The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So I tried sleeping in today, for the first time in a long while… it didn’t really work well, and I had half-dreams about both meeting and being the Doctor at the same time (“Hi, I’m the Doctor.” “No, I’m the Doctor!”) and then I finally got out of bed and I was all cranky and moody. Oh well, I’ll get back into the “sleeping in” swing of thing soon enough, I suppose.

I also hit another hard boss in my Pokemon Kiddy Roguelike 2: Electric-type Boogaloo which really is frustrating me because I think I have about the worst possible party for the boss. It’s this swarm of Shinx, and my party is a Water-type, who dies the moment any of them use Spark, and me,  Pikachu, who can’t use my good attacks but they “aren’t very effective” against other electric types. I got raped, and I haven’t had the heart to get back in and try again yet. Seriously, it’s a good thing I’m playing the easiest of the easy roguelikes, huh? I’m having a ton of fun in general, and after I play a little more, I’d like to try the dungeon that plays like an ACTUAL roguelike (no starting items, you start at level one, see how far you can go), just to see how I do.

So today is apparently Ryme’s birthday in Twilight Heroes, and he sent me an energy drink! Well, okay, he sent ALL players an energy drink, but he was in chat last night and we talked. Sort of. Ryme’s a cool guy. So I wanted to do something for his birthday but, I mean, hell, he doesn’t need in-game items here or probably in KoL, since he’s been playing for longer than I have… so I decided donating would be the best gift, and picked me up a VHF-1 Fighter. I wasn’t PLANNING on getting one? It has a zillion functions, but the only one I’m going to use is that it’s a slightly buffed up Lexura Infinides that can fly. I didn’t really need it. But I was feeling generous, and just like with the Dreampants, I know I can flip it later on for huge profits if I get really annoyed at it. But I bet I won’t. The Dreampants didn’t wow me, but the more I wore them the more awesome the idea of me wearing these crazy pants was, so I’m keeping them. I don’t see any reason why this won’t be the same way, unless he obsoletes it with a vehicle that, I dunno, does something Heart-y and awesome.
As much of a heart as I am, though, I find myself being stingy with my chips, due to Operation Farm Me An Empty Picture Frame Since I Have Nothing Better In-Game To Do, which is probably a bad thing. I mean, it’s just virtual money, and it’s fun to give stuff away and help people out. Plus, said Operation has been going pretty well, actually. I’m up to 9 Silver Stars. That’s 36 percent of the way there, apparently! So I’ve been trying to send more chips Kinks way, to keep Twilight Buffs working… I appreciate your hits of Snout of the Swine, Kinks! I hope my meager contributions at least cover the cost of me using your service.

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these sorts of Browser RPG mechanics, especially when seeing Soul Raver get more and more… actually made… and it just makes me wish I could make Small Souls. I think I wrote a basic concept of it back a bit ago… say… in this post, yeah. But since then I’ve refined it a whole lot more. I know the basic mechanics of attacking and conversing, all based on a deck of “memes” or “phrases” or “some term I haven’t thought of yet.” So you’d have a card called “Yes.” This would let you, basically, agree with people in conversation sequences, but, like all of these, it would have a use in combat as well, doing something… yes-like… Perhaps a celebratory shout buff. You’d have a card called “No” that would work the same way. Disagree in conversation and perhaps stop an enemy from attacking from a term. And so on and so forth… I also have the idea of a whole mechanic like the time-travel mechanic in Shadow of Destiny sort of, where you could basically repeat quests and stuff by going back in time and trying again. This would give the game longevity because you could retry things from every angle, etc, but I assume it would be hard to program, because every major quest starting would make a time point you could jump back to but not jump back from… and the game would have to be able to basically only undo everything you’ve done since that time point, but not everything you did before it… that would be tough. But it would be worth it, I think. You’d lose levels but not items, basically, so by smart application of level minimums for item equips, I could keep the game balanced…
I don’t know, it’s all such a cool idea to me. But I should really stick with projects I believe in and can actually create with skills I have now, like Role-Playing and the podcast version of that… I can do that if I dedicate myself. And I’m going to this summer, dammit! Yeah.

Also, I continue to hear the siren call of GTA4. I wasn’t interested until EVERYTHING ON 1UP talked about how the good part was the story and not the wanton boring destruction, and people talking like “I never played a GTA before, but I played this and the story really drew me in! It’s great!” I could be that person, who never played a GTA before and had tons and tons of fun! Eh, I’m basically accepted I’m going to pick it up sometime, though I wish I’d wait for a price drop or a coupon or SOMETHING. Give me strength!

Well, I guess I best go to work now. Everyone quit during the dark times of no hours, so we’re severely lacking in people. However, tonight, at least, is a very small ad, so I should be back at a decent hour. Hopefully.

If you own a DS and you enjoy action RPGs, this game is a must buy. Seriously.
I mean, sure, there are plenty of reasons why you would think it’s not worth your time. “Zippers” Nomura obviously had paws all over this game, and I know that turns off a lot of people. There’s a lot of appeal in the music, which I’m sure it far from everyone’s favorite, and might turn it off. I’ll admit I buy into both of those things. But unlike other games, where it might just be thrown in, this creates a very cohesive whole.
The trick is that the whole game takes place in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district. It’s a place where this musical and visual style and fashion IS the thing, and thus it helps to set the setting, a place where wearing trendy clothes can help you out in battle and where you can sway people’s opinions to get bonuses based on the brand names you wear. It all comes together into a cohesive whole.
On top of that, you have a story that isn’t just fluff. Sure, it might not be greatest thing you’ve ever read, but at the very least all of the characters I’ve encountered thus far (I’m nearly done with the game) are completely believable. I get their motivations. They make sense, and they make me care about them. This is a feat not a lot of games do.
You add all this to a great battle system, and you have yourself a winner. If you haven’t been convinced that you can have a great action game using just the stylus, this game is going to prove to you that it’s possible. The controls are really, really great. You collect these hipster pins, and each one gives you a different “psyche,” or attack. Each one uses a different stylus movement. One might need you to tap on an enemy to throw fireballs. Another might need you to slash upward to do an uppercut. Another might need you to draw a wall of fire on screen, or drag background objects about to smack into enemies. You can equip only a certain number of these, and thus can customize yourself into different decks of pins with different attacks for different situations if you so wish. Meanwhile, your main character’s partner is battling on the other screen, where you play a little minigame using the d-pad to block and attack. This part sounds REALLY complicated, but it actually isn’t. You can just jam in the direction of the enemies to do basic attacks, and that can take out most things. Of course, you can do blocks and combos, too, if you really want to get into it, or ignore it completely and turn on the computer to do it for you, which works really well.
That leads me to the one thing I really appreciate about this game: It’s a completely customizable experience. You choose which of a wide variety of attacks you’re going to use, and they’re all useful in most situations. You choose whether to master fighting with the second character on the top screen or just let the computer take care of it. You choose what difficulty you want each battle to be. You’re rewarded for playing harder. Mastering the top screen combat means more crazy super attacks for you to trigger. Playing at harder difficulties gives you more and different phat lewt, not to mention more EXP. It doesn’t punish you for not playing that way, however. You can play on Easy at max character level the whole way through the game and still have a great time. Most important to me, you can play on fairly difficult most of the time, and easy when you get stuck. I’ve been playing on normal battles with my level about 10-15 below my max the whole game, but when I get stuck on a boss, I appreciate being able to kick my level back up to max and have a much easier time of it. There’s no frustration. Just fun. I like that.
This game is really great. It’s worth the SquareEnix tax. It’s fresh. It’s new. It’s not a rehash of a series you’ve seen 40 times before. If you own a DS, give it a go. Seriously.

There are several types of games I enjoy. Some are really engrossing and draw me in. They take me over completely. The World Ends With You, which I’m playing now and should review as well, falls into this category. Then there are pure multiplayer games, games that I only play because playing with people is completely awesome. Super Smash Brothers Brawl is in this category. Finally, there are games I love because they are interesting and fun, yet don’t completely consume my brain, letting me do it and something else, such as listen to a podcast or chat with people. Lost Cities is one of those games.
Lost Cities just hit XBLA, and it’s a 2 player competitive card game, though apparently there is a four-player variant you can play on Live if you want. I’ve just played the computer so far, but it’s great. The idea is that you’re exploring five different cities, each marked with a color. You have a deck of cards with a card of each color number 2-10, and then three “Investment” cards of each color. The object is to have the most points at the end of the round, and you do this by, oddly enough, playing cards. Each turn, each player either plays or discards a card. If played, they put it underneath the appropriately colored city on their side of the table (You can play red on red, but you can’t play red on blue). You can only play a card on top of a card of lesser value (so you can play a 3 atop a 2, but you can’t play a 3 atop a 4) or in an empty space. If you put it in an empty space, you’re starting a “new expedition.” This costs you 20 points, and yes, you can go into the negative. Each card you play gives you a number of points equal to the number on the card. This “spend money to make money” mechanic is the core of the game, and the risk/reward system it sets up is one of the reasons why it’s so fun. Alternatively, as I’ve said, the player can discard a card from their hand. Each color has it’s own discard pile, so all the red cards go into the red discard pile, and so on.
The second step of the turn is the player either drawing a card from the deck or taking a card from the top of a discard pile. This is also a neat system, because the game ends the moment the last card is drawn from the deck. You can try to buy time by taking discarded cards you don’t need to keep cards in the deck. Of course, you give up potentially drawing a card you need, but that’s the tradeoff. It’s a simple but neat mechanic.
The last bit of mechanical whatever is the Investment cards. They basically count as 0 in the card hierarchy, so they can only be played on an empty space. However, they can also be played atop each other. When you play an investment card, all cards play on that space get an extra multiplier. One investment card gives you a 2x bonus, two will give you a 3x bonus, and if you manage to get all three in play, you get a 4x bonus. The tradeoff is that the cost to start an expedition is increased in the same way, so it costs 40 for one investment card, 60 for two, and 80 for three. Again, it’s a neat risk/reward system that makes the gameplay so fun.
Oh, also, if you get 8 cards on a city, you get a bonus.
And that’s it! That’s the rules and how you play! It is the perfect podcast game. There are definitely mechanics that you have to think about to play well, but it can be very slow paced against the computer since it’ll wait however long you want to take your turn and it’s so easy to take in the board and see what you need to do that you can get distracted and come back without being lost. It’s just good, simple fun, and I do recommend it if, say, you tire of the non-strategy randomness in XBLA Uno, but would like a similar experience with some more strategic choices infused. Something like that.

Man, I like to ramble about mechanics, don’t I? I guess I should get to bed, but I felt inspired and it had been a long time since I wrote one of my shitty reviews. So there, a shitty review for you!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

So news on the internets from Talking Time’s inside source (who says nothing that might lose him his job, of course, but keeps us informed. He’s a great guy who helps make great games) is that there was a small reprint run of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. I was planning on buying Persona 3: FES next week, because, I dunno, I love the game so much I’d buy a second copy for end-game content I’ll never get to. That was the plan, anyway, but armed with this new information and the knowledge that, as I just said, I am almost positive I won’t get my money’s worth out of FES since I never beat Persona 3, I went with Nocturne. Ordered it from the internets. Should be here in a few weeks. Hope I enjoy it. It’s apparently harder than Persona 3. Hopefully the music will be awesome, too, though I’d bet it’s of a different style than Persona 3.

Okay, okay, I promise I’ll keep this quick. Browser RPG Update: I’ve got 4 Silver Stars from farming so far, and now I’m thinking about saving my farming stars for an empty picture frame. Thoughts? I also ascended in what was my fastest Normal Nonpath KoL run yet by several days. Here’s the rundown. Amazing what wanting to go fast to splurge on an item will do, eh? Of course, with most people making standard 3-4 day runs in speedrunning, I’m still way behind. That said, early thoughts about this early run: Everyone was right about the Origami Riding Crop being mediocre gameplaywise. It was great that first day, and the attack messages are awesome, but I bet tomorrow or Thursday I’m going to have better things to equip, and it’ll probably get folded back into a fortune teller to use while lucre farming. The Yuletide troll is doing fine, and I can see me defaulting to him quite often, just to have the sheet music to throw at people at random. I love doing that shit.
There, okay? Done with Browser RPG stuff. Man, I need to catch my attention elsewhere, it’s getting to be a bad addiction.

$24.99 is the cruelest Amazon.com price point, and that’s what the Sam and Max animated series box set is priced at. Dammit. The annoying thing is that if I had just realized I was going to buy it like a day earlier, I could have bought it with Jonathan when he ordered more Star Trek. Oh well, maybe he’ll order even MORE Star Trek in the future. Or I’ll think of something else to order from there. Maybe Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 or something.

I haven’t been twittering much these past few days. I’ve been so distracted. I’ve still enjoyed watching the twitter feed on my desktop, though. I suppose that’s alright. But I dunno, it’s weird. I’m so pro-twitter.

Oh, in case you were on the edge of your seats, yes, we completed the Endless Setlist.

The Shadowrun stuff… continues. I don’t know, it’s so weird. I don’t understand me. It’s like… I can sit down for a game I’m interested in and absorb rules from here to tomorrow and love it. When it comes to this game, though, I can’t read them, and I really think a lot of it is kinda pointlessly complex for the sake of complex. I can’t put it together into a big picture. Yet, at the same time, we did this little mock fight to try to teach me, and I was correcting him about the rules and generally getting what I was doing. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens with that.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

So tonight is the night of the Endless Setlist party. It’s been awhile since I played Rock Band, and it’s been awhile since I even thought of this Endless Setlist. Still, it’ll be fun, and at the end I’ll have achievements. Because I am a achievement whore. Wish me fun.

Other notable things, at least to me, are the fact that I got my Libram of Candy Hearts. I find with my normal MP Regen Suite for spellcasters (Chefstaff, Yak Anorak, Ghuol familiar action (this time brought about by origami “gentlemen’s” magazine) and plexiglass pocketwatch to reduce cost) combined with how ridiculous Wave of Sauce is for regaining MP and how using buffbots keeps me from a need to constantly rebuff myself, I have TONS of MP just lying around to summon candy hearts. There are times when it’s been the right choice to summon a candy heart for 150 MP just because it’s going to go to waste otherwise. It’s hardcore, and it means I have all these hearts to send to people at random via candygrams in /c haiku. And I really enjoy doing this hearty shit. It’s a lot of fun. So basically, my investment has paid off in my eyes thus far… not to mention I’ve been actually using White Candy Hearts quite a bit to up my stat gains a little, (I’m getting more concerned about maxing my stat gains, actually… getting to be more of a powerplayer I guess, between that and the naughty fortune teller) so that’s an additional benefit I’m definitely reaping.
Things I still need to do in KoL: Do another *shudder* Hardcore run for Pastamastery and a stainless steel solitaire. (No path this time, for fuck’s sake!) Do a run to test out the awesomeness of the origami riding crop. Do a 100% Yuletide Troll run.
I think the plan is to do a 100% Yuletide Seal Clubber run next, and perm something awesome, like Hide of the Walrus, then try a no path Hardcore run with a Pastamancer. (note I’ve never done a no-path Hardcore run. Maybe they’re not as bad.) But I suppose all this depends on what happens with next month’s IoTM and shit.

Gods, I ramble on and on, huh?

The other thing I’ve been trying to do is… well, Brer wanted to start an online Shadowrun campaign, and so I said I’d join him… but he… and the game… and…
Apparently everything I don’t care about in real life is all things that matter all crazy whatever in this game. This combined with how I play around and whatever in general, which happened while making my character, just frustrated Brer crazily… which makes me feel like an ass… but also, it means as I try to read this… what… 5 to 6 sourcebooks that he claims I need to know? I’ve been trying to read the background of the city we’re in, and my eyes just glaze over, and I skim for names and that’s about it, and Brer is like “Oh, you gotta read the comments! That’s where all the interesting stuff is!” and I haven’t read a single one. I am missing the point, I guess. I don’t know. If I “read” this sourcebook, will I have gotten anything he wanted me to get out of it? Probably not. But I mean, when I’m reading and going “if I’m going to be forcing myself to read something, why aren’t I doing lit homework?” something is going wrong, you know?
Basically, I don’t want to give up because I don’t want to let him down, but at the same time if I don’t I’m not sure either of us are going to get what we want out of it? Basically, it’s just a weird awkward situation all around.

I guess at the end of the month I have several new games to buy. The World Ends With You (22nd), Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 :Explorers of Time… (20th) yeah, some games to get. Oh man, and I guess FES comes out on the 22nd too. Man. Man. I guess I should start actually saving money for that. That’s an expensive week. Maybe I should order two on Amazon and buy one day 1.
Oh woah, I just went to the offical website to link it up there for The World Ends With You… they’ve redone the music. Intense. Still good, though. I’m also glad that the game finally got Parish’s approval.
In the process of writing this paragraph, I realize I should just hold off on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, as I would have no problem buying a copy of Blue Rescue Team right now, so I’m sure I could buy Explorers of Time during the inevitable summer lull.

Console games… portable games… browser games… tabletop games… yeah. I think all of your gaming food groups in this, to some extent.

This is the week of doing work.
Well, it was. Actually, I got everything done this weekend. I’m well-off.
But I still need to catch up on those stupid forum posts for my lit class, and I need to put together this portfolio to graduate.
Eh, I guess things are going alright.

I also keep worrying about the price of the Libram of Candy Heart Summoning. It keeps going up, right after I decide I’m going to splurge on it and right after I can’t actually buy it for at least 6 more days. Also, the current Mr. A exchange rate keeps going down, too. Arg. But I shall stay calm, do my work this week, and not freak out. At worst, it’ll just clean out my liquid meat while not costing me extra donation-wise. I can stay calm, dammit.

Rei was crazy nice and, using some sort of crazy magical work-related hookup powers, got me the new CoD4 Variety map pack at the very affordable cost of free. I love Talking Time, and not because I get free DLC, but because I am in a community that is close-knit enough to want to GIVE each other free DLC.
Anyway, the maps are actually pretty awesome. CoD4 is a great multiplayer experience with a few friends to die with, and these maps are just really cool. I still haven’t played Killhouse, though, but it looks neat. Broadcast is an awesome objective map. Chinatown is a sneaky remake of a CoD2 map I remember that’s horrible for objective games but great in deathmatch. Creek is a sniper paradise, which means I die like… all the time. But at least it looks pretty and has a very interesting layout. Anyway, it gets my seal of approval. I do hope they make them free after awhile like Bungie does, however.

Other than all that, I guess things are going well. Whee.

Happy April Salad Day everyone. I hope your salad has been going salad! Mine salad has been.
Salad.

So I was going to write a full review of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, but then realized I didn’t want to, so here’s the short version. The game is good. It’ll tap into FFVII nostalgia that you didn’t know you had because you’ve since become a gaming hipster and FFVII is no longer in style. The combat system is really quite deep, being an improved version of Kingdom Hearts, basically. The Roulette wheel is completely random and not really a system like the game tries to make it out as, but I like random. It’s a good game. If only it wasn’t $40 bucks. Damn you, Squenix.

Quick KoL stuff I want to just say… I’ve abandoned Lucre for the rest of my run. This makes me sad, but I am sick and fucking tired of being in Hardcore. This’ll really speed things up. Today’s salad slowed me down a bit, though, but hopefully, like this, I’ll be done before the end of the week. I also picked up a Sp’n-Zor’s Grimoire of “Tasteful” Gifts, which is a new kind of Grimoire, obviously, and I look forward to loving it. But again, I am now oddly playing for speed, so besides summoning my “Tasteful” Gifts for the day, I’m probably not going to mess around with it much until I ascend. First impressions, though, are that the personal massager is completely awesome and that as someone who is suboptimal and does rest, the various decorations should get me to rest at the campsite instead of on my clan’s couch, so that’s neat. Also, it still needs to be spaded, but if what it’s saying is true, the Cheap Studded Belt could come in VERY handy during boss fights.

My current “Best of 2008 April Salad Prank” is probably this, and yes, it’s not about salad. Well, maybe a little salad. It’s just so… realistic. I could totally see Hollywood making that trailer.

I guess that’s all I wanted to say. Salad.

So I’m reading up on the rules for Dunwich Horror. Looks great, as a fan of Arkham Horror. Just more stuff all around, and some really harsh “kick them when they’re down” sort of effects that could really screw us over in the right situations, or be perfectly fine in others. I love it. We rarely have trouble with the base game with Curse of the Dark Pharaoh mixed in. I’d like more challenge.
In any case, this makes me go and look up about the other small card expansion, the King in Yellow, that’s out. It sounds pretty awesome too, I will admit, and it introduces these things called Heralds, which are alternate sets of rules for a greater challenge in which there’s a great monster or being whose appearance heralds the appearance of an Elder God. These Heralds are extra-deadly if combined with a certain Elder God, but really annoying otherwise… so they have the Herald The King in Yellow in the box of that one, and they’ve put more, free Heralds on their website for The Dunwich Horror and the Dark Pharaoh, to be used with those two expansions if you have them and want that extra challenge. Those almost look a little too hard, though. We’ve got plenty to get used to here, first.

Anyway, the reason I was rambling about this was to get to the point where I was looking up reviews and information on Board Game Geek, which is a site that could really be set up better but has a lot of info. Everyone on there was talking about how they don’t mix in the cards from the little expansion and find it much more enjoyable to use them from time to time using the “Traveling show/exhibit” rules in each set, and that just mixing them all in and playing with everything they found to be a really bad experience.
Now, all this is certainly personal preference, but I don’t get that at all. We tried playing Curse of the Dark Pharaoh in that “Traveling Exhibit” mode, and it kinda sucked. It sort of just removed all of the base stuff from the game that we liked, and replaced it with these other mechanics, not to mention a ton of these Exhibit Items, which, besides Parchment of Elder Sign and that one bell thing, all really kinda suck. Now, as something you get occasionally, those items are fine. The kickassness of getting lucky and getting a Parchment of Elder Sign is awesome, and the various masks don’t feel as useless when you only have one instead of 3 or 4. But basically, everyone decided “Let’s never do this again” and we mixed in all the cards and have been happy since.
Using these small expansions by themselves doesn’t really fix the one thing that I’m buying expansions to fix, and that is repetition. You’re playing with a much smaller card pool than the base game when you use these things in “Traveling” mode. Maybe it’s just the way we play, but it is not hard for us to flip through an entire deck of encounter cards in a game, so when you have even LESS encounter cards, you get repeat encounters, which just sucks. I want MORE things that can happen. That’s why I want more cards. I want to draw different things every game, and be surprised, having forgot about this or that when I pull it in a future session. By mixing all the cards in, I get that.
I guess the real issue is one of storytelling. If you use just the small expansion decks, you are telling a clear story. It’s not a vague Elder God threat, it’s “Cultists are stealing Egyptian artifacts, and bringing a curse upon Arkham” or “An evil play has come to town, and is driving all who see it crazy.” There’s a definite narrative involved. I can appreciate a narrative, and I could play for a narrative, say, in a position where it’s an almost full RPG experience, where we are telling stories to connect the encounter cards as we play. That could be cool, though the question then becomes “Why aren’t we just playing, like, the Call of Cthulhu pen and paper style RPG?”
That wouldn’t happen, though. That’s not how my friends roll. That’s completely fine. But that makes this more a game than a storytelling experience, and the gameplay is more fun if there is less repetition. Thus, mixing everything in is a “good thing”.
Man, I really rambled a lot just to say that, huh?

So Zero Punctuation just reviewed Zack and Wiki, and it makes me sad. Because he gives it a good review. And the game was pretty good. But thanks to the Wii controls that supposedly make it neat, I can’t play it, because it requires too big of a commitment. Now, this is going to sound lame, and it probably is, but I want to enjoy my games from this computer chair if at all possible. I very much enjoy having access to the internet constantly while playing, able to casually play for a few minutes, respond to a few messages, and then play some more. Because Zak and Wiki makes me point at the screen to move Zak around, I can’t play this game from this chair. If I could move him around with the Nunchuk, I could play from here, still point at the screen for the occasional puzzle, and be much, much happier. As I type this, though, I realize I just assumed you couldn’t. Yahtzee has a nunchuk drawn in most of the pictures of him playing, so maybe I can… testing… Yep, I’m right. You can’t. So if that changed, maybe I would love it. It would also be an awesome game to play, say, curled up on the couch with a significant other, talking out the puzzles together. It even lets you use additional Wiimotes as pointers to help out this sort of thing. But it just doesn’t fit into my current sort of gaming lifestyle at the moment, unfortunately.

So I got back on the horse today and have gotten to all my classes thus far and gotten all my homework done. I’m doing great! I have to format a paper for MLA when I get home from my poetry class tonight, but otherwise I’ve got all the high-stress stuff done for the week… I’ll probably try to write that other paper tomorrow, though, or at least some of it. A starting point.

So here’s the plan for Friday. At 8:!5 pm, when Jonathan gets home from work, we shall be fighting the elder gods in a game of Arkham Horror, now with Dunwich Horror expansion. I’m not clear on whether we shall be playing a very Dunwich game, in which we only use the new adventure cards for this first time to see the new stuff, or if we’ll go ahead and mix them all in, but it’s going to be quite an exciting time. Show up early and get in some Rock Band or Smash Brothers Brawl, if you’d like! All are invited until I feel like there is going to be more than 8 people. Then you can fuck off and not come. But it should be a good time. After the game, though, I shall have to quickly retire because I got a stupid writing aptitude test in the morning, which will suck. Whee!

So Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates may have the worst story ever in a video game. And I say this having followed the exploits of Ethan Waber in Phantasy Star Universe. At least you could laugh at the horrible, horrible voice acting in that. This story is just so kiddy, and the main character such an idiot… I just hate him. This game is a dungeon-crawling game in the vein of PSO or Diablo 2. This sort of shit shouldn’t be stopping me from running through dungeons, killing monsters, and getting new patterns and supplies to make phat loot. It’s so frustrating. The bit of multiplayer I’ve played so far, though, is exactly what I wanted. Totally awesome. Jonathan still claims he’s going to buy it, so then me and Spaeth will have another person to adventure with.

I also just want to say, on the record, that yesterday, March 25 of 2008, was a really, really damn good day. I don’t know, everything just went right. I got everything I need to get done done, and then some. I had fun. I spent time with my friends. I had a REAL awesome time with Brer… it was a damn good day. I wish I had more days like that.

Wikipedia, source of all human knowledge, tells me that everyone hates Tales From Watership Down. Apparently I am supposed to be “poorly receiving it” because I “want a true sequel.” Well, fuck that. I mean, I’d like a real sequel, but at the same time, the book is really self-contained, and a sequel could very easily muck it up. It is just so good how it is. Now, I could see how someone would get pissed if they just looked at the front cover and started reading. I mean, my copy says, on the front in a fairly large font “The long-awaited sequel to the beloved classic!” That’s completely not what this book is, and I can see if someone actually believed that about it, they would be mad. But I, you know, looked inside, read the preface, saw what the book was before I bought it. (for cheap, I might add, although it was also in that teeny tiny paperback format that I hate so much, so I guess it was a tradeoff) I saw what it was, said to myself “More tales of El-ahrairah? I’m all over it.” and walked up to the counter to buy it. The book has some problems, thus far. Adams has tried to make these stories seem more… connected by having them start with the characters talking about this or that, and then asking for a story, and the character telling the story, like in the main book. I really don’t think it needs that. Then again, I suppose it barely detracts, either. It just seems like a sort of desperate attempt to make legit what is already legit, in my opinion. Apparently the last third of the book is actual stories of things that happen to the Watership Down warren after the novel ends, so that might be bad, I dunno, but for the time being, it’s an enjoyable sort of… side experience to enhance the novel and make me continue to wish I could play Bunnies and Burrows with someone. But definitely not a sequel. Oh no.

Finally, these comics are hilarious, but completely stuffed with Apollo Justice spoilers. Just wanted to link them so I don’t forget about them.

So I just want to talk about KoL. Sorry.
Tonight I did a bunch of research about Basementing. I would like to have a telescope. But that just seems so damn boring in a game where I feel like I have so many other goals to work for… if there was something like that in Twilight Heroes right now? I’d do it, no question. But here… maybe after I get bored of collecting skills, but not yet. No.
Other than that, though, it’s weird to me that now that I’m doing a hardcore run, I want so badly to do things with the Mall (which is one of the things you can’t do in Hardcore). I want to buy an Ancient Yuletide Troll. Why? I dunno, the carols just seem like fun, and they’re still selling for only a little over a Mr. A. How do I know this? Well, I recently found out about this nifty Mall Market Search Thing. It’s really cool! And it makes me think about picking up cheaper Mr. Store items I missed… the other maybe would probably be the Penguin Goodfella. It currently costs LESS than a Mr. A in the mall! And it’s certainly useful, if not completely impressive… but having more items to Funksling is always nice. They apparently cost meat to use, though… but weight times 3 meat… At most it’s going to get up to 40 pounds… 120 meat is nothing at all, really, in softcore, which is where I normally live. Anyway, it’s an idea. I’ve finally warmed up to the idea of Mr. Familiars, really, especially since I am in the process of loving my Mad Hatrack to death… He’s probably going to be a dedicated familiar for my hardcore excursions because he works so well and so neat, even without my Mayflower Bouquet or origami “gentlemen’s” magazine, and especially since he can’t use those anyway. Well, he can, but he’d be 1 pound of useless if he did.
At this point, in all honesty I should probably wait until there’s an Item of the Month I don’t want, and then pick one of these up instead… but who knows. It’s almost my birthday. I might give in and treat myself. We’ll see.

I still think the Virtual Reality Helmet is really boring, though. I had this rant at Brer, but I think I’m going to try to sort of… sum it up… basically, as far as what I will and won’t donate for in these sorts of games… I want to be entertained. That’s why I play. I play because it’s fun, and if you’re making a game that’s fun, I am more than willing to support you by slipping you some cash. I don’t think, however, it’s unfair of me to ask for some in-game benefit, and that’s where the items of the month (and, in the case of Forumwarz, removing the annoying ads) comes in. When I get such an item, though, I’m not in it to be better, faster, stronger, whatever. I want more entertaining things to do. The Virtual Reality Helmet makes me better at things I can already do in the game. This is boring, and I do not want it. The Hero’s Cape, an item so expensive and so coveted right now, is boring to me. It lets me cast more spells, but I can already cast spells. Unlike some players, I don’t MIND burning turns resting. There’s always more I can do tomorrow. Now, the Pouch of Many Lost Things, the one donation item I DO have in Twilight Heroes, now that is fun. It lets me do something I couldn’t do otherwise. It gives me fun little buffs with fun little descriptions. The buffs themselves may not be special, but the fact is that not everyone has a pouch. Especially as time goes on, those who have one will become less and less, and those buffs will become more and more unique, and I can help people out by buffing them with them. This is really appealing, and the fact that it gives you a bonus effect for buffing someone else (Toasty Heart) just makes it all the cooler. That is something new and different I couldn’t do before, so I wanted it. Granted, there are powergaming benefits, too. The Lost Remote Controls and Lost Toys are really damn useful to cut down on turns resting, and before I dump the pouch out its a fairly effective piece of farming equipment.
Does this translate over into my KoL acquisitions? I believe so, although for different reasons in most cases. Most KoL items I have picked up because they entertain me. Sure, they offer game benefits as well, but I’d be lying if I told you I picked up a Crimbo P.R.E.S.S.I.E. for any reason other than the Can Has Cyborger buff and all the humor that comes with it. I picked up the Mad Hatrack because it does so many different things, and has so many different messages for me to see and laugh at. Naughty Origami Kit was a combination of loving the magazine messages and liking the whole mechanic of one item being many, and you can keep changing it about at the cost of damage. That’s something nothing else in the game does, so it interests me. Compare this to some of the high-powered items I have passed up. The Libram of Divine Favors is crazy powerful, but I can do everything it does by other means, although not as well. The Green Pixie I found kind of boring, thematically, and although there is a lot of content in the Worm Wood, which you’d think I’d want, I can get there easily just by buying tiny bottles of absinthe in the mall (where they’re selling for a mere 200 meat), if I ever want to experience it a few times and get the outfit there. After that, I doubt I’d be the sort of person to want to farm Not-A-Pipes, so I really don’t need extended access.
Does my theory make sense? I’m not saying Ryme and the KoL guys should NOT make items that are just powerful. They obviously sell, and get people who enjoy the fun of investing in and playing the market to buy more of them. I want them to succeed, so if that gets them more money, they should have at it. But if you want my money, you need to give me the silly stuff. The fun stuff. The enjoyable stuff that I can smile at again and again. Every time I return a lost item to someone, or try out a new hat to see what my Mad Hatrack does and how useful it is, I am getting all the benefits I could really ask for. I’ll keep getting those items of the month.

Wow, that turned into quite a rant. I just wanted to mention one more thing. This about card games, specifically the World of Warcraft card game. Tycho posted a short description of him running the Molten Core raid deck with Gabe and friends. I realized then and there how badly I wanted that experience. It’s… it would be like playing something like Arkham Horror or some such, only totally a collectable card game. I want to play! But I don’t want to invest in the WoW card game that much… Gathering Ground sells WoW singles at non-crazy prices, though… so a plan has entered my head based around making several people order up just one deck, shouldn’t cost them more than 10, 15 bucks if they don’t buy any crazy rares. This deck would be the kind of character they’d like to play in a WoW raid. I’d do a shaman deck, Jonathan would tank, whatever… and then we’d just use those decks just to play the new Raid decks as they come out. Maybe buy a few more singles to spruce them up, but have no other connection to the card game.
This is probably completely a dream, but I can hope. I really want to give those three raid decks a try.