In what is quickly becoming clear as the last days of Rip City Gamers, Mike showed up at my place (complete with last minute change of venue) for our regular game night. Sadly, Mike and I have been the only people who have shown up for the last two sessions, and the week before that only added Alex to the mix. But more about that later.
Since it was just the two of us, and last week we played Battleline, which I won by a hair, and the old AH chestnut Football Strategy, which I clearly sucked at (Mike was winning by something like 24 points (to nothing) at halftime, and we decided that this was about as much Football Strategy as we needed), we chose this time to play Combat Commander.
No other game demonstrates my growing disillusionment with Euros compared to my growing interest in wargaming better than CC:E. While not every game is as tight as this particular outing was, every one seems to have a really interesting story, not to mention an interesting puzzle for at least one of the two sides. Better yet, since the rules keep changing on what the requirements for victory are, the puzzles tend to morph even as you play them. I really don't see how anyone could get bored with this game, provided they can handle a real-world dose of chaos.
We played Scenario 8, which features a small number of German units (two leaders, three squads) trying to break out of a Soviet encirclement at night. This is a hard scenario to play for both sides, as each is hamstrung in different ways. While the Soviets have a huge number of forces compared to the Germans, they only get a single Order per turn. Unlike the partisan scenario, however, the Soviets do have the advantage of setting up units as they'd like to leverage their leaders, although they only have two mediocre leaders and most of their machine guns are of the medium "boat anchor" calibre. The Germans, on the other hand, are limited to a single discard instead of their usual three, although they have enough orders to activate everyone if they need to in a turn.
Two other factors are also in play - because it's night time, long range fire is penalized based on range. Unless you can see the whites of their eyes, it's very unlikely you'll do much damage unless you have some serious Action cards modifying the result. This made the game very melee-intensive, which worked out more for Mike than for me. Finally, you only get points for killing other units and getting Germans off the board (at double the going rate), so the whole point is to get the Germans to exit the Soviet side, and the Soviets want to kill them first. One other thing - both sides have a Recon posture, so both sides get the same number of cards and the Defender Only actions suddenly become a bit useless for everyone (as are all arty cards). Given the strict discard rules for the Germans, this makes hand management a much different situation than they usually face, while the Soviets can afford to play a single card with a handful of crap.
Our game did not start well for me as the Germans. I began by focusing on the left side of the board, where I had some good cover in the form of a hedgerow and some small buildings to move through. Unfortunately, my initial hand had *three* useless cards, which I spent my first three turns discarding while hoping for a Move card to show up. One finally did, but not before Mike had started shifting his units from one side of the board to the other. Three turns later, I got a Move after my third discard and decided to assault the lone Russian in the first house on the left with two of my squads. Both got shot up pretty well, and while I was able to get one squad and my good leader Recovered, the other squad was wiped out by fire.
Mike is great at whining about getting bad rolls, but I seemed to get nothing higher than a 5 in my first several combat rolls. To his credit, he made the mistake of thinking that the Soviets had the same discard restriction as the Germans, but this was much later in the game that we figured this out and he was doing quite well by then, so I'll consider my bad luck early as a handicap!
After retreating back to their foxholes, my leader and squad made an assault to wipe out one Russian (giving 2VP for No Quarter), then did a Move/Assault Fire on another in the building but failed. Sadly, Mike then advanced into my hex and played...
Wait for it...
Three Ambush cards. Three. I had a Light Wounds card that allowed me to keep both units in play in a Broken state for the Melee, but no Ambush card to counter him. Then I rolled a three to match his number before he even drew a card. At this point, with one unit to give before I hit my surrender level, and with Mike adding insult to injury through his own No Quarter card to get back his 2VP for the earlier melee, he was sitting pretty at 7VP and with me facing a phalanx of units on that side of the board.
And here is where having only one order really hamstrung the Soviets. I managed to run my remaining squad/leader/LMG to the other end of the board. This board was particularly interesting because there are a lot of hills and blocking terrain that make LOS's a trifle difficult. Given the range penalty of one FP per hex fired through, ranged combat was a bit of a no-op anyway. By now we had hit the SD marker at Time 5, but it's hard to pull that particular sudden death trick with those odds, even if you have the initiative card (as Mike did when I gave it up the first time he shot at me and I rolled snake eyes. My next roll was a five which gave the same effect). However, Mike chose not to try to end the game while he could, as I was looking to exit in a short time.
Which I did, with the help of smoke and move cards. My whole strategy was to play as many orders and actions as I could that didn't match what I needed rather than discard, and I played a *lot* of Dig In actions just to get the cards out of my hand (although at one point I actually found foxholes as I was being shot at!) With my units exiting the board, I scored eight points, enough to give me the edge. My one secret objective, a single point for Objective 5 which was in my backfield but still within range of being taken by the Sovs, added a bit of a safety margin.
Mike was kicking himself for not getting more units into place before I made it around his flank, but I had an Advance card and two Ambushes, so even had he played two on me I was likely to kill any unit I went up against before he could do any permanent damage, so long as it wasn't a stack with a leader.
I find I really enjoy these scenarios that constrain units in some way - it forces you to play a slightly different game than usual, and in this I am pretty sure that CC:E will stand as one of the great wargames of all time, up there with ASL, Hannibal, The Russian Campaign, and Breakout: Normandy. (Note: I'm aware there are other great games. These seem to me to be examples of classics that have stood the test of time and are still popular ten years after they were introduced). I'd frankly have been almost as happy had we ended up tying, with Mike getting the edge with the Initiative card, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy winning too.
A great evening, with a great game and a great opponent. On the other hand I am terribly disappointed that RCG seems to have lost it's cohesion right around the time I announced that I wouldn't be hosting much anymore, at least not the usual Tuesday sessions, because of our move to the Deep South (of Portland, not the US). When seven people *total* show up for three sessions, and two of those people account for six of the seven, that's a bad sign. With no one to host in a central location (and I consider a decent game library a prerequisite for hosting), we've clearly hit a critical point that I suspect will mean the end of Rip City Gamers as we know it.
Note that I am *not* declaring the end of hostilities here, I am just noting that interest seems to have fallen off the edge of the world, whether it be from other commitments, loss of interest, or just bad timing, and saying that I am saddened by what appears to be the end of a community that I founded and nurtured for several years. I'm also hoping that I'm dead wrong, even though I'm less likely to make sessions in the Far West (Hillsboro) or even in the city core. I am looking forward to starting up a slightly different session schedule with those who live in my general area, which consititutes eight gamers who live within 15 minutes drive, one two blocks away, but it will be a different feel and Tuesdays would not be the same if it wasn't Game Night.
So prove me wrong, RCGers.
Thanks to Mike for a great game and great company. We are at his place (again) next Tuesday, then back at my place on the 9th for my last hosting at the house were RCG began.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Everything New Is Old Again
Perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves about contemporary cinema is that Hollywood has apparently run out of ideas (actually, they ran out about 20 years ago), and has spent most of it's time "reimagining" or "revitalizing" old stories, characters, plots, etc. For a while, every cartoon you ever watched as a child was getting a blockbuster makeover for theatrical release. From the Flintstones to Transformers to Charlie's Angels, it's recycle, recycle, recycle.
Sadly, it's mostly been trash.
It's a bit alarming to have the revelation that the gaming industry is going through the same problem. How many variations of Carcassone came out before there was one that I'd enjoy playing with gamers (actually, there are two: Discovery and City)? I rarely buy new games anymore, mostly because they feel like yet another permutation of what has become a fixed set of mechanisms, pasted together with a theme that hasn't yet been used. There are exceptions, but in general I feel like I'm just getting yet another hamburger from yet another fast food joint.
So when I read the news that Teuber is going to refresh the Settlers franchise, I know that the golden age of Eurogames is officially over. We all love Settlers, but it never was a particularly good game, at least not with people who figured it out. There are a million expansions, many of which I own, and some actually make it a better game. The sad fact remains that with players of equal calibre it is almost certain doom to be the first person to place your town as you'll also get stuck with the worst place, and two OK sites are considerably better than a great one and a crappy one, especially if you can place them one after the other.
So maybe Settlers needs a bit of an overhaul, but this means that all of the expansions require overhauls as well. Not that I'm teaching a math class here, but my investment in the Settlers system (and we're just talking expansions here, not the card game or the atrocity that was Elasund and Candamir, or Starfarers which I still believe is the best of the bunch) extends to Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Das Buch, three 5&6 player expansion sets to allow me not to have to mix red and orange on the board, both historical expansions, plus three or four mini expansions that let you fish or build a waste management empire (or whatever they happen to be, it's all a blur after a while).
You can see how this would be a commercially appealing idea at a time when putting out a new game, even by an established designer and publisher, is met with a collective yawn. Settlers, rightly or wrongly, has a great reputation with non-hobbyists both here and in Europe. The other day I was in a game store, and a couple came in wanting to buy that "great game they played with friends over the weekend". It's like they drank Nescafe their entire lives and just discovered that McDonald's has OK coffee. God help them if they ever challenge themselves and try *good* coffee, or a *good* game.
I don't mean to dis Settlers - it was a landmark design at the time, and clearly has been a huge hit. I'm simply saying that there are many very good games out there, and Settlers really doesn't compare terribly well to them, even from a non-hobbyist perspective. Ticket to Ride is an excellent game to play with non-hobbyists, as is Carc: The Discovery. And while I *might* consider pulling out Settlers to get non-hobbyists interested in Euros, the simple fact is that it's main competiton is the unholy Triumvirate of Classic Ameritrash titles: Clue, Monopoly, and Sorry. When you play a game that involves few meaningful choices, of course Settlers looks like you've discovered the Promised Land when what you've really discovered is that there's something other than Cleveland.
Sorry, Cleveland. Congrats on that win over the Bengals, though! And I thought you were very nice to that Johnson boy who got lost in the Dog Pound.
So the big gorilla of gaming has decided to put its weight behind recycling their biggest money-maker. If there is a more obvious sign of the Apocalypse of Eurogaming, I really couldn't tell you what it might be. What I can tell you is that I am pretty unlikely to repurchase an entire game line, especially when the last efforts to link new designs to the franchise (Candamir!) were so weak.
On the positive side, the wargaming industry seems to be experiencing a renaissance of new designs, from Combat Commander to MMP's International Gamer's series. See, I like A Victory Lost just fine.
Sadly, it's mostly been trash.
It's a bit alarming to have the revelation that the gaming industry is going through the same problem. How many variations of Carcassone came out before there was one that I'd enjoy playing with gamers (actually, there are two: Discovery and City)? I rarely buy new games anymore, mostly because they feel like yet another permutation of what has become a fixed set of mechanisms, pasted together with a theme that hasn't yet been used. There are exceptions, but in general I feel like I'm just getting yet another hamburger from yet another fast food joint.
So when I read the news that Teuber is going to refresh the Settlers franchise, I know that the golden age of Eurogames is officially over. We all love Settlers, but it never was a particularly good game, at least not with people who figured it out. There are a million expansions, many of which I own, and some actually make it a better game. The sad fact remains that with players of equal calibre it is almost certain doom to be the first person to place your town as you'll also get stuck with the worst place, and two OK sites are considerably better than a great one and a crappy one, especially if you can place them one after the other.
So maybe Settlers needs a bit of an overhaul, but this means that all of the expansions require overhauls as well. Not that I'm teaching a math class here, but my investment in the Settlers system (and we're just talking expansions here, not the card game or the atrocity that was Elasund and Candamir, or Starfarers which I still believe is the best of the bunch) extends to Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Das Buch, three 5&6 player expansion sets to allow me not to have to mix red and orange on the board, both historical expansions, plus three or four mini expansions that let you fish or build a waste management empire (or whatever they happen to be, it's all a blur after a while).
You can see how this would be a commercially appealing idea at a time when putting out a new game, even by an established designer and publisher, is met with a collective yawn. Settlers, rightly or wrongly, has a great reputation with non-hobbyists both here and in Europe. The other day I was in a game store, and a couple came in wanting to buy that "great game they played with friends over the weekend". It's like they drank Nescafe their entire lives and just discovered that McDonald's has OK coffee. God help them if they ever challenge themselves and try *good* coffee, or a *good* game.
I don't mean to dis Settlers - it was a landmark design at the time, and clearly has been a huge hit. I'm simply saying that there are many very good games out there, and Settlers really doesn't compare terribly well to them, even from a non-hobbyist perspective. Ticket to Ride is an excellent game to play with non-hobbyists, as is Carc: The Discovery. And while I *might* consider pulling out Settlers to get non-hobbyists interested in Euros, the simple fact is that it's main competiton is the unholy Triumvirate of Classic Ameritrash titles: Clue, Monopoly, and Sorry. When you play a game that involves few meaningful choices, of course Settlers looks like you've discovered the Promised Land when what you've really discovered is that there's something other than Cleveland.
Sorry, Cleveland. Congrats on that win over the Bengals, though! And I thought you were very nice to that Johnson boy who got lost in the Dog Pound.
So the big gorilla of gaming has decided to put its weight behind recycling their biggest money-maker. If there is a more obvious sign of the Apocalypse of Eurogaming, I really couldn't tell you what it might be. What I can tell you is that I am pretty unlikely to repurchase an entire game line, especially when the last efforts to link new designs to the franchise (Candamir!) were so weak.
On the positive side, the wargaming industry seems to be experiencing a renaissance of new designs, from Combat Commander to MMP's International Gamer's series. See, I like A Victory Lost just fine.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
World's Fastest One Handed Movers
Three weeks after meeting with an agent, two weeks after listing, and less than a month after even *considering* moving, we have not only purchased a house but also managed to sell the one we're in now. This has to be some sort of record at a time when most houses are selling in six months. We figure it's a combination of location, fair price, and excellent condition. Several viewers commented on the fact that the place looked like a show home and couldn't believe anyone was actually *living* there. For those of you know have visited my house when Mel is not on vacation, this won't come as any huge surprise!
If you're interested in seeing pictures of the house, the RMLS listing number is 7089411.
Right now our timeline is as follows:
Sept 30 - By this time the inspection should be done on our old place and all that's left is waiting to close.
Oct 1 - Close on new house, begin work on getting the ceilings scraped and the whole place painted.
Oct 2-14 - Start boxing the easy stuff (games, books, media), start purging stuff we don't want to keep.
Oct 15 - Movers come to box everything else up.
Oct 17 - Movers come to put boxes somewhere else, preferably our new place.
Oct 19 - We go back to having one mortgage.
That's less than two months from anyone even suggesting we move to Wilsonville to actually being there. No point in screwing around, I guess.
I was stressing mightily over whether or not our current house would sell, given the chaos that is the lending and housing industries this particular month. I was very worried that not only would I have to carry two mortgages, but also that my source of funding for the down on the new place (my family's business) would start getting a bit cranky if we got into, oh, 2009 with no sale in sight. Don't know that I'll do it this way again, but this was a bit of a special case. Turns out we were making the right decisions all the way along (other than to lock in our rates last week before the half point drop - grumble grumble), as our buying agent told us that someone had come back to buy the house we bought and were shocked that someone else had taken it.
The best part of the new place will be, of course, the game room. I'm planning several things for this room:
o flat storage for wargames in progress (I use poster frames) and those poor maps that I foolishly had laminated back in the 90's when it seemed like a good idea. The storage, usually used for blueprints or art, will sit on top of a set of bookcases to maximize gaming space.
o Awesome sound system. OK, it's really just a very nice set of near-field monitors that I can plug the laptop into to access the iTunes library (now Airtunes and accessible from anywhere in the house). The room will double as a music studio if I feel like doing some computer music projects. The speakers are made by a Dutch company, Blue Sky, and feature two satellites with a sub for the lows. I think my neighbors are already getting worried.
o Walk-in closet for the Euros, bookcases for the wargames. I should be able to fit about half to three-quarters in the closet, the rest in bookcases in the room itself. Finally, I can see just how freakin' insane I am without having to leave the room.
o Multiple game tables. IKEA has these ultra-cheap VIKA tables ($39.99) that will hold a standard poster frame, although without a lot of extra room. At that price, however, you can just put two or three of them together for bigger games! I plan to start with four, putting the others either against the wall when not in use, or even taking the legs off (they unscrew) if we need the floor space for some reason. I'm looking forward to being able to leave a couple of games set up for long periods of time, as mentioned in an earlier entry - at last I can play a game over several weeks without having to resort to VASSAL or Cyberboard. while nice, there is nothing like having the actual game set up. Good thing I don't have cats...
Best of all is that there will be a Fridge. I may never leave this room...
BTW, the title of this entry is a reference to the name a group of my friends from work called themselves back when we were all cheap and young enough to move ourselves. Since we all kept an open beer bottle in one hand, we called ourselves the One-Handed Movers. Doing the whole buy/sell/move thing in seven weeks, I think we can graduate to World's Fastest.
If I was smart, I'd invest in Jesse's Hobbytown in Wilsonville, so at least when I bought games I could be paying myself...
If you're interested in seeing pictures of the house, the RMLS listing number is 7089411.
Right now our timeline is as follows:
Sept 30 - By this time the inspection should be done on our old place and all that's left is waiting to close.
Oct 1 - Close on new house, begin work on getting the ceilings scraped and the whole place painted.
Oct 2-14 - Start boxing the easy stuff (games, books, media), start purging stuff we don't want to keep.
Oct 15 - Movers come to box everything else up.
Oct 17 - Movers come to put boxes somewhere else, preferably our new place.
Oct 19 - We go back to having one mortgage.
That's less than two months from anyone even suggesting we move to Wilsonville to actually being there. No point in screwing around, I guess.
I was stressing mightily over whether or not our current house would sell, given the chaos that is the lending and housing industries this particular month. I was very worried that not only would I have to carry two mortgages, but also that my source of funding for the down on the new place (my family's business) would start getting a bit cranky if we got into, oh, 2009 with no sale in sight. Don't know that I'll do it this way again, but this was a bit of a special case. Turns out we were making the right decisions all the way along (other than to lock in our rates last week before the half point drop - grumble grumble), as our buying agent told us that someone had come back to buy the house we bought and were shocked that someone else had taken it.
The best part of the new place will be, of course, the game room. I'm planning several things for this room:
o flat storage for wargames in progress (I use poster frames) and those poor maps that I foolishly had laminated back in the 90's when it seemed like a good idea. The storage, usually used for blueprints or art, will sit on top of a set of bookcases to maximize gaming space.
o Awesome sound system. OK, it's really just a very nice set of near-field monitors that I can plug the laptop into to access the iTunes library (now Airtunes and accessible from anywhere in the house). The room will double as a music studio if I feel like doing some computer music projects. The speakers are made by a Dutch company, Blue Sky, and feature two satellites with a sub for the lows. I think my neighbors are already getting worried.
o Walk-in closet for the Euros, bookcases for the wargames. I should be able to fit about half to three-quarters in the closet, the rest in bookcases in the room itself. Finally, I can see just how freakin' insane I am without having to leave the room.
o Multiple game tables. IKEA has these ultra-cheap VIKA tables ($39.99) that will hold a standard poster frame, although without a lot of extra room. At that price, however, you can just put two or three of them together for bigger games! I plan to start with four, putting the others either against the wall when not in use, or even taking the legs off (they unscrew) if we need the floor space for some reason. I'm looking forward to being able to leave a couple of games set up for long periods of time, as mentioned in an earlier entry - at last I can play a game over several weeks without having to resort to VASSAL or Cyberboard. while nice, there is nothing like having the actual game set up. Good thing I don't have cats...
Best of all is that there will be a Fridge. I may never leave this room...
BTW, the title of this entry is a reference to the name a group of my friends from work called themselves back when we were all cheap and young enough to move ourselves. Since we all kept an open beer bottle in one hand, we called ourselves the One-Handed Movers. Doing the whole buy/sell/move thing in seven weeks, I think we can graduate to World's Fastest.
If I was smart, I'd invest in Jesse's Hobbytown in Wilsonville, so at least when I bought games I could be paying myself...
Friday, September 14, 2007
WoW Update
The past month has seen relatively little WoW play by me. Between WBC West, deciding to sell my house, buying a house, and all of the work associated with prepping our house, I've put in relatively few hours until the last few days. However, it's been a while since I updated how things were going, so here we go!
First, my Alliance characters, all on the Drenden server. My main, the rogue HVAC engineer gnome Leonadril (Leo), has been progressing well. I try to rotate characters so that I can get double the XP for killing critters, and when you're in the low 50's it can take a *very* long time to get through a couple of levels. Early 50's are very cool, as you are breaking into a *lot* of new areas that you've never seen before (at least for me): Plaguelands, Winterspring, Moonglade, northern Felwood, Un'Goro Crater, Silithus, all sorts of places. After spending a very big chunk of my 30's in Stranglethorn Vale, it's nice to have so many options.
Even better is that I'm only a few levels away from being able to hit Outlands and all of the new areas introduced by Burning Crusade. Given how well Blizz did with the new early areas for the Draenai and Blood Elves, I'm very excited to see what's there. There is a new expansion announced, but I'm guessing we'll see it several months from now at the best, and I wouldn't be able to go there for a while anyway as it starts near level 70. Yikes.
One of the other interesting things about Leo is that he was recruited into a guild called The Grand Order. There are about 200+ members in it so far, so at least 15-30 people are on at any given time. One of my early experiences was a trip into the Troll city near Gadgetzan in Tanaris (starts with "Zul", but all Troll cities start with "Zul"), one of the few dungeons I've actually spent time in and finished off. We had an awesome level 70 druid who helped us run it, and I only died once or twice in the process. Not sure how much help I was, but at least I didn't get anyone else killed. I think.
So now Leo has his mechanostrider, as well as his ultracool riding turtle, and all is going well. I have a feeling I'm going to have to do another dungeon pretty soon to get over the low-50's hump, but so far I'm quite pleased with my progress with my original character.
Of the rest, I'm most enjoying Altaama, my Draenai Paladin. Part of that is the awesome intro areas (through level 22 for this character), and she's just gotten to Astranaar in Ashenvale so now I'll start seeing quests that are at least a bit familiar. Interestingly, I was recruited into Leo's guild by someone I'd played with a couple of days before while I was waiting at the dock to head to the mainland! Funny stuff. Isolde, the Night Elf druid, is in the low teens, and going to run around in the area around Darkshore until I get to the high teens before I make a run through the run from the Wetlands to Loch Modan to get to Ironforge and the other good Alliance areas. Given how dull I found Redridge and Westfall with my warlock (who I haven't played in months), I may enjoy the Night Elf areas a bit more. I did run much of Darkshore with my Night Elf warrior (long since killed off), but I just wasn't digging that character either. Finally, my dwarf warrior Igon just went to Loch Modan, but I'm not quite sure if/how I'll proceed with him.
Understand that a big part of why I use so many characters is twofold. First, if you spend time on one character, the others are earning levels where they will gain double the XP for kills. Second, and perhaps more important, is that if you have multiple characters you can leverage different trade and gathering skills. For example, Isolde is an herbalist/alchemist, so if anyone scores herbs they send them to her, and she sends them back potions (mostly useful for the lower levels, of course). You can also recycle bags and other items between professions/classes, and having a sugar daddy like Leo means that no one will need to wait past level 40 to get a mount (Leo took until level 48, *way* too long).
On the Horde side, things are a bit simpler. My main on The Scryers is Chanya, an orc shaman that I also enjoy playing quite a bit. I haven't seen her since early August, though! She's right on the verge of level 40, and I'm strongly considering running battlegrounds with her for a little while, although I have no idea how they work. I will take her up to Warsong Gulch when her turn comes around in a week or three. I definitely like the mix of combat and spell skills that Shamen and Paladi possess, although I have to admit that the sneakiness of the rogue is *very* cool, and I'd definitely play a rogue were I to give PvP a shot.
Only two other characters on the Horde side, one a Tauran hunter named Taurson with a wolf pet named Spot. This character is somewhere below most of my Alliance characters in terms of my enjoyment of the character, but part of this is because I seem to spend a lot of money on bullets. This is kind of strange, as one of the classes I really wanted to play when I first got into the game was a hunter because I'm such a dog person in real life. People talk about what the best pet to play is, but I have to say that don't know that I'd ever get rid of Spot. For me, the game really is about the roleplay rather than the levelling, and discovering new things in the world, so having an optimal character goes against my nature as I like characters that have flaws. Perhaps that's why Leo is my favorite, because he's an engineer and really likes building wacky and occasionally functional toys, like the Shrink Ray and the Goblin Jumper Cables.
The final character is my Blood Elf mage, who I haven't played in so long that I don't even remember her name! She's in her early teens as well, and another jewelcrafter as the new races have teachers in their home areas. Being a mage has a lot of advantages, and I think they even get an automatic mount at level 40, but while I've enjoyed the starting areas to some extent, and I find myself looking for the best looking outfits for her (they are a vain race), at the same time it's just not a character I care about like I do some of the others. I'll probably put together a couple more Horde characters to leverage off of each other (I still don't have a real priest, other than the one on Hydraxis that was intended to quest with my friend Laurent - it never took off, I'm afraid), but probably not for a little while.
Two other things; First, why I like playing female characters, and second why I think my WoW hours will start to drop like a rock even after we move.
I like the female characters for a few reasons, but mostly because I think they look better than most of the uber-masculine male characters. Leo is an exception, being a gnome, but in general I like the size. Plus, I'd really rather look at a nice female butt running around the landscape for hours at a time than a guy's. :-) I have *not* noticed any sexism in the game, which is nice, and there is no effective difference between the sexes other than appearance. I *almost* like this, and while I do believe that women should be given the same opportunities as men (in the real world), I also recognize there are significant biological differences between men and women that result in different life strategies and goals. It would be nice to play an RPG that recognized this in a positive way, but it's not going to be WoW.
As for my online time dropping, I have two words - Game Room. Having the ability to leave a game set up for months, that's right, months, will mean that I'll be spending more time playing things like Great War in Europe and Red Star Rising, things I'd never be able to play other than using VASSAL or Cyberboard given my current living situation. Not only that, but I'll be able to save games for long periods of time, so I can have several wargames going at once, all stored away nicely until I decide to play them. Given that I've really been enjoying wargaming more and more over the past year and euros less and less, it just makes sense that WoW time will fall off.
Of course the other factor is that I'm only a few months away from Leonadril making it to level 70, at which point I may start losing interest in WoW as well. While I'll probably keep playing, I suspect that my seratonin levels will finally start dropping during play, which doesn't happen so much now (unless I'm doing a quest for a drop that requires *far* too much grinding, as with Gaelen's Amulet in Bloodmyst Isle). Regardless, I consider my investment in WoW, both monetarily (including the CCG) and temporaly to be one of the better gaming experiences I've had. Thank the Spirit that this game wasn't available to me while I was in grad school, or worse before I got out of high school as it would have been a huge problem for me. Even the first Civilization game took up way too much of my time back in the early 90's, but having a computer or video game when I was 15 would have really been a bone of contention between me and my parents!
Anyway, that's my thoughts on WoW for now. I'll do another update in a month or three for those of you who care (Laurent).
First, my Alliance characters, all on the Drenden server. My main, the rogue HVAC engineer gnome Leonadril (Leo), has been progressing well. I try to rotate characters so that I can get double the XP for killing critters, and when you're in the low 50's it can take a *very* long time to get through a couple of levels. Early 50's are very cool, as you are breaking into a *lot* of new areas that you've never seen before (at least for me): Plaguelands, Winterspring, Moonglade, northern Felwood, Un'Goro Crater, Silithus, all sorts of places. After spending a very big chunk of my 30's in Stranglethorn Vale, it's nice to have so many options.
Even better is that I'm only a few levels away from being able to hit Outlands and all of the new areas introduced by Burning Crusade. Given how well Blizz did with the new early areas for the Draenai and Blood Elves, I'm very excited to see what's there. There is a new expansion announced, but I'm guessing we'll see it several months from now at the best, and I wouldn't be able to go there for a while anyway as it starts near level 70. Yikes.
One of the other interesting things about Leo is that he was recruited into a guild called The Grand Order. There are about 200+ members in it so far, so at least 15-30 people are on at any given time. One of my early experiences was a trip into the Troll city near Gadgetzan in Tanaris (starts with "Zul", but all Troll cities start with "Zul"), one of the few dungeons I've actually spent time in and finished off. We had an awesome level 70 druid who helped us run it, and I only died once or twice in the process. Not sure how much help I was, but at least I didn't get anyone else killed. I think.
So now Leo has his mechanostrider, as well as his ultracool riding turtle, and all is going well. I have a feeling I'm going to have to do another dungeon pretty soon to get over the low-50's hump, but so far I'm quite pleased with my progress with my original character.
Of the rest, I'm most enjoying Altaama, my Draenai Paladin. Part of that is the awesome intro areas (through level 22 for this character), and she's just gotten to Astranaar in Ashenvale so now I'll start seeing quests that are at least a bit familiar. Interestingly, I was recruited into Leo's guild by someone I'd played with a couple of days before while I was waiting at the dock to head to the mainland! Funny stuff. Isolde, the Night Elf druid, is in the low teens, and going to run around in the area around Darkshore until I get to the high teens before I make a run through the run from the Wetlands to Loch Modan to get to Ironforge and the other good Alliance areas. Given how dull I found Redridge and Westfall with my warlock (who I haven't played in months), I may enjoy the Night Elf areas a bit more. I did run much of Darkshore with my Night Elf warrior (long since killed off), but I just wasn't digging that character either. Finally, my dwarf warrior Igon just went to Loch Modan, but I'm not quite sure if/how I'll proceed with him.
Understand that a big part of why I use so many characters is twofold. First, if you spend time on one character, the others are earning levels where they will gain double the XP for kills. Second, and perhaps more important, is that if you have multiple characters you can leverage different trade and gathering skills. For example, Isolde is an herbalist/alchemist, so if anyone scores herbs they send them to her, and she sends them back potions (mostly useful for the lower levels, of course). You can also recycle bags and other items between professions/classes, and having a sugar daddy like Leo means that no one will need to wait past level 40 to get a mount (Leo took until level 48, *way* too long).
On the Horde side, things are a bit simpler. My main on The Scryers is Chanya, an orc shaman that I also enjoy playing quite a bit. I haven't seen her since early August, though! She's right on the verge of level 40, and I'm strongly considering running battlegrounds with her for a little while, although I have no idea how they work. I will take her up to Warsong Gulch when her turn comes around in a week or three. I definitely like the mix of combat and spell skills that Shamen and Paladi possess, although I have to admit that the sneakiness of the rogue is *very* cool, and I'd definitely play a rogue were I to give PvP a shot.
Only two other characters on the Horde side, one a Tauran hunter named Taurson with a wolf pet named Spot. This character is somewhere below most of my Alliance characters in terms of my enjoyment of the character, but part of this is because I seem to spend a lot of money on bullets. This is kind of strange, as one of the classes I really wanted to play when I first got into the game was a hunter because I'm such a dog person in real life. People talk about what the best pet to play is, but I have to say that don't know that I'd ever get rid of Spot. For me, the game really is about the roleplay rather than the levelling, and discovering new things in the world, so having an optimal character goes against my nature as I like characters that have flaws. Perhaps that's why Leo is my favorite, because he's an engineer and really likes building wacky and occasionally functional toys, like the Shrink Ray and the Goblin Jumper Cables.
The final character is my Blood Elf mage, who I haven't played in so long that I don't even remember her name! She's in her early teens as well, and another jewelcrafter as the new races have teachers in their home areas. Being a mage has a lot of advantages, and I think they even get an automatic mount at level 40, but while I've enjoyed the starting areas to some extent, and I find myself looking for the best looking outfits for her (they are a vain race), at the same time it's just not a character I care about like I do some of the others. I'll probably put together a couple more Horde characters to leverage off of each other (I still don't have a real priest, other than the one on Hydraxis that was intended to quest with my friend Laurent - it never took off, I'm afraid), but probably not for a little while.
Two other things; First, why I like playing female characters, and second why I think my WoW hours will start to drop like a rock even after we move.
I like the female characters for a few reasons, but mostly because I think they look better than most of the uber-masculine male characters. Leo is an exception, being a gnome, but in general I like the size. Plus, I'd really rather look at a nice female butt running around the landscape for hours at a time than a guy's. :-) I have *not* noticed any sexism in the game, which is nice, and there is no effective difference between the sexes other than appearance. I *almost* like this, and while I do believe that women should be given the same opportunities as men (in the real world), I also recognize there are significant biological differences between men and women that result in different life strategies and goals. It would be nice to play an RPG that recognized this in a positive way, but it's not going to be WoW.
As for my online time dropping, I have two words - Game Room. Having the ability to leave a game set up for months, that's right, months, will mean that I'll be spending more time playing things like Great War in Europe and Red Star Rising, things I'd never be able to play other than using VASSAL or Cyberboard given my current living situation. Not only that, but I'll be able to save games for long periods of time, so I can have several wargames going at once, all stored away nicely until I decide to play them. Given that I've really been enjoying wargaming more and more over the past year and euros less and less, it just makes sense that WoW time will fall off.
Of course the other factor is that I'm only a few months away from Leonadril making it to level 70, at which point I may start losing interest in WoW as well. While I'll probably keep playing, I suspect that my seratonin levels will finally start dropping during play, which doesn't happen so much now (unless I'm doing a quest for a drop that requires *far* too much grinding, as with Gaelen's Amulet in Bloodmyst Isle). Regardless, I consider my investment in WoW, both monetarily (including the CCG) and temporaly to be one of the better gaming experiences I've had. Thank the Spirit that this game wasn't available to me while I was in grad school, or worse before I got out of high school as it would have been a huge problem for me. Even the first Civilization game took up way too much of my time back in the early 90's, but having a computer or video game when I was 15 would have really been a bone of contention between me and my parents!
Anyway, that's my thoughts on WoW for now. I'll do another update in a month or three for those of you who care (Laurent).
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Why I Hate Euros / Why I Love Euros
Somehow I've been able to get out of the house on two consecutive Tuesday nights to play games at Mike's. Good thing, too, as it was just Alex, myself, and Mike last night. We played two games which pretty much sum up how I currently feel about Euros.
First up was Thurn & Taxis: Power and Postboxes. Or whatever the expansion to the original game is. Play is mostly like the original, but set in Prussia rather than Bavaria, and with the carriages removed in exchange for a "play a card to allow for longer routes" mechanism that effectively gives players an out if they find themselves without a legal card play on their route. I'm not a huge fan of this game, it always feels like so much of how your game goes depends rather strongly on what cards show up in the draft pool when you are starting a route, and I don't know that the expansion made the game better at all.
I've knocked the Discovery mechanism in AoE3, mostly because it a) is necessary to move the game along, and b) the cards can throw the game at the end of play. In T&T, though, you were encouraged to always have a play ready in hand, and if you didn't you could always punt and cash in the route or gamble and hope a useful card showed up next turn. This is the classic definition of managable luck, where you can choose to take a shot or play it safe. AoE3 doesn't have that, at least unless you are willing to devote five colonists, a full turn's worth, to ensure a successful discovery, and then you get a crappy turnout.
Unfortunately, it's gone in the expansion. And I wasn't that hot on the original, to be frank. After a few games, it just felt like you were playing to see what the draft looked like.
A bad sign, as I won the game.
On the other hand, I was not at all prepared to enjoy playing Midgard, but found a 30 minute game that feels a lot deeper than it looks at first blush. The start of the game, where you draft cards from hands going around the table, means that you have knowlege of *almost* all of the cards in play. Then, how you sequence your plays is another brain burner, although it goes by fairly quickly. While I can't say I loved the theme and it felt like there were a *lot* of components for what the game was, I think this may be the first Euro that I've seen in a while where I wanted to play again right away. And I came in last.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Euros drive me crazy these days.
First up was Thurn & Taxis: Power and Postboxes. Or whatever the expansion to the original game is. Play is mostly like the original, but set in Prussia rather than Bavaria, and with the carriages removed in exchange for a "play a card to allow for longer routes" mechanism that effectively gives players an out if they find themselves without a legal card play on their route. I'm not a huge fan of this game, it always feels like so much of how your game goes depends rather strongly on what cards show up in the draft pool when you are starting a route, and I don't know that the expansion made the game better at all.
I've knocked the Discovery mechanism in AoE3, mostly because it a) is necessary to move the game along, and b) the cards can throw the game at the end of play. In T&T, though, you were encouraged to always have a play ready in hand, and if you didn't you could always punt and cash in the route or gamble and hope a useful card showed up next turn. This is the classic definition of managable luck, where you can choose to take a shot or play it safe. AoE3 doesn't have that, at least unless you are willing to devote five colonists, a full turn's worth, to ensure a successful discovery, and then you get a crappy turnout.
Unfortunately, it's gone in the expansion. And I wasn't that hot on the original, to be frank. After a few games, it just felt like you were playing to see what the draft looked like.
A bad sign, as I won the game.
On the other hand, I was not at all prepared to enjoy playing Midgard, but found a 30 minute game that feels a lot deeper than it looks at first blush. The start of the game, where you draft cards from hands going around the table, means that you have knowlege of *almost* all of the cards in play. Then, how you sequence your plays is another brain burner, although it goes by fairly quickly. While I can't say I loved the theme and it felt like there were a *lot* of components for what the game was, I think this may be the first Euro that I've seen in a while where I wanted to play again right away. And I came in last.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Euros drive me crazy these days.
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