Harumph.
There was a time when I could put together something at least semi-serious for a campaign. Even when I came up with something wacky (the Tooth Fairy campaign), I could actually put time and thought and flesh things out fairly well.
But now it seems that I can't do more than 'lolrandom' character ideas that are just...there. The latest bit of giggle-worthyness is an army of minotaur lumberjacks led by the fearsome Gus the Black and his fierce mate and rival, Brahma Mama. Nothing special there, just an excuse to tear around and be violent and eco-unfriendly. And cow jokes.
Maybe I need to just read more books. That seems to actually get things going. I once had a whole thing going for my custom Space Marine army (mostly just bad head-canon fluff) that justified my glorious kitbashing of every loyalist marine kit I could get my hands on. I even made the Boneyard into something other than a pointless backdrop. Now I've managed to forget half of it and fell kinda ashamed of the rest; it was kinda Mary Sue-ish.
Let's face it, the Dork Side has left me, and now I bereft of its power to make cool stuff and impress other nerds. Maturity sucks.
Maybe it's time to put together materials for the NetNerds project. That one has been bubbling way too long anyway.
Showing posts with label I miss being a dork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I miss being a dork. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Force Is Meh With This One
The Force has awakened, but like most of its fans, really could use some caffeine.
I'll try not to include spoilers except the following major ones: there's plenty of flashy death, badass military hardware, and Threepio has been marked as the evil he is with a red arm.
It's not terrible, or even bad, honestly. The effects and acting is actually pretty well done. There is a fair bit of awkwardness here and there, but nothings that actually detracts from the movie. I will say there is a certain scene that makes all the "I am your father" jokes funny on a whole new level.
But its not particularly great either, to be sure. It felt like a fairly rehashed collection of plot elements, mixed with a bit of serial escalation. Yes, that thing on the poster is what it looks like, by the way.
Ooh, the hardware. Somebody figured out that people like custom paint jobs and evolving the vehicles as time goes on. There's probably a lot of griping about how everything looks like an Apple product, but its a lot more toned down compared to a certain pair of abominations that stand as insults to Trekkie-kind. It's all very flashy and awesome, but it doesn't try to overwhelm you with everything and fry your eyeballs. The weapons are awesome without being anime-level ludicrous. Iconic stuff like the X-Wings and TIEs have been updated and redone without looking completely unfamiliar. It's all like a big level up, but still very much Star Wars.
I won't go into the characters and story, since its all very spoiler-y right now. Possibly a few months down the road, once the fanbois have stopped spontaneously combusting. In the meantime we will return to our regularly unscheduled ramblings.
I'll try not to include spoilers except the following major ones: there's plenty of flashy death, badass military hardware, and Threepio has been marked as the evil he is with a red arm.
It's not terrible, or even bad, honestly. The effects and acting is actually pretty well done. There is a fair bit of awkwardness here and there, but nothings that actually detracts from the movie. I will say there is a certain scene that makes all the "I am your father" jokes funny on a whole new level.
But its not particularly great either, to be sure. It felt like a fairly rehashed collection of plot elements, mixed with a bit of serial escalation. Yes, that thing on the poster is what it looks like, by the way.
Ooh, the hardware. Somebody figured out that people like custom paint jobs and evolving the vehicles as time goes on. There's probably a lot of griping about how everything looks like an Apple product, but its a lot more toned down compared to a certain pair of abominations that stand as insults to Trekkie-kind. It's all very flashy and awesome, but it doesn't try to overwhelm you with everything and fry your eyeballs. The weapons are awesome without being anime-level ludicrous. Iconic stuff like the X-Wings and TIEs have been updated and redone without looking completely unfamiliar. It's all like a big level up, but still very much Star Wars.
I won't go into the characters and story, since its all very spoiler-y right now. Possibly a few months down the road, once the fanbois have stopped spontaneously combusting. In the meantime we will return to our regularly unscheduled ramblings.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Horrible Game Idea Revisited
I submit to the spambots that I have proof that I am actually quite deranged.
I had to put the controller down since I got all in a wad over Vesperia again; damn sidequests. Managed to seme more productive things, but still was way too overstimulated to do much that was coherent.
On the 'good' side of things, it gave me an excuse to trot out a couple of old horrible ideas living in my mind. One favorite is my idea for Backcraft, an incredibly wonko RTS that mosty dealt with middle schoolers tearing about and conquering stuff with Nerf guns and Super Soakers and suchlike.
It actually got quite intricate. I worked out a rock-paper-scissors thing with foam darts, water, and melee (most wiffle bats and plastic lightsabers and such). I forgot which was which, but I think water mostly won since it had intuitive area-of-effect and sustained damage-per-second properties. See? I can't even think about middle-school hijinx without going stupid technical and kinda muchkin-ly. I have fallen to the dork side, save yourself!
There was also stuff like research trees disguised as hitting up parents for stuff like bike helmets and sports equipment. Tossing in factions that boiled down to three basic concepts. "Good kids" that tried (and failed) to be all chivalrous, getting easier access to bikes and scooters, with signature "Fine Cardboardium Armor" that 'vehicles' and buildings could use as something equivalent to regenerating shields. "Bad kids" that basically were what would happen if you'd wind up with a Mad Max/Recess crossover; their perks were things like beating up neutrals for 'lunch money' giving resource boosts, and getting 'wet' weapons to deal extra damage (soaking an old Nerf football usually results in pain). The final bunch were "Big Brothers," that were mostly basement-dwellers that decided the kiddies LARP needed work. I couldn't decide if they were going to be a playable faction, special summons/mercenaries that wrecked enemies for high cash costs, or a "boss" faction that the kids needed to ultimately unite to take down and cast back into the firey chatrooms from whence they came.
Buildings were mostly fixed playground equipment, with some ideas like the HQ being a(n eventually) badass treehouse, and you got things on the research tree by taking and holding locations. You had indoor 'dungeon of doom' scenarios that were waged in schools (increasing in complexity, resources, and lulz potential from preschools to high schools) that would likely devolve into an unholy union of Dungeon Defender and Dwarf Fortress. Big rec areas for the huge brawls, and special scenarios like both sides storming a disc golf course, having to both fight each other and dodge frisbee-chucking nutballs to capture a monument that happened to be a deactivated tank! Stealth combat raids that mostly relied on precision and minimal casualties, since if some sissy starts screaming bloody murder then everybody gets hauled inside and grounded for sneaking out of bed!
One final part of the concept was a combination bonus boss and unlockable unit, "That Nerdy Guy." As you went through the campaign, That Nerdy Guy ran an upgrade shop, and if you brought him, well, lots of nerdy things, you could use him as a one-shot super unit (with a restriction that sort of fluctuated between iterations), and engaging in an appropriately nerdy and tedious fetch-quest, you got an extra side mission where you have to take him down as a superboss, with victory putting him permanently on the roster. He had a deliberately ludicrous backstory that the Big Brothers had hailed him as a great hero, then forgot about him when they were all kids, now all he does is video games, act emo, and contribute to the delinquency of minors.
Can you tell that sometimes I just get really bored?
I had to put the controller down since I got all in a wad over Vesperia again; damn sidequests. Managed to seme more productive things, but still was way too overstimulated to do much that was coherent.
On the 'good' side of things, it gave me an excuse to trot out a couple of old horrible ideas living in my mind. One favorite is my idea for Backcraft, an incredibly wonko RTS that mosty dealt with middle schoolers tearing about and conquering stuff with Nerf guns and Super Soakers and suchlike.
It actually got quite intricate. I worked out a rock-paper-scissors thing with foam darts, water, and melee (most wiffle bats and plastic lightsabers and such). I forgot which was which, but I think water mostly won since it had intuitive area-of-effect and sustained damage-per-second properties. See? I can't even think about middle-school hijinx without going stupid technical and kinda muchkin-ly. I have fallen to the dork side, save yourself!
There was also stuff like research trees disguised as hitting up parents for stuff like bike helmets and sports equipment. Tossing in factions that boiled down to three basic concepts. "Good kids" that tried (and failed) to be all chivalrous, getting easier access to bikes and scooters, with signature "Fine Cardboardium Armor" that 'vehicles' and buildings could use as something equivalent to regenerating shields. "Bad kids" that basically were what would happen if you'd wind up with a Mad Max/Recess crossover; their perks were things like beating up neutrals for 'lunch money' giving resource boosts, and getting 'wet' weapons to deal extra damage (soaking an old Nerf football usually results in pain). The final bunch were "Big Brothers," that were mostly basement-dwellers that decided the kiddies LARP needed work. I couldn't decide if they were going to be a playable faction, special summons/mercenaries that wrecked enemies for high cash costs, or a "boss" faction that the kids needed to ultimately unite to take down and cast back into the firey chatrooms from whence they came.
Buildings were mostly fixed playground equipment, with some ideas like the HQ being a(n eventually) badass treehouse, and you got things on the research tree by taking and holding locations. You had indoor 'dungeon of doom' scenarios that were waged in schools (increasing in complexity, resources, and lulz potential from preschools to high schools) that would likely devolve into an unholy union of Dungeon Defender and Dwarf Fortress. Big rec areas for the huge brawls, and special scenarios like both sides storming a disc golf course, having to both fight each other and dodge frisbee-chucking nutballs to capture a monument that happened to be a deactivated tank! Stealth combat raids that mostly relied on precision and minimal casualties, since if some sissy starts screaming bloody murder then everybody gets hauled inside and grounded for sneaking out of bed!
One final part of the concept was a combination bonus boss and unlockable unit, "That Nerdy Guy." As you went through the campaign, That Nerdy Guy ran an upgrade shop, and if you brought him, well, lots of nerdy things, you could use him as a one-shot super unit (with a restriction that sort of fluctuated between iterations), and engaging in an appropriately nerdy and tedious fetch-quest, you got an extra side mission where you have to take him down as a superboss, with victory putting him permanently on the roster. He had a deliberately ludicrous backstory that the Big Brothers had hailed him as a great hero, then forgot about him when they were all kids, now all he does is video games, act emo, and contribute to the delinquency of minors.
Can you tell that sometimes I just get really bored?
Friday, March 27, 2015
Moonstruck Brain Barf
HaHA, you spambots will never be rid of me!
Been tearing about on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I'll talk about that later, mostly because I'm pretty frustrated with the game. Whoever did the vehicles probably did programming work for Battletoads' Level 3. Thanks a lot for making moon buggies suck.
In other vidya game news, I've also gotten my hands on Shining Force EXA, better known as "Sega Really Wanted To Make Diablo." It's actually pretty damn fun, and has a distinction of being challenging in a fun way, which I haven't run into lately.
It's actually kind of weird. Both games have a habit of randomly kicking my ass, they go about in different ways. Borderlands PS really comes across as trying to steal Dark Souls fans. I'm hoping it gets better down the line. 2 could be really damn hard at some points, too. And to be fair, this shit is still awesomesauce. LASER SHOTGUNS! YOU'RE WELCOME!
Shining Force here, when I die, I know I screwed up. I can go back and do the right thing (or grind) and I just jump aboard the train to PwnVille. Oh and you can smack things with spellbooks. I don't mean use the spellbook to burninate things (though you can do that too), I mean physically beat people with metaphysical literature.
Dammit, now I want to watch...oh...Raistlin and Snape whack the hell out of some Twilight characters now. Preferably with copies of The Simarillion. With Yakety Sax blaring in the background.
Oh, and I'm planning on writing a semi-intelligent post on a semi-serious topic. It will be entitled "Metallurgy, Mineralogy, and Monster-Mashing."
Been tearing about on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I'll talk about that later, mostly because I'm pretty frustrated with the game. Whoever did the vehicles probably did programming work for Battletoads' Level 3. Thanks a lot for making moon buggies suck.
In other vidya game news, I've also gotten my hands on Shining Force EXA, better known as "Sega Really Wanted To Make Diablo." It's actually pretty damn fun, and has a distinction of being challenging in a fun way, which I haven't run into lately.
It's actually kind of weird. Both games have a habit of randomly kicking my ass, they go about in different ways. Borderlands PS really comes across as trying to steal Dark Souls fans. I'm hoping it gets better down the line. 2 could be really damn hard at some points, too. And to be fair, this shit is still awesomesauce. LASER SHOTGUNS! YOU'RE WELCOME!
Shining Force here, when I die, I know I screwed up. I can go back and do the right thing (or grind) and I just jump aboard the train to PwnVille. Oh and you can smack things with spellbooks. I don't mean use the spellbook to burninate things (though you can do that too), I mean physically beat people with metaphysical literature.
Dammit, now I want to watch...oh...Raistlin and Snape whack the hell out of some Twilight characters now. Preferably with copies of The Simarillion. With Yakety Sax blaring in the background.
Oh, and I'm planning on writing a semi-intelligent post on a semi-serious topic. It will be entitled "Metallurgy, Mineralogy, and Monster-Mashing."
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Screw You, Topps
Blarg and hail to the spambots!
Been thinking about old nerdy times. Specifically the tabletop stuff I used to play and enjoy. I played the Star Wars CCG. It was ridiculously complex. It took ten years for Magic: The Gathering to approach the complexity this game had after one. Sometimes I think Decipher was staffed by geeks that wanted to run a modern video game physics engine with cards. Star Trek CCG was worse.
In any case, I didn't play much, but I had a wonderful time, and near the end of its run I built a small online trading empire out of it. It was awesome.
Another nerdy passion I had Star Wars Minatures. I blew way too much money and made a far less successful trading run, but I played it a helluva lot more. A very good friend and I worked out a modified version that dumped the grid based combat and faction restrictions for actual table terrain, mass fire, the works. It was even more awesome.
But the reason I'm writing is the game I picked in between.
That game was Mage Knight.
These days, it seem to be so obscure that there is no real data out there. No background information. No fan fora. Very rarely, you see product on Ebay. The odd very crappy relaunch. It has gone through the gamer equivalent of Damnatio Memoriae. I'm amazed there's a Wikipedia article.
Back in the day, it was not so. It was really great stuff. It successfully melded the collector's craze of card games with the armchair general's craze of pushing plastic dudes across a table for great justice. It was even (relatively) cheap.
The basic gist is that Jordan Weisman (yes, that Jordan Weisman, the BattleTech guy) and his sons got their hands on a big Warhammer Fantasy starter set, and realized that on top of the ridiculous initial investment, the game his kids spent all sorts of time and money just getting still needed even more time and money to build and paint, and on top of that, the rules...well somehow they managed to bamboozle an experienced miniature games developer. He went on to put something together that far more accessible for gamers.
The miniatures came in starters and boosters, just like a CCG, and came prepainted. Starters were $20 on a bad day, and came with a rulebook, a tailor-style measuring tape, a nice little background comic, and enough miniatures to get going. There were multiple rarity tiers, with the highest (at the time) being the unique minis, which tended to be powerful centerpieces for an army. There were a good mix of factions, and even better, a player could mix and match as they saw fit. Games were point based, with the typical value being 200, resulting in a nice skirmish-level game. Stats were on the minis themselves, using revolving clicky bases, pretty much negating bookkeeping. This stuff was fricking awesomeness.
I got hooked into it about three expansions in, and managed to drag a few buddies in for once. There were weekly tournaments with a decent following. Then the gravy train just kept a rollin'. They had already added cavalry models, soon would come big stuff like dragons, giants, cannons, and tanks. TANKS! Nice rule variants came out, like Conquest, which brought in official rules for structured multi-battle campaigns, and large scale (1000 point or more) games that really upped the scale, and Dungeons, which brought actual squad level dungeon crawling into Mage Knight. The awards and cash kept pouring in. WizKids managed to acquire the rights to DC and Marvel characters, and HeroClix was born. The stars aligned and clicky BattleTech appeared. MK, as the flagship game, just kept getting better and better, and the minis (which were admittedly horrible at first) were starting to really come into their own. It was really something special.
Then it happened. WizKids was acquired by Topps. The gravy train had been hijacked by CSX and was about to derail and cause serious casualties. Long story short, a gaming-oriented demographic was being occluded and cynically shut out in favor of toy store bullshit.
Mage Knight 2.0 came out, and everything went straight to hell. Every miniature before the new release was invalidated, and the old ruleset, factions, and abilities were null and void. This wasn't like other miniature games, where basic model variants were still legal (40k's Space Marines still haven't fundamentally changed in loadout since 2nd edition from the 1990s, arguably since Rogue Trader itself), or CCGs, where the shifting meta-game and set-swaps were a constant. Everybody's army, everywhere, didn't exist anymore. I freely admit that I had invested heavily, and gotten pretty much all the big goodies, plus a ton of the regular stuff. I was far from alone, either.
A few other stubborn individuals and I toughed it out to the bitter end. We bought plenty of 2.0 and tried to hold things to together. WizKids tried to reinvigorate things by bringing in new unit types, like dedicated flyers, revamped cavalry, magic items, and all sorts of special rules. But the gravy train was off the track and burning. The very last set was pure fanservice, bringing back minis from the older edition, along with reinstating the old models, factions, and rules.
Not much to tell after that. They did some horrible video games, and tried a reboot into a pen-and-paper RPG. I've been told there is a Mage Knight board game that's pretty awesome, but really hard to get. Last year, I saw a new set of the things; not sure how it went.
My other gaming obsessions aren't like this. They had a good run, and I had a blast. Even where something was killed by corporate suits, and I had to either put them away or jump ship entirely, I still have good feelings overall.
Mage Knight... Mage Knight is different. I don't have anything left except for two minis that live on the Shelf of Glory, but I know the rules (especially pre 2.0) very well, and could still tell you about a certain mini's stats and abilities just glancing at a base. But even so, just seeing the Wizkids logo makes me all maudlin and bitter. It didn't get a wonderful run and just fade out, it got cut down in its prime, and for stupid reasons.
The thing that really gets my goat: How many fledgling gamers were alienated and left the tabletop completely because of this mistake? I felt betrayed, but Star Wars minis were out, and personal business intervened long enough that I got a clean break and came back later. Not everybody was so forgiving.
Been thinking about old nerdy times. Specifically the tabletop stuff I used to play and enjoy. I played the Star Wars CCG. It was ridiculously complex. It took ten years for Magic: The Gathering to approach the complexity this game had after one. Sometimes I think Decipher was staffed by geeks that wanted to run a modern video game physics engine with cards. Star Trek CCG was worse.
In any case, I didn't play much, but I had a wonderful time, and near the end of its run I built a small online trading empire out of it. It was awesome.
Another nerdy passion I had Star Wars Minatures. I blew way too much money and made a far less successful trading run, but I played it a helluva lot more. A very good friend and I worked out a modified version that dumped the grid based combat and faction restrictions for actual table terrain, mass fire, the works. It was even more awesome.
But the reason I'm writing is the game I picked in between.
That game was Mage Knight.
These days, it seem to be so obscure that there is no real data out there. No background information. No fan fora. Very rarely, you see product on Ebay. The odd very crappy relaunch. It has gone through the gamer equivalent of Damnatio Memoriae. I'm amazed there's a Wikipedia article.
Back in the day, it was not so. It was really great stuff. It successfully melded the collector's craze of card games with the armchair general's craze of pushing plastic dudes across a table for great justice. It was even (relatively) cheap.
The basic gist is that Jordan Weisman (yes, that Jordan Weisman, the BattleTech guy) and his sons got their hands on a big Warhammer Fantasy starter set, and realized that on top of the ridiculous initial investment, the game his kids spent all sorts of time and money just getting still needed even more time and money to build and paint, and on top of that, the rules...well somehow they managed to bamboozle an experienced miniature games developer. He went on to put something together that far more accessible for gamers.
The miniatures came in starters and boosters, just like a CCG, and came prepainted. Starters were $20 on a bad day, and came with a rulebook, a tailor-style measuring tape, a nice little background comic, and enough miniatures to get going. There were multiple rarity tiers, with the highest (at the time) being the unique minis, which tended to be powerful centerpieces for an army. There were a good mix of factions, and even better, a player could mix and match as they saw fit. Games were point based, with the typical value being 200, resulting in a nice skirmish-level game. Stats were on the minis themselves, using revolving clicky bases, pretty much negating bookkeeping. This stuff was fricking awesomeness.
I got hooked into it about three expansions in, and managed to drag a few buddies in for once. There were weekly tournaments with a decent following. Then the gravy train just kept a rollin'. They had already added cavalry models, soon would come big stuff like dragons, giants, cannons, and tanks. TANKS! Nice rule variants came out, like Conquest, which brought in official rules for structured multi-battle campaigns, and large scale (1000 point or more) games that really upped the scale, and Dungeons, which brought actual squad level dungeon crawling into Mage Knight. The awards and cash kept pouring in. WizKids managed to acquire the rights to DC and Marvel characters, and HeroClix was born. The stars aligned and clicky BattleTech appeared. MK, as the flagship game, just kept getting better and better, and the minis (which were admittedly horrible at first) were starting to really come into their own. It was really something special.
Then it happened. WizKids was acquired by Topps. The gravy train had been hijacked by CSX and was about to derail and cause serious casualties. Long story short, a gaming-oriented demographic was being occluded and cynically shut out in favor of toy store bullshit.
Mage Knight 2.0 came out, and everything went straight to hell. Every miniature before the new release was invalidated, and the old ruleset, factions, and abilities were null and void. This wasn't like other miniature games, where basic model variants were still legal (40k's Space Marines still haven't fundamentally changed in loadout since 2nd edition from the 1990s, arguably since Rogue Trader itself), or CCGs, where the shifting meta-game and set-swaps were a constant. Everybody's army, everywhere, didn't exist anymore. I freely admit that I had invested heavily, and gotten pretty much all the big goodies, plus a ton of the regular stuff. I was far from alone, either.
A few other stubborn individuals and I toughed it out to the bitter end. We bought plenty of 2.0 and tried to hold things to together. WizKids tried to reinvigorate things by bringing in new unit types, like dedicated flyers, revamped cavalry, magic items, and all sorts of special rules. But the gravy train was off the track and burning. The very last set was pure fanservice, bringing back minis from the older edition, along with reinstating the old models, factions, and rules.
Not much to tell after that. They did some horrible video games, and tried a reboot into a pen-and-paper RPG. I've been told there is a Mage Knight board game that's pretty awesome, but really hard to get. Last year, I saw a new set of the things; not sure how it went.
My other gaming obsessions aren't like this. They had a good run, and I had a blast. Even where something was killed by corporate suits, and I had to either put them away or jump ship entirely, I still have good feelings overall.
Mage Knight... Mage Knight is different. I don't have anything left except for two minis that live on the Shelf of Glory, but I know the rules (especially pre 2.0) very well, and could still tell you about a certain mini's stats and abilities just glancing at a base. But even so, just seeing the Wizkids logo makes me all maudlin and bitter. It didn't get a wonderful run and just fade out, it got cut down in its prime, and for stupid reasons.
The thing that really gets my goat: How many fledgling gamers were alienated and left the tabletop completely because of this mistake? I felt betrayed, but Star Wars minis were out, and personal business intervened long enough that I got a clean break and came back later. Not everybody was so forgiving.
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