature is cool

Mon, 04 May 2009 17:39:50 GMT

From Nature's Building Blocks (John Emsley):

Francium occurs naturally in uranium minerals, but there is only one francium atom per billion billion (10¹⁸) atoms of uranium. These few atoms of francium-223 are there as the radioactive decay product of actinium-227, which in turn is part of a uranium-235 decay series. The short half-life of francium-223 means that there is probably less than 30 grams of francium in the Earth's crust at any one time.

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:56:28 GMT

I guess I could post something on the internet.

Laura and I visited Minnesota last week. I had a pretty good time. Also the Daewoo is now in Connecticut, which will allow me to drive places if I need to.

Brothers-in-law are camping out here this week. They have been having adventures in NYC. Tomorrow I'm coming along to watch a base-ball tournament or somesuch.

Games are interesting. I am waffling on what to focus on. The XNA book is staring at me and I'm out of ideas. I need a design team to bounce ideas off of.

Also I need help with this final Cryptic Crossword clue: Store ad in Essence shows prepared quality (9). I've got the letters R_A_I_T_S; only the T is suspect.

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:24:04 GMT

View Poll: LJ User Poll

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