You go, Chris Roberts!

Before I explain the title, here’s a story from my childhood:

I was in junior high (“middle school” for you non-New-Englanders) and I had kinda grown up on my Atari game system, arcades and (later) my Apple IIc.

Sometime during those wonder years I met a friend with a PC:  a 486 Windows 3.something. And he had Wing Commander. I hadn’t played anything quite like it, and I’m not sure anyone had. It was a quasi-3d space shooter which had so much more. The storyline won’t knock yer panties off, but the game had a storyline! This was revolutionary back then.

Storyline PLUS great gameplay = I rode my bike 3 miles after school to go watch my friend play this game. I eventually did play (and got my own PC), but this game shaped all my future gaming in so many ways. Wing Commander was the benchmark by which I measured many other games that came down thru the years (even non-space-sims). Between this game, Pool of Radiance and Railroad Tycoon, my gaming pedigree was established.

The man behind Wing Commander kinda disappeared for a while. But now he’s back.

And he’s crowd-funding his next project.

Watch his video explaining the project. He talks about how he could have signed with a publisher (with his street cred, publishers line up for him), but he doesn’t necessarily agree with current publishers’ visions of the future of gaming. He wanted to retain control of his own project and develop it for his beloved platform: PC.

God damn, we live in an exciting time! I see projects getting “crown funded” all the time on sites like Kickstarter nowadays. Creative people with great ideas can see their projects come to life and succeed/fail based on their own merits – rather than on some gatekeeper’s whim (sound familiar?). To see this sort of “do it yourself” invasion spread across many aspects of life today is truly inspirational. We self-published writers might have the best toolset of them all (Amazon, ’nuff said), but sites like Kickstarter and Gamecrafter are spreading the revolution into other creative avenues.

Bravo to these pioneers. And Bravo to Chris Roberts. I’ll be happily funding your project and eagerly await the release of Star Citizen (or whatever you call it in the end).

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Indie Game Dev – like self-publishing novels?

Wow, it’s been a while since my last post. Yup, been busy with my final edit on the graphic novel and revising Eden in prep for the audiobook (here’s hoping Audible.com says “yes”). Lots of great stuff happening!

So, the topic at hand: indie game development - is it similar to self-publishing a novel?

I never thought so, until now.

What changed? Very simply – there is a game under development right now that sounds like it is being made just for me. An endless adventuring sandbox devoid of 3d/realtime junkiness. A turn-based mashing of MMOG/CCG/RPG/TRPG.

Yep, that’s a whole ton of acronyms to describe the type of gameplay I’ve come to love in my older years.

I prefer “classic” turn-based RPG’s & Tactical-RPG’s like Poof of Radiance/Final Fantasy 1/Final Fantasy Tactics/Ogre Battle 64/Rogue-likes - but there are parts of them that I don’t enjoy. Character development is typically somewhat bland (except for the TRPG’s). Single-player only. Combat sometimes becomes tedious/bland. However, adding two elements of other games I love changes the whole equation: multiplayer and card-pulling randomness/deck tactics.

Pure awesomeness.

There have been some good online Collectible Card Games (CCG’s) as well – tops is the CCG in Free Realms. However, that’s all it really was. Sure, there were a few intro quests to gain cards, but it didn’t last. It soon became necessary to buy online booster packs and the game turned into straight-up duels and tourneys. Not bad (for a while) for those of us who like CCG’s, but it loses its steam when there’s nothing else to do besides duel.

Add some “adventuring” to the duels/card collection and we’re heading towards that pure awesomeness again!

The game? You want the name? Well, it’s not out yet but there are actually two in the works. Minecraft “Scrolls” (Bethesda lawsuit pending) and Card Hunter from Blue Manchu.  Card Hunter is very much on my radar and their leader (John Chey) had some interesting things to say in his last interview. His words really struck home and forced my pen to this blog.

“I really don’t know how I would sell this game to an investor or a publisher.” – John Chey, Blue Manchu

If you don’t know who John Chey is, well that’s not important. Suffice to say – he’s a big name, semi-granddaddy developer to many games all of us computer dorks have played (or at least heard of). He has worked on huge titles and has plenty of street cred. Instead of staying put where he was, he decided to strike out on his own so he could (presumably) make the games he wanted to make. Now, of course, he sold his share of the company he co-owned so he had the bank/contacts in place to launch his own endeavors. Some might argue that this is the only way to do it.

Well, I disagree.

There have been some great indie games from no-names as well as industry vets. Minecraft certainly came out of nowhere – almost 2 million copies in 2 years from a 1-man show “hobbyist”. If these guys (Markus, John, others) decided to either stay with their studio job or shy away from self-developing their games – where would we be? Same place we were back in the beginning of the computer gaming age (of which I have been a consumer from the start) – go see what’s on the shelf at Eastern Coin or Babbage’s.

Gosh, I cannot play games like Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Doom, Madden NFL 2kx, Gran Turismo (yes, I may have misspelled that and no, I’m not going to look it up) or The Sims for the rest of my life. While those games (and their many clones) are just fine, I have a deep, gnarled love for board games, CCG’s and tactical RPG’s. Fuck, tomorrow we’re all getting together for the Battlestar Galactica board game (in person, yes people still do that). I still contend Ogre Battle 64 for the N64 is the best game ever made (and I played it while recovering from surgery just last year). And I continually play the best damn CCG ever made (Jyhad).

However, never have I played all of these things together, mashed into one online game I can play with my friends. John Chey seems to think such a game would never exist in the world of big studios/budgets/expectations:

“My belief is that there is certainly room in the market, and an ability to reach groups of people that probably would have been hard to reach before, when you had to put things on the shelves and get distributors on-side. It’s just so much easier to reach people now that you don’t have to go for the biggest market possible. There is obviously no way that Card Hunter is ever going to compete with the big MMOs in terms of its audience, but it doesn’t have to.” – John Chey, Blue Manchu

So, thanks to an indie’s desire to see it happen – I’ll soon be able to play my dream game. Such a thing would never have been possible if everything I could purchase went through the “profitability filter” of some major game studio.

And so too: novels.

Why should we consumers of fiction be told what is acceptable and not acceptable for us to read? What if I’m into a certain type of book that hasn’t really been done to my tastes yet? Should I keep reading “what’s out there,” never fully satisfied? Why does someone else have the authority to “gate” my entertainment?

There’s so much disdain for self-published authors out there and I just don’t get it. I mean, if you’re into Elf Dragqueen/Centaur Stud paranormal romance, it’s a good thing you were born in this century! Chances are, someone’s writing something that nails a bullseye in your heart – the only difficult part is finding these things. Well, as long as the content keeps coming, at least we have a shot. Card Hunter might let me down like so many things I have banked my dreams upon in the past (*cough* Starwars ep. 1-3 *cough*). However, I’m glad it’s going to be available. There’s always the chance it hits that perfect string, just like the very few games I’ve been playing for the past 15-20 years.

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Coupons, Shelves and Platformers

In random order:

I’m now on Shelfari. That link gets you to my profile page so you can “friend” me. I’m trying to add all the books I’ve read, but it’s a slow process. Only the very good and very bad books are sticking in my memory, it seems. And I’m not a pack rat, so most of the books I’ve read in my life are gone. Anyway, if you are a Shelfari member, please ADD Eden and For Duty to your shelves! 5-star ‘em up and recommend to yer friends! (yes, I’m allowed to be shameless from time to time).

As you can see from my “shelf”, I’m reading Hunger Games now. It’s a post-apoc novel which is currently #1 on the Kindle sales list. To me, that means #1 in the world. Gotta do some research on my colleagues!

Coupons! Don’t have a hard cover version of my books yet? Tsk Tsk. They are quite snazzy, featuring Axel’s artwork on the jacket… really good stuff. Enter this code on Lulu to get 20% off: SUNSHINE305

Expires June 30. Click on the “Matt’s Books” tab here to find the link to the hardcovers.

As kind of an addendum to my “What I’m playing” blog post from last week, I’m now thoroughly hooked on Terraria. Like Minecraft, this game threatens to rule me for a spell. Gameplay is quite similar to Minecraft, but it is a 2D Platformer. (if you are not a geek, see the link)

Our budding outpost in Terraria - like my goggles?

Where do I start with this one? Well, as I said, it’s quite similar to Minecraft. You break blocks, form structures and craft all manner of items. However, Terraria has a very robust combat / adventuring system. It also boasts some neat and different weapons / tools (boomerang!). And it certainly has more of an “adventury” feel to it. Again, one of my buds stood up a server and we can login anytime to continue to explore and/or build some neat things.

Two thumbs up and over the rainbow for this one!

That’s all for now, I guess. I do have the first few pencils in for Eden’s graphic novel and I’m psyched to start sharing some of that with y’all. I know it’s a huge project, so here’s hoping Andres sticks with us through the end! He is an exceptional artist and I’m lucky to have found him.

I’m all settled in the new house, so work on Babylon is starting up again. I will have the 1st draft done by the end of the summer, for sure. If not, feel free to corner me in any airport and punch me in the nuts… I won’t fault you.

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What I’m Playing (June 2011)

Time for an update!

Yup, I’m always playing games and here’s the latest. You may also notice that I change games more often than most people change their underwear. It’s my curse.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online (MMO)

I keep returning to this game with a few friends. This and City of Heroes seem to be my staples over the past 5-ish years. Why? Not sure.

For Pirates, I think it has to do with the core gameplay. The graphics stink. The performance is often choppy. Some things are still bugged, even after all these years. But no other game can offer the sheer amount of mmo fun that comes from everyone hopping onto the same ship and sinking other ships. One player is the “captain” and everyone else can fire deck guns and repair the ship via mini games. Star Trek Online completely missed the mark – the devs for that failboat really should have looked at what Disney Online did here.

While everyone in Pirates certainly can pilot their own ships, it’s far more fun to all cooperatively sail on one ship. As the captain steers, broadsides and does other captainy stuff, everyone else scrambles around the deck firing cannonballs into enemy hulls. Yeah, it’s just great physics fun like Spank the Frank. (just click on the link – I’m not feeling that spunky tonight… it’s safe)

Enemy NPC Flagships require you to disable them and then board to fight the crew. Um… if that doesn’t put a rise in yer pantaloons, I don’t think you can talk games with me any longer:

No other game offers this, matey.

Pirates of the Caribbean Online: give it a look-see, it’s free to try.

 

Dominions 3

 

Yup, still playing it. Our last game took a few months to complete and I’m happy to report I was a co-winner. I made the map for the next game and we’re up to twelve players! That’s a whole lotta geek.

 

I cannot think of another 4x PBEM strategy game that has kept my interest this long. Master of Magic and Civ come close… but MoM was single player only and Civ pitboss suffered from an unforgivable exploit. Nope, Dom3 is the best of them all.

 

Notice a theme? Graphics count for shit when it comes to the quality of any computer game. FACT.

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Tuesday Grab Bag: Now with more geek!

First Interview for Antaran Legacy Published!

Check it out here. My favorite self-quote: “Do you really think white guys named “Matthew” and “Luke” were running around the Middle Eastern desert two thousand years ago?”

Gosh darnit - I’m a funny guy. Sacrilegious? Nope – that’s the truth!

It’s actually a great interview, full of my personal thoughts about the Antaran Legacy and how the story relates to my own life. Be sure to check it out!

T-Minus 3 days to move

Wow, we got rid of so much shit. I’m so proud of my wife… I’ve converted her from “packrat” to “chuck it!” mentality. The mind-altering drugs I’ve been slipping into her wine over the years have finally started to work!

I did come across some more geeky things while packing my office. Warning: this shit is OLD:

Ahh, Pool of Radiance. That game changed my life. It set the bar for everything I played afterwards. And, yup, even as a kid I was a dirty cheater. I still have the cluebook and I used it most recently around 2001-2002 when I coded The Inn of the Drunken Skald, a Neverwinter Nights persistent online world (we were #1 for a long, long time). In the original, I remember hiring mercenaries and getting them killed to take their magical stuff. I recall Sokal Keep and the dozens of orcs you had to kill all in one fight. So many warm memories from this granddaddy RPG…

Speaking of RPGs with grey hairs, that’s my original install disc for Everquest! Somehow, I still have it. I suppose it holds its nostalgic value to me because it was the first 3D mmorpg I played. It launched many games for my group of friends, including the eventual WoW addiction (of which I have made a full recovery). My most vivid memories from EQ include “training” our dark elf guards onto the humans and gnomes who attacked our guards near the outskirts – choo choo! There was no direct pvp, so that had to suffice. A GM eventually put a stop to our actions, though we felt justified. I also recall staring at female ogre ass-crack during most adventures…  

What’s that last little thing up in the corner? Yup, playing cards for the best Collectible Card game I’ve ever played: Free Realms. While not as ancient as the other items here, it is the height of geekdom to order playing cards with yer mmorpg character on them.

Yup… get it out now.

I’m that guy. I just can’t bring myself to chuck them. The game is stellar, though it has no support from Sony Online Entertainment anymore. If you try to argue with me that another CCG is better, I will punch you in the nuts. Well, okay, Jyhad/V:tES is better when played with 3+ players. But, nothing can beat the dueling gameplay in the Free Realms CCG!

Ta Ta for now!

More radio silence from me as I move the 7 lifeforms in my house to another house. SEVEN?! Damn, we might need to cull the herd. Simplify, simplify…

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Bronx Zoo Cobra Found! (m1k3 as well…)

Your Snarkiness is back!

After a grueling 5 weeks of Statistics class and being on and off sick (still coughing… yay suppressed immune system!), I am back with  a few musings.  I’ve been mostly involved in schoolwork and my job moving further away, thus stealing more hours of my day in commuting, but yet I have still been consuming – taking in media when I can and trying to make sense of our kooky world.

So a couple quick things.  Yeah… I was rooting for the Cobra never to be found and for it to continue to make me laugh as it lurked around New York City.  I mean, I know Cobra’s are supposedly “dangerous” and all, but I don’t live in NYC, so it might as well amuse me instead.  Seriously – considering some of the other news of the world – a cobra winning the hearts of NYC is the feel good story.

Secondly – have you read Jane McGonigal?  Or listened to her speak.  She’s got some really interesting things to say about how games could save the world.  Not a joke, not even kinda.  I bought Reality is Broken and I’m working my way through it (I love books and reading, but I am admittedly a very slow reader).  I’ll have more to say about her when I finish it.  Go check it out and prepare some notes so we can talk about it.

What I really wanted to talk about today is neat link that is floating around the Twittersphere,

The advice here is second to none.  I know that Matt is usually the one to come by here and share creative advice, and he’s the more accomplished in that arena, but this struck me when I read it.  I was going to just send him the link to read, but I figured his blog was a little blah lately, so maybe I would drop by and add a little spice to it.

I admit, freely, to being a hack.  I steal, steal, steal and make ideas my own.  Nothing new is out there.  I really believe that.  Creativity isn’t about coming up with something new.  That shit is for scientists.  Artists don’t do that.  What artists do is take something that already exists and make it better.  We tinker with ideas until that great thing that you saw that inspired you is now something you are proud of and are brave enough to call your own.

I never heard of this guy before, but Austin Kleon is my new F’n hero.  Everything he said in his post makes sense to me and I fully advocate.

Anyway, when you’re done reading all that above (and you should, since I have commanded it), I have to ask… have you read The Antaran Legacy, Book 1:  For Duty? Well, if you have, you should review it.  Say nice things.  Here’s a suggestion – “Mr. Plourde writes about women so well, I think he might have lady parts.”  Or you know, something like that – you’re creative now – come up with something great!

m1k3

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My life is over: Minecraft

Luckily my hotel internet blows and I cannot play at nighttime this week. Otherwise, I would be fully digital by now.

What the frak is Minecraft?

This, the frak, is Minecraft:

Our budding castle / town

Okay, let’s check-off the things on “Matt’s Wacky Game Requirements List”:

- Sandbox? This game is the ultimate.

- Permanence? Yup, we already have a server.

- Simple, yet fun? Minecraft embodies this.

- Vomit-inducing graphics? You bet!

So, what do you do? Well, quite simply, you mine and craft. Brilliant! And no, this isn’t stupid, repetitive, level-up crafting existent in massively multiplayer online games. You change the landscape, drastically.

From something like this:

To something like this:

Here’s how it works. The game generates a random world roughly 8 times the size of earth. You enter the universe with nothing but your fists and your blocky, digital avatar.

From there, you punch trees (fuck yeah!) until you have enough wood to craft some crude tools: axe, pick, shovel, etc. With those tools, you mine deeper and find different types of materials to build whatever your imagination can conjure, lego-style. Castles? Underground cities? Squid aquarium? City in the sky? Powered train that transports materials/players from one city to another? CHECK and CHECK, to everything and more.

The game allows your imagination to run wild without imposing too many rules. The gameworld does cycle between day and night (roughly 10 minutes each), and the monsters come out at night! Your best tactic is to head indoors or somewhere safe. You can kill them with crafted weapons, but there’s no experience/levelling/grind. So, there’s not too much reason to fight them (besides fun) if you can avoid it. Of course, you could develop clever traps to kill them for you. 

I’ve played creative sandbox games many times in the past, but they’ve all been single player. The cooperative elements of the Minecraft server may just prove to be something quite special.

I’m just a noob, so I won’t bore you with any more of my own screenshots (the only one from our server was that 1st one). Maybe I will in the future, if I blog about Minecraft again. In the meantime, there’s a hole that needs to be dug.

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What I’m playing/watching: March 2011 edition

Television

Just finished Firefly on Netflix again. Still the best show ever put on the air. Period. (do I need to say “period” after I end the sentence with a period?) Be sure to check out Mr. Boucher’s post about the effort to get the show back on the air.

I also finally got the chance to catch up on No Ordinary Family recently. Ya know, The Cape failed to impress me but I’m a sucker for superhero crap. I’ve had No Ordinary Family on my DVR for a while now and it’s certainly an on-again/off-again affair. But as a whole, I do enjoy the series. Sure, there’s a fair amount of cheese, but the characters often react like I’d expect them to. I wouldn’t say I’m a “fan” yet, but I’m getting there. I see the potential and I hope it does better than the massive letdown that was Heroes. Comics/superheroes have an important place in our culture and I’m excited to see a mini-revival on primetime TV.

Games

I downloaded a Magic: The Gathering game over steam while I was at a LAN party this past weekend. Yeah, I was one of those geeks during the first wave of Magic to buy cards and compete in local tournaments. Though newer TCG’s (trading card games) are far better than Magic, somehow Magic has endured. Well, this game (Duel of the Planeswalkers, I think) appealed to me because it had a cooperative mode! However, the co-op mode was local only (required me to plug-in a gamepad – what the shit is that?). So, we’ll see how long I play it alone… likely not much.

On the topic of computer TCG’s, I wish Freerealms continued to develop their card game. And made it a browser game. Sadly, that great TCG hasn’t been updated in over a year but it’s the best one I’ve ever played. I logged in yesterday to see if they’ve made any improvements/added card sets. Nope, it’s stale. So sad.

I’m fiddling around with another Computer TCG called Elements the Game. My reactions went something like this:

This sux.

This is just like Magic… it sux.

… wait, there might be something here!

I cannot say how long I’ll be playing, but I like the speed and depth of strategy in the game. To make it more fun for me, I will avoid the forums.

Elements the Game

Of course, I’m also still playing Dominions 3 with my crew.

Sky Hawk

Have you voted on yer favorite yet?

What? You haven’t read them yet? Here, I’ll even make it easy for you:

Matt’s story

Mike’s story

Oh, and because I missed a “travel” post yesterday, here’s me & the colonel for your viewing pleasure:

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Low Impact Games – a list for 2011

Last week I shared my epiphany about our busy lives and where gaming has fit into everything for me.

This week, I’ll actually deliver the goods – a list of low impact games!!

Why part 1? Well, I’m semi-famous for my fickleness (fickle-ocity? ficklemindedness?), so the chances of me finding and adopting more of these types of games in the future is as certain as the dinosaur apocalypse if they are successful in cloning that wooly mammoth.

Anyway, here we go!

Civilizations 4 Pitboss: We played this in my group for about a year. I’ve been playing Civ since the first installment and I was quite enamoured with Civ4. It retained that “just one more turn” feeling while adding some great enhancements to the franchise. Plus, it’s in a genre that appeals to a wide audience.

We rounded up a crew (8 to 10 peeps, IIRC) and I erected a pitboss server. The way pitboss works is simple: you have 24 hours to take your turn, and you login to the pitboss server to do so! Very clean and easy, no email involved. While you are logged-in, the game is working in real-time. So, if several people login at once, they will see each other’s troop movements right on the screen. Kind of a strange way to handle a traditionally PBEM (play by email) game, but it worked great!

… or so we thought.

You see, with other games of this type (traditionally played PBEM), everyone submits their turn before the turn ends and the game processes all of those commands at once. There are rules for handling all of this “simultaneous” junk, and everything is resolved fairly.

Not so much in Civ4 Pitboss. A savvy player may quickly realize that they can “double-turn” – that is, wait for everyone else to take their turn and then login to take theirs. Once they are done with their first turn, the pitboss server “rolls” to the next turn. Well, that player is still logged-in, so they can immediately take their second turn. This effectively allowed them a huge advantage, especially in times of war. In the end, this small but important fact killed Civ4 Pitboss for my crew. Perhaps Civ5 will correct this fatal flaw. 

Dominions 3 PBEM: Check out these graphics and tell me you’re not drooling:

Graphics don't make the game...

If I looked at the back of this box on the shelf at a game store, I would have likely moved on. Shit, what am I saying? Stores don’t sell computer games now… or, if they do, the games have been moved to the back corner, on a rickety, cobwebbed shelf. Sigh, console games rule the shelf-space these days. I recall a time when it wasn’t so…

Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t judge this game by it’s screenshots. I’ve played almost every fantasy 4x game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate). My early days include Master of Magic, Fantasy General, Heroes of Might/Magic and many others (too many to name or recall). Take this on good authority:

Dominions 3 beats the pants off all of them.

Now, I’m not so keen on playing Dom3 in single-player mode (there’s a ton of micromanagement), but the multiplayer is top-notch.  With over 20 nations to choose from in each “age” (there are 3 ages you could play in) and endless “Pretender God” designs you could make – the game really lets you sink your teeth into it. Unlike other 4X games that boast different races/faction, Dom3 actually delivers. Each nation (for the most part) plays wildly different than the other nations. Add in all the various Pretender designs for each nation (your pretender is your avatar/leader), and Dom3 provides a level of customization unmatched by any other game out there.

Beyond the nation design, you also have a ton of leeway in designing your armies. You recruit commanders and troops (which are unique to each nation). As you conquer neutral provinces, you can recruit more types of troops/commanders (unique to the neutral faction). You can research magic to construct items to give to your commanders, and/or summon troops to fight alongside your normal troops. After you have all of that together, you place your commanders and troops on the battlefield and script orders for them!  

How is this a low impact game? Well, someone was nice enough to stand-up a game server to handle the turns and emails. We set our times to 48 hours (so, 1 turn every 2 days) and we let it ride! Currently, 7 of us are playing a game that has lasted a few months and it is fantastic.

2 black marks against Dom3:

- There is no built-in diplomacy. The game is meant to be played as a war game, so I understand where the devs are coming from. But, in a 4x PBEM game, you kinda need some sort of diplomacy system…

- Like many other games of this type, it is “elimination based”. So, if you are out on month 1, you get to wait for a few months. There are variants that play by a “victory point” system, but our group isn’t that advanced quite yet

Even with these black marks, Dom3 is a winner. If you enjoy Fantasy 4X PBEM, you must give it a try.

Die2Nite: I’ve been playing “browser” games since before the internet. Games like Solar Realms, Arena and Wastelands. Die2Nite is a zombie apocalypse survival game that works a tad differently.

With some other browser games, there are usually both cooperative and competitive elements. I’ve played a bunch of them (including another zombie apoc browser game), and Die2Nite has a great balance.

In this game, you will die. A lot. You join a town with 40 other human players and work to scavenge the wasteland and build up your town to survive the NPC zombie attack each day at 5pm EST. You can be helpful to the town, or you can hoard resources/defenses for yourself. Of course, the town could banish you (or hang you from the gallows). Everything you do is logged on your “soul” and you can track your achievements from town to town in this way.

In my opinion, Die2Nite is going in the right direction and it epitomizes low impact gaming. You spend a few minutes each day scavenging/building/saving other citizens, coordinate with your fellow citizens, and then you  login after the attack to see if you survived. Great stuff.

Like Dom3 and Civ4 Pitboss, Die2Nite isn’t without it’s flaws:

- You must use Firefox as your browser, and it’s twitchy Flash… grrr, dump Flash already people!

- It’s EXPENSIVE if you want to “play as a hero”. Way too expensive for a browser game. I play for free…

- Griefers can ruin any town you are in, especially if there are several of them and they are organized. The devs are making strides to curb griefers tho.

Looking for a quick gaming fix with exciting events each day? Die2Nite is yer game!   

 City of Heroes: What the frig is a MMO doing on this list? I thought you said MMO’s weren’t low impact, Matt? You lie! You’re going to Hell!

Settle down, skippy. There are a choice few MMO’s that can be played with a group in a low impact manner. Lemme explain.

Most MMO’s cannot be played in a casual group because one douchebag will be level 70, some will be level 30 and one slow poke will be level 5. It’s just inevitable in a MMO for people to play at their own pace.

Most MMO’s require a large deal of “travel time” to get to an adventuring spot. Granted, there are plenty of casual MMO’s that have virtually no travel time, but the most popular one (WoW) has significant travel times associated with it. Want to jump in for 15 minutes in WoW and accomplish something? Not likely…

Other MMO’s won’t let you ever see the end game loot unless you are part of an organized guild and you RAID RAID RAID! Raiding takes hours of time, many nights a week. That’s not low impact. Part of the fun of MMO’s is molding your character through gear into the exact killing machine you want to play. If you are gated from the gear, you may lose interest in continuing to build your character.

City of Heroes (CoH) hurdles over each of these obstacles with grace and style.

Is your crew at vastly different levels/points in the game? No worries. CoH seamlessly and invisibly changes your level to match the current mission. We routinely roll with a group of 2 level 50 toons, 1 level 30 toon, and 1 or 2 below level 20 toons. The mission scales to the mission owner and everyone on the team immediately gets raised or lowered to that level. I know of no other MMO that does this – if you do, please feel free to leave a comment!

Travel time? No problem in CoH. Not only is travel time quite fast, but you can make it even quicker with travel powers, day job rewards, and supergroup base teleporters. When we group-up to play, travel time is typically less than 2 minutes (to get everyone together).

LEWT! Gimme the phat lewts! You don’t need to beat Boss X at the end of Raid X to get a certain piece of loot. On any mission, the rarest of loot can drop for you. There is no “bind on pickup” bullshit either (except for incarnate shards, but those can drop from ANY mob in the game).

On any given weeknight, a handful of my crew can login to CoH and be delivering justice within minutes. Our level differences don’t matter, and we’re always building both our individual characters and working on the Supergroup.

Yes, CoH is a low-impact MMO.

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Back to the table!

So, as I attempt to bring tabletop gaming back to my group of friends, I had kind of an epiphany:

We, as Americans, need to get back to the table.

There’s something communal, nostalgic and right about gathering around a table as humans. The task could be as simple as eating a meal or as complicated as setting a budget for a fortune-100 company. We’ve been doing it since tables have been around and we Americans have recently been migrating away from it. The Digital Age commands us to accomplish a zillion tasks at once, to work until our eyes bleed and to physically isolate ourselves while we remain connected via technology.

Well, I don’t think the technological link is enough. Nothing replaces the table!

The dinner table: We cannot multitask. No, really - our brains cannot “parallel process” like we think they can:

[from the linked article] “The human brain, with its hundred billion neurons and hundreds of trillions of synaptic connections, is a cognitive powerhouse in many ways. But a core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.”

Who deserves your attention? The TV? Your family? Your significant other? Well, they all get about half your attention and that’s just shitty. Do the people you live with deserve your attention? Ahem, that may be another argument altogether.

I just believe you make a better connection with your family if you take some time to actually be with each other on a consistent basis. Crazy, I know! The act of sharing a meal goes way back – farther than recorded history. Though I’d never propose we follow anything based upon ingrained tradition alone, I think this one is a keeper. That time without any external influences (I suggest even ignoring the damn phone) can strengthen those important family bonds.

No time to make the dinner table? Yeah, I know that one recently as I have begun to travel for work. In this case, it may be unavoidable. However, make the best use of the time you do have at home and insist upon that table being full.

Live alone? Give yourself a few moments of silence. Step away from the computer or TV. Embrace some silence. You may or may not like it, but you won’t know until you give it a fair shake. Silence may just sneak up and surprise you. I know it does me, every time.

The gaming table. This next bit may or may not apply to you. Here’s an easy test:

What does THAC0 stand for?

If you cannot answer that, congratulations! You were likely more popular than I was in school. If you are a dude, you probably touched a woman’s breast years before some of us did (and some of us may still be waiting). If you are a chick, maybe you actually got asked to the prom.

If you *can* answer that question, I’m so sorry… you are like me. You have played tabletop roleplaying games at some point in your life. Chances are, you may have abandoned gaming. Perhaps your interests have shifted. Maybe you moved away from your buds. Whatever the reason, many people in my age category (mid-30′s) have lost their way – tragically separated from the table. They may still play computer/console games, but the table is a distant memory.

I have played roleplaying, board and card games throughout my life. However, until recently, I was strictly playing computer games. Then, slowly, we began to emerge from the darkness.

We discovered some fantastic board games like Settlers of Catan, Battlestar Galactica and Last Night on Earth (I cannot personally take credit for any of these discoveries). And very recently we started playing the Serenity Tabletop RPG. 

Though computer games fill an important niche (on-demand-gaming), nothing can replace the experience of the tabletop. To look your opponent (or ally) in the eyes as you destroy (or help) them is exhilarating. The act of moving pieces or playing cards provides a tactile component that’s missing from the computer screen (and skype conference). The whole experience is richer and more alive when you have everyone at the table.

The simple act of gathering around a table to eat or play a game may prove complicated in your life. But, if you are able, I urge you to try to make the effort. The rewards outweight the inconvenience in our fast-paced, American lives.

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