Build Your Own Adventure

The kind of game I love best is the one that lets me tell my own story - or one that helps me build a new one.

Most games tell a story, of course. However, it is pre-written, with the player simply going through the motions of the narrative. If the game designers have done their job, "going through the motions" is a lot of fun - take Half-Life, for instance.

Then there are those games which give the player some control over the minutia or even the outcome of the story. Deux Ex is a favorite, though the "multiple endings" part was pretty weak. However, through your actions you could definitely affect various game events.

I have yet to play a great game where the player can have truly dramatic impact on the story itself; Understandably, as this kind of feature would be a massive undertaking as the chaos effect takes over - each choice begets more choices (branches within branches within branches). Still, it would be fun to see it pulled off.

More and more, though, I find that my favorite games are all ones which have no built-in narrative at all, but they serve very well for letting me create my own. Recently (well, in the last few months) I've been playing the hell out of a game called Crusader Kings II. This is a grand strategy game partially in the vein of Europa Universalis (same studio, I think) - however, the "personal politics" portion of the game has been expanded dramatically, and it is beautiful. You can start as Holy Roman Emperor or as a lowly count, and from there you try to expand your lands, accrue titles, keep your vassals in line, and avoid conquest by rival powers. Arrange political marriages, grow the prestige of your family dynasty, install friendly claimants upon various thrones, etc etc.

My first game saw me take the reigns of Hungary in the year 1066. I conquered parts of Croatia, then was stomped into the dust by the Ottomans. However, my character was not relieved of my ducal titles, so I still ruled a duchy within the Ottoman Empire. I navigated the politics of this foreign conqueror successfully enough, and the senior branch of the Árpád dynasty adopted Egyptian culture. Later on I sabotaged the internal politics of the Empire (yes, you can do that) enough so that I and a number of other territories declared our independence. I went on to reconquer Hungary's old territory and reclaim the crown, and then some. By the time the game ended in 1450, Hungary was one of the preeminent kingdoms in the world, controlling both her traditional lands as well as most of Croatia, Serbia, and parts of the Balkans - including, in the closing years, claiming Constantinople in a Crusade and creating the Latin Empire.

Phew. Now that was a helluva story (no doubt more fun played than retold in brief, but you get the point).

And that's only one game. Plenty of others exist and give totally different experiences and types of stories to cook up. Mount and Blade and Dwarf Fortress are another couple of favorites. Dwarf Fortress, especially, is famous for delivering some of the most hilarious and twisted stories gaming has to offer.

More like SimShitty, eh? Eh?

An interesting thread here on reddit supporting my suspicion that at least some of the worst changes to SimCity (always-on DRM and tiny maps) were either late changes to the game forced on the dev team or taken out in order to provide for DLC later on.

Not the way to make a game, folks. Not the way at all. And implementing the changes in Javascript, client-side? That's just bizarre.

SimCity: A Lament

It's been very sad to see the kerfuffle surrounding the recent SimCity launch. Although at least it gave me the excuse to use the word "kerfuffle."

SimCity is a venerable brand. I've played many of them, including an old SNES version which, as I recall, was actually my introduction. The engineer in me loves learning the systems and making things run along, and solving problems when they come up (in fact, my biggest complaint is that SimCity never gave you enough realistic problems to deal with). SimCity 4 was fantastic, introducing the regions that you could tie together with various transport methods. I spent stupid amounts of time just sculpting landscapes.

Of course, EA wasn't content to let a good game be made. They wanted to engineer a revenue stream, making sure their players' gametime was filled with "oppurtunities" to buy extra stuff RIGHT AWAY. Hence the always-on connection requirement. More control, larger audience, more ways to suck the cash out of the customer. EA has grown so large they've lost the institutional focus on actually providing great games. I feel sorry for the folks at Maxis. I'm certain a lot of these "features" were demanded from on high.

This reminds me of what happened with SPORE, the Will Wright masterpiece that ended up being a pretty hum-drum little disappointment. Reading Will Wright's vision for the game and seeing some of their early demos, the game looked amazing. Plenty of buzz was building. In steps EA with DRM demands and modification designed to make the game "accessible."

In case you haven't cracked the code, accessible generally means boring. I've heard from several people that SimCity - in the brief moments they can play it - is also pretty shallow compared to earlier versions.

EA, please stop ruining good games. Stop "suggesting" changes. Stop demanding fussy DRM. People, stop pre-ordering games from EA. How many times do they need to abuse your trust before they lose it?

I never did buy SimCity, even though I was hopeful that it would turn out well. SPORE (along with others) taught me a valuable lesson, and I never pre-order games anymore. I've begun to back some on Kickstarter - we'll see how that turns out in the long run.

Hedmund's Armor

I used to draw a fair amount, but I never got particularly good at drawing anything except melee weaponry. Every now and then I managed to sketch a pretty good dragon. It's frustrating to see images so clearly in my mind and somehow not be able to translate that into a good image.

Thus, when I do manage to sketch something in nearly the fashion it existed in my head, I get very excited. Sadly, I often manage the best drawings on the worst mediums - in the margins of text books or at the top of class notes, for instance. Never in the center of a nice clean white sheet of paper...

I've been doodling Hedmund's scale armor (from The Giant of the Tidesmouth) for ages now. Somehow, this one time I got it almost right. For any real artist it's mediocre - for me it's hall of fame. Thus, I share it with you all. Yes, it was drawn on a yellow legal pad - I tried to clean it up a bit in GIMP, but the end result looked worse than simply sharing the direct scan.

I present to you Hedmund's Armor:

Hold the laughter, please. I'm proud of it.

Could Apple Beat Orange in a Fight?

I'm going to ram my head into the wall every time I see another "Gandalf vs. <Some other wizard/magic-user>" discussion. Seriously, I can't stand them. Generally for phenomena that exist purely for fun I can put aside the logical quibbles I have with them, but this one is just so.... so fundamental I can't help but be driven crazy by it.

To every fanboy out there: Unless you are arguing about characters within the same mythos (and preferably written by the same author - looking at you here, Star Wars fans) you have no basis for comparison. I can't tell you whether Gandalf would win in a fight against Voldemort, because the entire fundamental rules of their realities are different.

If I'm being glib I'll just pick the character I like better, but if someone were to - in all seriousness - ask me to decide the question, I'd demand a lot of money for all the time I'm going to need to spend constructing the logical/physical/magical framework that translates one world into another. Most of that would be pulled straight from down under, and thus the decision is still arbitrary.

Technically the same applies even to mundane warriors, though at least there you can kind of trust that they need to follow basic physics. However, given the prevalence for fiction authors (myself included) to have their characters do some pretty improbably stuff, they become just as impossible to compare.

Playing with the Price

I'm considering conducting another experiment with pricing. In the course of the last experiment I noted little to no difference in my sales. Of course, my sales are still slow enough that I have only a few data points to go on, and chances are price isn't really influencing them in the first place.

This time, however, I may accompany the pricing experiment with a few announcements on various boards and social networkings sites. It's been over six months since the book was released and I rarely mentioned it (save here on the blog) - I figure I've earned myself the right to do a little advertising.

The Players and the Masters

I have always wanted to get into some form of pen-&-paper RPG. It seemed to be right up my alley - a medium where my love of storytelling and performance dovetailed nicely with my love of cooperation, competition and emergent experiences. Combined with a few like-minded individuals I thought this kind of gaming would make for hours of memorable entertainment.

Sadly, I only ever gave it one try, and it turned out that the group of people who'd invited me were not so much interested in the roleplay or storytelling aspects. Rather, they were the D&D equivalent of powergamers. They were after the loot and the experience points, and their Dungeon Master obligingly doled them out. Every character went up one level per adventure, they said. Every character got one piece of new useful equipment.

I tried to mix it up a bit, which weirded them out to no end. When my half-elven fighter tried to fling a bronze gong at an orc, they were pretty stumped.

To be fair, it wasn't really until I met these guys that I clarified what I was looking for in a pen-and-paper experience. I suppose, when it comes right down to it, I would actually prefer a malign dungeon master to a benign one. I don't want a steady flow of loot and treasure - I want challenge, danger and adventure. I want a world that responds to my inventiveness.

No doubt it is my evolving love of storytelling that has led me to think I would enjoy the role of the Dungeon Master more than the Dungeon Delver. I tried to learn the rules of D&D - but frankly, I think they've become too convoluted for pen and paper. They are now native to the realm of computer gaming, which is really where all my familiarity comes from. Lately I've been looking up other rulesets which tend more towards simplicity. There have been plenty recommended to me - Seventh Sea and Burning Wheel being two prominent candidates - but I haven't shaken the feeling that I probably won't be happy until I've designed my own. So I've set out to do exactly that.

I don't know when. I don't know with whom. But someday I will lead a selection of adventurers through a terrible and wonderful landscape. Oh yes I will.

A Fantasy Author in a College Creative Writing Course

As some of you know, I am nearing the end of what has been a very, very long journey to a college degree. In that time I have majored in three different subjects and accumulated enough credits to earn a pair of degrees (albeit if those degrees had requirements as eclectic as my own tastes).

However, despite my copious and varied experience in college and despite the fact that I have been writing fairly steadily since I was ten, I have never once taken a creative writing course - until now.

Why? Because fantasy writers do not fit in with academic creative writings courses. Because Science Fiction writers do not fit in with academic creative writing courses. And, to a certain extent academic creative courses are not designed to create professional authors. They are designed to create professional "critics and academics," as the excellent Kathleen Rush puts it. I will let her blog posts (which I just linked) do the heavy lifting on those assertions. Suffice to say that I agree with her on most points in which I have any basis for comparison.

This semester, however, I decided to take a chance on a creative writing course. On the one hand, thus far it seems pretty nice. I get to write whatever I want, as much or as little, and the prof will attempt to grade me based on the portfolio of work I have submitted by the end of the class.

On the other hand, it does not seem that the class is going to overturn any of the preconceptions I had about a college-level creative writing course. After sharing some of my first submission to the class, the professor was upfront about not 'getting' why people read Fantasy. It struck me as an odd question from a college literary professor.

People read their preferred genre for a lot of reasons, but I've always believed that the basis for every genre is the same. Characters that feel real to us, and a story that entertains us.

I should say that he was in no way condescending. I actually rather like the professor; to a large extent because of how honest he was about his lack of understanding. But there has never been a genre that I simply did not get the appeal of. It may not hold that same appeal for me, but I can at least begin grasp why others read it.

I digress. My point is not to say that I think the class is bad - in fact, I think I will enjoy it. Partially because of my little ongoing experiment to see how an author like myself is received in a class like this. (I may even try to stray outside of my own genres, to give them a rest and maybe even to grow a little as an author). However, as I suspected, I'm the black sheep of the class - at least at first glance. And I don't really expect there to be much concern with how to get work published despite the fact that we have several talented writers and at least one whom I know is concerned with publication.

It ought to be an interesting semester. I might even try submitting some things I intend to publish.

A few clerical details

While I mentioned I might not be too concerned with promotion this year, there are a few little administrative details I intend to invest some time in. A self-publisher is basically a small business, and it would probably be a good idea to add a little more method to my madness. So, here's what's on the docket vis a vis organizational improvements:

Set Up a Clear File Structure for Ebook Files
I made a couple quick attempts at this, but I really need to go through and standardize how I store my eBook versions and master copies - for instance, so I don't need to fix typos in multiple versions of a file. This one should be quick once I actually get around to it.

Set Up a Mailing List
After reading one of David Gaughran's posts last year I went ahead and signed up for a (free) Mailing List management service called MailChimp - but I still haven't gotten around to configuring it, or really learning anything about it at all.

Set up an Accounting Spreadsheet
Amazon and Smashwords create large and data-rich spreadsheets on earnings and sales. That's great and all, but I intend to maintain a rather simpler one containing only the crucial data for fast reference.

Improve Existing Ebooks
Not exactly administrative, but related. Mainly I intend to prepare a somewhat longer author's statement to include in the end of my ebooks. The blurbs I have right now seem a bit hasty.

Diablo III, Rant II: "The Lord of Error"

This won't be as long as the other one, I promise.

First of all, I was entirely correct in that, had Blizzard simply let me start playing on a higher difficulty level, I would have enjoyed the game far more.

Perhaps if I had stepped away from the game for a long while and come back and played it on the so-called Nightmare difficulty, I could have gotten a new sense of the story. Much like re-reading a book after many years, when you have forgotten many of the details. However, I wasn't about to do that. It's a new game and I'm gonna play it now.

I say again that the game and story are inextricably linked only on the first playthrough. On subsequent 'runs' nobody cares about the story. They don't stop and listen to the dialogue, and they probably don't even pause to watch the cinematic. Later playthroughs are not about atmosphere, or appreciating the finer points of the game - they are about loot and experience. The faster I can click on the hostile little bundles of pixels, the faster I can gather up both.

I covered a bit of how even the loot system feels cheapened in Diablo III, and I won't rehash the topic. Suffice to say that the blow to the story of Diablo III - which, while actually the least well-written of the three games, is still pretty entertaining - is almost unforgivable. I would have enjoyed it far, FAR more if I had merely been allowed to pick a higher difficulty setting from the beginning.

I know there are reasons for their choice. As a game designer myself I can see some of the logic behind it, but in my own humble, not-earning-billions-with-my-games opinion, I think they did it poorly.

Also, the permanent Battle.net connectivity requirement is a horrible decision as well. I'm basically writing this because I can't log in to Battle.net in order to play the game completely solo - because, despite its flaws it is still a decent game (and moreover, one I sunk $60 to pay for) and I'd rather be playing it than complaining about it.

Over My Dead Body

It is Memorial Day here in the States.

As holidays are wont to do, it got me thinking about the reason for the celebration. Various pictures thrown about on Facebook and Twitter kept me on the subject. Even when I wanted to retire into alcohol and grilled succulents, my mind remained on other topics: Death. Sacrifice. Service.

Anyone familiar with the genres of fantasy and science fiction will know that the authors thereof do not shy away from war. In fact, they invite it. Most of our books are set against the backdrop of some world-altering conflict. People die by the hundreds of thousands to give gravity to some plot.

Hundreds and thousands of people. Of course, in our narrative they are not people - they are characters. Not even that, actually. To refute Bob Seger, they are simply numbers.

I wonder, how many authors really think about the number of deaths they invoke a grim feeling in their world? Every now and again, I think about them. The young men who die in my imaginary wars are no different than those who die in our real ones. They feel a sense of duty, either to their nation or to the men and women around them. It keeps them on the line, on the bounce, and on the job.

Why?

I have known many soldiers. In my capacity as a martial arts instructor, I have trained many of them. Is there one defining trait I have found in all of them? No. Is there one overriding belief? No. These men and women, who risk their lives for causes both just and unjust, have been as varied as any other class of people I have ever met. Why, then, do they do it?

Perhaps I could try and answer the question, but I will not. I believe that days like to day are best spent not simply remembering - but thinking. I myself once thought of being a soldier. Ultimately, I decided not to enlist. But I have nothing but the most profound respect for those who did, and my conclusion was that the service I owed to those people was to ensure that they never risked their lives for an unjust cause. The only way I can affect that is with my solitary vote and voice. If they are sent to defend something, I mean to make damn well sure it is me they are defending, else they should not be sent.

Music Drives the Mood

I love the internet.

You can get pretty much anything you need on the internet, provided you're willing to be a little flexible. I'm recording an audio book trailer (still hoping to shoot a video one as well, but we'll see) and needed music. Sure enough, the wonderful Kevin McLeod has an entire site packed with high-quality, royalty free music.

Kevin, I cannot thank you enough.

Of course, that flexibility I mentioned comes in when I actually select a piece of music I want to go along with the audio trailer. The music, not the words, really determine the mood of the trailer, and I will need to change my delivery to make them work together instead of clash. No matter. I'm sure that somewhere within that library of work I can find something to match my tastes and deliver the proper feel.

It makes me realize, though, just how large a support network I'm going to need if I want to do this more often and with higher quality. Artists, actors, musicians... and that's just for the trailers.

Diablo III: When Storytelling and Gameplay Clash

*Diablo III spoilers ahead*

I just beat Diablo III. As it came out only a few days ago, and I only played it for ~15 hours so far, I definitely thought it went by too quickly.

It seems that Blizzard has designed this game experience to be like the 'high-level play' experience of World of Warcraft. That is to say - repetitive and grinding. To be fair, I have not looked into multiplayer very far, and know nothing about how PvP might work, but all in all, I admit to being disappointed with the end result.

The game itself was certainly fun, and I'm sure I'll continue having fun playing through on the higher level (Nightmare) difficulty. However, they should have given me the option to skip right to it. I didn't want an easy first run. I want to be challenged. Basically, they set up Normal difficulty as the tutorial - sadly, the tutorial happens to run through the entire game.

Had they let me skip the 'beginner' mode, I would have been far more satisfied with the game. It is hard to take the story (which is okay) and the grandiose cutscenes (which are phenomenal) seriously when I am tearing through the most powerful enemies Hell has to offer with a beam of destruction in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. I'm not even sure my wizard bothered to look at the terrible creatures he was annihilating.

One boss battle in the fourth act was especially laughable. I'm standing in the shattered ruins of Heaven itself while Diablo taunts me and tells me his most powerful servant, the Spikey Minion of Doom, lies ahead to stop me. I walk into the next room and said servant taunts me as well as our fight begins.

Spikey Minion died before his taunt had finished. Of course, the game didn't seem to expect this, as his coarse, arrogant voice kept playing even as I began to grab the magic loot off his spikey corpse. That sort of thing kind of detracts from the grandeur of the storyline. How am I supposed to take the fires of Hell seriously when I can snuff them like a match?

Even when playing through on Nightmare, if I decide to do that, won't restore the feel. I already know the story. I've seen everything the game has to offer. If the challenge had gone hand in hand with the discovery of the story itself, I would have been able to immerse myself in the titanic battle for the fate of all creation. As it was, I paid more attention to the magic items hemorrhaging from the holes I blew in the various demons than the demons themselves, even when they had fancy names and dialogue.

Some might say that collecting loot is what Diablo is all about - I'll even say they have a point. The story would have been great if I'd been challenged on my first play through (which is the only play through where story matters!) but oh well. As long as the rest of the gameplay is involving, I can forgive that failing.

Sadly, loot has been 'streamlined' to the point where it, as well, is boring. Magic items are now part of a harvesting system where you are expected to break most of them down for raw materials. That part ain't a big deal - they were common in earlier games too.

More damaging are the laughably named "rare" items, which by my guess drop about once every ten minutes. At first it was exciting to see those little gold names pop up, wondering what strange and powerful relic I had happened upon. By the end of the game they were no more exciting then any other item. Diablo III had managed to take the fun out of collecting loot. Rarity is a big part of the fun. If you remove that, you remove the whole point.

This post has gotten long... but I'm probably not done venting on the subject. I have been a fan of Blizzard since Warcraft (the original). I remember going to the mall for all seven of Starcraft's release dates. Though I quit World of Warcraft I still think it a well-done game.

Diablo III is, in my opinion, Blizzard's first stumble. Still a good game, had it come from any other company. But the bar for Blizzard is very high.

The Cabin in the Woods

I do not intend to turn this blog into a movie review blog, or anything of the sort, but this movie was so incredible I had to say something about it. I want to find the person who came up with the concept and shake their hand. It was such a hilarious send-up of the horror genre, with so much respect and love for its material, that I was actually cheering at the screen (sorry, other people in the theatre). I cannot recommend it enough.

In fact, it was so brilliant that I can't help but suspect that its areas of predictability (even when they were so-called 'twists') were intentional, and meant to be guessed at rather than truly surprising. Or maybe I'm just smart... either way, go see the movie.

I Want it All

Aside from being a great Queen song, the title of the post is also how I justify chasing all my dreams simultaneously. I've been putting a lot of time (and what little spare cash I have) into this self-publishing gig lately, and I intend to continue doing that.

Coming up, though, are some auditions for a local professional theatre. The chances of me getting picked up as either a regular or a one-off casting are both fairly slim - NOT because I'm not a good actor (I damn well am, and don't you forget it!) but because, well... let's face it. There's a lot of damn good actors out there, and oh-so-few paying roles.

Either way, I'm auditioning. If a hit a rare confluence of luck and skill, then I'll actually get a role out of it, and that will be awesome. It will bite into my writing time, and maybe even give me some hard decisions about my publishing timetable this year - but ya know what? That's one hard decision I very much want to have to make.

Wish me luck. :)

The Dark Age of Technology

I've always liked the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k universes. They were created to give a background narrative to tabletop battle games, and yet they have become incredibly deep, rich, and extensive. Who knew that the dystopian dreams of tabletop gaming nerds could be so compelling?

In Warhammer 40k (hereafter referred to, as in gaming culture, as simply '40k'), a part of the invented history is a time called the Dark Age of Technology. Ironically, it refers to a period in which the human civilization - the Imperium - was at its technological peak. Shortly after it experiences a long, catastrophic fall, and never recovers.

However, some of the relics of that bygone age still exist - and more importantly, still function. To a degree. They are maintained as much as possible by the technicians of the age, who - while they don't really understand HOW these things work - know just enough to KEEP them working. Entire planets sometimes depend on these machines.

I work in datacenters (big rooms where info-heavy institutions keep their main computer systems). Recently, in the basement of an older datacenter, a few machines were found, part of a system that nobody could seem to identify. It took almost a month to dig up the one person in the company who knew anything about the system - and it turns out, it was a very important system. It had been quietly humming along for ten years, forgotten by the people who were supposed to maintain it.

Kind of scary. If these machines had suddenly developed problems, it could have taken days, even weeks to fix it. We're talking about serious money lost, perhaps even jobs, because a company nearly let the so-called secrets of a machine pass out of its gestalt knowledgebase.

Obviously, this is not quite a parallel to the fictional world of 40k. These were old and obsolete machines - ten years in the world of computer systems is a few generations. We'd lost the knowledge of it because we'd since replaced them with far better models. Still, with the current dearth of science and math students in the western world, and with this experience, I suddenly wonder just how easy it might be for our society to slip into the strange scenario of depending on technology we don't understand anymore.