Tattered Page

No… really. Haven’t been blogging much, as I was struck by a terminal case of SOMETHING last week. Been struggling through a haze of daytime/nighttime cold medicines for a week- and let me tell you- NEVER post with a NyQuil-addled mind… unless it’s for unintended humor.

Everyone at work was already sniffling, so I didn’t feel too bad about coming in & potentially infecting anyone… until yesterday. Of the 12 occupied cubes around me… 9 called in sick.

Only my mutant immune system kept me going, it seems…

I’ll be back to posting soon

Honest.

As I strive to cut my latest response to Psychochild’s design challenge into something more readable, here’s something a little different, courtesy of Secondhand Lions.

Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe in it. Sometimes the things that may… or may not… be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most:

• That people are basically good
• that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything;
• that power and money– money and power mean nothing;
• that good always triumphs over evil;
• …and…. I want you to remember this… that love… true love never dies.

You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.You see, a man should believe in those things… because those are the things worth believing in.

-Hub McCann, Secondhand Lions.

I have trouble playing bad guys. I couldn’t be an Imperial in Star Wars Galaxies. I couldn’t take the path of the dark side in Knights of the Old Republic (1 or 2). I can’t even force myself to turn on the GTA series.

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Ryan’s had a nice “Roast of Itemcentricity” going on over at nerfbat. He’s quick to say that he’s not opposed to itemcentricity, but he loves picking current design paradigms apart. That’s what made me a regular there.

If anything, I didn’t think Ryan was aggressive enough with his attacks on item-centric play, but I’m a bit of a radical here.

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Psychochild’s latest weekend design challenge (hey, I caught up) asks us to:

Point out an advantage of either a class-based or skill-based system that hasn’t been discussed to death yet. Or, if you’re feeling bold, describe a system that goes beyond either of these systems.

Now, I’m new enough to the debate to not know whether something has been discussed to death so badly that it isn’t even mentioned anymore. I had alot of reading to do… Luckily, Ryan Shwayder over in Nerfbat provided a good starting point earlier last week. (more…)

Damion over at Zen of Design said in a recent post:

…It’s actually really difficult to convince graphics programmers and artists, who not only want to push the envelope because it’s cool, but who are legitimately concerned their resume and portfolios might fall out of date…

It arose from an ongoing blog discussion on “what made WoW a success.” A lot of great tangents have spun off and I hope to get around to giving my 2 cents on a few of em- still haven’t learned to choose my battles.

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