These are screenshots of Laiane, Elven Ranger, in Dragon Age: Origins.    I’ll do a longer post when I’ve played a bit more and have a better feel for the game.

9. Depression. This goes hand in hand with #10 above.

8.  Lack of bloggable material. I’ve started a few posts in my head, but none of them have come to fruition.  I have one idea — using the Seven Deadly Sins to write about knitting and yarn addiction — but that’s inchoate at the moment.

7.  Facebook.  Yes, I finally got my sorry butt on Facebook.  I’m there as Laiane Wolfsong if you need to look me up.  

6.  Other Internet addictions.  Besides Ravelry, that is.  I’ve gotten most of my financial stuff up at Mint.com and I’ve been known to waste a lot of screen time with StumbleUpon.com.

5.  Worry.  I’m concerned that Emma, my 14-year-old tuxedo cat, is developing feline diabetes.  We’re going in to see the vet Thursday, and I’m doing a lot of reading up on caring for a diabetic cat.

4.  Morrowind.  I’ve said before that this game is the best computer game of all time, and the primary reason is its re-playability.  I’ve been a Morrowind fan for years, and I keep coming back to it.

3.  Knitting.  One thing I do not suffer from is Second Sock Syndrome, if only because after I try on the first sock off my needles I want the second sock ASAP so I can wear them both.  I’m cranking out the second of a pair done in this lovely Socks That Rock Lightweight from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.

This is the Haida colorway from the Raven Clan series, and it’s going to turn into a pair of Lenore socks.

2.  The Prisoner.  I hadn’t heard of this 1967 television series until The Husband mentioned it.  After Patrick McGoohan died earlier this year, he mentioned it again and we decided to order the series on DVD.  We’re more than halfway through, and I know I will need to watch it again to catch more of the subtlety (You know, foreshadowing, allusions, symbolism –  all that “literary” stuff that gets me excited).

1.  Too much cat help. A picture is worth a thousand words.

November 25, 2008 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks…today announced plans to make both its editor and downloadable content available for its award-winning game Fallout 3 in the coming weeks. The official editor for Fallout 3, called the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), will be available for free download in December and will allow Games for Windows users to create and add their own content to the game. In addition, the first official downloadable content, Operation: Anchorage, will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games for Windows in January, and more downloadable content coming in February and March.

“We’ve always seen the original world of Fallout 3 as a foundation for even more content. Some created by us, and a lot more created by users,” said Todd Howard, game director for Fallout 3. “It’s fun to create your own character, but it can be equally fun to create your own adventures. We can’t wait to see what the community does with the G.E.C.K.”

The release of the G.E.C.K. provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more.

This sort of illustrates my enthusiasm at the announcement:

My computer game genre is fantasy/adventure role-playing.  I know; that sounds kinky.  What I mean by that is that I prefer single player and online multi-player games that incorporate the stereotypical “fantasy” universe.  Elves, magic users, dwarves, swords and other melee weapons (as opposed to guns and grenades).  That sort of thing.  Think Dungeons and Dragons or The Lord of the Rings.  My favorite computer game of all time is Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, put out by Bethesda Softworks in 2002.  It still has a large, vibrant player community, even though a six-year-old computer game is considered to be Ancient History.

I was a little bit disappointed with Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion, but I nonetheless enjoyed the three to four months I spent with it.  Compared to Morrowind, the world was limited and homogeneous.  I didn’t feel it was a sequel to Morrowind — more of an underdeveloped subplot in the ongoing story of Tamriel.   But, like I said, I still enjoyed it — just in a different way.  It wasn’t enough to sour me on Bethesda games.

When I heard that Bethesda was doing Fallout 3, I knew I had to play it.  It was Bethesda, and I had no experience with the prior games in the Fallout series.  The basic premise intrigued me:

Imagine if, after World War II, the timeline had split.  Our world forked into one branch, the Fallout universe into the other.  In that other branch, technology progressed at a much more impressive rate, while American society remained locked in the cultural norms of the 1950′s.  It was an idyllic “world of tomorrow,” filled with servant robots, beehive hairdos, and fusion powered cars.  And then in the year 2077, at the climax of a long-running war with China, it all went to hell in a globe-shattering nuclear war.

200 years later you, the Player, are thrust outside into the the Capital Wasteland after spending the first 19 years of your life safe underground in a city/fallout shelter known as Vault 101.

High-resolution versions of these screenshots and the concept art can be found here and here.

I’m not going to offer any spoilers here, nor can I claim to be a computer game reviewer of any merit.  I just know what I like (and what I don’t like).  This is more of a list of reactions and impressions than a game review.

First, the negatives:

• It definitely deserves the Mature 17+ rating from the ESRB.  I haven’t seen any nudity, but there is plenty of other stuff.  Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Use of Drugs is the official description.  None of the nasty stuff is gratuitous, in my opinion.  It’s appropriate to the violent dog-eat-dog world of the game.  Just be forewarned — this game isn’t for your 13-year-old brother/son/nephew or sister/daughter/niece.  Really.  It took me a while to get used to shooting peoples’ heads off.  There’s a high “splat factor” here.  And a high “How Many Time Can One NPC use the F-word” factor, too.

• Bethesda didn’t bundle the game with a Construction Set.  One of the high points to Morrowind and Oblivion is that the player could create or modify in-game elements with the software that came with the game.  Want fancier armor or a kick-butt sword?  Your own house in the city?  Less encumbrance?  More speed?  A whole new quest?  Make it (or Modify it) yourself with the Construction Set.    No construction set here, cats and kittens.  That’s a big “thumbs down” from me, Bethesda.

• In Morrowind and Oblivion, your increases in level came with the development of your skills.  You gained experience in a skill when you used it in the game.  You got better at casting Illusion spells the more times you cast Illusion spells.  Same for Lockpicking or Alchemy or Athletics or whatever.  Every time you picked a lock, you get a little bit better at picking locks in general.  After you had increased your major and minor skills 10 times, you gained a level.  Not so for Fallout 3.  Your earn generic experience points for killing a monster, or picking a lock, or solving a quest.  When you gain enough points, you go up a level and can allocate so many points to your skills.  From a role-player’s perspective, this makes no sense.  How can I go out in the Wasteland and kill a bunch of radioactive giant scorpions with my 10mm handgun and get better at wielding missile launchers?  How can picking a bunch of locks successfully increase my skill in offering medical treatment to wounded Non-Player Characters?  The way the game mechanics exist in Fallout 3, I could keep allocating points to Big Guns (e.g. Missile Launchers) every time I level.  Eventually, I could have a Master rating in Big Guns without ever having touched one in the game.  Um….yeah.  That’s another big “thumbs down” from this Role Player Grrrl.

Now for the positives:

•  V.A.T.S. or Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System.  Basically, you can spend something called Action Points and make called shots on the mobs.  I will say that called head-shots from stealth are very cool, if not a little bloody.  Bloody as in “exploding heads are bloody.”  Cringe-worthy but kewl.  The first time I saw this, part of me said, Eeeeewwwww and the rest of me said, This rocks. Srsly.

•  The graphics on a high-end gaming machine are very sweet.  I’m not a techie, but I do know that Some People are jealous of Squeaker (my home computer).  I’m running Ultra-High graphics with no visible lag.

•  You get a lot of character customization through the use of Perks (character traits or skills you can choose for yourself at various levels).  Certain Perks can alter game play significantly.  For example, I chose the Perk “Black Widow” at Level 2.  This not only grants me 10% more damage against male opponents, I also get unique dialog options in some situations.  For example, Mr. Burke, a rather shady character you meet at the beginning of the game, is now sending me impassioned love letters.  Once he discovered I had no interest in blowing up the starting city of Megaton and was rather offended by his suggestion, as he was insinuating I do for him and his “friends,” he apparently fell for me.  I guess he liked strong, opinionated women.  Or he’s setting me up.  We will see how this develops.

•  For lack of a better word, I like the atmosphere of the game.  Gritty, gray, dirty and dingy.  It has a consistent feel to it.   I also like seeing parts of D.C. that I encountered when I lived there.  The Metro tunnels.  The monuments.  The museums.  It’s not entirely accurate, though.  The Washington Monument does not have a  metal substructure — it’s solid stone in Real Life.

•  Your actions have long-reaching consequences.  You gain (or lose) Karma Points with certain actions, and your total “Karma” affects how NPC’s interact with you.  There’s a continuum of Good – Neutral – Evil for the Player.  Yes, you can “buy” good karma with donations to the church or giving beggars purified water, so it is similar in some respect to paying off your bounty for crimes you committed in Morrowind or Oblivion.  I haven’t quite put my finger on this element of game play, but Karma in Fallout 3 is not necessarily the same as Reputation in Morrowind or Oblivion.  You can be good without necessarily being famous.

So, this version of Laiane Wolfsong has about 40 hours of gameplay under her belt at Level 7.  There’s a lot more of this game to explore (and re-explore with a different type of character), but my first impressions are more positive than negative.

Game on, cats and kittens.

]]> http://itsfuriousbalancing.com/index.php/2008/11/12/post-apocalyptic-washington-dc-has-never-looked-so-good/feed/ 1 http://itsfuriousbalancing.com/index.php/2008/08/13/and-its-obviously-no-drop/ http://itsfuriousbalancing.com/index.php/2008/08/13/and-its-obviously-no-drop/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:01:58 +0000 Laiane http://itsfuriousbalancing.com/?p=533

The recipient of the Baby Viking Helm was pleased.  The following is a direct copy-paste from her email to me.

I’m not even going to begin trying to explain this to non-gamers.

Textured Woven Valkyrie Helm of Dryness and Agility

RARE MASTERCRAFTED

Required level: 1

Mitigation: 200

Weight: 1.0

Frequency: Mythical

+50 health, +35 power, +15 intelligence, +15 wisdom, +50 agility

+150 vs. poison, disease, divine, heat, magic, and mental

+300 vs. cold

+200 resistance to diaper rash

+50 drool avoidance (applies to self and canine opponents only)

Effects:

• Casts Dispersion of Baby Powder when activated, creating a defensive shield against wetness and blinding all opponents in the area.
• Looks DAMN good.

D&D was my first foray into fantasy role-playing games. Many of the gamers I’ve met online, whether in EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Vanguard, or Lord of the Rings Online, have their gaming roots in D&D. It was the ur-game for many of us.

I’m hardly qualified to write a tribute or obituary for Mr. Gygax. To be honest, I didn’t know much detail about his life or background until I started reading the obituaries and blog posts yesterday. There were many.

He was, directly or indirectly, responsible for my love of RPG’s. There probably wouldn’t be a Laiane Wolfsong without him. Oh, the Real Life me would be here, certainly; no argument about that. But my Ranger alter ego? That’s a different story altogether.

I’ve been waxing nostalgic over my D&D days in high school when five of us would squeeze into the 1976 Ford Pinto my brother inherited from Mom and wend our way to our DM’s basement. We’d scarf down Cheetos and Mountain Dew, roll the dice, and have the time of our lives.

Me: Bridget, the elven assassin. Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say you’re sorry.

My twin brother: Graymaus Jamin Eroquil, half-elven Neutral Greedy thief extraordinaire.

And our friends:

Trebos the magic user. He had issues with casting area-of-effect spells on the monsters and killing his party members in the process.

Seymour the fighter, whose intelligence score was in the single digits. He would lose to his war horse when they played checkers.

Ged Lefto, illusionist, and creator of the songs we would sing on our car ride home. We called them D&D carols since many of them were set to the tune of Christmas carols. I had the Orcish Pirate Sea Shanty in my head this morning:

We love to hear the cannons fart
While we blow your ships apart!
Upwind in battle are we!
Our victims run in fear; they smell us coming near!
Victory – We fight to win!
Victory -We smell like sin!
We are the scum of the land and sea
Oh, Orcish Pirates are we…

Did I mention we were really, really nerdy teenagers?

I found this tribute to Mr. Gygax on an online RPG forum. I think it captures what a lot of Old School Gamers (and Not-So-Old-School Gamers) are feeling at the moment:

No matter what the edition, no matter the ruleset, no matter what the genre, all of our differences aside – in the end all that matters is that we play on. Next time you belly up to the table (even if your table is a computer desk) and have a laugh, next time your heart skips a beat on that saving throw, next time you’re down to the last hit point and the dice come up 20, think of E. Gary Gygax and play, play on. It’s the best way to pay tribute to the man that got us all at the table.

Thanks, Gary.

Amen to that.

moar LOLCats

I read Crazy Aunt Purl‘s blog about her Big List of 100 Things to Do Before I Die. I’m not up to concocting my own list of 100 things – unless they could be along the lines of “Travel to 99 different locations” and “Re-read A la recherché de temps perdu.” I do feel, however, that I can name 12 things to do over the course of the next year. Twelve concrete, targeted, measurable things. Believe me when I tell you that this will be far more entertaining than my coming up with any New Year’s Resolutions.

12 Things to Do in 2008 (in no particular order)

1. Floss. Complete the paperwork for the University of Tennessee’s Department of Forensic Anthropology so I may rest at The Body Farm after my death. For the squeamish, let’s just say that I plan on donating my body to science. For people who may want a tad more information, check out this article from Wired.
2. Read Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative (three volumes, people!) and Winston Churchill’s The Second World War. Both of these have been on my to-be-read pile for far too long. I admit that my to-be-read pile is not so much a “pile” as a “bookcase.” See Item 7 below.
3. Keep a daily handwritten diary. I don’t mean a diary heavy on the emotional introspection, but rather one in which I keep daily observations, ideas to appear on this blog, quotes, resources, notes about patterns in my pain levels, u.s.w. I bought a Moleskine Pocket Weekly Planner for this particular purpose.
4. Box up the unwanted/unneeded household items and clothes in the basement and either (a) donate them to charity, or (b) have a garage sale. When The Husband and I moved in together, I put most of my kitchen stuff in the basement. I’ve dug out a cookie sheet or two; other than that, the kitchen stuff remains untouched. There are several other boxes down there that can be sorted and redirected. I’ve discovered that getting rid of “stuff” and “de-cluttering” is extremely liberating.
5. Finalize and sign my will. I have worked in an offshoot of the Death Care Industry as a probate and estate planning legal secretary for 15 years and I haven’t signed my will yet. This is embarrassing.
6. Pay down a minimum of $3,600 on my credit card debt. Paying $300.00 per month is more than do-able. I’ve been making monthly payments in the $400-$500 range for some time now, and I’ve stopped charging new purchases to the cards (unless I plan on paying the balance off in full each month). I’m going to get defensive here and loudly declare that I don’t have an unmanageable or onerous amount of personal debt – and I have a credit rating to die for – but I do want to get that debt paid down.
7. Complete my catalog of books on LibraryThing. To be honest, this catalog will never be complete in the true sense of the word. It will never be finished. I will never have every single one of my books entered and tagged. I am always smuggling new books into the house; some are cataloged right away, some go on the shelves right away, and some linger in ever-growing piles in my living room, bedroom, and study. I find these piles of book comforting, in some small way — but that’s another blog post.
8. Finish my Cats of Ulthar mod for Morrowind. I have three of the four cats finished, and I’ve been hung up on the last one because I can’t seem to come up with any ideas outside of a “retrieve an item from an NPC by combat” quest. Trite. Boring. An unfinished Morrowind mod isn’t much better, so I need must carry on.
9. Take a one-week vacation in a fabulous American city – one I haven’t been to before — and act like a complete and utter Tourist Dork. I keep telling myself that I need to get back to Paris, but I’ve been to Paris twice now. It’s time for something different. Right now, I’m thinking about Seattle or San Francisco.
10. Clean and remodel/redecorate one room in the house. We’ve been in our house for six or seven years now (tempus fugit), and while there are a lot of structural home improvements that need to be done, I would really like to do some painting and sprucing up. I don’t need my house to look like it came from the pages of Architectural Digest – I like the lived-in, shabby chic vibe – but I would like to have a house that doesn’t look like we moved in last week and haven’t had time to unpack. I need to have A Chat with The Husband about which room we’ll remodel, so that’s why it’s currently unspecified.
11. Knit Ice Queen. I have wanted to attempt lace knitting for some time, and this project might finally inspire me. It may be beyond my knitting skill level, but it’s just so stinkin’ gorgeous I have to give it the Old College Try. I have a few lacy scarfs on my Ravelry queue, but they can’t hold a candle to Ice Queen. I’ve never done lace and I have never knit with beads. This may just kill me, so I will need to complete Items 1 and 5 before this.
12. Watch three NetFlix movies a month – minimum. I pay for it every month, I may as well get my butt in gear and start watching the films and TV shows in my queue.

Whew! I think I’m done with my words — for the moment. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

In any event, I’m in the home stretch on the body of the Ravenclaw Raglan. Here’s a picture I took Sunday during our 10 minutes of autumn sunshine.

A few more inches on the ribbing on the body and I’ll move on to the sleeves. Woo hoo. Do I know how to party, or what?

So, time to head to Mournhold and cleanse the Shrine of the Dead and uncover a Temple informant and so forth and so on.

I am slogging along on the Tempting Sweater, having attached the sleeves to the body and am now knitting aroundandaroundandaround. 204 stitches per row. Knit 2, purl 2, ad infinitum. Progress is slow. I’m not the World’s Fastest Knitter to start with. Far from it. I greatly admire the knitters who seem to be able to turn out 3 or 4 sweaters during the time it takes me to get ONE finished.

I slog along. Knit 2, purl 2; knit 2, purl 2.

I am at the stage when one is winding down one knitting project and is feverishly wanting to Start Something Different. Anything. Different. I am doing my best to practice Knitting Monogamy, but temptations abound. I think my queue over at ravelry is over a dozen items long.

Knit 2, purl 2. Slog, slog, slog.

I will finish this. I only need about 4 more inches before I can bind off and call it finished. I have decided against the Dorky Bow, by the way. Laiane Wolfsong doesn’t do Dorky Bows, but she does seem to have a penchant for outfits that require Hollywood Fashion Tape.

In other news here at Chez Cat Hair, it is Pepper Harvesting Season. The Husband spent 20 minutes in the kitchen garden after work today, and brought in this haul:

Serranos, Hungarian Wax Peppers, and Thai Dragons, a deadly mix. I’m a confessed Spice Wimp and do not partake of hot food. I like highly seasoned food, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been craving Indian food for some time now; it’s just that I don’t consider “Pain” a flavor.

And, finally, it’s time for the LOLCat. I found this guy over at Meme Cats:

That’s it for today, cats and kittens. Time to slog. Errr, knit. Yes, time to knit.

So, what you get today, Gentle Reader, is a hodge-podge of completely unrelated material. Oh, and a LOLCat. I haven’t posted a LOLCat in quite a while.

Moving on.

I have been gaming with a passion. Morrowind, specifically. I’ve been feeling the need to spend time in a game with a well-developed lore system, which Morrowind has in spades and which Oblivion (the sequel to Morrowind) almost completely disregarded. Oblivion was flashy. The graphics were very pretty. It was soulless underneath all the pretty pictures, though. I haven’t been MMORPG-ing lately, either, for partially the same reason. In Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, I don’t understand the lore, or how the various races all relate to one another, and who hates who and who’s doing what to whom. I find that if I don’t have a reason for slaying the monsters/saving the princess/whatever, my motivation evaporates.

So, I’ve been in Vvardenfell once again. The latest incarnation of Laiane Wolfsong, Ranger and Opportunist, reached 40-something level and became incredibly bored. I don’t know about you other gamers out there, but if I’m not challenged, I lose interest quickly. So, new character time! Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you Haizea Phoenixborn, Blade Dancer. Let’s give the little lady a big hand…

I have no earthly idea how she’s keeping that bodice from pooling around her waist. Hollywood Fashion Tape?

Anyhow, for those of you who are interested, a Blade Dancer is a lightly armored, high-agility fighter (long sword, specifically) with magical abilities in the schools of Mysticism and Illusion.

For those of you who are not interested, here’s the picture I’ve been promising of He Who Makes Silly Cat Shirts wearing his silly cat shirt. Silly Cat sold separately.

This is the first sewing project The Husband undertook. I don’t know how many patterns pieces were involved. Eleven? He was very methodical and put it together over the course of a few days. I think it turned out very well, and I’m quite impressed with his talent. Buttons!? Interfacing?! That’s far beyond my meager talents.

A three-day weekend approaches; I hope to be posting more frequently.  Or not.  I might just stay in Vvardenfell for a while.