]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com Random Thoughts and Comments en-us Brian 2009-11-18T06:54:11-05:00 http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2009-11-03T10_03_39.html 2009-11-03T10:03:39-05:00 Brian Games, Miscellaneous Magic the Gathering (MTG) a few years ago there were a fair number of local gaming stores. One of my favorites of the time was The Encounter in Allentown. I used to go to their MTG tournament on weekends and just hang out there for some fun and games on weekends. Back then the store was reasonably well kept, organized, and clean. And even if it wasn't all that clean and organized the people were nice, both the other customers and the people who worked there. That seems to have changed though.

I introduced a co-worker to MTG a month or so ago and he wanted to know where he could look at cards. Of course, my first thought was of The Encounter. We headed over with me expecting to find it much as I remembered it. Instead what I found was a bit of a dive. There was so much stuff on the counter I couldn't see through the top of the glass at it's contents. Everything on the shelves struck me as dirty and almost dusty. Additionally, the back gaming room was a sty even by my standards, and I'm pretty messy. Let's face it, most gamers aren't exactly known for their organization and cleanliness so it's not like I'm holding them to a high standard. There were also giant piles of stuff in the main part of the store.

Let me say though, this may not be the way they normally are. I understand that they had just come back from two back to back comic/gaming shows which may account for the disorganization. Still, it leaves a bad impression. Especially if a new customer walks in.

I know I've gone on about organization and cleanliness a bit now but that's not really the deal breaker. A place can be cleaned, no biggy. And they did just come off of those shows, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt in that regards. What has turned me mist off is the customer service. My co-worker, Mike, decided he wanted to call them to see if they had a few singles rather than driving over to ask. He called both the Allentown store and the Stroudsburg store asking if they had any Blightning in stock. A few examples of the replied received were:

"I'm 14 hours behind! I don't have time to look up singles!"

"I'm not supposed to look up singles!"

"There's no such card."

That last one was given after we provided the MTG Card set and name. According to Gatherer the card sure as hell does exist.

My first thought is that there was a bad apple employee who answered. That thought was dashed when he got a similar reply from both the Allentown store and the Stroudsburg stores telling me the problem is systemic rather than an individual.

I'm not going to totally discount The Encounter yet. I think I'll give them a visit in a month or two and see how they are doing. Until then, the preferred alternative is The Portal Comics and Gaming. If the Encounter doesn't shape up The Portal may end up being my go to place for geeky games.]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2009-02-18T20_23_10.html 2009-02-18T20:23:10-05:00 Brian Games
I guess I'm just so used to the crap I get from HP/Dell/Microsoft support that when it happens as it should it's ranked as "unusual".]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2007-12-02T22_46_46.html 2007-12-02T22:46:46-05:00 Brian Games Geometry Wars has been around for quite some time bit being the late bloomer that I am I just discovered Geometry Wars: Galaxies. I'm hooked. This is one intense shoot'em up. There really isn't any story line that I can see but who has time to think about that when your screen is nearly solid with baddies?

This thing is truly Asteroids on crack.]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2007-10-26T21_23_44.html 2007-10-26T21:23:44-05:00 Brian Games
The point is, after shipping costs I've just spent pretty darn close to a new DS. Not really a big deal with getting a free game and all but sometimes I can frugal myself into spending more.

Yeah well, 'tis the chance one takes when buying used stuff.

Anyway, back to Resident Evil 4 while I wait. ]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2006-06-25T12_32_03.html 2006-06-25T12:32:03-05:00 Brian Games, Computers and Technology Neverwinter Nights when I hang out with him and that Bioware had recently released some nice looking Premium Modules that he'd like to play. Last night I went on over and spend the $8 on Infinite Dungeons which is a randomly generated 10 level dungeon with a minor storyline but includes puzzles and the ability to dynamically adjust to your character or party of characters. Basically, it's a mindless dungeon crawl with essentially zero plot, but that's OK because that's exactly what I bought it for.

So, I downloaded this thing and in the purchase process I had to feed the website my original Neverwinter Nights CD-Key to authorize my key to play Infinite Dungeons. What I found out after I installed it and tried to play is that you absolutely can't play it at all without an Internet connection. The reason being is that it calls home to check it's validity when you start a new game, load a saved game, or save a game. The trouble is, I installed NWN on my laptop and there may be times I won't have Internet connectivity. And, sure enough, searching the Bioware forums came up with a few people who bought it for play while traveling without Internet access. Needless to say they were not all to happy of the situation because Bioware will only refund your money if the module hasn't been activated or played on-line. At least for me, it wasn't painfully obvious that was the case and if I'd want my $8 back I'd be basically screwed. I know, it's only $8 but it's the idea.

I think what I'm running into here is the future of game and possibly application copy protection. I've seen things moving in this direction for quite a long while and am honestly not surprised in the slightest. Since the number of people with out Internet access is so small this sort of thing effects such a small number that, even if Bioware really pisses them off, it will have nearly no influence on their profits for the product.

I've never liked things that phone home. You never be sure exactly what they are up to and what they are sending back home unless you have the skill to put a sniffer on the line and analyze the network traffic. Besides, what happens when the company goes under? Or decides to stop supporting the game? What about people like me who love our retro games? I hope that Bioware has the where-with-all to issue a patch removing such silly check prior to abandoning support.

I'm fairly certain that this sort of protection will be a native part of Neverwinter 2 and that having such drastic phone home methods in the premium modules is simply a test bed to see how well it is accepted.]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2006-01-13T18_45_59.html 2006-01-13T18:45:59-05:00 Brian Personal, Games
Cindy informed me that one of her coworkers and her husband are also into D&D, Lord of the Rings, Computers, etc etc. Essentially everything I'm into so they arranged for us to gather on Sunday to start a game of sorts with them since they've been looking for people to play with.

I'm going to be all gamed out and will have to go back to work on Monday to recover! What a tragedy...]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2006-01-02T12_44_35.html 2006-01-02T12:44:35-05:00 Brian Games lots of free time. Free time is something I don't have in abundance anymore so no things that I should be doing are beginning to suffer. Let us put it this way, I've been playing since just before Christmas most every evening (much to my wife's dismay) and have advanced my character to level 6, only covered about 5% of the continent of Vvardenfell, and still haven't done the first step of the main quest. You could play this game for ages just on side quests alone. There are factions and guilds to join and quests to perform related to each one that let you advance in rank. When you advance in rank you get more perks. Not to mention the Great Houses, one of which you can join in your adventures. The game also has a generous amount of books in game that give an extreme amount of background to flesh out the world. In fact, there are so many books to read I could probably sit and read for a couple of hours in just the one book store I found.

Character development is a bit different that what I'm used to coming from a mostly D&D background. In this case you advance levels by practicing your skills. Experience points don't exist in the traditional sense. You have major skills, minor skills, and misc skills. You have to advance some combination of your major and minor skills by 10 points to gain a level. And the ones that advance depend on if you use them enough. On top of that, each level you advance gives you an opportunity to increase each of your ability scores, and the amount you can increase these scores depends on what attribute the skills you have improved are associated with. So, the more you use your sword, the better you get at it, and the more you can increase your strength when you level (up to a point).

The only thing that is bugging me is that, in typical CRPG fashion, you start out with skills so low that they are essentially useless and practically zero gold. So I figured, in order to get some money I had to "acquire" others property to sell since my combat and magic abilities sucked. But to steal stuff you have to be able to sneak, which was low to the point of uselessness. Which gets to the point of being a drag. Take a look at the picture over there. It's me behind an NPC with a screwdriver holding down the sneak key (left CTRL). I left it that way for a few hours and got the skill from 5 to 20 and can just barely sneak if I'm really lucky. To be fair, it's only a misc skill for me which makes it advance very slow but still. I could just pay a trainer to increase my skills but that is very expensive and I have (well had) no gold. This is only a pseudo-complaint since just about every RPG starts out the same way. This is really the only thing to bother me so far.

The thing that makes the game really shine though is the hundreds of game mods you can download. A quick Morrowind Mods Google give many hits. But the best place I've found though is Planet Elder Scrolls which unfortunately requires a subscription. Lucky for me though I'm grandfathered into a free account because I signed up ages ago. The number of mods available are just mind boggling and I really didn't know where to start or what to try adding since some mods are good and others are so buggy they can ruin your saved games. I tried to stick with things that aren't cheats. Most of what I've done are just improved textures to make the world look better. My chosen mods so far are:

• Better Bodies - Nice looking textures and smooth less segmented bodies
• Real Sign Posts - Changes the sign textures to have to actual text of the sign on it instead of the generic one from the original game. You used to have to hover over the sign and get the help tip to pop up so you knew where to go.
• Ingredient Retexture - Retextures alchemical ingredients
• Abot's Water Life - Adds a mess of wild life to the water ways of the game. You can even go fishing and collect alchemical incredients.
• PC Smithy - Lets you own a Smithy as a place of business and a way to make money. Like a real life business it takes much work to get going and profitable.
• Area Effect Arrows - An official add on. Lets you buy area effect arrows in Vivec.
• Better Heads - Same concept as Better Bodies, but makes the heads look better.
• Better Books - Put sharper, much nicer textures on the books.
• Bottle Replacer - Makes the bottles look really nice.
• Darker Morrowind - Retextures most everything in the game to look darker an d foreboding. By default the game looks much more fantasy. I like this look much better. Texture replacers like these are up to personal taste, a comparison and links to multiple replacement packs can be found here.
• Fair Magicka Regen - I've always hated the idea of magic user types to have to sleep when you run out of manna, spell points, magicka, or whatever it's called in your game. This adds a slow, fair regeneration of magicka points.
• Herbalism - By default you "open" flowers like a chest and collect what's inside. This adds an herbalism skill and when you pick an herb you may, or may not get something. Plus the plant disappears and grows back again in a month.
• Mori Estate - A house you can buy later. It contains no cheats as far as I know and just gives you a place to keep items you don't want to carry around. It also has a library where you can have a scribe copy the book for your personal collection as well as an alchemical ingredient sorter to help you keep track of what you have.
• Faylynns Signs and Banners - Replaces the banners and shop signs with very nice looking ones.
• Silt Striders are in Vvardenfel - Silt Striders are giant insects trained for use in long distance transport. This adds the chance to see some in the wild. Other wise they only are in towns where they have domestic, trained ones.
• Better Beasts - Just like Better Bodies, but for the beast races of the game.
• Weight Fix - Makes odd items like silverware have a more realistic weight. They were kind of heavy originally
• Wilderness Sounds - Talk about adding atmosphere to the game! This one is one of the best mods I've added.

My friend Chris warned me about Morrowind and how much of a life sucker it was, but I didn't listen. Perhaps I should have.

Oh, by the way, if you have an Xbox and are thinking about getting Morrowind for that remember you can't use any mods. What you get is what you get on the Xbox.]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2005-12-22T22_59_32.html 2005-12-22T22:59:32-05:00 Brian Games
I took a few screen shots of my game to share. I added texture enhancements that improved the appearance of the game. Even at it's default though it is still a beautiful game.

So, next on the list of games to play is Morrowind. It's an older game, but won a slew of awards. Plus my bud Chris raves about it which is usually good enough for me. Besides, for $20 to get Morrowind and all it's expansions in one "Game of the Year Edition" box I just couldn't resist.]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2005-12-13T22_42_00.html 2005-12-13T22:42:00-05:00 Brian Games So I figured I'd own up to the reason why. I've been wasting away my evenings playing Thief: Deadly Shadows and all I have to say is...Wow. This is one hell of a good game. That is if you can get your head around the fact that you have to sneak around and not go toe to toe with every foe you see. I know that's contrary to what the typical game these days trains you for but once you get the idea stealth games are excellent.

Anyone who knows me knows I've been a fan of the Thief games for ages. Made by the long defunct Looking Glass Studios who were also responsible for the equally incredible game System Shock 2.

Anyway, so far I'm about 75% of the way through Thief: Deadly Shadows and I have to say it lives up to the legacy of the first two Thief games. I still have a special place in my heart for the originals so on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best I'd have to give Thief: The Dark Project a 9.5, Thief: The Metal Age a 9.0, and Thief: Deadly Shadows an 8.5. This is mostly because the story line of the first game is so good it sets the standard for the series. And, while the stories of the sequels are very very good, they aren't as good as the original. I don't mean that as a bad thing. It's just that the first is a tough act to follow.

I think the reason it came out so good is because, according to rumor, Ion Storm managed to get together the majority of the original design team that worked for Look Glass Studios along with the original voice for Garrett. I've also been picking up on sounds from the original game being reused which is nice for the familiarity of it all. As far as game play goes it's pretty much the same except for subtle things. For instance, the game has fully dynamic lighting. This means individual object cast shadows. In the original games the shadows were static and sometimes didn't make any sense. If you were in a dark room for instance and the room on the other side of a door had a light source in it the light wouldn't spill into the dark room which is something I used to my advantage. However, now the light flows in and makes it more realistic. You can even get caught if a light source is behind you and a guard sees your shadow. Pretty cool stuff. The lock picking system is different but usable. In a way it's more realistic than the original, but how realistic can one make something as complex as picking a lock in a computer game and not kill game play? Oh, and be sure to blackjack the guards in the back of the head. The originals didn't care where you got them as long as they weren't aware of you. Now it matters.

So, there ya have it. The reason I've withdrawn into my cave. My wife even asked me not to start a new game for a while when this one is done so she can actually see me again. Now, excuse me while I get my blackjack and water arrows ready. I've got some thieving to do!]]> http://rignesnet.tzo.com/archives/2005-11-26T23_43_23.html 2005-11-26T23:43:23-05:00 Brian Games
Either way, there were several hours of enjoyment out of the game and it did have a good story line. Now it's off to Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows). I hope that one has a good ending. I know the first two were incredible games with memorable endings. ]]>