TSNG 3: D&D Character Sketches
July 28, 2008 | 1 Comment
To help myself get into my new Dragonborn character in my friend’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign (TSNG 3), I’ve whipped up a couple of drawings.
This first one is a quick 1-hour sketch of my character clad in some scale armor and pointing at something. I did a very rough coloring job on this guy, leaving all the lines visible. I really could have spent a LOT more time doing the coloring, but I did this while waiting for my character to show up in the first game. Overall I think it turned out ok for a quickie.
This next one will eventually hold the finished heads of all 5 player characters. I haven’t heard what each character looks like so I’ve only drawn and colored my character (in the middle). I look forward to finishing this puppy! Here it is thus far:
Both were drawn in Adobe Photoshop with my Wacom tablet.
Diablo 3 Website Launched
June 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The exciting news of Diablo III was confirmed to the world this morning when Blizzard unveiled it in its week-long splash screen! Shortly after my previous post on the topic, the Diablo III website was launched too! The site, as is typical with Blizzard sites, is gorgeous…here’s some info that was gleaned.
Storyline
It has been twenty years since the events of Diablo II. Of those who faced the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction in the battle over the fate of Sanctuary, there are few still living who can bear to remember the horrors that the Prime Evils wrought upon the world. And of those who did not witness the terrible events firsthand, most believe the stories to be little more than myth. But something evil is stirring once again in Tristram, and it may already have claimed its first victim: Deckard Cain.
Character Classes
There will be 5 character classes in Diablo III and classes can be either male OR female.
The Barbarian
This old favorite is back! See the Barbarian page. Some skills that are definitely returning are: Cleave, Ground Stomp, Leap, and Whirlwind! Check the barbarian page for videos on these moves!
The Witch Doctor
Here’s the newbie! This guy seems pretty freaking sweet. Check the Witch Doctor page for more information. This class will feature spells such as: Firebomb, Horrify, Locust Swarm, Mass Confusion, and Soul Harvest.”
Video
Currently on the Diablo III site there are two trailers. Cinematic and Gameplay. I can’t find any version of the two in decent quality yet so I’ll have to post those puppies later. In the mean time, check the videos out on the Diablo III site!
Release Date
As with any Blizzard game during announcements…there is no release date announced. Meh. But that’s why we love it. They polish a game until it glistens beyond compare and THEN deliver it to the world. I just wish they’d wait to announce things until a day before it is released so I don’t have to drool for years on end :P
Diablo 3 Officially Announced!
June 28, 2008 | 1 Comment
Blizzard has had a splash screen that changed daily for the past 5 days, today was its final day and I was extremely surprised to see that it revealed what has long been rumored…Diablo 3! This is exciting news!
The graphical announcement looks freaking awesome and I look forward to the link on the announcement to actually go to the Diablo site rather than a broken page! w000000t!
D&D 4th Edition NPCs: Minions
June 14, 2008 | 2 Comments
I received my Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition books on Monday and have been reading over them throughout the week. Because of the difference in rules from versions 3.5 to 4, I plan on covering a number of topics related to some of the new features of 4th Edition.
Minion NPCs happen to be the topic of this post.
So, I was reading through the Wizards forums and came upon a thread relating to the confusion with Minion NPCs in combat and how to explain their really weak stats. One of the questions that was posed asked how it made sense to have a level 14 Minion Cyclops that could feasibly drop in one hit while its fellow level 14 Standard Cyclops could withstand a much heavier beating.
One sage of a user, Morholdt, had this response which I buy in to totally:
Using that understanding of hit points, one can see that minions are not puny versions of the monsters, but they are versions with no karma. They are the marathon runner who twists his ankle after the first mile. That orc minion can kill you almost as easily as the normal orc, but when you stab him with your spear, his luck runs out and he dodges the wrong way.
Personally I love minions. I’ve always found it a little lame to go into a goblin village which is populated by 12 goblins, or a dungeon where the monsters never leave their rooms and swarm the adventurers because any more would make it too hard.
With minions you can have truly epic battles against foes that can actually threaten you and live to tell the heroic tale.
So…that level 14 Minion Cyclops that I talked about earlier isn’t necessarily a slim, diminutive one-eyed brute that walks around with his fellow level 14 Standard Cyclops that his a hulking monstrosity with bulging biceps and a club that could fell an elephant in a single blow. Nope. The minion is the same as the level 14 Standard Cyclops…the Minion just makes a few mistakes on the battlefield that cause him his life much sooner.
If you haven’t read the Dungeon Master’s Guide for 4th Edition and don’t know what a “Minion” is, then here’s an excerpt on them from the DMG:
A Minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage.
I know…any amount of damage doesn’t seem overly scary. However, each minion causes damage similar to a standard NPC of its type and level. Just because they fall quickly doesn’t make them easy to hit or prevent them from hitting you!
The Minion role in a combat encounter is one sexy addition to 4th Edition that will make for a much richer game!
World of Warcraft Satire: The Guild
October 24, 2007 | 2 Comments
While browsing YouTube as I typically do when I’m bored in the evenings, I found The Guild. The show focuses on “Codex”, a female WoW addict and her guild’s in and out of game interactions. The star, Felicia Day, is also the writer and has done an amazing job at capturing the varied personalities that you often encounter in an online gaming group.
As a former addict to World of Warcraft, I (and to some degree, my wife) could immediately relate with the characters and had us laughing throughout. The script is quality.
Here’s the first episode:
Episode 1
There are currently 3 episodes (with more in the making) and a gag reel. Check them out here:
I just found out from the official The Guild Site that episodes 4 and 5 just gained funding so those should be out at some point soon! w00t! I need to go donate :D
D&D 4th Edition Updates and Toolsets
August 17, 2007 | 15 Comments
As I mentioned before, the Dungeons and Dragons site was down (and is once more), but with Randy’s help, he and I poked around a little bit and found some goodies.
Firstly, we read an article on class development which focused on the Fighter Class. It appears that the whole talent trees that I discussed in my previous post work in a pretty sexy way for fighters! At first level, a fighter chooses a weapon type which basically ‘locks’ him/her into a certain weapon tree where he can gain specific talents with the given weapon. Kinda cool.
Secondly, DnDInsider, the subscription based community site that Wizards is launching is available for public beta testing so people can get a feel for what will be coming in the next year. As soon as the site is back up, I’ll be making an account and poking around there. Making an account is a good idea if you have any desire to be a 4th Edition play tester as they will be picking members sometime in the next 11 months from that community to do just that…play test!
Thirdly, here’s the 4th Edition presentation that was given at GenCon this year. Within the presentation, they demo a sweet new dungeon mapping toolset. Check it out:
ZOMG Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition
August 17, 2007 | 4 Comments
I caught wind of this announcement that affects d20 role-players everywhere, the new version of Dungeons and Dragons is slotted for release in 2008! I look at my D&D v3.5 book collection and wince a little, yet I find myself a little excited for Wizards of the Coast’s next iteration of the eons old pen & paper table top game that has kept males occupied and single for decades.
My attempts to read the announcement from the horses mouth have failed due to the Wizards Announcement section of their site has thoroughly been slashdotted. As such, I have a few tidbits that I’ve grabbed from various Slashdot comments and other blogs that I’ll cobble together here:
Rustmonster writes:
ShakuUVM a commenter on Slashdot writes:
Saves [have been] almost totally revamped so that everyone’s saves will be within 2 points of each other (your class save bonus only applies once, and you get the best of all classes that you multiclass in, and then progresses the same for everyone). Likewise, everyone gets a bonus to damage equal to half their class level. The only difference in the classes are their ’special ability’ talent trees, which work like in World of Warcraft. Essentially, every other level you get a new ‘talent’, many of which have prerequisites of other talents. So if you want the ability to reroll an attack roll once per day (a rogue ability) you might need the talent to reroll a skill check once per day. Sneak Attack is a talent, so if you want full Sneak Attack, you have to give up all these special abilities.
ShakuUVM seems to view the above in a negative light…I’m on the fence with the Saving Throw changes but the talent trees seems like an awesome change! Reading further in his comment, I see that feats ares still around in addition to the talents. If done right, this could feasibly reduce the complexity that has surrounded playing an odd-ball character that you want to hybridize in ways that only the Unearthed Arcana book could expose to you before.
It will be interesting to read more over the course of the next year. Sadly, I won’t be able to get my grubby paws on 4th Edition until May of 2008 when the Player’s Handbook is scheduled for release. The Monster Manual is due out in June and the Dungeon Master’s Guide will be released in July. So…die hard fans looking to play this as soon as possible won’t be able to play a solid game until those three books have been released.
Oh, another odd thing that is happening with this new Edition is a subscriber-based delivery of game content via a new Wizards of the Coast site: DnDInsider, which is basically a conglomeration of the Dungeons and Dragons magazines. Delivered through there will be tools, rules, and content available only to subscribers.
Interesting stuff.
DotA v6.46 Released!
August 3, 2007 | 4 Comments
A New version of DotA has been released…this release filled primarily bug fixes. You can download it here and here.
================
* Fixed Furion’s Treant stats
* Fixed the neutral creep spawn time in -rd
* Fixed how Psi Blades damage spill area is calculated (149031)
* Undid some of the previous Primal Split duration buff
* Fixed a bug in -sc
* Improved Leoric cast animation time
* Fixed a bug with morphling in -sh
* Improved some issues with Omnislash
* Lowered Null Talisman recipe cost from 175 to 150
* Temporarily disabled the leaver freeze functionality until next version (too many issues, not enough time while its being abused)
* Fixed a bug with Nature’s Attendants
* Fixed a bug with Grapple and Aegis
* Improved text presentation a little with swaphero
* Fixed a bug with Earthshaker and picking up DD rune
6.46 Changelog
===============
* Reduced overall bandwidth used in games
* Fixed a big exploit
* Improved Waaagh!TV compatibility
* Fixed a potential issue in -dmar and respawning
* Fixed a bug with the recent recoding of Death Pulse that causes it to hit invisible units
* Lots of internal coding improvements to get it to a stable state
* Reduced Greater Hawk’s movement speed
* Added a timer in -rd/-xl/-lm to show you how much time you have left to pick your hero
* Fixed various fatal error potential issues
* Fixed Land Mines doing a little less damage than advertised
* Fixed a bug with Battle Hunger that caused it to sometimes fail to detect the hero killing with a couple abilities
* You can now disassemble Helm of the Dominator (157261)
* Rewrote how swaphero works, all old glitches with swaphero are now fixed (You can use -swap instead of -swaphero as well). You can now also select more than one hero to swap with.
* Fixed a bug that changed Bloodseeker’s model scale up
* Fixed Suicide Squad, Attack! from killing wards
* Improved Medusa’s Intelligence Growth
* Lots of misc glitches fixed
* Added new icons for Reincarnation, Berserker’s Blood, Life Break, Remote Mines and Conjure Image (142075, snork, eva00r)
* Fixed a workaround that still allowed flying courier to steal base items
* Fixed some buff stacking issues with Malefice
* Changed Rabid icon
* Improved some lag problems that happened with nature’s attendants
* Fixed a bug with Enchant that sometimes caused it to slow the converted unit
* Fixed Wall of Replica from working on Meepo’s clones
* Added overhead text to show how much damage Test of Faith does
* Lowered Replicate mana cost
* Adjusted Tree Respawn code to not respawn if a hero is standing near it, as to not accidentally trap it.
* Fixed a bug with BKB that caused heroes with full ability card (like nevermore) to lose access to one ability during Avatar if done in a certain order.
* Fixed some lag problems with various abilities
* Added an ability to the Circle of Power to allow you to freeze an allied hero that has left the game (to prevent him from being killed due to things like Thundergod’s Wrath)
* Fixed a bug with Spirit Bear in -dm with -nd on that caused the bear to not restore the bear’s items (this is only a bug with -nd)
* Lightning Grapple no longer pulls creeps (temporary solution for some creep abuse, better ai will be attached in the future so they can resume their path properly)
* Fixed an exploit that is possible with Surge
* Fixed Arcane Orb from dealing bonus damage to Warlock’s Infernal
* Fixed a bug with stun chance on level 1-3 Chaos Bolt
* Fixed Vacuum from working on BKB’d units
World of Warcraft Addiction
April 1, 2007 | 2 Comments
This video - while one would first like to chuckle at the thought of a World of Warcraft addiction - speaks volumes to what is a reality for many who play the game.
I, for a time, was spiraling down towards addiction to the game when it was first released…if I had not been married at the time, I’m quite sure my life would have suffered with the addiction. There are a few people I know that are quite thoroughly enthralled by WoW that they spend gobs and gobs of time playing, sometimes forfeiting time with friends and family to opt to raid. It is fun, don’t get me wrong, but there is a balance that needs to be reached and many just don’t have the willpower to draw that line.
I am one of those people. I can’t play a game like that without getting fully involved…I thrive on that type of thing…so steering clear is the best bet. Thanks to Randy I’m a board game geek now and spend time playing Euro Games when I’m not doing stuff with my wife or programming or screwing around with EatPoopUCat.
Not everyone can pull themselves away, though…MMO addiction is sadly a reality. How much longer before we begin having Interventions for addicted gamers?
Dota 6.43b Released!
March 20, 2007 | 2 Comments
DotA has released version 6.43b! Download it here or here. Here’s the changelog:
=================
- Fixed some big performance problems lower end machines were having
- Fixed some rare bugs that caused heroes to not revive
- Fixed -swaphero, neutral creep spawn time and initial gold in -xl
6.43 Changelog:
================
- Added new mode -xl(Extended League Mode)
- Reworked the Roshan Terrain area for improved Sentinel accessibility (lots of miscellaneous tweaks and mechanics to that area have been done beyond simply terrain change)
- Fixed the multiple hero exploit
- Recoded the death timer. It is more accurate now (the display was off before, you don’t revive any faster than you used to)
- Items with armor bonuses no longer stack (Vladmir/Basilius/Assault)
- Fixed a bug with Satanic that was giving it extra life steal
- Fixed some bugs with Mekansm, Morphling Stat Change and Hand of God that caused the death timer to not properly show
- Added Bottle to the new secret shop
- Undid some of the Toughness Aura buff from last version
- Tinker no longer Rearms Arcane Ring
- Slightly reduced creep collision size due to the increased number in the last patch towards the end of the game
- Fixed Sentinel ranged creeps having slightly less regen than Scourge ranged creeps
- Mekansm and Bloodstone now tell the user when they fail to heal him properly due to stacking rules
- Watchers give slightly less gold (due to their new radiance vulnerability last patch)
- Fixed various typos
- Fixed Ring of Basilius ability from working on CotS and Essence Aura
- Song of the Siren properly sleeps units out of its vision
- Items that can be disassembled now tell you when you buy them
- Fixed a bug with chicken that lets you sell unsellable items
- Fixed Throne not providing the lifesteal capability that World Tree does
- Reduced Radiance damage bonus from 70 to 60
- Fixed Phantom Assassin’s Blink Strike range
- Death Board is on by default now (-don)
- Observer Wards last a little longer now
- Reduced Avernus’ movement speed by 5
- Temporarily disabled Meepo in -dm to fix some bugs
- Fixed the Doppelwalk and Lothar’s Edge “0!” text
- The icon for turning Rot off is now more obvious
- Changed Meepo Attribute Bonus from 40% to 25%
- Improved Unstable Concoction (When you cast it, you lock vision on the target while you channel)
- Various nerfs to Alchemist: Acid Spray AOE (700-550), Acid Spray Mana (120->160), Str/lvl (2.4->1.8), Int/lvl (1.5->1.0), Lowered health regen on level 1 ultimate, Greed Stack Duration (20->18), Greed Gold Cap (20->18), Movement Speed (300->290) but level 2 and 3 of his ultimate give him a minor boost back to his normal speed, Slight base armor reduction
- Fixed Cheese to heal the proper amount
- Fixed the creep spawn sound from happening too early in -mm
DotA Version 6.42 Released!
March 13, 2007 | 4 Comments
The new version of DotA has been released! You can download it here or here. Here is he changelog:
==[Heroes]==
- Centaur Warchief -> Changed Return from 60/30 melee/range to 50/50
- Obsidian Destroyer -> Improved cast animation a little
- Tormented Soul -> Pulse Nova no longer triggers Essence Aura
- Shadow Fiend -> Reduced Shadowraze AOE
- Axe -> Lowered manacost and cooldown on Battle Hunger
- Spectre -> Reduced area that is used to check if a hero is alone with Desolate
- Sven -> Improved Toughness Aura
- Phantom Assassin -> Improved Blink Strike range per level
- Butcher -> Hook now properly interrupts channeling
- Nerubian Weaver -> Watchers no longer have spell immunity
- Geomancer -> Geomancer clones now gain 40% of any attribute bonuses the primary has
- Crystal Maiden -> Fixed Brilliance Aura to properly stack with Ring of Basilius
- Priestess of the Moon -> Slightly reduced collision area on Elune’s Arrow
- Magnataur -> Cooldown on Reverse Polarity no longer increases per level
- Nerubian Assassin -> Slightly improved Mana Burn cast range at higher levels
- Troll Warlord -> Level 4 Berserker Rage gives a little more movement speed
- Bristleback -> Lowered movement speed by 5 and put a cap on how much Quill Spray can stack up to late game
- Venomancer -> Plague Wards now give less gold and cost slightly less mana
- SyllaBear -> When you summon Spirit Bear and it is already summoned, it no longer wastes the cooldown doing nothing, it errors properly
- Crystal Maiden -> Improved Brilliance Aura a bit
- Phantom Lancer -> Changed Spirit Lance projectile model
- Lord of Olympia -> Hero icon changed
- Ursa Warrior -> Enrage icon changed
- Vengeful Spirit -> Added a visual effect to Netherswap
- Lord of Olympia -> Added a new visual effect for Static Field
- Juggernaut -> Added a new visual effect to Omnislash
- Axe -> Added a new visual effect for when Culling Blade’s deathblow activates (86864)
- Bane Elemental -> Added a visual effect to Brain Sap
- Spirit Bear -> Entangle doesn’t work on roshan anymore
- Keeper of the Light -> Liberated Souls and Ignis Fatuus will now show attack projectile
- Dragon Knight -> Updated Elder Form tooltip to mention that it gives movement speed boost
- Added new icons for Berserker Call, Conversion, Glaives of Wisdom, Detonate, Light Strike Array, Synergy (thx snork, Black_tan, K_Prime, Mihai, L()RK@N_15, Amadi and switch)
- Axe -> Improved hero animation when casting Culling Blade
==[Items]==
- Added new item -> Hood of Defiance
- Added new item -> Assault Cuirass
- Added new item -> Bloodstone (can be disassembled, heal inspired by topic (116735)
- Satanic -> Active ability changed
- Helm of Iron Will -> Increased hp regen to +3 (from +2)
- Divine Rapier -> Now it can be manually dropped
- Vladmir’s Offering -> Bonus damage is an aura now(only on melee heroes, not creeps)
- Battle Fury -> Cleave AOE from 200 to 225
- Mekansm -> Mekansm heal stack restriction can no longer be overridden by buckler
- Ring of Basilius -> Ring of Basilius can be clicked to switch it back and forth between a version that has armor affecting creeps and one that doesn’t
- Eul’s Scepter of Divinity -> Nerfed cooldown on Cyclone
- Butterfly -> Butterfly from 25/25/25/25 to 30/30/30/30 and recipe from 1400 to 1800
- Necronomicon -> Lowered mana burn a bit
- Bottle -> When bottle with rune expires due to time, it uses the rune instead of wasting it (122057)
- Ancient Tango of Essifation -> Removed cooldown when buying tangos
- Sentry and Observer wards -> Changed a bit
- Reduced cooldown on buying all other items
- Mjollnir -> Changed icon to the one suggested on the forums (102574)
- Gem & Sentry Wards -> Improved tooltips for new players (118074)
- Ancient Tango of Essifation -> Added buff icon
- Necronomicon -> Improved tooltip on level 3 Necronomicon
- Updated Buriza and Crystalis tooltips to list critical chance
- Removed Lumber from recipes, now it does not list it as a requirement and gives you a proper error
==[Game Modes & Commmands]==
- Adjusted starting gold in -rd to give you the same amount you’d have when the creeps come out in regular pick game (right now it is a little less than normal)
- Enabled POTM/Warlock/Alchemist in -lm and Warlock in -rd
- Added -om(onlymid) due to popular demand to disable creepspawn and tower vulnerability everywhere but middle
- Added -powerup and -neutrals to single player commands
- Added -nd (no death timer) and -lives xx (maximum lives) as optional commands after -dm is activated
- Added a -fleshstr command for Pudge to view how much str you gained from the ability
- Added -deathon/off (-don/off) that toggles on and off a new death timer to show you your respawn without needing to open the scoreboard
- -cson now places the k/d in the multiboard title
- -showdeny is enabled by default for observers
- Siege units are now properly added to your -cs
- Weather commands are now user specific, so you can have rain while your ally has snow and the others have nothing
- Added an extra blank line before -ma output, to help readability when used near other commands
==[Map & Misc Changes/Fixes]==
- Changed the way Aegis and Roshan work. Aegis is now a Roshan drop (a 1-charge ankh basically). You cannot create it manually. Roshan starts out weaker without melee return. He respawns stronger and bigger every 10 minutes
- Added a new secret shop containing limited items (only stout and helm of iron will for now) to the top left and bottom right areas
- Changed Range creep quantity upgrade from 60min to 45min. Siege follows this as well. Melee creeps quantity upgrade frequency changed to a few minutes sooner than usual
- Implemented a sound for when creeps spawn for the first time (75198)
- Chicken/Crow can no longer sell items (has been abused in long games to sell for money to buyback. The sellback price on recipes is only intended to be that high to help against misclicks)
- Removed internal usage of lumber resource
- Notification is sent when an observer leaves the game
- Added a game timer in the top interface
- Fog of War is removed when a team wins (111691)
- Illusion from runes lasts a little longer now (40->60)
- Removed internal usage of food resource
- Added cooldown to neutral creep ability tooltips
- When a player leaves, the leaver hero name is written after the player’s name
- Fixed Infernal duration typo on Rain of Chaos
- Fixed a typo in the Overgrowth damage
- Fixed First Blood being displayed in white if sp is on and observers are present
- Fixed Observer Ward buff saying Sentry Ward (123887)
- Fixed a bug in -sp that causes observer board to be removed
- Fixed a typo on the number of targets on level 3 Forked Lightning
- Fixed bugs with Aegis on Meepo
- Fixed Echo Slam damage doing less than advertised (7 less)
- Fixed a typo in level 3 Spirit Bear HP
- Changed all Brilliance Aura values from percentages to numbers since it isn’t really a percentage (it always worked like this, just the tooltips were misleading)
- Fixed Treant and Druid sound set (79352)
- Fixed a bug with Shadowraze killing wards
- Fixed some minor control issues with Timewalk
WTB Epic Flying Mount For 1 Butt Tattoo
March 5, 2007 | 4 Comments
World of Warcraft is permeating our lives and what we do to ourselves. Wow. This guy is truly one crazy dude. Read this quote from this member of the Garithos guild on the server of the same name.
I proposed to the members of Garithos.com (best website evar imo;) and the Garithos community at large, that if they donated a total of 4k gold, that I would get…
Garithos.com
Swallow or its going in your eye
tattooed on my arse.
Needless to say, the coolest bunch of mofos playing WoW, came up with the money, so I came up with the goods.
Wow. Just wow. Here’s the dude’s video:
A Weekend of Euro Gaming
February 6, 2007 | 4 Comments
As I alluded to in my post on Settlers of Catan, I’m a fan of European board games (Euro Games). In my mind, American gaming companies (sans Avalon Hill and Cheap Ass Games) have a lot to learn about good, fun, sexy games. I’m not alone. I was born into a competitive family. My sister is just like me. In fact, this weekend I plan to drag my wife down to Boston for a weekend of board gaming with my sibling. We’ve begun initial planning; you know, travel timing, board games we’re bringing, and a schedule.
Yes. I said a schedule. You see, we have a number of board games between the two of us and there are only so many hours in the weekend. My sister asked for a schedule and I replied with the following ‘loose’ schedule:
Friday:
7:00-7:30 arrival and situation (greetings, bathroom, games transport, parking, etc)
7:30-8:00 Food & I explain Thurn and Taxis (a very easy game to understand)
8:15-9:45 Thurn and Taxis
10:00-12:00 Carcassonne
Saturday:
6:00-8:30 Robo Rally
8:30-10:00 Settlers: Cities and Knights
10:00-12:00 ???
Sunday:
10:00-12:00 ???
1:00-3:00 ???
3:00-5:00 ???
5:00-6:00 pack up and leave
Room for movement and change…but not solid enough for my sister who really wants to maximize her gaming. Here was her response:
I like what you have started but we have to consider that Friday you and Abby may be tired from traveling and Thurn and Taxis will be a new game to Joe and me. I suggest we play 2 sessions of Thurn and Taxis Friday evening in order to #1 accomplish learning a new game, and 2# give Joe and me the opportunity at a fair game once we are fully educated, therefore letting the potential fun-level sink in, in order to up the chance of Joe wanting to own the game himself. (thoughts?) Rarely it seems, can a newly introduced game be played only once and still be fully appreciated by a non-gaming crowd. (again, thoughts?)
Saturday I agree that we should start early in the evening with a new game considering it is always a bad idea to teach a new game once a crowd is teetering on becoming tired. Waiting until later could be detrimental to the potential for crowd likeability if newbies are tired and irritable… so. You will have STUDIED thoroughly the rules to Robo Rally by 6pm when play commences. Again, as long as the crowd is on board I believe this should be played twice. Then starting at 10:00pm we can end the night on a strong note with a game previously learned and loved: Settlers: Cities and Knights. (thoughts?)
Sunday we should be up at 8/9ish. Breakfast by 9:30. Play begins promptly at 10:00am. I suggest a nice light session of Ticket to Ride to kick off the morning. Easy to teach, yet not to thought provoking for those still in sleepy mode. Then another Settlers: Cities and Knights match… Joe will want this and we will need to get it over before Abby is tired and not compliant since it isn’t her favorite game. :)
1-2:00pm: Carcassonne. I believe at LEAST one session will be in order.
The last and final game should be dictated by a crowd vote. Each person will select their game of choice, whether that be a new game such as A Game of Thrones which remains unplayed, a newly learned game, or game that one itches for a re-match at. These game selections will be placed in a hat and the the selection will be drawn by the pregnant lady representing pureness of heart. We will all engage in the final game with smiles and enthusiasm as we recognize that no matter what the selection, this is our grand finale.
(THOUGHTS?)
I almost busted a gut at how precise the schedule was. She saw fit to give Abby and me a little room to poke around Boston during the day on Saturday before we got back to gaming. Awesome. It’ll be a sweet weekend!
World of Warcraft Motivational Posters
January 18, 2007 | 3 Comments
Inspired by Cruise Gazing and Despair, I decided to make my own Motivational Posters.
WoW UI Mod: FuBar
January 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment
When I played World of Warcraft before my hiatus, TitanPanel was all the rage. What did it do? Well, it put this sexy little bar at the top of your UI with a lot of useful information that would otherwise have taken up a large area on the screen with the default UI. Titan Panel was excellent in that it provided easy to use hooks for other User Interface developers to tie their mods in with TitanPanel.
My new love in minimized data display in a sexy-little-bar format? FuBar. Why? Well…its basically the same mod with a slightly uglier texture behind it…but it has one amazing benefit that sold me on first use. You can have more than one bar!!!!! There’s a bit more than that so I’ll list FuBar’s features below:
- Drag and drop rearragement of plugins.
- Any plugin can exist on left or right.
- Automatically adjust frames (can be turned off)
- Any number of bars (not limited to just 2), you can attach to the top, bottom, or detach any amount you want.
- Can detach a tooltip and pin it to the UI.
- Object-oriented design.
- LoadOnDemand capabilities for plugins.
- Modularity (absolutely no plugins are intimitely connected to the core)
- Minimal resource usage
- Lots of handy features for developers.
- Well documented API.
- Skinning support
- Can change the thickness, font size, transparency, spacing through simple sliders on the right-click menu.
- Can place plugins on the minimap, which will function like standard minimap buttons.
Yet another mod you should adopt.
