When we last left our interpid capsuleer I was complaining that I wasnt really getting the return I wanted in my mining efforts. Unfortunately while I’ve done a number of things to address that I havent had a huge amount of success. On the other hand I have killed a lot of pirates, a lot a lot. So when I logged off the last time I was ready for a bit of a break from the game. But the next day (well technically later that day) Patrick, as always, pulled me back in. He needed help with a mission and I kindly decided to help him out. Of course the fact that I owned a destroyer entirely bereft of armaments or any kind of defense meant he was going to have to wait a little while for that to happen. Continue reading…
Category: game/play
This is probably going to consist mostly of me whinging about whatever rpg’s Im currently running, playing in or planning to run. Though conceptually its meant to cover all aspects of gaming which I indulge in. So we’ll see how it goes.
EVE and I – Part 04 – The dark of the night
Last night’s plan was to post the previous blog entry and go to bed. Both of which I did. Unfortunately a tag team of caffeine overconsumption and a storm blowing outside conspired to help sleep elude me. After giving up on sleeping for a bit I figured I’d just log-in to EVE to do one or two things. Which lead to me getting to sleep the wrong side of six, which is what sees me in work with slightly over an hours sleep. Thankfully it’s basically all exam supervision this morning so I should be able to survive until I can get a taxi home and garner some proper rest (well a quick nap actually as I’ve stuff to do this afternoon). I’m unsure of the wisdom of playing in the wee hours in the morning. Well that’s not entirely true, depending on what you do you should be fine, more or less as long as you don’t do what I did. Continue reading…
EVE and I – Part 03 – Mining and Hauling and Pirates, Oh My!
Back in my first post about EVE I mentioned that I have a habit of indulging in theorycrafting, often tool assisted, when it comes to MMO. I thought I’d get a little further than four days in before I fell prey to it once more. I clearly thought wrong. EVE has a reputation for having a near vertical learning curve. I’d actually thought that reputation a little undeserved until I ran fight off the edge of that fucking cliff. So now I’m in freefall trying to figure out what to do. Continue reading…
EVE and I – Part 02 – The Final Frontier
Well much like 2 Live Crew popped that coochie I have popped my EVE cherry. I played for five hours or so yesterday and roughly the same today. I am in fact typing up this post in EVE’s in-game browser while (one of) my ship(s) mines away in the background. Which brings me to my first point, my goals may have been a tad too humble. Continue reading…
EVE and I – Part 01 – Into the great wide open
Being an account of one man’s virign experience with EVE Online. My first exposure to MMO’s was FFXI on its European release. I walked (like some kind of savage) from Glenwood down to PC World to pick it up after having a quick go of the copy my brother Patrick bought. I have to say it was pretty great at the time, an almost entirely novel multiplayer experience. But it was hardly flawless, the punishing xp loss on death and the hunt for random drops (fuck you second job quest) marred the exprience for me. Still it was either play that or attend class, so I did a semesters worth of assignments in a week or two (the first semester of the add-on BA in Humanities was a fucking joke, easy mode shit, sort of regret abandoning my stonking results to jump to a MSc) and settled in to explore Vana’diel. Continue reading…
If a virtual tree falls in the forest and no one sees it is your development time wasted?
I just had the stupidest argument ever about Dishonored and by extension a certain approach to game design. Stupid because clearly neither party involved had any intention of being convinced one way or the other and because I genuinely believe towards the end simply failed to understand what was being talked about. Dishonored really isnt the point here though, it does serve as a useful jumping off point though so in brief heres the controversey. Continue reading…
Does the rock try and fight the river? Or I’m not buying any more games
Yes that’s right. I am buying no more computer games, actually I’m buying no more games full stop (i.e. no more board games or role playing games either). Well starting in 2013 and excluding one or two that I have pre-ordered or Kickstarted. Why? you ask. Let me tell you. Continue reading…
Ave Imperator – Design Journal – 01 – Historical Accuracy
I wanted historical accuracy to be important to this game; as such I did a fair amount of reading on the period and the reality of gladiators and their life. However the more I learned about the reality of how things were the more I realised that changes would need to be made. There’s no point clinging to historical accuracy when it gets in the way of fun or in some cases the basic premise of the game. Continue reading…
Games I am making
Just over a year ago I started my MSc in Interactive Digital Media in Trinity. My goal was to use the course, which was advertised as “intense” and had interesting looking interactive narrative and game design modules to a) update my skillset and b) serve as a launching pad into getting a job doing narrative or design for games. A year later and I can certainly confirm that of all the things the course was “intense” was certainly not one of them. I also realised, after doing some research into it that working in the reality of working in the AAA games industry was rather disheartening. Continue reading…
(Upcoming) Games of 2012 – Autumn and Winter Edition (July-December)
So it’s been six months since I posted about my anticipated games of 2012. Six months during which I played barely any games at all, fuck you post-graduate education! Sadly a lot of the games on the previous list have been (almost inevitably) postponed to 2013 (a list I shall start constructing after the Tokyo Game Show).
I mentioned in the previous post that I was unsure about a number of this year’s upcoming releases. So far the results have been generally pretty positive. Most games I was wary off have turned out to be really enjoyable, no real duds at all so far. As usual the autumn and winter period is packed full with most of the year’s major releases. I have to say I’m really looking forward to quite a few of these games, a number of them look like they will easily make their way into this year’s Top Ten Games. Continue reading…