October 5, 2012
October 3, 2012
One for the (male) gaming geeks
A few Twitter updates from “Muskrat John” Kovalic (of Dork Tower and Munchkin fame):
Craigslist: “Topless female DM needed for Adult D&D bachelor party.” THAC0 indeed… http://t.co/JVZwVHzT (via @whisperjeff)
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
“Experience in 3.5 preferable.” God, I love the fact that they are edition-specific.
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
“Must be able to provide a picture including the face and body (No nudes please.)” <<— LAST thing you want, seeking a topless female DM.
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
@muskrat_john I think that is a good thing. Using 3.5 means no-one will be tempted to grapple.
— GragSmash@kind.social (@GeeCaret2) October 3, 2012
@muskrat_john What I'm most confused about is why they want her topless when you wouldn't be able to see her behind the screen.
— Morbus Iff (@morbusiff) October 3, 2012
“Each of us are gentlemen and will treat the Dungeon Master with the utmost of respect.” <— Which would be a first for D&D…
— Blue Czech Mark (@muskrat_john) October 3, 2012
https://twitter.com/GeekyGeekyWays/status/253497061922721793
September 29, 2012
He comes not to praise Mists of Pandaria but to bury it
A harsh review of the latest World of Warcraft expansion in the PC World gaming column:
As I’ve played the new WoW expansion this week and journeyed through the lands of Pandaria I’ve been struck by two seemingly contradictory facts: Blizzard has crafted the best expansion for World of Warcraft yet, and if I didn’t have a ton of friends playing the game I would likely never open up WoW again.
As if to stick the knife in further, he closes the column by praising some direct competitor games for various aspects, but one particular game comes in for the highest accolades:
This year has seen the release Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and The Secret World. Of those 3 only Guild Wars 2 has had any real success, but all three of them manage to innovate on WoW’s formulae in interesting ways. The Old Republic and The Secret World both tell better stories more ably than WoW did at the time (though with Mists of Pandaria it seems like Blizzard is catching up) and Guild Wars 2 manages to do something even more impressive.
It created an MMO I want to play not just with my friends, but with anyone.
When I see another player out questing in WoW I’m annoyed. I’m expecting them to grab my quest items, enemies and other resources for themselves. In theory I can group up with at least some of these players, but in practice they usually steal my kills and run off before I can click on them and ask them to join. Even if I do manage to do so, they have little incentive to join me; they’ve already gotten credit for the quest and have no reason to help me.
Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, rewards cooperation at every turn. Every player that contributes to a kill gets loot and experience even if they aren’t grouped together. Every player is rewarded for contributing to quest objectives even if other players contributed more. Every time another player shows up on your screen in PvE, that player can only help you.
September 28, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. The game is now a month old, and the community is still posting game-related blog posts, videos, podcasts, and fan fiction at a blistering pace.
September 27, 2012
Yahtzee Croshaw reviews Guild Wars 2
September 21, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My regular community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. In addition to the usual assortment of articles, videos and podcasts, there is the Mac OS X announcement, a flurry of whining over YouTube monetization, and good information on password security for players.
September 18, 2012
Guild Wars 2 to be available on Mac OS X
ArenaNet just announced that they will be releasing Guild Wars 2 for Macintosh computers (so you Mac heads now have no excuse for not playing Guild Wars 2):
Today we’re happy to announce another major milestone in the development of Guild Wars 2: going forward, ArenaNet will also be supporting the game on Apple’s Mac OS X. The Mac Beta client is available immediately for all Guild Wars 2 players. It shares the same features and connects to the same live game servers as the PC client. Anyone who purchases Guild Wars 2 can now play it on both PC and Mac.
Bringing Guild Wars 2 to the Mac is huge for us, because it introduces the game to an entire group of players who are often ignored by game developers. The ability to play together with your friends is one of the underlying principles of Guild Wars 2, and providing a Mac client means that friends and guildmates can play together regardless of what operating system they favor.
September 14, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. In addition to the usual assortment of articles, videos and podcasts, there is lots of discussion about the official Guild Wars 2 release video (mixed reviews at best) and celebration of the news that ArenaNet has sold over two million copies of Guild Wars 2.
September 8, 2012
Gamers are not superstitious (all the time) about their “lucky dice”
Many gamers are highly protective of the “lucky D20” they use for certain die rolls. In some cases, that’s not superstition at all, it’s taking advantage of a manufacturing flaw in polyhedral dice:
One of the biggest manufacturers of RPG dice is a company called Chessex. They make a huge variety of dice, in all kinds of different colors and styles. These dice are put through rock tumblers that give them smooth edges and a shiny finish, so they look great. Like many RPG fans, I own a bunch of them.
I also own a set of GameScience dice. They’re not polished, painted or smoothed, so they’re supposed to roll better than Chessex dice, producing results closer to true random. I like them, but mostly because they don’t roll too far, and their sharp edges look cool. I couldn’t tell you if they truly produce more random results.
But the good folks over at the Awesome Dice Blog can. They recently completed a massive test between a Chessex d20 and a GameScience d20, rolling each over 10,000 times, by hand, to determine which rolls closer to true.
In a video from a few years back, Lou Zocchi explains why his dice are the best quality in the business:
September 7, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My weekly community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. It’s not quite as long as last week’s monstrosity, but there’s more than enough in the way of articles, videos and podcasts to keep you busy for a while.
September 6, 2012
August 31, 2012
This week in Guild Wars 2
My regular community round-up at GuildMag has been posted. Now that the game has finally launched, there’s lots of articles to read but (temporarily) fewer videos to watch: I think many of the video folks have been too busy playing to record and comment on their footage. I imagine that it’ll be back to pre-release volume by next week’s round-up.
August 28, 2012
Last of my Guild Wars 2 pre-release journal entries
I started doing these short posts using my nom-de-gaming identity “Raphia Naon” at GuildMag during the first beta weekend event — partly because we needed something to keep the page active while everyone was busy playing in the beta test. I continued doing a daily entry for almost all the beta events and stress tests (I missed a few because they were scheduled at times I couldn’t take part). This is the final entry in that series, briefly talking about the last day of the headstart access period (the game is now on sale to the general public).
