September 2015 – Page 5

Media Consumption 9/26/2015

September 26, 2015 by Belghast

The Second Week

There is a distinct reason why I decided to call this new feature “media” consumption rather than television or movies, namely because there are some weeks that go by that I don’t really watch much television. For example unless having cartoon network going on in the background counts, I have not really watched any purposeful television since last Sunday. I did however watch a lot of stuff online and listen to a lot of music, as such this week is going to be a bit of a pivot as I talk about some of those things. As I am starting to pull out of my hibernation state a bit, I am by nature spending less time parked in front of the television.

Meg Myers – Sorry

It is so rare that a musician comes around that so closely matches my personal tastes as Meg Myers. I’ve seen her described as what would happen if Trent Reznor and Tori Amos had a kid… and honestly I feel like that is probably a fairly apt theory. The funny thing is that when I heard this theory I had no clue about the supposed affair that the two of them had back in the 90s… but a good friend of mine is a historian in all things Trent and filled me in on the details. In reality the music is just damned amazing. “Sorry” is her first full length album, but there have been a few EPs floating around for awhile that are up on Google Music, and they have been in pretty regular rotation since I first found out about her. I feel so strongly about this music that when the album was released on September 18th I purchased it… even though I had access to it freely through my Google Music subscription. This means a lot, because I generally don’t buy music other than video game soundtracks… because I have access to stream pretty much anything I could ever want through Google Music. In fact this is the first album I have purchased since backing the Amanda Palmer kickstarter. It is the first musician in a long time that I feel like I want to wholeheartedly support.

If you have never heard anything by Meg Myers I highly suggest checking out the title track “Sorry”

If you want to pick it up… [Google Play] [iTunes] [Amazon]

Star Wars Phantom Menace Review

After last week going into how disappointed I was about the prequels after watching them again recently, a good friend of mine linked me a really strange youtube review of the series that takes place over the course of seven different videos. Now there is some disturbing comedy woven in between the bits of actual review that I don’t necessarily think is sane and rational, but most of what this person is saying about the movies themselves is exactly what I had been feeling. If you are like me and living in this constant state of disappointment about the movies… it might be a bit cathartic to listen to someone rip them a new one. The amount of time spent delving into just why Phantom Menace was so horrible… is a bit obsessive but I listened to them one night while playing Destiny. I enjoyed myself, but your mileage may vary.

Inon Zur plays Fallout 4 Theme

If you have been around me for very long, one thing you know is that I love video game soundtracks. One that has been on regular rotation for years is the Rift soundtrack composed by Inon Zur, so I am absolutely no stranger to his work. In the above video we have him doing a very passionate rendering of the Fallout 4 theme song. This combines so many things that I love, because you could not be any more excited about Fallout 4 than I am. Hell I even managed to snag one of the pip boy editions. Fallout is one of those game series that I have been passionate about since College and each one just seems to keep getting better. Lately we have been talking New Vegas on the Podcast because Thalen is experiencing it for the very first time. Knowing Inon Zur is the composer for the main score even makes me more excited about what the fourth installment might bring.

iZombie

At this point my wife and I are around eight or nine episodes into the first season. The hope is between today and tomorrow we can catch a few more episodes while she grades. I still need to remember to set the DVR to start recording episodes from this season, since I guess the whole Fall television thing is happening. I know that I can get the five latest episodes through Hulu but I want to make sure not to miss an episode and have to track it down somehow through nefarious means. Have I ever mentioned that I hate the current state of television and how damned hard it is to sort out which medium happens to be streaming which shows? I feel like if you are a television provider and not offering your shows either through Hulu or through Netflix… then you are passively giving me permission to track your stuff down illicitly on the interwebs by not giving me a subscription based option. Anyways hopefully we will sort out the rest of this season and be caught up soon. This is actually a good enough show however for me to watch it on a weekly/semi-weekly basis.

Fear the Walking Dead

I can honestly say that right now at this moment… there is not a single character on Fear the Walking Dead that I actually like. In fact I would be just as happy as not to see them attacked by Zombies and then replaced by a cast of characters that we have yet to even meet. As much as I am enjoying iZombie… I am that much NOT enjoying Fear the Walking Dead. I keep hoping and waiting to see if it gets better, but right now… that is very much not a thing that is happening. In fact in many ways it has gotten worse, and it is my fear that they will drag this shit out until the sixth episode before finally giving us anything interesting. All of the characters are weak and stupid… and I cannot fathom how any of them are going to survive past the end of this season let along the series as a whole. I guess society hasn’t fallen apart enough for folks to start reverting to primal instincts yet, but I am so ready for the heroine addict son to end up as walker fodder. I guess what is annoying about all of this is that so many people seem to be acting like “life as normal” can continue, when we the audience know that their suburban existence is over and that staying there is essentially a death sentence. Maybe this is precisely what Kirkman was going for… making us loathe the characters so that when they ultimately die we will enjoy it? I would be shocked it more than one of that first family actually makes it out of this season. Right now I am betting on the mom, she seems to be starting to go down the path of Carol.

On Creation, Part 2

September 26, 2015 by Ashgar

…and we’re back!

Obligation

Each of the three core books has a unique mechanic for player characters, intended to guide their actions in subtle and sometimes not-subtle ways. Age of Rebellion uses Duty, to represent your affiliation with the rebellion. Force and Destiny uses Morality, which tracks where you stand with respect to the Light or Dark side of the force. Edge of the Empire Uses Obligation, which is a representation of the debt (real or figurative) that your character owes. This could be actual debt, or a price on your head, or even something like a strong sense of accountability to something. In addition to a description, it also has magnitude that may have mechanical effects. Higher values mean you’re more worried about whatever it is, and it’s more likely to come up in play.

The suggested order of character creation has you determine your obligation as the first step, which can be chosen or rolled randomly. We’re going to go with the Dutybound obligation for Aragos, representing the bounties he is supposed to be out pursuing while the party’s interests may or may not align with this goal. The starting obligation value for a group of 4-5 players is 10, but that number isn’t necessarily fixed. For additional XP or credits at character creation, you can take additional obligation, up to your starting value. The starting value of 500 credits is rather low, so for Aragos we’ll take 5 more obligation for 1000 more credits.

As for your character’s specific motivation, there is a mechanic to roll this randomly if you wish. I personally would rather just build it into the background of the character. This is really the only part that varies depending on the core book you’re using.

Starting Gear

Unless you take additional obligation (or make similar decisions re: Duty or Morality), you’ll start with 500 credits, which really isn’t a lot. It’s somewhat unlikely that your character will be able to avoid conflict altogether, so you may want to put some of this into a weapon. Armor is more optional, as it tends to be heavy, expensive, and of questionable effectiveness, but you’ll probably want at least basic clothing. (Some specializations can use armor more effectively, however.) A comlink is also suggested, as it’s cheap and very useful. From there you can take other things that suit your character.

For Aragos, we’ll keep it relatively simple. A Blaster Rifle is 900, Heavy Clothing is 50, a Comlink is 25, and a Combat Knife is another 25 (I started with one of these and never used it). For other gear we’ll take 2 sets of Binders (50), A utility belt (25), Extra Reloads (25), a Datapad (75), a few Glowrods (30), Scanner Goggles (150), and a Backpack in case I have to carry all of that at once (50). That still leaves 95 credits for anything that might come up. You will also start with 1d100 additional credits that can’t be spent on starting gear, and whatever miscellaneous small items that you might think of that aren’t large enough to be tracked on your character sheet.

Finishing Touches

To finish up, a character needs a name, a description, and a personality. The Obligation and Motivation steps are actually somewhat helpful at filling in the gaps here, but this is really up to you. As mentioned, I tend to do that in reverse.

There’s also a group component, in that you can start with a particular resource that also varies by books. I’m not sure how this would be handled in a case where a group had mixed characters, but this is usually either a ship of questionable quality (except for maybe the YT-1300 in Edge of the Empire, and even then you’re gonna want a mechanic) or a justification for a party bonus (which may have other benefits). Decide among your group and GM what you’re going to take here.

A Better Minecraft

September 25, 2015 by Belghast

Ash is Awesome

I have a really huge wishlist on steam, in part because it is a nice way of tracking all of those games that I see every now and then that interest me. Steam will remind me through their UI when they go on sale, and sometimes this is extremely handy. However occasionally it has unintended consequences, like for example… during Pax Prime my friend Ashgar somehow acquired a copy of the sandbox building game Creativerse. The other night he handed me a key for it, and over the last few days I have been playing a significant amount of it. I remember looking at the game and thinking “Pretty Minecraft” and honestly… after playing a lot of it that title still largely applies. Minecraft is a charming game, but it is also a fairly primative game. The magic of Minecraft comes from the fact that it has been so easy to extend and create new types of experiences out of. So in the meantime there have been lots of games that have come out providing a much more aesthetically pleasing experience. Until recently I would have crowned SkySaga the king of this new breed of “pretty minecraft” games, but after playing Creativerse… I think maybe it is more fitting the title.

When you enter the game you are asked to create a name for your character and choose a simple boy or girl avatar. The game loses some points with me right out of the gate because these avatars really are not customized in any fashion. From there you can set up your own private world or join someone elses, and similar to a minecraft server you can toggle different variables. My world for example has PVP disabled, and I set a password… but for the life of me I cannot seem to remember what password I set which will probably come back to bite me in the ass at a later date. You are plunked into this pretty world with a power glove that allows you to pull blocks up from the ground, and a stick that serves as your default weapon. The first thing I noticed was how generally difficult combat is because I died quite a bit trying to sort out which types of creatures I could kill and which I could not. The other item that I finally noticed I had in my inventory allowed me to change my spawn point and plunk down a teleporter allowing me to pop around the world freely and teleport back to my spawn point later.

The Struggle is Enjoyable

With Minecraft, from almost the first moment I set foot in game… I had resources that I could draw on. There are wikis of every sort that contain detailed information about what every block does and how you can best use it in the game world. So far I have not found anything similar for Creativerse, or at the very least when I google for anything… all that returns is a series of YouTube videos. Since I don’t want to have to wade through a YouTube video to find the one nugget of information I need… I just started falling back on the things I know as true in Minecraft. The basic logic of how the world works is very similar, but the primary difference comes in the actual creating of things. Recipes in Creativerse are significantly more complicated than they are in Minecraft. For example to create stone flooring, you need raw stone which is a given, but also stone rods and melted wax. You get the melted wax by taking honey comb that you can only find way up high in the leaves of trees… and melting it in a forge. The end result is this complicated sequence of chicken and egg scenarios where you never actually reach a point of equilibrium where resources no longer are a problem. Coal for example is one of the basic resources needed in both Minecraft and Creativerse… but the primary difference is very early on in Minecraft I reach a point where I no longer care about getting Coal, however here since I have to use special expendable extractor items to harvest it… I am constantly searching for a new supply of both the resources to build more extractors and more coal nodes to extract.

The problem with Minecraft is ultimately that we know that game too well. Within thirty minutes of a new game I can go find every resource I need to do pretty much everything I would want to do. In Creativerse I feel more at the whim of spawn dynamics and hoping to find the right needle in the haystack to keep moving forward. I’ve learned several things, like how to find Diamond, but I still cannot for the life of me figure out a way to get a reasonable supply of obsidian… which is needed for most of the Diamond item crafting. One of the nice things about this game is that as you collect an item it starts opening up your recipes for said resource. Then by crafting sub components it will unlock further things that you can create with it. Occasionally while out in the field you can find books or pages of paper that contain special “fancy” versions of existing items that you already know how to create. As you go through the game you upgrade your weapon and powercells for your glove, that allow you to do progressively more advanced things. However at no point even though I am swinging a magitek looking sword… do I feel like I have made combat any easier. When I see a creature especially while delving deep into the earth… there is still a high likelihood that I am going to get faced rolled and add another “death statue” to my collection. The game keeps giving you these rock idols each time you die… and I’ve started surrounding my base in them as a bit of a sign of honor.

Darkness is Dangerous

Much like Minecraft there is a day night cycle and during the night things spawn that do not appear during the day. For lack of a better term I am going to call these things “corrupted” versions of the normal monsters that you can find during the day. When the sun raises they disappear just like they do in Minecraft. One thing that is different however is during the night treasure chests also appear to spawn, and wandering around the countryside looking for them is much easier because they give off a glow that you can see for a large distance. However to do this you also have to survive the onslaught of aggressive critters that are generally slightly tougher than their day time counterparts. These treasure chests also often give you access to materials that you cannot find yet on your own and give you a bit of a jump start. The problem being however… if you find an item in a treasure chest you have no clue where it actually came from. There has been a lot of trial and error and me taking on things just to see what sorts of materials they might drop. Funny enough it took me a really long time to figure out how to get a reliable source of sinew which is used by so many crafts.

While the game does not have the sort of food and water survival system that Minecraft eventually adopted and so many addons provided, it does have something interesting. When you are exposed to dangerous conditions you start to see an exposure bar appear. For example if you are roaming through the solidified Magma area, you will start see a flame gauge begin to creep up. I am not sure what happens when the gauge reaches the top, but I am guessing you catch on fire and die. Similarly in the above image you can see a purple biohazard gauge which is when I broke through into the “corrupted” zone. Deep under ground I found an area that had a slight purple glow, and featured corrupted trees and all sorts of nasty creatures. It has been extremely difficult to explore because I broke through into the cavern way the hell up into the air, and I can only spend so much time in there before my corruption creeps too high and I have to retreat. I need to figure out how exactly you can fight these influences and see if there is a way to counteract the exposure gauge. Similarly I went out exploring and found a tundra biome and the entire time I was there a cold exposure gauge kept creeping up. With no real way to counteract it I finally had to teleport back to base. The tunnel to the corrupted zone is deep under my base so I figure at some point over the next few days I will explore it further.

Speaking of Bases

Almost all of my time so far has been spent underground, but towards the end of the night I started working on an above ground dwelling I can be more proud of. For a long time I had a simple stone shack plunked out in the middle of the Savannah. Last night I started raising walls for a courtyard and building a proper stone floor. I am not sure exactly where I am going with it, but I just wanted something more noticeable while I am out roaming around. I want to build some sort of a tower and place a beacon at the top of that now that I finally have all of the components to build one. I am certain that once I build a white beacon it will start unlocking the patterns for different colors. The building system is pretty intuitive, but it reminds me more of Trove than it does of Minecraft in that you toggle back and forth between building and combat modes. Trove would honestly be my ultimate “minecraft-like” game if it weren’t for the simple blocks and insanely garish color palette. I love the combat though, and that along keeps me coming back… I am just not that big of a fan of the building aspect. Creativerse however seems to have that side of the equation for me, and if you also really like Minecraft, but are getting tired of its primitive client… you might check this game out. Right now it is $19.99 on Steam Early access, but supposedly if it ever launches it will be free to play. They originally planned on being in early access for 4-6 months… but now it has been a little over a year so who knows how long it will last.

Romani Ite Domum

September 24, 2015September 24, 2015 by Thalen

I feel like I just keep talking about Fallout, but that's what I've been up to so what are you going to do? I decided to advance the main story a little bit last night, so it was time to head into Legion territory and have a chat with Caesar.

From encounters with his men, you might assume he's an asshole.
But when you meet him, you realize he's a GIANT asshole.

On the bright side, he caught Benny for me so I was finally able to put a bullet in that two-timing rat fink's skull. Even so, I absolutely intend to come back later and kill every member of the Legion I can find at Fortification Hill, up to and including Caesar. I'll probably bring Boone with me for that, I imagine he'll enjoy it.

I was a little disappointed that the game didn't give me the option of tearing apart Caesar's philosophical arguments. I've got a 9 Intellect, you'd think that would be sufficient to tell him that no, I fully understand the concepts of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and also he's a self-aggrandizing fascist hypocrite. Yes Caesar, please explain to me how the NCR is falling apart because it was a cult of personality centered around President Tandi, and how what you're creating is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NO REALLY. I'm all ears.

What's that, game? You want me to shoot every Legionary in the head?
Well, it'll be tough, but I guess somebody's got to do it.

Apart from the Legion being entirely awful though, I'm liking how it's not entirely clear who's best to ally with for the main storyline. The NCR are solid guys, but they're expanding far too fast. Backing Mr. House means an independent New Vegas which seems like a good option, but he's got that whole smarmy Andrew Ryan vibe going. Or I could try to replace House and take over Vegas myself; tempting but I worry that outside forces might think that House's death means they could try and take the city. No matter what though, Caesar's gonna die.