Tattered Page

Kill Ten Rats has a great post up comparing support classes to Bikini wax: suffering you subject yourself to so you can bring enjoyment to others.  Analogies like that keep that site high on my must-read list.

There’s some truth to what he says- choosing a class that’s great for teams but lousy by itself can be a painful experience- subject to the whims of others in whether you’ll have a productive night teaming or a rather dull night searching for a team (or in a team that’s overburdened by support classes.)  I, like KTR, also love the City of Heroes’ corruptor class’s good balance of the two.

That said, as more couples go online together (a trend that’s been on the rise) the pain may not be as bad anymore.  My wife’s a ready companion for my support characters, so I’ve never experience much pain playing Chase Arcanum, and she while playing Forsaken Pyra. 

That ready-made duo might be where support classes really shine.

Just a word that I’m still here.  Thanksgiving left me was an allergic reaction to something.  Typing is tough with your hands wrapped like a mummy’s.  Gotta take it easy for a few.

I’ve even put off experimenting with Turkey n Gravy soda until my immune system recovers a little…

As Thanksgiving approached, I started looking back over the past year on what I’m thankful for and who I’m thankful to.  I’ll get to thank my family and in-town friends in person, but there are plenty I’ll likely never see again.  Many of them probably don’t even realize they made any impact whatsoever.  Since much of this is related to gaming, this seems to be the best way to just say ‘thanks.”

I hope to spend some time leading up to and through the holiday recognizing as many of them as I can. 

I hope. Free time ISN’T something I can claim thanks for.

(more…)

Way back in September, Positron posted this tidbit on the CoH boards:

I had 2 PM’s in my box, back to back. The first was “Stalkers are useless in PvP” and the next was “Stalkers are overpowered in PvP”. The grass is always greener they say…

Now, I had some thoughts back then regarding the topic, but I wanted test out my assumptions first from a number of different angles. I’ll explain some of the Stalker basics after the break for you non CoH’ers, but for now, after a few months of analysis, Positron’s conclusion was wrong.

Both statements are correct.

(more…)

The day after I discover Overmoderated, a blog by MMO community managers (and worth a read) Lore Sjöberg so accurately sums up online community members.

It might not be taken seriously at the moment, but just as Bartle’s Taxonomy has become the textbook classification of player motivations, Sjöberg’s Taxonomy will go on to classify forum dwellers.  Or not.

Scott over at Broken toys has a few things to say about EA’s new “pay to unlock” strategies. Essentially, there are alot of extra features in many games- extra courses or golfers in Tiger Woods Golf, for example, that are only available once a player “unlocks” them by some achievement in-game. They might have to beat the game, complete X courses, or some other mind-numbing act of repetition to gain that “reward.” Until now.

Now, all you need to do is pay $3-4 more to unlock all that extra stuff.

Veteran’s Day is November 11th. 

Many of us have grown up in an era with few- if any- family members that have worn a uniform.  This holiday must seem distant and oddly strange to them.  Who are we remembering? and why?   An unpopular war only makes the confusion worse. 

I’m asking that, no matter what you think of the war- and even if you don’t know any veteran- you take the time to recognize this day.

(more…)

Ok, I decided to play around with Comic Book Creator this week.  It’s a fun tool that lets you make comics from clipart, screenshots, or virtually any image file you have at hand.

I made a City of Heroes 36-pager.  It’s something of an “origins” tale, I guess.  There was alot of bungling, and it still has some rough edges, but I figured I’d share it in “Beta format” and see what people think.

You can view the pages in gallery or download the pdf here (7.5mb). 

(more…)

Seems everyone’s commenting on something Jack Emmert said at the Serious Games Summit.  I was there too, but since most of the meat is being discussed over at Raph’s, I figured I’d reply to the topics there.

(more…)

The Grouchy Gnome’s appearing a bit grouchier than normal lately- that’s good- he’s at his best when bitching about something.  He’s taking issue on all the “all new, never done before” stuff that… well… really has been done- sometimes rather frequently- in the past.

I don’t disagree, but I don’t want to discount the effort that the “new” developers might be making.  Many of his examples were game elements with significant flaws that really needed hashed out.  Some were easier on a certain platform (2d vs 3d) or more easily controlled by certain underlying mechanics.

(more…)

Just a quick thought here that bugs me more and more… particularly seeing NN2 out for release

Mention user-created content, and you’ll hear issues about how 99% of the stuff out there is crap.  I don’t disagree, but the best adventures I ever had in Pen-n-Paper weren’t published modules or professionally-run convention events.  They were things made and run by another player.

(more…)

I’m not dead.  I thought I’d posted that I was going down to the DC “Serious Games Summit” but it apparently dropped into the void somewhere.

Great conference, tons of big thinkers and very nice keynotes by Henry Jenkins and Jack Emmert.  Overall, it’ll fuel my blog for some time.  I’d have had more to say sooner, but my laptop battery died and… well… it’s tough enough to find time to sleep at these events, let alone blog.