Well, if there was one thing that could get me to make a post, it would be Pokemon SoulSilver, I guess. Short story: THIS GAME IS AWESOME!!!
Long Story: THIS GAME IS AWESOME, AND I WILL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT:
First of all, you may refer to this page in order to review the changes made between Gold/Silver and HeartGold/SoulSilver: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Soulsilver
Rather interesting, I think.
This post is titled "part. 3" because I am beginning to write this after I've already reached Mahogany Town (7th town), so parts 1 and 2 are reserved for when I go back and write about the first 14 hours of my playthrough.
I think I will kind of make this more of a commentary and reflection than an honest-to-goodness chronicle, because, God, that would be boring.
First of all, some changes that are good (from Diamond/Pearl or Gold/Silver):
o Battle text speed is back up to its normal (=fast) speed. In D/P you had to wait forever for it to type out grammatically circuitous reports ("THE ATTACK OF THE FOE'S PIKACHU MISSED"). Now, it provides the same circuitous reports VERY QUICKLY!
o The touch screen is more utilized than in D/P. You can now use it to select all menu options without pressing any buttons. Also the Pokedex, Pokegear, and party menus use the touch screen.
o It might just be me, but it seems that Pokemon learn good moves at an earlier level than in previous games. I think this has been steadily moved to earlier and earlier levels over the whole series—but I'm not sure. Anyhow, it's great.
o More lore is provided; for example, a lot more is told about the 3 Legendary Dogs and Ho-Oh, and Ecruteak in general.
o THE POKEWALKER IS AWESOME. You can put any Pokemon in there; they gain up to one level while inside, if you walk around enough. You can capture Pokemon inside of it and find items, too. As a pack-in, it's a tremendously fun thing.
o The Rival (whom I've nicknamed Dagon, who is a lackey of Cthulhu), is WAY douchier this time around. WAY douchier. And it works.
o Character development in general is a lot better in this game. You learn a lot more about Gym Leaders, Lance, and Team Rocket.
o All of the gyms have new puzzles to solve in order to reach the Gym leader. They aren't hard, but they are refreshing.
o Some of the text/dialogue has been updated to be, in some, cases, ridiculously funny, such as the sign for the Mahogany Town front, which I'll talk about later.
Bad things:
o Remember that trainers used to call you all the time on the Pokegear? They still do it, BUT LIKE 5 TIMES AS MUCH. And your mother always buys you stupid crap with your money.
o Some of the dialogue is just stupid: "There are many legends about these legendary Pokemon." Oh, you DON'T SAY.
Part 3:
I had saved right after catching the Red Gyarados (Nereus, a Sea God) because the ensuing Team Rocket shenanigan is my favorite part of the whole game. Lance is way more awesome and the graphics allow for a much better representation of Dragonite. The hideout bustup was great except for one thing. Remember those squares that had "bombs" in them (Geodude, Koffing, and Voltorb"?) That area remains, but in G/S those Pokemon used Selfdestruct immediately, thus a) fulfilling the bomb threat and b) actually posing somewhat of a hazard to your 20-somethings. Now, they are on some really weird script that actually PREVENTS them from using Selfdestruct. Umm, guys? THAT. WAS. THE. POINT. I got Smogged, Tackled, Sparked, and Light Screened, but not Selfdestructed. It was ridiculous.
There are new Rocket bosses, I guess. And now you have to chase the leader's Murkrow to a password-protected door so it can unlock it by mimicking his voice (just like the Farfetch'd scene in the Ilex Forest).
I'm just about to start playing again and beat up the ice Gym Leader. Wish me luck! (I dont' need it; I have Perseus)!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Starcraft musings
I think the "too similar" is a lack of understanding with the genre, because RTS is a less frequent genre most people are not terribly familiar with. (no offense). SC2 has changed with what you'd expect it to change within a decade.
It has completely changed due to unlimited macro selection and automining. This completely changes every single aspect of the strategies. This is like going from CoD:2 to MW change, to put it in common analogues.
The original starcraft allowed you to select your army of 100 units twelve at a time. The new one lets you select 255. The food cap is 200. The old game required you to que workers to mine every time they were made. SC2 does it automatically.
It shifts the focus of the game from "macro", or building stuff quickly and making money, requiring the virtues of attentiveness, passively high APM, awareness and memorization to critical thinking,
Unit micro is now the new focus (tactical movement built around traditional strategic tactics like high ground and staying out of range or line of sight, requiring spiking very high apm, but require less passive, consistent apm), instead of the previously explained macro.
Not only does this completely change competitive play, it affects the game for average players like us.
Before, when a player zerg rushed you extremely quickly, and you had no chance, it may have been due to minute differences in -apm that resulted in faster building, with less of a skill component. Now, this will be spread across the board more evenly with macro playing less of a role.
In addition, maps are designed to prevent rushing, and map design plays a huge role in how the game plays out, each tuned for 1v1 now.
----
Strategies are completely turned upside down, the game will feel different, with a less hectic pace, requiring rediculous -apm wars just to send your workers mining once you hit lategame. Its going to feel more strategic.
Battles will be less a-move, a-move, a-move, and will rely on strategies more. Honestly, from an objective point of view, the strategies starcraft 1 has gone through is quite substantial.
It would be easy for someone with a lack of an understanding for the FPS genre to claim that "COD1 is the same as MW2", even though they are underscored by several huge overhauls and gameplay changes, despite the fact that the movement remains consistently realistic and you still shoot stuff.
It has completely changed due to unlimited macro selection and automining. This completely changes every single aspect of the strategies. This is like going from CoD:2 to MW change, to put it in common analogues.
The original starcraft allowed you to select your army of 100 units twelve at a time. The new one lets you select 255. The food cap is 200. The old game required you to que workers to mine every time they were made. SC2 does it automatically.
It shifts the focus of the game from "macro", or building stuff quickly and making money, requiring the virtues of attentiveness, passively high APM, awareness and memorization to critical thinking,
Unit micro is now the new focus (tactical movement built around traditional strategic tactics like high ground and staying out of range or line of sight, requiring spiking very high apm, but require less passive, consistent apm), instead of the previously explained macro.
Not only does this completely change competitive play, it affects the game for average players like us.
Before, when a player zerg rushed you extremely quickly, and you had no chance, it may have been due to minute differences in -apm that resulted in faster building, with less of a skill component. Now, this will be spread across the board more evenly with macro playing less of a role.
In addition, maps are designed to prevent rushing, and map design plays a huge role in how the game plays out, each tuned for 1v1 now.
----
Strategies are completely turned upside down, the game will feel different, with a less hectic pace, requiring rediculous -apm wars just to send your workers mining once you hit lategame. Its going to feel more strategic.
Battles will be less a-move, a-move, a-move, and will rely on strategies more. Honestly, from an objective point of view, the strategies starcraft 1 has gone through is quite substantial.
It would be easy for someone with a lack of an understanding for the FPS genre to claim that "COD1 is the same as MW2", even though they are underscored by several huge overhauls and gameplay changes, despite the fact that the movement remains consistently realistic and you still shoot stuff.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
I owe you this one EDIT: No, I really don't.
Even before the next part, think about this:
"So the audience was probably more impressed by seeing someone judged to do something well, rather than judging for themselves. So I think Guitar Hero is less about the music, which is valued subjectively, and more about doing a preset task skillfully when objectively judged."
(from the second link. Don't read it, for God's sake.)
First, this is incredibly interesting reading regarding MW2's "No Russian":
There is, however, another point about "No Russian" that appears more strongly from a classical perspective than perhaps any other. It seems to me an undeniable fact that Infinity Ward, who put analogously atrocious action in MW2's predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, is maintaining a commitment to bringing the players of its games face-to-face with the ethical ambiguity of war. That fact by itself shows a development of game culture that mirrors the development that we can see in the homeric tradition when we look at that tradition diachronically, and pick apart its strata: in the Iliad, for example, the ethical simplicity of tales of glory becomes, over time, the ambiguous story of an Achilles who drags Hector around Troy, in front of his grieving parents, and then kills Trojan youths on Patroclus' funeral pyre. Indeed, this development leads in ancient Athens to tragedy, the ne plus ultra of literary ethical thought, where atrocities are used over and over to expose the fragility of our ethical claims and to strengthen our understanding of why we must make those claims nonetheless.
http://livingepic.blogspot.com/2009/11/brief-classical-thoughts-on-no-russian.html
Second, here is a pretty good editorial piece from Kotaku. Tim Rogers occasionally writes these ridiculously long (and thus convoluted) pieces for Kotaku. Although a lot of his stuff is frankly pretty egoistic, if you dig you can find some real treasure. Here is an excerpt from his latest:
Rhythm games are not primarily about music: They are about doing something right and being told you're doing it right. I can totally, absolutely get behind that sort of thing. I use the word "crunch" a lot, in my "line of work," to describe the feeling in a game where you know you're doing something right, doing something wrong, or just plain doing something. God Hand has tons of crunch. Most games these days don't have any. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are games made up of about 99% crunch. You know exactly what you're doing in a Guitar Hero game: You're pressing a button at the right time, and the game tells you that you're awesome because of it. I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe it's like Brain Training: You answer these simple math problems every day, the game assesses your speed, tells you if you're getting better or not, and before you know it, real world applications bubble to the surface: You find you're getting better at typing, your night vision has increased, you've stopped forgetting your car keys, who knows. The simple "Yes!" feedback of these games provides us with the experience Getting Better At Something; it can't be long before we become Better People because of them, and it can't be too far after that that we find ourselves literally and figuratively happy.
So, Christmas Day, there I was in my parents' house, and my little brother was playing DJ Hero on a large CRT television. He had the DJ controller on the floor, and was hunched over it, scratching at the turntable and clicking on the buttons, the TV volume depressingly low. I thought about Konami's Pop'n'Music, the most abstract rhythm game out there, in that it just uses buttons, which are meant to be pressed in time to lights that are furiously streaming down the screen. The Pop'n'Music machine in the arcade closest to my first apartment in Tokyo (where I went to play Virtua Fighter IV or Street Fighter III) had broken speakers, so the volume was so terribly low that you could barely hear it even if you were playing. The way those machines are set up, you can't really hear the music unless you're standing close enough to play, anyway. So for a skeeze standing ten feet back watching a couple of bouncy schoolgirls having fun, the on-screen action looks ridiculous; the clacking of the big, hollow, candy-like, palm-smashed buttons hardly makes sense in the context of the flashing on the screen. For years I was scared to touch Pop'n'Music, because it looked so complicated. I later realized that Pop'n'Music was Konami's way of bringing Dance Dance Revolution to the people who didn't want to get too much exercise. I like to think that I'm pretty immune to the "Damn Kids" syndrome; I think that I'll grow up as an embracer of new technology, for example. Back then, though, Pop'n'Music really got at me. It was weird enough to see two kids playing it, clapping each other on the shoulder with every smashing success, though watching some older guy play it alone with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth was really depressing. What's the use of a rhythm game if you can't even pretend to be holding a guitar? What's the use of a rhythm game where you're not even dancing? At the end of the day, it's not a rhythm game: It's a pleasure-enforcing device. I realized, back with Pop'n'Music, that I was being much like your parents when they call your music "noise": All your parents can hear, when you listen to music up in your room, is the sound of the lowest part of the bass guitar traveling through the floor. Maybe, if they could hear the rest, they'd be willing to acknowledge its artistry.
In case you skipped the bastard-like personal anecdote that preceded the part where I started talking about video games, let me summarize for you: I commented naively and at length on the socio-political-economic ramifications of the diorama of humanity present inside a super-trendy club, confronting head-on the question "do people really only like what they're told to like?" and coming away with the conclusion "well, kinda." I was selected to play a rock and roll show at this super-trendy club party event on the basis of my being an agreeable person, the same way I am selected by editors-in-chief to write magazine or web columns. I don't hate music: I just love music in a tough way. I scrape and scream. I enjoy looseness and stupidity. Yet, somehow, at the end of my set, a woman who was obviously a Swedish fashion model literally asked me, in so many words, to make out with her. I faced a scary question: Was this woman attracted to me, my "music", or the fact that someone in charge of this event had been so bold and confident in his taste as to choose me as one of only two live musical acts to perform during the entire eight-hour event? There exists maybe a one in a hundred chance that this woman was immensely, real-ly, sexually attracted to the idea of a man doing whatever he wanted and not caring what other people thought. Maybe she thought I was an artist. My final conclusion is that people in clubs don't just like what they're told to like, they like what other people like them like, and they pay a high cover charge to get inside this place where they're sure they'll find other people like them, who like them because they're like them. It's all very sketchy. In the real world, more often than not, we do not find ourselves with a situation wherein we press a button and immediately receive feedback of the black-or-white yes-or-no variety. Do people like me? isn't as efficient a question as How do I feel? Do I feel happy? What does all this have to do with video games? Absolutely everything.
....
Maybe the world economies would crumble if our entertainments stopped encouraging growth, improvement, or skill. Maybe we'd all turn into hippies if the chairman of Coca-Cola got up in front of a press conference and said, "You know, guys, we're closing up shop. Just start drinking water." Would that be so bad? I've used this excellent straw-man argument before: If everyone in the world were an all-day-meditating, own-crops-growing zen buddhist monk praying for peace, there would be no war. I've dipped tentatively into a lot of philosophy, and I've always considered sentiments like that to be something of a tiny baby elephant in the room. Why can't we be happy all the time? Why can't everything be love and peace? Why must we have shadow to lend context to light? Why must we have failure to lend context to success? Why can't everyone just give up all at once? I don't know.
http://kotaku.com/5468512/can-videogames-make-us-happy?skyline=true&s=i
(excerpt starts after the pic of Brutal Legend)
"So the audience was probably more impressed by seeing someone judged to do something well, rather than judging for themselves. So I think Guitar Hero is less about the music, which is valued subjectively, and more about doing a preset task skillfully when objectively judged."
(from the second link. Don't read it, for God's sake.)
First, this is incredibly interesting reading regarding MW2's "No Russian":
There is, however, another point about "No Russian" that appears more strongly from a classical perspective than perhaps any other. It seems to me an undeniable fact that Infinity Ward, who put analogously atrocious action in MW2's predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, is maintaining a commitment to bringing the players of its games face-to-face with the ethical ambiguity of war. That fact by itself shows a development of game culture that mirrors the development that we can see in the homeric tradition when we look at that tradition diachronically, and pick apart its strata: in the Iliad, for example, the ethical simplicity of tales of glory becomes, over time, the ambiguous story of an Achilles who drags Hector around Troy, in front of his grieving parents, and then kills Trojan youths on Patroclus' funeral pyre. Indeed, this development leads in ancient Athens to tragedy, the ne plus ultra of literary ethical thought, where atrocities are used over and over to expose the fragility of our ethical claims and to strengthen our understanding of why we must make those claims nonetheless.
http://livingepic.blogspot.com/2009/11/brief-classical-thoughts-on-no-russian.html
Second, here is a pretty good editorial piece from Kotaku. Tim Rogers occasionally writes these ridiculously long (and thus convoluted) pieces for Kotaku. Although a lot of his stuff is frankly pretty egoistic, if you dig you can find some real treasure. Here is an excerpt from his latest:
Rhythm games are not primarily about music: They are about doing something right and being told you're doing it right. I can totally, absolutely get behind that sort of thing. I use the word "crunch" a lot, in my "line of work," to describe the feeling in a game where you know you're doing something right, doing something wrong, or just plain doing something. God Hand has tons of crunch. Most games these days don't have any. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are games made up of about 99% crunch. You know exactly what you're doing in a Guitar Hero game: You're pressing a button at the right time, and the game tells you that you're awesome because of it. I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe it's like Brain Training: You answer these simple math problems every day, the game assesses your speed, tells you if you're getting better or not, and before you know it, real world applications bubble to the surface: You find you're getting better at typing, your night vision has increased, you've stopped forgetting your car keys, who knows. The simple "Yes!" feedback of these games provides us with the experience Getting Better At Something; it can't be long before we become Better People because of them, and it can't be too far after that that we find ourselves literally and figuratively happy.
So, Christmas Day, there I was in my parents' house, and my little brother was playing DJ Hero on a large CRT television. He had the DJ controller on the floor, and was hunched over it, scratching at the turntable and clicking on the buttons, the TV volume depressingly low. I thought about Konami's Pop'n'Music, the most abstract rhythm game out there, in that it just uses buttons, which are meant to be pressed in time to lights that are furiously streaming down the screen. The Pop'n'Music machine in the arcade closest to my first apartment in Tokyo (where I went to play Virtua Fighter IV or Street Fighter III) had broken speakers, so the volume was so terribly low that you could barely hear it even if you were playing. The way those machines are set up, you can't really hear the music unless you're standing close enough to play, anyway. So for a skeeze standing ten feet back watching a couple of bouncy schoolgirls having fun, the on-screen action looks ridiculous; the clacking of the big, hollow, candy-like, palm-smashed buttons hardly makes sense in the context of the flashing on the screen. For years I was scared to touch Pop'n'Music, because it looked so complicated. I later realized that Pop'n'Music was Konami's way of bringing Dance Dance Revolution to the people who didn't want to get too much exercise. I like to think that I'm pretty immune to the "Damn Kids" syndrome; I think that I'll grow up as an embracer of new technology, for example. Back then, though, Pop'n'Music really got at me. It was weird enough to see two kids playing it, clapping each other on the shoulder with every smashing success, though watching some older guy play it alone with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth was really depressing. What's the use of a rhythm game if you can't even pretend to be holding a guitar? What's the use of a rhythm game where you're not even dancing? At the end of the day, it's not a rhythm game: It's a pleasure-enforcing device. I realized, back with Pop'n'Music, that I was being much like your parents when they call your music "noise": All your parents can hear, when you listen to music up in your room, is the sound of the lowest part of the bass guitar traveling through the floor. Maybe, if they could hear the rest, they'd be willing to acknowledge its artistry.
In case you skipped the bastard-like personal anecdote that preceded the part where I started talking about video games, let me summarize for you: I commented naively and at length on the socio-political-economic ramifications of the diorama of humanity present inside a super-trendy club, confronting head-on the question "do people really only like what they're told to like?" and coming away with the conclusion "well, kinda." I was selected to play a rock and roll show at this super-trendy club party event on the basis of my being an agreeable person, the same way I am selected by editors-in-chief to write magazine or web columns. I don't hate music: I just love music in a tough way. I scrape and scream. I enjoy looseness and stupidity. Yet, somehow, at the end of my set, a woman who was obviously a Swedish fashion model literally asked me, in so many words, to make out with her. I faced a scary question: Was this woman attracted to me, my "music", or the fact that someone in charge of this event had been so bold and confident in his taste as to choose me as one of only two live musical acts to perform during the entire eight-hour event? There exists maybe a one in a hundred chance that this woman was immensely, real-ly, sexually attracted to the idea of a man doing whatever he wanted and not caring what other people thought. Maybe she thought I was an artist. My final conclusion is that people in clubs don't just like what they're told to like, they like what other people like them like, and they pay a high cover charge to get inside this place where they're sure they'll find other people like them, who like them because they're like them. It's all very sketchy. In the real world, more often than not, we do not find ourselves with a situation wherein we press a button and immediately receive feedback of the black-or-white yes-or-no variety. Do people like me? isn't as efficient a question as How do I feel? Do I feel happy? What does all this have to do with video games? Absolutely everything.
....
Maybe the world economies would crumble if our entertainments stopped encouraging growth, improvement, or skill. Maybe we'd all turn into hippies if the chairman of Coca-Cola got up in front of a press conference and said, "You know, guys, we're closing up shop. Just start drinking water." Would that be so bad? I've used this excellent straw-man argument before: If everyone in the world were an all-day-meditating, own-crops-growing zen buddhist monk praying for peace, there would be no war. I've dipped tentatively into a lot of philosophy, and I've always considered sentiments like that to be something of a tiny baby elephant in the room. Why can't we be happy all the time? Why can't everything be love and peace? Why must we have shadow to lend context to light? Why must we have failure to lend context to success? Why can't everyone just give up all at once? I don't know.
http://kotaku.com/5468512/can-videogames-make-us-happy?skyline=true&s=i
(excerpt starts after the pic of Brutal Legend)
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
This funny convo greeted me several nights ago when I logged on. My friend Kayla has a mega-religious (Catholic, maybe?) roommate. (BTWs, Kayla is the girl that I went on the "date" with that turned out not to be a date. She is pretty BA anyhow).
Kayla
So I just got back in my room
there is a jesus book on my pillow
what the fuck do I do
10:22pmDavis
okay stay calm
is she in there
?
10:23pmKayla
yup, i'm pretending like I haven't seen my bed
10:23pmDavis
fuuuuuuuck
all right
hmmm
well
10:23pmKayla
I KNOW haha
10:23pmDavis
does she go to sleep before you do?
you coudl just stay at your computer all night
10:24pmKayla
usually :( but i'm so tired right now. Its like she KNEW I would be
meh..I'll just move it to her desk and see if she says anything
10:24pmDavis
hahaha
she knew that Jesus would be able to penetrate your armor
yes, I wanted it to be that creepy
why? because JESUS IS A RAPIST
10:24pmKayla
hahahahaha, I knew you would enjoy this
IT ALL MAKES SENSE!
10:25pmDavis
yeah that whole catholic priest thing
that is actually IN the Bible
okay wait so are you moving it?
10:26pmKayla
yup, here goes nothing...
10:26pmDavis
I'm praying for you
10:28pmDavis
well?
are you there?
did they get you??!?!
10:29pmKayla
SUCCESS!
her phone rang right when I got up :D its like Jesus knew
gah
hahaha
10:30pmDavis
well I did pray
maybe he heard my request
10:30pmKayla
b'aww, thats probably what it was
AND NOW I get to listen to her telling her bf about all her prayer experiences from today
10:30pmDavis
omg wow
no sleeps for you
I could come over and hit her with my shovel
I've really been waiting for an excuse to use it on someone
she'll go down in no more than three hits, I promise :)
okay that part was a little fucked up
10:33pmKayla
NO it was fucking hilarious
i loled...and that helped considering I'm going out of my way to be as loud as possible
10:34pmDavis
haha
all right I'll be right down
be sure that she answer the door
because as soon as it opens I'm just going to start swinging
10:35pmKayla
:D
10:35pmDavis
wheee
some government agency probably has a tap on my internt
and they are sending ppl to fuck my terrorist ass up
thank God I haven't mentioned planes yet
oh no
I just did
10:36pmKayla
it was a good idea talking to you about this, I now feel a little less angry
BUT earplugs are in and I'm headed to sleep!
10:36pmDavis
no no, that's not what I want at all
I want you to be angry
let the hate flow through you
10:37pmKayla
alright, I took out an earplug and listened for thirty min...the hate is definitely surging
10:37pmDavis
yes, yes. Good.
now, stand up and crush her!
err....
you HAVE been practicing your Dark side Force powers right?
otherwise this is totally NOT gonna work
Kayla
oh noes!
...I should get on that
but in the meantime, I'm headed to sleep!
10:40pmDavis
all righty
10:40pmKayla
G'night :D thanks for support hahaha
10:40pmDavis
yes
sleep dark, vitriolic dreams
to better unleash your hate
10:40pmKayla
I'll do my best!
10:41pmDavis
Yay?
Also, R:
R
ben franklin can suck my dick
i hate reading him
don't quote that on your blog
4:33pmDavis
so you're a hermaphrodite?
Davis
so you're a hermaphrodite?
4:33pmR
no, vag only
i just like the slang
women don't have any good terminology like that
Kayla
So I just got back in my room
there is a jesus book on my pillow
what the fuck do I do
10:22pmDavis
okay stay calm
is she in there
?
10:23pmKayla
yup, i'm pretending like I haven't seen my bed
10:23pmDavis
fuuuuuuuck
all right
hmmm
well
10:23pmKayla
I KNOW haha
10:23pmDavis
does she go to sleep before you do?
you coudl just stay at your computer all night
10:24pmKayla
usually :( but i'm so tired right now. Its like she KNEW I would be
meh..I'll just move it to her desk and see if she says anything
10:24pmDavis
hahaha
she knew that Jesus would be able to penetrate your armor
yes, I wanted it to be that creepy
why? because JESUS IS A RAPIST
10:24pmKayla
hahahahaha, I knew you would enjoy this
IT ALL MAKES SENSE!
10:25pmDavis
yeah that whole catholic priest thing
that is actually IN the Bible
okay wait so are you moving it?
10:26pmKayla
yup, here goes nothing...
10:26pmDavis
I'm praying for you
10:28pmDavis
well?
are you there?
did they get you??!?!
10:29pmKayla
SUCCESS!
her phone rang right when I got up :D its like Jesus knew
gah
hahaha
10:30pmDavis
well I did pray
maybe he heard my request
10:30pmKayla
b'aww, thats probably what it was
AND NOW I get to listen to her telling her bf about all her prayer experiences from today
10:30pmDavis
omg wow
no sleeps for you
I could come over and hit her with my shovel
I've really been waiting for an excuse to use it on someone
she'll go down in no more than three hits, I promise :)
okay that part was a little fucked up
10:33pmKayla
NO it was fucking hilarious
i loled...and that helped considering I'm going out of my way to be as loud as possible
10:34pmDavis
haha
all right I'll be right down
be sure that she answer the door
because as soon as it opens I'm just going to start swinging
10:35pmKayla
:D
10:35pmDavis
wheee
some government agency probably has a tap on my internt
and they are sending ppl to fuck my terrorist ass up
thank God I haven't mentioned planes yet
oh no
I just did
10:36pmKayla
it was a good idea talking to you about this, I now feel a little less angry
BUT earplugs are in and I'm headed to sleep!
10:36pmDavis
no no, that's not what I want at all
I want you to be angry
let the hate flow through you
10:37pmKayla
alright, I took out an earplug and listened for thirty min...the hate is definitely surging
10:37pmDavis
yes, yes. Good.
now, stand up and crush her!
err....
you HAVE been practicing your Dark side Force powers right?
otherwise this is totally NOT gonna work
Kayla
oh noes!
...I should get on that
but in the meantime, I'm headed to sleep!
10:40pmDavis
all righty
10:40pmKayla
G'night :D thanks for support hahaha
10:40pmDavis
yes
sleep dark, vitriolic dreams
to better unleash your hate
10:40pmKayla
I'll do my best!
10:41pmDavis
Yay?
Also, R:
R
ben franklin can suck my dick
i hate reading him
don't quote that on your blog
4:33pmDavis
so you're a hermaphrodite?
Davis
so you're a hermaphrodite?
4:33pmR
no, vag only
i just like the slang
women don't have any good terminology like that
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Info Dump
Cool online store that sells old-school gaming merchandise.
http://www.dragontrove.com/listing.html
Cool study about positive psychological and therapeutic effects of DnD:
http://www.rpgstudies.net/blackmon/dungeons_and_dragons/
Something which I ought not to forgot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_legendarium
Sign up for Marvel Comics 4ever??!!
http://marvel.com/digitalcomics/characters/Captain%20America%20%28Steve%20Rogers%29/page/1?gallery_viewmode=list
Moral Kombat, a full-length documentary (free until mid February or sommat) about the intersection of First Amendment rights and what to do about violence in gaming. Don't know whether it's any good.
http://www.babelgum.com/browser.php#play/SEARCH_SIMILAR,clipID:4022951,includeClip:true,order:MOST_RELEVANT/0,4022951
GAMING STUDIES (these are pretty interesting though few of them are in English):
http://www.rpgstudies.net/
RELIGION OF COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS (AWESOME!!!!)
http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/comic_book_religion.html
List of 3.5 Prestige Classes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prestige_classes
Friday, January 22, 2010
I owe you something. Do you know what it is? It is a BLOG POST. Do you know what I will give you? YES.
First, this. It is a scene from a banned episode of Pokemon. Why is it banned, you say? Click on, gentle reader, click on.
SPEEDO BADGE: Allows up to 100 Pokemon of level 30 or below to hump you. Any more, and they become UNRULY!
Also, this: http://marvel.com/digitalcomics/characters/Captain%20America%20%28Steve%20Rogers%29/page/1?gallery_viewmode=list
You can subscribe to all of Marvel's comics, digitized, for 60 dollars a year. 60 dollars a year!!! ALL of their comics (not all are currently digitized). Note: split between 4 pwnerers, this would amount to fifteen dollars each. Are you out there?
Item next: Gaming.
I will sum up: I am mad. As you know, I play in my own Pathfinder Group Fridays from 4-7. I play a PC (superbroken half-werewolf fighter) in a 4th edition campaign Saturday 2-5. My Cleric is thinking about DMing his own 3.5 group, in which case I would be tempted to start playing in a third group! Then, there are 7 of us who want to have a once-in-a-while Diablo II LAN group going. 4 groups would likely amount to 12 hours of gaming a week, probably all on weekends (Friday counts). Is it terrible for my life and for my schoolwork? Yes, one thousand times yes. It is completely and utterly awesome? YES!
Item next: Friends
I have them now. A lot of them, in fact. I have grown closer to the entity known as the people next door. This entity is rather like Stashley except that it is composed of five people, and not two. Steven, your sexual exploits are nothing compared to this raging behemoth of gaming flesh (I kid...?)
Earlier this week I gravely offended my friend Patti, who is for all intents and purposes my best friend here (or was until this weekend). It created three days of unspeakable horror for me and probably for her. But, I fixed it and now we are friends again. A piece of advice: one ought not to bring up dead relatives, especially unnecessarily, flippantly, or in a way that seems insulting. Get it?
Item next: Classes
Yes, I am truly mad. I am enrolled for 18 credits; essentially, I am taking 22. Combined with my burgeoning piano and voice practice times, this does not make for a happy schedule.
...
Actually, it just might. I recently mapped out every hour of every day. Obsessive-compulsive? Maybe. It greatly sensitizes you to your time, however, and although I have not stuck entirely to it, it has thus far proven a great boon to overall efficiency.
Item next: Norwescon
Recently one of my friends from Central offered to pay for my housing and registration for Norwescon, a science fiction and fantasy convention near the SeaTac airport. He is giving several presentations regarding philosophy in gaming and he really wants me to come. So: I am going to Norwescon, for free or greatly reduced price!!! My parents were surprisingly okay when I told them that I would be staying home during 2 days of the first week of spring quarter to go to a gaming convention. Will it be awesome? Yes. Yes it will.
Item next: Gaming systems
I am currently researching different roleplaying systems for us to try sometime. Nothing personal, but I will not explain them to you. You must study them yourself to fully grasp their mechanical and philosophical ramifications. One system with which I am pleased is Tri-Stat Dx. It is available for free after some searching. No, I am not speaking of converting our current campaign; I have invested too much money in Pathfinder to betray the Sunken Cost Fallacy now. I am talking about playing a new game sometime. In fact, I have one in mind. Will it blow your socks off?
Yes. Yes it will.
Item Next: Amorous affairs
None of which to speak. I have had many Platonic affairs (by which I mean, interactions, not hookups). I have made many friends during this week, and of the friends that I had — they were made better.
Item Next: Rosa Ostrom
Has a boyfriend now. Shall we make fun?
Yes. Yes we will.
First, this. It is a scene from a banned episode of Pokemon. Why is it banned, you say? Click on, gentle reader, click on.
SPEEDO BADGE: Allows up to 100 Pokemon of level 30 or below to hump you. Any more, and they become UNRULY!
Also, this: http://marvel.com/digitalcomics/characters/Captain%20America%20%28Steve%20Rogers%29/page/1?gallery_viewmode=list
You can subscribe to all of Marvel's comics, digitized, for 60 dollars a year. 60 dollars a year!!! ALL of their comics (not all are currently digitized). Note: split between 4 pwnerers, this would amount to fifteen dollars each. Are you out there?
Item next: Gaming.
I will sum up: I am mad. As you know, I play in my own Pathfinder Group Fridays from 4-7. I play a PC (superbroken half-werewolf fighter) in a 4th edition campaign Saturday 2-5. My Cleric is thinking about DMing his own 3.5 group, in which case I would be tempted to start playing in a third group! Then, there are 7 of us who want to have a once-in-a-while Diablo II LAN group going. 4 groups would likely amount to 12 hours of gaming a week, probably all on weekends (Friday counts). Is it terrible for my life and for my schoolwork? Yes, one thousand times yes. It is completely and utterly awesome? YES!
Item next: Friends
I have them now. A lot of them, in fact. I have grown closer to the entity known as the people next door. This entity is rather like Stashley except that it is composed of five people, and not two. Steven, your sexual exploits are nothing compared to this raging behemoth of gaming flesh (I kid...?)
Earlier this week I gravely offended my friend Patti, who is for all intents and purposes my best friend here (or was until this weekend). It created three days of unspeakable horror for me and probably for her. But, I fixed it and now we are friends again. A piece of advice: one ought not to bring up dead relatives, especially unnecessarily, flippantly, or in a way that seems insulting. Get it?
Item next: Classes
Yes, I am truly mad. I am enrolled for 18 credits; essentially, I am taking 22. Combined with my burgeoning piano and voice practice times, this does not make for a happy schedule.
...
Actually, it just might. I recently mapped out every hour of every day. Obsessive-compulsive? Maybe. It greatly sensitizes you to your time, however, and although I have not stuck entirely to it, it has thus far proven a great boon to overall efficiency.
Item next: Norwescon
Recently one of my friends from Central offered to pay for my housing and registration for Norwescon, a science fiction and fantasy convention near the SeaTac airport. He is giving several presentations regarding philosophy in gaming and he really wants me to come. So: I am going to Norwescon, for free or greatly reduced price!!! My parents were surprisingly okay when I told them that I would be staying home during 2 days of the first week of spring quarter to go to a gaming convention. Will it be awesome? Yes. Yes it will.
Item next: Gaming systems
I am currently researching different roleplaying systems for us to try sometime. Nothing personal, but I will not explain them to you. You must study them yourself to fully grasp their mechanical and philosophical ramifications. One system with which I am pleased is Tri-Stat Dx. It is available for free after some searching. No, I am not speaking of converting our current campaign; I have invested too much money in Pathfinder to betray the Sunken Cost Fallacy now. I am talking about playing a new game sometime. In fact, I have one in mind. Will it blow your socks off?
Yes. Yes it will.
Item Next: Amorous affairs
None of which to speak. I have had many Platonic affairs (by which I mean, interactions, not hookups). I have made many friends during this week, and of the friends that I had — they were made better.
Item Next: Rosa Ostrom
Has a boyfriend now. Shall we make fun?
Yes. Yes we will.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
We Are Basement Savants
me: oh
well we could at least all hang out tomorrow
or hey we could do red robin
for dinner
david: >_<
yeah we could
me: what?
why is it >_<
?
7:59 PM david: no reason
i just ate there a couple days ago
and when i did, i told my parents "but im going to eat here in another few days..."
me: really?
david: yes
because i knew i probably would
me: lol wow
david: i see the future man
me: I do too
except I'm not actually kidding about it ;P
8:00 PM david: neither was i :}
me: AWESOME
8:01 PM david: [virtual high five!]
david: oh
but yeah we should finish gow
and i should give you new musics
me: yeah
david: well
me: and yes
david: old musics
me: right
but they will be new to me
david: but new to you
liek lulz thith new artitht taylor thwift!!!11
i thall give u her songs bcuz THEY ARE TOALLY MY LIEF
10:24 PM me: YEHA
one of the guys who lives next to me LOVES taylor swift
david: hahaha
me: he is another piano major
it is sad
david: bahaha
the dark side of piano majors
10:25 PM me: well goddamn
it's not all of us
I mean I fucking play Dnd but I don't listen to Taylor Swift
david: haha
10:26 PM you say it like dnd is wrong
me: hahaha
no, it is the most right thing that has ever happened to me!!1!
but in terms of like appearing like a loser to other people
at least I'm doing something that may be weird but can be considered legitimate in it weirdness
david: oh
10:27 PM haha
kind of
me: liking taylor swift is like liking harry potter and thinking you're a hardcore RPGer
david: neighborhood party then family party
then this
me: so raging as in...?
david: going to a lot of parties
8:09 PM me: haha
too bad none of them provide any opportunity for female interaction
roflol
david: psh
what happened to theres not sex in shoreline
therefore why would we bother to hang out with women we know in shoreline
me: it still stand
that's what I'm saying
david: oh
it sounded like you regretted not meeting chixorz
me: oh hell no
8:10 PM david: haha good
me: I already have a girlfriend in the future, remember?
david: THIS IS MAN TIME GAD DAMNIT
oh right
same!
david: omfg!
looking for pictures of steven to use
for a guy that never has an opinion and doesn't like to talk very much
THE KID NEVER SITS STILL
either that or i really suck at taking pictures of him
they're all blurry as hell
well we could at least all hang out tomorrow
or hey we could do red robin
for dinner
david: >_<
yeah we could
me: what?
why is it >_<
?
7:59 PM david: no reason
i just ate there a couple days ago
and when i did, i told my parents "but im going to eat here in another few days..."
me: really?
david: yes
because i knew i probably would
me: lol wow
david: i see the future man
me: I do too
except I'm not actually kidding about it ;P
8:00 PM david: neither was i :}
me: AWESOME
8:01 PM david: [virtual high five!]
david: oh
but yeah we should finish gow
and i should give you new musics
me: yeah
david: well
me: and yes
david: old musics
me: right
but they will be new to me
david: but new to you
liek lulz thith new artitht taylor thwift!!!11
i thall give u her songs bcuz THEY ARE TOALLY MY LIEF
10:24 PM me: YEHA
one of the guys who lives next to me LOVES taylor swift
david: hahaha
me: he is another piano major
it is sad
david: bahaha
the dark side of piano majors
10:25 PM me: well goddamn
it's not all of us
I mean I fucking play Dnd but I don't listen to Taylor Swift
david: haha
10:26 PM you say it like dnd is wrong
me: hahaha
no, it is the most right thing that has ever happened to me!!1!
but in terms of like appearing like a loser to other people
at least I'm doing something that may be weird but can be considered legitimate in it weirdness
david: oh
10:27 PM haha
kind of
me: liking taylor swift is like liking harry potter and thinking you're a hardcore RPGer
david: neighborhood party then family party
then this
me: so raging as in...?
david: going to a lot of parties
8:09 PM me: haha
too bad none of them provide any opportunity for female interaction
roflol
david: psh
what happened to theres not sex in shoreline
therefore why would we bother to hang out with women we know in shoreline
me: it still stand
that's what I'm saying
david: oh
it sounded like you regretted not meeting chixorz
me: oh hell no
8:10 PM david: haha good
me: I already have a girlfriend in the future, remember?
david: THIS IS MAN TIME GAD DAMNIT
oh right
same!
david: omfg!
looking for pictures of steven to use
for a guy that never has an opinion and doesn't like to talk very much
THE KID NEVER SITS STILL
either that or i really suck at taking pictures of him
they're all blurry as hell
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