Ugh, Get It Away!

Some observant people may have noticed I haven't posted anything in awhile. Other observant people may have been able to attribute this to my being sickly as of late.

Here's the thing about me getting sick: It doesn't happen very often, and when it does, it tends to hit me pretty hard, but it takes a long time to catch up to me. Which means it drains my energy, and makes it nigh impossible to do anything remotely resembling something creative.

Though in the last few days, I've stumbled across some rather interesting things, so I'll just gush on them real fast.

First of all, witty and vulgar comes the Myths Retold blog. It's pretty rad, and kind of historical. Sort of. Maybe not so much. Through reading some of these entries, it led me to my latest art crush, Gunnerkrigg Court. I have to admit, it's got quite the archive, and at first I wasn't certain I would be a fan of it. A few chapters in, though, and I was hooked. It's a shame I've already made my way through the archives and caught up to current - seems like this story is going to be going on for quite some time.

I've also taken the time to catch up with the good ol' Doctor Who. Completely loving what's been going on, but my favorite episode of the season is still the one Neil Gaiman wrote: The Doctor's Wife. Still, despite that, the season looks like it will be wrapping up nicely with the death of the Doctor... or will it? I've got a lot of ideas as to where they can take this, and after the preview of the next episode, I think I can safely say there is definitely a whole 'nother season coming around soon enough.

That's probably as much as I'm getting out at this point. Sinuses are still being a bother, but maybe once this passes I'll be able to do something resembling creativity - and maybe even update this blog regularly again.

Inspiration: Find It Any Way You Can

Missed wednesday's post - I'll try to make it up by doing a second entry tomorrow night, possibly after whatever game has been run. Tonight, I'll be (finally) talking about some 3D modeling.

It isn't easy, first of all. It looks easy, of course, but the thing is that you can do pretty much anything with 3D. That's the problem, really. There's so much to learn, you can spend a decade and still not know everything there is to know about the things you can do with it as an art form. Just mastering the very basics takes forever - four years of art school and let me tell you, after nearly three years of that playing with programs like Maya, I've still got a lot to learn.

Because there is so much to it, it puts people off. Infinite complexity means nothing if you can't wrap your head around some part of it. For the longest time, I've been depressed over just how horrible my models tend to look - they look too bland, to me. Now, I think I can understand why: a good model means absolutely nothing without an amazing texture to go with it.

Which is kind of the whole point of this post tonight, I suppose - finding new ways to inspire creativity in yourself. Some time ago, I was curious about "how do I do this?" or "How can I solve X problem in a manner that pleases me?" Such topics include rendering a beautiful, lush field of grass that doesn't look like crap, or like someone threw a texture on the ground. Other topics included things like using textures that look crisp and sharp.

That was my problem - I didn't fully understand the render nodes. For the uninformed, render nodes are basically little tree-like diagrams connected sort of like a web. Things connect in different ways, until you get to the very top node (or the root, if you will), which is what you use to slap onto an object. Suddenly, voila, you have a texture on your thingus! It's akin to magic, or so I am told.

Last night, I took some time to sit down and try to re-educate myself on how I can use these to create amazing-looking textures without making everything look so cookie-cutter. One such instance of this is when you are looking at some wood cabinets. Sure, if you get some pre-fabricated cabinets, sometimes they use the exact same mould for all of it - which makes everything look all the samey. Real wood cabinets, however, have distinct and varied patterns - no two pieces are the same, though they will usually share some similarities.

Using the pre-made "wood" shader in Maya is no good, as I have now come to learn. There is nothing 'standard' in 3D (another pitfall, I am finding). Everything must be custom-tailored to one's needs in any given project (which of course makes it more difficult, since you must know everything in order to proceed in any given project). However, knowing how to tweak it is something entirely different - you can get some amazing results in a fairly short order if you understand the purpose behind the nodes you are given, and how to utilize them properly.

Of course, now that I understand how to properly use this one little thing, it's got me thinking in a completely different direction... now I am starting to see how I can use this for *other* objects. Metal textures, rock textures, anything that has a distinctive pattern to it that needs to be varied but similar, the possibilities are starting to swirl about in my head.

Sometimes, taking a step back and looking over the things you've done in the past is a good way to re-inspire yourself. Look back, sometimes, and ask yourself: Was there something I wanted to learn but forgot about? Can I find a solution to that problem now?

You never know - you could surprise yourself.

As a side note: if I ever manage to get something half-decent as a render (likely a simple object), I'll probably throw it up on the internet somewhere and link it here. I'm likely to start with things like tables and cabinets and desks, just to make it easy on myself and to get a feel for how to really make something shine. Then, maybe I can tackle dynamics... because knowing how to produce life-like flames is freaking amazing.

You can quote me on that one.

Things you can do with d20 Modification

The d20 Modification project, which was originally designed as making the d20 Modern system compatible with Pathfinder, can be used for a lot of interesting things. Like the old Modern system, it still tends to favor the high-intensity action hero sort of game. Unlike the previous system, low-level combat is even more deadly, thanks to firearm overhauls - all guns have a minimum damage modifier, meaning instead of a handgun dealing 2-12 damage, it deals more like 4-14. At low level, that makes a huge difference.

Part of it is because, especially with massive guns like the Barret Light Fifty, the reality is anyone even in the vincinity of one of those rounds tends to turn into a fine mist. But according to the book, those guns 'only' deal 2d12 damage. That means one of the most powerful firearms in existence *only* deals 2-24 damage. At least this way the minimum is brought up some, and it gives more power to people using them. On the other hand, they also tend to come with accuracy modifiers, balancing that out.

With the introduction of the updated magic system, things are slowly falling into place allowing for a variety of interesting genre mixes. One of those mixes I've always had in mind was a Star Ocean-esque setting, where futuristic characters are learning to use magic - something that always fascinated me. But it occurs to me that there are other genre-types one can emulate with a system this versatile. For one thing, it is one step closer to being able to emulate something you can see in the Marvel Universe, where science and magic tend to exist side by side (but don't seem to play well together, usually, and occasionally blurs the line between the two). Or you could even attempt something in the vein of Disgaea - all kinds of craziness can occur there.

Urban Arcana could be re-envisioned - or even Urban Arcana Evolved (which is sort of like the future version of that). Sliders is another possibility, where characters may not always be existing in the same world from one game to another - which could make character choices even more interesting.

All of these things would require little-to-no modification of the system, really, and that was my main goal from the very start. When I was running a future campaign of mine many years ago, I thought it would be fun to pit the group up against some wizards, just to see how they would fare. Needless to say, the results were rather interesting, and the group perservered - of course, they also had far greater weapons than most fantasy characters often wind up with. But on the other hand, fantasy characters tend to get more awesome class abilities, so there is a balance there as well.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with the possibilities this system can offer, and hopefully I'll be able to get the rest of the magic system laid into stone. I don't think I'll be touching on the psionics or other FX abilities... but then again, maybe I might just at some point.

I wouldn't really bet on it though.

Special Edition: This Post

I'm a huge fan of Gnome Stew. I can't remember how I managed to find it, really, but while many of their articles have been kind of bleh lately, this one grabs me pretty good.

I have a huge problem with this myself, being unable to schedule regular times to run, and even worse, it's pretty hard for us all to come together without any in-home distractions (as there are many). But for an internet-centric group, it should be easier to find ways around this, I'd think.

Maybe this could give rise to a new sort of hybrid game - where players can edit wiki pages or post on a message board roleplaying stuff in between gaming sessions - helps keep players engaged, and lets us focus on the important things when it comes time for another session - and sessions can just pick up where conversations left off.

It's an idea.

Online Piracy - Hidden Threats, or Hidden Opportunity?

The internet has changed the entire world - a pretty big feat, considering it's age relative to how long it's taken to make such sweeping changes. Sure, the net itself was first invented back in the sixties, and didn't really start to take off until the boom in the nineties. But since then, it has transformed everything we do. I can remember a time ten years ago when it was impossible to watch movies online - when animated gifs were all the rage, and trying to download a file 300 mb in size could take an entire week.

But things are different now, and the culture that has begun to evolve on the internet has also changed the people who use it. Obviously, people resist change, and many battles have emerged over it. One of the biggest topics of debate: Piracy, or online file-sharing.

To be honest, file-sharing has a pretty spotted history. Back in the day, it was pretty hard to download anything directly - it was kind of illegal, after all, and nobody wanted to risk putting anything up for risk of being shut down (because, y'know, it was sort of illegal). But some people wanted to share whatever it was, for whatever reason - and someone found a rather ingenius workaround. Of course, it required a bit of technical knowledge (not too much, but enough to stump computer illiterate), and it also required a great deal of time. There were no filters on these early Peer-To-Peer (P2P) networks, so half the time you might get porn. If you were looking for porn, it might even work. If you were looking for porn in the first place, it probably came with a plethora of viruses that would make your desktop explode with popup windows from hell. Or reformat your hard drive.

Obviously, this high-risk situation made a lot of people leery about using these sorts of things, and so the culture thrived, as well as it could. Networks were "attacked" by companies after awhile, and the RIAA and MPAA started realizing that people were downloading their entertainment for free, and no one was getting compensated for it. Lawsuits were filed, and a lot of people were hurt as a result, due to complete ignorance of how the internet worked, or due to blatant disregard for the fact that it is stupidly easy to change one's IP address.

Meanwhile, at this time, social networking was starting to take off in the form of Myspace, and eventually Youtube began to emerge - a cool place to show the world whatever videos you wanted. Over time, the RIAA and MPAA started aiming their sights there as well - but at one time, it was possible to watch full movies on Youtube, for free, and technically, you couldn't be held liable for it at all - it's not a crime to watch such material.

The Internet had started what can only be described as a 'sharing culture'. Nowadays with current social networking like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook 'Likes' and Digg, the internet is all about sharing things. Saw something cool on the internet, gotta share it. It's just like with anything else - when you see something cool, you want to tell as many people about it as possible. Saw a new movie? Gush about it to your friends who haven't seen it yet - make them want to watch it. Heard a new CD or bought a new video game, and are eager to tell your friends? Invite them over to play it or listen to it and hang out. It's the sort of culture that's always existed, but on the internet, it is magnified - now you don't have to leave the bathroom to access this awesome video your friend saw on Youtube - he'll just tweet you a link you can pull up on your smartphone to enjoy.

Is this culture of sharing a bad thing? It's hard to say, because there are a lot of divisions on that topic. On the one hand, it shouldn't be a crime to want to tell/show people something that is awesome - on the net, you can put pretty much anything just a single link away. On the other hand, making these things takes a lot of time and effort on the creator's part, and every album/DVD/movie ticket not sold hurts the industry that produced it.

I was lucky enough to have an actual comic-book industry-based teacher by the name of Pat Broderick at my school. Some real hard nerds who actually pay attention to credits might recognize him as an inker and penciler for both Marvel and DC from way back in the day - and trust me, he still does a lot of that stuff and it looks amazing. But the best part were some of the conversations I had with him, particularly some of his insights into the whole 'piracy' thing.

To him, and this is something I see echoed many other places by many other artists, reading his comic books online (or anyone's, for that matter) is theft, plain and simple. He does this for a living, and every time you read a new book online without having paid a single penny, he is being denied that which he's worked a lifetime to earn. Which is kind of understandable. In so many words, he may have described the people who upload these things as having needing something particularly violent and disparaging occur to them. Which, again, is understandable.

On the other hand, if we take a look at some of the older stuff - bronze or silver age comics, whose value is quite measurable - those things are pretty hard to find - particularly some of the truly rare ones, such as some of the original Uncanny X-Men comics. Is it wrong to want to share those as well, with other people? The true value of these comics has long since exceeded what the original companies have done - after all, those books were already paid for and sold - now it is their very rarity that keeps people scrambling after them. Is it a 'lost sale' when you re-share something ten years old on the internet that didn't get a lot of popularity back in the day? If you share a long-extinct comic book series that was fated to ten-issue obscurity?

There is the same argument with movies and music. Is every single download/view a lost sale? That is how the RIAA and MPAA and other companies view it. Is this right, though? That is one of the primary arguments out there - each download does not constitute a lost sale, and the market is slowly changing to embrace this, but still there is that divide present.

Why is this all important to know? Because in the last few years, there have been a lot of concerned messages popping about the internet, about how certain companies would like to 'run' the internet, and take away its freedom to share anything, out of fear of lost profits. Youtube is already there, with people's videos being removed just because they used a song from a particular recording label, despite the actual content of it being more than just a song - fanmade compilations of shows, or 'fan music videos' being one of them.

Is it truly wrong to want to do these things? Some companies would say yes, and would prefer to force everyone to pay them money to enjoy themselves. But is that what's really right?

Being someone who wants to move into the entertainment industry, I look at this objectively, and I see where both sides of the argument arise, and wonder if maybe there isn't some form of compromise that can be reached. Anime in particular is one industry that has slowly started to accept what its fans want - streaming episodes of series shortly after or the same time as the original air date in Japan, with full translations, for free. Is that wrong? Technically, when you see something on TV, you don't have to pay for it (unless it is Pay-Per-View, of course). The money comes from the advertising that occurs during that show, and if no one wants to watch it...

Because of this, I think the entertainment industry as a whole needs to wake up and realize the world has changed. We are no longer using casette tapes, and VCRs are a thing of the stone age. This is the digital era, and we have come to expect things much differently. When people make these televised shows, really they are trying to pull viewers in to see the advertisements that companies pay them insane amounts of money to televise. The more people tuning in, the more likely they'll see those advertisements, and the more likely they will be to want their service/product.

The real money for these studios comes in after the fact - it's not the televising, it's the products that come along with it. The Anime industry is a great example of this - the real money isn't in the shows themselves, it's all the related merchandise: the limited edition DVDs, the figurines, the toy deals, the lunch boxes, the art books... all of that is where the real money comes in. Lately the gaming industry has started taking note of this as well - nothing makes me more likely to plop down extra money for a game if it includes an art book or something.

Why can't other entertainment industries attempt to follow this model as well? The point shouldn't be to force people to pay as much as possible for the initial product - it's everything that comes afterwards - the director's cuts, the limited editions, the posters bundled into the comics. Insanely cheap to make, but mass-produced and kept limited in quantity, you can make a real bundle off of those things, by making them hard to get - and people will gladly pay for them, because unlike something they can download on the internet, physical products are still something that cannot truly be replicated.

You can copy a video, but you can't copy an original figurine. And you can make that figurine cost three times what a single DVD is, or more if it is high quality and large-sized.

Seems to me that the logical way for the entertainment industry to take advantage of the digital age, maybe they should start looking at their own products as a form of advertisement. For bands, they see it as invitations to come see them in concert - can't duplicate that either. Sometimes you can watch them on TV, but is it the same as being there in person? No.

In the end, is piracy a good thing or a bad one? There's no good answer to that, and there's as many answers as there are people in the world. But I think I can safely say this: attempting to punish the world because a few people are jerks is kind of unreasonable.

Shift your thinking, and beat your competition. Look at those pirates as competitors, who are offering your very same product at a much better price. Give customers incentives to purchase your product as opposed to downloading for free (bundled extras help!). Special little extras available only online also work. But don't punish the people who just want to try your product out for a test drive - who knows, if you make it more available to them, they just might be interested enough to plop down the money for it - and then share it with their friends, who will also buy it.

Role Playing Games: Or RPGS?

There is a difference between RPGs and Role Playing Games. RPGs are more computer/console-based, and tend to waffle between one of two different tropes: you wander around randomly fighting things to gain experience to unlock greater powers, or you go from one battle in a 'chain' to the next until you reach the next portion, gaining amounts of XP along the way that you can then use to purchase whichever skills you like.

Sounds kind of familiar, right? But these games can be very different from Role Playing Games. Or, maybe even better, Tabletop Games.

Tabletop games evolved from old wargamers wanting to add a little extra something to their weekly war sessions - stories of how their figurines had gotten where they were, eventually evolved into something different from the norm - the Role Playing Games we know and love today.

It has since inspired entire generations of games made in similar veins, but there is still a distinct divide between what we experience on computers than what we experience at a table (or even virtual tables, if you will). Much of it is often attributed to not having an active gamemaster who can make up rules on the spot, or being able to change the game or even completely reinvent it as needed. But that's not the only place this divide comes into play: the design philosophies can often be different as well.

Now, many times people will argue that they are 'just the same'. But let's not lie to ourselves. There's a tremendous difference in the design philosophies between Final Fantasy X and our tabletop experiences. Take any random-encounter RPG - yes, old-school D&D has random encounter charts, just like most other RPGs. But those RPGs, you expect them, because they go by so quickly. Tabletop, however, is far more immersive - yes, you can have those random encounter charts, but you are in that area for a reason, and then suddenly TIGERS EVERYWHERE. What do you do?

There's a good point to understanding where this divide comes in, because as a GM, it's not just your job to set up a random encounter chart and go wild with it. It has to have a purpose and a reason. Let me share with you one of my experiments from my post-apoc future game, Roguelife.

The group was going to explore an abandoned city, looking for Quest Item X. Of course, X was something they had no idea where to find! It being a big city, I wanted it to be somewhat more old-school adventure - a bit of a departure from the traditional 'hallway segments', where the group goes from one battle to the next until they finally reach the end.

I set up a very large spreadsheet, which worked extremely well. It listed different building types, different creatures that could appear in those types, and depending on the sort of building it was (and it's size), you could expect to find a predetermined amount of loot within those buildings (if you were clever enough). This was awesome because it could generate some truly interesting things - in one building, they stumbled across a group of mutants who were being 'purified' by extremists - realizing they couldn't fight such a large battle, the group wisely opted to try looking elsewhere. In another building, they went all the way down to the ground floor, only to find an entire *herd* of Dire Caribou defending themselves from zombies. Successfully, I might add (they were, after all, DIRE Caribou).

Things like that can make for amazing gameplay sessions, but half of it is being able to know how to read those charts and react to them on the fly - how can you pull these elements together to create a similar scenario that the group may have already encountered, but adding some kind of twist to it? Another one had them trying to get into a gas station that was surrounded by zombies and... a DIRE BEAR. Oh man that bear almost tore them up, but they managed to bring it down and save the man inside.

Of course, since I made the chart, I already had an idea how these things could fit together. All in all, it was an attempt to make a tabletop version of a Roguelike - one that worked amazingly well.

So consider the type of game you are running, and the feel you want to give it. Is it a high-stakes game, where there is a clearly-defined goal and maybe even a clearly-defined path to achieve it? Or are your players looking for something more adventurey, where the destination is not as important as the journey to reach it?

Think it over. Talk it over with your group even. You might be surprised at what you can learn.

When GMs get it right

Bit early today, but found I have a little more time on my hands than expected, and since I'm still positively buzzing from our Flotilla game this weekend, I thought I would share some things about when GMs get things perfectly right.

Flotilla is a game based in a waterworld where almost everyone lives on ships or floating cities. There are, on occasion, islands, but they are very few and far between - most people never even get to see real land.

Our characters live on one of the largest fleets out there, known as the Marblehead Flotilla. It's a pretty cool place with a number of captains from each ship who are part of a council that votes on the future of the fleet. Our characters were mostly just regular joes who happened to live there (or were there for some reason, in the case of one of us).

There was recently an article on good game design over on Gnome Stew, which can be read here. The important part is further down, where it says "Build the Backstory, But Build The Characters Into It". That is one of the hardest things to do as a GM, without it somehow becoming a huge mess, or not what the players wanted/expected.

Well, I can safely say that after what Eyolo pulled last night, he did a damned good job.

Here's how this works: Everyone that lives on the Flotilla has a patron, which is one of the captains. The captains vouch for people - if you don't have the blessing of a patron, you're not going to be allowed to live in the fleet. One of the PCs is a fish-man whose mother is a powerful (and devout) follower of the Path of Light, the semi-religious order in the world, which is run by a guy named Caesar. Without spoilering for other people, there's some sort of connection between the main characters - in the mechanic's case, he is related to fishman's girlfriend (a girl who is always stuck in a rubber suit due to weak immune system), and has helped her out in the past in making her life a lot more comfortable over the years. My character was just a brute, who spends most of her time throwing people out of bars or brothels who act up, and generally being a Mean Bitch. But even she had a connection in her past to everything as well, it seemed, based on the backstory I provided.

Since it was mentioned in the last session, my character's father had something to do with Caesar's seal. There's a lot more I wish I could say, but out of fear of spoilering, I'll just say that there's a lot more to this than one might think. Knowing the story (because I wrote it), I can safely say that she is well-connected to the other PCs, because it seems as though she is also the granddaughter of one of the most infamous captains in the fleet - an ex-pirate.

Because of this development, I think we can finally rope in our other character, and start tying her into things - because from the looks of how the plot is developing, my character might just be inheriting a ship. We will, of course, need someone who can fix things (mechanic), someone who can sail things (the other character mentioned, not fish-guy). We'll also need someone who can heal things (new character introduced last night, amazing doctor based off of Ema from the Ace Attourney series). We'll probably also need fish-boy.

I think that, with all of us combined, we can pretty much pull people we all know and create a small gang who can sail off into the open seas, looking for answers. And maybe vengeance. I love vengeance. It means more chances to punch things in the face.

My character's world is about to come crashing down - and I appreciate this, because at the same time, it will liberate her and force her to rise to the top, and become something more than just a mere brute who beats people.

Maybe someday, we'll be able to get our ex-pirate captain a new ship, and maybe over time, we can make our *OWN* Flotilla.

Things like this is why I can safely say, our GM got it absolutely right this time.

I'm looking forward to next session. Shit is going to go down, all melodramatic-like.

Deus Ex: On Design Philosophies and How The Market Has Changed

Once upon a time, long, long ago (yes, ten years is really such a long time anymore), there was a sudden boom in the video game economic model. It almost literally exploded, and people games were spreading like wildfire. It was an amazing time, and probably had a lot to do with the economic boom in the late '90's. Game companies were cropping up all over the place, and things were good.

Sure, you still had a lot of shit games. Daikatana, may you rest forever in eternal agony. There were also a lot of games that really stood out on their own, and re-envisioned what games could be. Myst, Fallout, Starcraft, to name a few. I would place other lesser-known games too such as Descent, and the spinoff series from the same team called Descent: Freespace (which later came known simply as Freespace - one of *the* best space combat sims ever, go look it up if you don't believe me). There were other games too - Homeworld, Baldur's Gate, the list goes on and on.

Some were critically-acclaimed hits. Others went softly into the night, only to be rediscovered a generation later as the gaming industry started shifting gears. One of those titles, however, was Deus Ex.

Few games offered what Deus Ex did. Even by today's standards, it's pretty amazing. Deus Ex was really an open world game which had as many solutions as you had ideas for getting around. Ion Storm really threw away the idea of having a single linear path to a goal. This was a game whose entire design philosophy was based upon the simple statement "This is where you are, that is your goal, and these are the things that are between you and it. Figure it out." It's a design philosophy I have always utterly adored, because it really speaks to the heart of what a game should be. It's not a matter of needing to have a certain item to perform a task, or needing to do X, Y, and Z in order to move forward. You could kill enemies, or you could stun them. Or you could bypass them entirely and just focus on your goal. Metal Gear Solid was pretty well acclaimed for this, but Deus Ex... that was just something else entirely. These were not closed-in environments - some goals had you crossing entire city districts, with all manner of obstacles and other things to find along the way. This was a game that really put you into an environment - these were not rooms simply for the sake of being rooms, these were rooms that had a very distinct purpose to them.

There was no wrong way to play the game. Morality played only a small part in it - money was necessary to survive - would you do everything in your power to conserve what resources you have, or do you abuse your power and hack every ATM you come across, stealing everyone's money? When you were in a town environment, you were in a *town*. If you failed an attempt to hack something, alarms would go off, and the police would come running. If you tried to just shoot someone in broad daylight, hell would break loose and the authorities would be on their way.

This was a game that really hammered into you that there were consequences to your actions. The fact that it had a pretty solid story and multiple endings really helped to seal the deal. The gameplay was great, and the graphics were passable for its time. This was a game that had a lot of substance to it.

Flashforward to now. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has hit the shelves, and by this time many people have completed the game (myself included among them). The game is truly designed like its predecessor, and while it did fall flat in many respects, overall the heart and soul of the game remained intact.

I can hold this game up to any other that hits the market, and you can see how very different the design philosophy is in them. Most other games are designed with a very linear approach: go to point A, perform task E, so that you can go to point B to complete objective F. In most FPS games, the goal is "Get from this hallway to the end of the next hallway, and shoot everything in your path." Crysis 2 did a pretty good job attempting to tackle this, but still fell flat in that as open as things seemed, there wasn't a lot of actual area to explore. Crysis 1 was great because you had an open-world island, and you could bypass entire villages if you wanted to in order to get to your goal.

Why do we use such flat design philosophies in our games? Because a lot of it deals with graphics and story costing so much more now. Final Fantasy XIII is an amazing example of game design failure. Don't get me wrong, it's a great experience for the most part. But as a game, it fails horribly. XIII fails because there is a distinct lack of actual gameplay taking place, and it doesn't feel like an RPG should. RPGs in particular are about exploration and adventure - but XIII is pretty much one long, endless corridor, with the occasional branching path that goes absolutely nowhere. The entire game is one long, drawn out tutorial until you get right up to the very final chapter - which it is kind enough to inform you that hey, this is the end of the game, better go back and see if there's anything else you want to do before you complete this, and also by the way, if you're looking to max out your bestiary better fight everything in this dungeon because after you beat the game they'll all be gone.

I don't play a game because I want to be coddled all the way through. I play a game because I want to play a freaking game. I want to challenge myself sometimes, and if challenging yourself isn't for everyone, I'm cool with that. But don't force me to be coddled the entire way.

That's the other reason that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is so refreshing right now. Because you *can* choose to do things the easy way. Or you can choose to do them the hard way, and try to play the game the way it's supposed to be played - with stealth and careful tactical choices. Yahtzee put it best in that the original let you simply bypass entire boss fights if you didn't want to do them - why can't more games let you do this?

Because some games are too full of themselves, and they've spent far too much money on the 'story' to let it be changed in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe this is one reason I love Star Ocean 2 so much. There's so much to do... two ways to play through the game, and how characters turn out at the end can vary drastically depending on who you picked up in the game, and who likes whom the most. The core of the story itself doesn't really change... but how things play out, that can change, all depending on the choices that you make.

I'd think this was an important thing developers would be taking notes on. But then again, I also like to think that people care enough to want to improve their methods, and that they want to do what is the right thing to do, as opposed to the easy thing. Or the same thing.

There's a game coming out relatively soon, and one of the main villains asks, "Did I ever tell you about the definition of insanity? It's doing the same fucking thing, over and over again, expecting the result to change. That is the definition of insanity."

Somehow, I think this is possibly a jab at the industry itself, and I sure hope that it's listening.

Prepping for the weekend - and other things

Tonight I spent a couple of hours going through and setting the framework for Pathfinderizing (god that word is getting cumbersome already) spellcasting in d20 Modern. Essentially, it works like this: There is a pool of Universal Talents that any class which gains talents (re: base classes) can take. Additionally, they all come with a prereq requiring either the Divine Heritage or Magical Heritage feats found in Urban Arcana. There's an interesting option there for people who decide to use *both* - though they are likely to have a hard time of it, considering only Humans can opt to take both feats at first level, and they won't get the feat that makes the magic-based skills a class skill. Though, considering the nature of how Pathfinder handles its skills, I doubt this will be too great a drawback for the time being.

First draft of all the talent trees went up tonight - there's four trees in total, one for trained magic (wizards/clerics), one for natural magic (sorceror/favored soul), one for 'theurges' (people who can cast both), and then one tree dedicated to advancing spells. One in particular is likely to become a requirement for Advanced Classes, though I am reconsidering this partly due to the fact that I also want to make it possible for Pathfinder character capable of utilizing these Advanced classes as well - a level or two won't hurt their spellcasting potential, and could offer some interesting alternative benefits.

Thank god that multi-classing into similar spellcasting classes doesn't stack... otherwise we would have one whole hot mess on our hands there. Traditional classes are still far more powerful than their modern variants, but the modern ones will have access to abilities that the traditional classes don't - such as the option to increase spell damage or spell accuracy. There's enough customization that can go into it that you can wind up with some very interesting low-powered casters. Though gaining access to higher-level spells is a real pain for Modern characters - they have to already give up their traditional Talents in order to cast them, so if they want to be able to cast higher level abilities, you're looking at giving up not only every class-based talent, but also sacrificing any other Universal talents. On the bright side, however, characters can take any base class they want and level that, and still take those universal talents, so there is some benefit to that at least - for one thing, they'll be a hell of a lot tougher than their traditional friends. And that's just dealing with the base classes - I haven't even started working on the Advanced Classes (and after that, Prestige Classes).

But enough about game design, I wanted to talk about how I'd like to spend my weekend!

I get the feeling I'm going to be in a bit of a movie mood this weekend, but what should I watch? That is the ever-damning question that is posed to myself. Do I hit myself up again with a Back To The Future marathon again? Or should I just watch all the good Die Hard movies (y'know, every one EXCEPT 2). Maybe I ought to bust out some anime, and do another marathon along those lines of something I've not watched in some time?

I have a lot of options, but I have no clue what I'll go with. Any suggestions are welcome.*

And of course at this point I am suddenly reminded that I have yet to catch up on the new Thundercats. I should rectify this in due course.

Tomorrow night should see another update - though if I do make one, it will likely be short due to work schedule making me go in saturday morning. Upside of this? I have sunday off, so that's quite a bit of time away from my job that I get to myself. Until next time!

*Any suggestion NOT involving MLP:FIM, plzkthx. I'm sick of that already, I'll either watch it or I won't, constantly asking me to watch it will likely have the opposite desired effect. Stop asking!