Thinking Thoughts or...

...man, I'm running out of good titles for these nonsensical stream of thought posts.  I was going to title it, blabbering meanderings, or meandering blabbering.  Oh well, never mind.  It's almost been a week since I last posted, and any more delaying would just make getting started again that much more difficult.  I probably would have posted more, but have been feeling under the weather, with an ear ache as well.

I'm feeling better, just a little low on energy.  However, I wanted to get a post written, and well, discuss stuff.  Like this crazy movie I watched last night, Meet the Hollowheads.  It may very well be the only movie that's a post-apocalyptic comedy. I kid you not.  Unfortunately I dozed off a couple of times, but I don't think I missed much.  It really is a low budget stinker, but still somewhat entertaining if you have nothing else to do, or you're trying to fall asleep.

I was going to give you a little info about the movie, but apparently, Wikipedia is doing a "blackout" for 24 hours, in response to SOPA/PIPA.  I guess they are hoping to get people involved.  Oh well.  Anyway, it's a really strange movie, that I think many of you fans of the post-apocalyptic movie genre may enjoy it.

Shock Cinema gives a good description of this movie.  They describe it as "Pee Wee Herman's Blade Runner", but I'm not sure that's accurate.

I'm betting John Glover wished he never starred in this "movie".

If you read my last post you know I started playing Urban Dead, a web-based browser game.  Well, I've been playing once a day, because it goes really quick.  Anyway, my zombie character, Little Henry is no longer a zombie!  Apparently people playing Necro-techs, one of the "character classes" can dezombify ( or whatever they call it ) zombies.  Unfortunately since he started as a zombie he can't use his starting skill, which is called Vigor Mortis, which helps in hand-to-hand combat.  The good thing is he didn't lose experience so after I cleared a 100 XP I bought a skill to help with hand to hand combat.  As a human civilian he's managed to find two flare guns, and a clip of pistol ammo.  Zombies can't search.  He doesn't have a pistol, so finding one is a priority, then I'll buy the skill.

I am playing three characters, and one of them looted a museum.  He ended up with a cubist sculpture, and a fire damaged painting.  I lugged both of them around for about a day, and decided to leave them somewhere.  They're only good for decorating safe houses, and they really added to my encumbrance.  I put the fire damaged painting in a firehouse.  I thought it was appropriate.  I don't know where I will leave the cubist sculpture.  Doctor Velasco has looted a number of books, which will occasionally give you experience points if you read them.  I think I may drop a few soon. Private Gronch is armed to the teeth with a crowbar, fire axe, and of course his pistol, but he's low on ammo...  I think I'm already getting bored with this game.

Anyone out there know of any good web-based browser games?  Preferably free.

If you're interested in miniature wargames, check out this blog: Vintage Wargaming.  Dave Arneson is in this photo!  I found this blog because of a post over on Grognardia.

Okay, I'm about 99.9% positive that it's some kind of military uniform reference poster.  I'm just wondering who published it? I just think it's kind of cool.  I guess the chance of finding that out may well be nigh impossible, because this photo was taken in 1966.  I wonder if there is something comparable printed these days?  I guess I need to do some research.

I guess I've done enough meandering blabbering.  I'm going to go over my notes, and hopefully come up with something really good, or at least more entertaining for my next post.

the Urban Dead

I was researching something yesterday, when I stumbled upon this browser game.  I was intrigued, so I created a character.  Gronch is his name, and he's a private.  I chose that as his class, because you get to start with a pistol, and some ammo of course.  It seems fairly popular and active, but I'm not that impressed with the game yet.

You have 50 Action Points to accomplish things.  Action Points are regenerated at the rate of one per half-hour.  This makes for a slow game.  One of the first things that's recommended you do is find a safe house.  You don't want to be caught outside once you run out of Action Points.  Zombies may eat you...

Private Gronch chose Club Greswell as his safehouse for the night.  Today I changed to a different location, because I realized during my explorations I was going to run out of APs before I made it back.  Once of the things, well one of the few things you can do is search.  Today I found a crowbar, and a can of spray paint.  I was excited about that for about 30 seconds...

In Urban Dead you can play more than one character so yesterday after using all my APs for Private Gronch, who I guess is AWOL, and trying to survive the zombie apocalypse; I made a zombie character.  I named him, Little Henry, and described him as a bald midget.  Little Henry didn't do much his first day, but he did attack a portable generator.  In fact he struck at it, and eventually tried to bite it.  Nothing much came of that, except for the lights flickering for a bit.  Heh... Other than that, all he did was wander around making zombie noises when he found a living person. "Mrh!"

Today when I logged on to Little Henry I discovered he'd been attacked twice, and some heinous scientist extracted some of his DNA!  Later Little Henry did what zombies do best.  He managed to kill someone.  Granted they were already down to 38 Hit Points ( everyone starts with 50 Hit Points ), but for 1st level I guess I did okay.  Unfortunately after the person was dead I didn't get to eat his brains, so I fled the area.  I earned 44 xp!  It takes 100 XP to learn a new skill.  Now I don't know what sort of skills a zombie can learn, but that should be interesting.  Maybe there's a brain eating skill?

I don't know how long I will remain interested in this browser game, but for now it's a good way to kill a few minutes.  There's probably a lot more to this game than I know about, but I just haven't felt like doing the research.  Man, I will be glad when I can finally play Skyrim...

The new news is news?

Say that five times fast.  Just for fun.  Done?  Okay, what I'm referring to is this, Wizards of the Coasts announcement about the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons.  The gaming bloggers everywhere are posting about it, and voicing their opinion's and idea's.  It makes for a great topic, but is it really news?  We all knew it was eventually going to happen.  It was practically written in stone.

However, I think the big news is the supposed level of player involvement in the design/play-testing process.  I'm wondering how this will work out?  If a certain number of gamers like a certain type of combat simulation ( or spell casting/whatever... ), and they play-test the game, give their feedback, and ideas, etc.  The game designers look them over and either use them or not.  Now consider this,  since many, or actually probably most of the ideas and suggestions are not going to be used; how are these players going to feel?  Will they want to purchase the new edition?  I'm sure the die-hard fans will, but others might not.  I'm not much of a marketing guy, but is this a good idea?  I'm really wondering how this is all going to play out...

It's a great idea not to design the new edition in a vacuum, but I'm sort of cringing at the chimera of game that might result.

Apparently the Wizards/Hasbro now want to listen to their customers, but I really think they only want to listen to what they want to hear.  Many, many people request the old stuff to be available as PDFs. Is that ever going to happen?  Probably not.

I doubt I will ever play 5E.  I'm not going to say never, but chances are...  IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.  There are plenty of other games to spend my money on.  However, there is the odd chance that they create a wonderful, fun, very playable game.  Would I play/buy it then?  I don't know, but probably not.  Been there, done that, already burnt the t-shirt.

Six Days In...

Well, 2012 is six days old.  I've spent most of this week working on the fence, because of the extraordinary beautiful weather we've been having.  Working on the fence also kept me occupied so I wouldn't worry so much about my aunt.  She's still in the hospital, and will probably be there for a long while. At one point she had flat lined, but they managed to resuscitate her.

Nothing much accomplished on the gaming front,  ( aside from building a table top from scrounged lumber ), but hopefully that will soon change.  I had hoped to at least get some Mage Knight games played over the holidays, but my brother got engaged on Christmas Day, so that got nixed in the bud.  Oh well...

I still can't play Skyrim.  I think it has to do with lousy bandwidth.  The Steam site mentions that broadband is RECOMMENDED.  The Skyrim box states that an Internet connection is required, but says nothing about how good a connection you need.  So I'm a little ticked off, but nothing I'm going to rant about.

Hhhmmmm... I wonder if I can write some rules to play Mage Knight solo?

Secret Santicore 2011 & Other Stuffs

Really?  I mean really?  You haven't downloaded the Secret Santicore 2011 PDF yet?  Yeah, I'm looking at you!  Go to this blog ( Giblet Blizzard ), and download it now!  It's a six pack of awesome sauce.

Seriously, it's a very professional looking PDF.  If you're into OSR gaming, you will find something in it you can use!  The best thing is that it's FREE.  Of course if it's ever put up on Lulu, or some other POD site, I would probably buy it.  It's just that good.  Even if you never use it in a game, the darn thing is an entertaining read.  Also, the art is great.

I believe this is the second year of the Secret Santicore project.  ( I could be wrong... ) I wish I would have motivated myself to participate, but hopefully I can next year!

If you're a writer, and are feeling motivated and creative, Arkhein of the Rather Gamey blog, has extended his Vayniris Anthology Project deadline to the end of March.  For more details go check out his blog.

Now, I thought I would give my readers a heads up.  I have an aunt in the hospital, and not doing well.  If this blog goes dark for a while, well you know the reason why.  If you're the praying type, please, please say a prayer for her.  Or just send good thoughts her way.  She is one of my favorite aunts.  My mom and her sister, and brother in-law left tonight to go to the hospital.  ( She lives in Arkansas. )  I have to stay here and watch the house.  It's just too soon after my sister passed away, of course it's never a good time to lose someone.  My mom is really upset, and to tell you the truth I'm barely keeping myself together.

I didn't expect 2012 to start the same way as 2011.  I just feel sick to my stomach.

Game Hacking

Today I've been busy trying to get Skyrim installed, and of course have had no luck.  I finally received an email from Steam support that at first seemed helpful, and it did get me farther in the process.  However, once I tried to login I got the same result.  Steam: Not Responding.  UGH.

So while I try again, ( it takes Steam forever to update, at least on my computer ), I've been doing some research, and found this definition of a hacker:

hacker n. [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker.

From The Jargon Dictionary http://info.astrian.net/jargon/

I know many people think hackers are  malicious criminals, and many are, but I read it and realized that many gamers could be described as "game hackers", especially those in the OSR segment of this niche hobby.  I am specifically referring to parts six and seven of the definition above.  Many of us like to tinker with, and rewrite the rules of the games we play, because either we aren't happy with them, or we are trying to "circumvent limitations".  Sometimes I think that this is the best part of the hobby.  Finding new and better ways to do things.

Let me be clear, I'm not trying to hack Skyrim,  I was doing research to broaden my knowledge base.  I eventually want to get a better Internet connection, and set up a wireless network.  So I was doing some research on wireless security.  There's a lot to this stuff.  Sometimes I want to move to the woods and become an original hacker, and make all my furniture with an axe.

Time Keeps On Slippin'...

... slippin', slippin' Into the future  Yeah, today that song slipped into my head, or well, that one line did.  Over and over again.  Probably because the new year is looming large, and having thoughts about what's to come.

I know many bloggers write a "year end review", but I really have no interest in doing that.  I enjoy reading other blogger's year's end recaps, but I realized that I've been dwelling on the past, and it's time to move on.  I've let the setbacks this year discourage me far too much, but again, I'm not going to dwell on that either.  Learn from the mistakes, lest you repeat them, but move on.  Make progress, and all that jazz.

No list of New Year's Resolutions for me this year, well, I do have sort of a blanket resolution.  Do better, and live better.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!  Game on!