The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So I just had this conversation with Brer. We were talking about MMOs and I mentioned APB, which is this MMO from the Crackdown creators which seems like Crackdown + with lots of people? In any case, he didn’t really see the appeal, and I pointed out that it’s all about just dicking around with friends. Being idiots in a group. He tells me this has no appeal for him whatsoever.
What followed was me trying very hard to explain WHY such things are fun, which is apparently pretty hard to do. What I ended up talking about was somewhat of an unwritten social contract to play along and add to a sort of… world that you build as a group, and then play in. This world is probably the stupidest thing ever, but it doesn’t matter what the world is, it’s that it represents the shared experience and connection you have with the group, and bringing it back up reaffirms that connection. It’s a lot like inside jokes, you know? They work the same way, only on a smaller scale. In fact, this sort of play creates a lot of inside jokes in my experience.
In any case, he then told me about how his groups of friends used to do such things, and he found such situations quite boring. He just doesn’t do that. And I mean, I can respect that, but at the same time, it makes me think back to moments when I’ve tried to play Co-op games with him. The moment that sticks out in my mind was when we started working on Neverwinter Nights 2 together. I don’t really know anything about currentish DnD rules, so I didn’t know anything about making the character. We’re talking on Skype and he’s trying to lead me through it… and I decide “Hey, I think I’ll be a Bard.” Just for no real reason besides that sounds like fun. Bards are normally, in my experience, bufftastic sort of people, and I like that. But Brer tells me that’s not really a good idea, and that I should be a cleric so that we can have access to Turn Undead. He knows better, I assume, and shrug, and I make a cleric. As we’re playing, though, I’m not really having any fun. The cleric isn’t my character. It’s just a cleric that Brer is telling me how I should use effectively. He tells me to turn undead, I turn undead or whatever. It’s not any fun. And so I stopped making efforts to play, and we never got anywhere. When I played single player, I made that Bard, and I wasn’t very effective, but it was my bard, and I had a good time collecting magic instruments and shit.
There’s always going to be some level of planning and execution in a game, and that can be a lot of fun, sure. But it has to be a co-op experience. Part of the fun I’ve always found in co-op is, as much as tackling something together, just the experience of being with someone else. That someone else is likely to do stupid or crazy things, and it’s in dealing with that and doing your own stupid and crazy things that creates that shared experience that you value. If I want to walk into a room and aggro everyone in it, I think I should, because the resulting fallout is definitely going to be a tale to remember.
Granted, a lot of this is also expectation. Looking back, it was clear that Brer entered this co-op game to beat the game with me, and I entered this co-op game to spend time with Brer. Although these goals are not mutually exclusive, they are different. They differ in moments like I mentioned before, when it comes to picking something that’s the most effective versus something that’s the most fun. Perhaps if I had gone in expecting it all more, it would have worked out better. But I can play that game alone and have a lot of fun. The thing I gain by playing co-op is spending time with him… to me it only makes sense that fun should be the ultimate goal…
I don’t know… the whole conversation worries me, because in my mind I look ahead to a moment when we’re living together, sitting on a couch and playing a game… and I suddenly see something more mechanical than fun. And that’s… not what I want. I look forward and I see Brer not being involved in my group of friends because he just doesn’t get the same kind of fun out of the multiplayer games like Smash Bastards and Rock Band that I love so dearly. Again, I don’t think he’s wrong for not liking things like that. He has every right to, but… I just… I want him in my life, you know? I love him tons. And the idea of having a part of my life, especially a part that we really always seemed to overlap on, not really be something he wants to be involved in kinda makes me sad.
I mean, I don’t know what all this means, or if it means anything. I just had to get it out, you know?

So here’s my favorite quote from Forumwarz so far. You heal your ego by using various antidepressants, right? So one of my use posts was “I went to therapy for years for nothing, and I just took this pill and I feel better! What is wrong with the medical system in this country?” It was just… not at all like everything else. It made me pay attention.
In Twilight Heroes, I farmed enough to buy a Silver Star! Which was kinda cool. I’m going to keep that star as a badge of all the time I spend farming, I think. Instead of just farming for chips more, I decided I should really see some more content, so I’ve decided to start trying to get all of the talismans I can. I’m starting with the Ultimate Aviator Goggles for two reasons. 1, farming the Skies Above Downtown goes CRAZY quick because there’s no combat there, besides the rare encounter I need, and 2, that extra chips buff will come in handy if I decide to farm chips again. So that’ll be what I’m doing for the next few days… well, I may have to spend another day farming chips to have cash for caffeinated beverages.
So I realized, you know, I heard so much about all these Greasemonkey scripts for KoL, but I figured I couldn’t use them because I mostly play in Flock. That was when I realized I can install just about any Firefox extension in Flock, so I gave it a try. It works like a charm! I installed Mr. Script, and it’s… I haven’t even played with it yet, but it’s amazing. If nothing else, I have quick links to everywhere and I can right click on my character picture to save my outfit to a “backup” slot and then restore it real fast, which… is awesome. Now I need to keep looking for more neat scripts, I suppose!

And now, on the homework front, I’m kicking ass! Or something. I’m turning everything in. I am up to date. I got my first papers out of the way. I’m not PROUD of them, but they got turned in, and personally, that’s all that matters, because that means I’m going to class and I’m going to pass it. Because I am. Even if I’m completely slacking, if I turn everything in, I should pass with a B, you know? And that’s all I want. So huzzah for me!
Seriously, huzzah for me.

So if you look, I have a brand new tag for these sorts of rants! Huzzah! Not that it’ll do much good, but if I’m going to use the tags, I should use them, you know? I even went back and updated my old posts with the tag. Neat!

But the important thing is, I have a new game obsession, and that game is Forumwarz. Basically, take everything you know about, say, 4chan. And then make an RPG out of it. You’ve got a good idea of what Forumwarz is now. In fact, you can watch that video on the front page and get a good idea, too. I think that video does a good job… but yeah, it’s a ton of fun, and the interface is extremely slick and ajax-y. Granted, the humor is insanely crude, but I can dig it because I get what they’re making fun of, and it’s sort of a requirement. Anyway, I definitely suggest you give it a try.
In KoL news, I got all my El Vibrato stuff: A Megadrone and the full equipment set! And then I ascended into a Hardcore Boozetafarian Turtle Tamer run, to Hardcore Perm Amphibian Sympathy, which is amazing. I forgot to untinker my meatcar AGAIN, which is just genius of me. Anyway, I suck at Hardcore runs even more than my Softcore runs, so I’m sure I’ll be playing this one for a few months, but eh, since I’m now playing this and Forumwarz and Twilight Heroes full time, I suppose going a little slower at KoL for awhile isn’t a bad thing by any means…
I also realized today that I probably spend more time now playing this stuff than I did back when I used to play WoW. That’s all kind of crazy to me, because part of why I like these games and keep coming back to them is because they are less of a time investment… and yet I spend so much time at them, that’s pretty well a lie. Oh well, I’m having fun.

So I’m still in a pretty good mood! So that’s neat.
I’m also happy to report that Project Get Involved In The Twilight Heroes Community goes well! The project basically worked around buying a Pouch of Many Lost Things and then buffing many random people in chat to give me something to talk about. And it’s working! I’m talking to people! And being weird. But it’s fun! There are a ton of nice people in the Twilight Heroes chat. It’s like all the nice people from KoL came over. It’s neat. I suppose my good mood helps with all that too… anyway, it goes well with that.
I just heard on the radio show that the March Item of the Month for KoL is going to be a familiar? This doesn’t really thrill me? I don’t generally get excited by familiars, I find, even though I got the P.R.E.S.S.I.E., and I love it. But I tend not to want more familiar… at the same time, Jick hinted at the mechanic, which sounds so weird I might have to pick one up. We’ll see. I’m also looking forward to seeing what the Item of the Month for Twilight Heroes is… I don’t know what the response to the Pouch was, and chances are it’ll be something more normal, again, like the Roderick’s equipment or something, but I can hope.
Man, maybe I should have a tag just for KoL and such talk.
Also of note is the fact that apparently EVERYONE wants to have an Endless Setlist party. So I’m going to try to get that going for March 1st, because it does sound fun and also, I am an achievement whore, and having that Endless Setlist on Hard achievement will make me happy. So mark your calendars, people! We’re playing the whole damn thing in a row! That’s… 2 hours and 21 minutes of music, according to my playlist of every song in non-DLCed Rock Band. Fun times!

So, you know, time to brag. The Diesel Sweeties guy twittered this, then I responded, and then he twittered this back. I feel all special. He likes the cut of my jib! I’m so proud of my jib now!

In other news, I have been in a great fucking mood! I blame MYSTERY, the thing I’m doing that I dare not speak of, for I feel it will lose its magic. So I won’t! But it’s silly and fun and it’s improving my mood, and I think that’s the good part, hm? Even Mom was all like “wow, someone is in a good mood today.” So I’m in a good mood. That’s good!

I also beat Hard Solo Guitar in Rock Band, and Sass of Potatoes is Big in Rome! And last night was like… the best Halo night we’ve had in a long fucking while… and… well, things are just pretty awesome, I guess. I’m even keeping up with homework! It’s all awesome. Yes. Awesome.

I’d do it, but I don’t know how to program and I can’t even get Role Playing off the ground in the time frame I want, (It’s temporarily tabled, which, though disappointing, I’m calling perfectly fine as long as I don’t fall behind in school) so this is for some random person out there.

I want Persona 3 KoL.
Well, sort of. I want a game like KoL, which is mostly browser and text based. But I want it to work like this. You have persona, if you will. Call them something else, probably. But these sort of… spirits that live inside you and are based on your personality. Now, in Persona 3,  these represent the character’s personalities decently, though not for your main character, cause you can flop them around all you want, and they’re sort of like Pokemon that you train and crossbreed and shit. So let’s combine those two.
You collect these persona spirits, and you equip one, and this changes your character’s personality. Equip this one, and your character is all emo, equip this one, and your character is a complete dick, equip this one, and your character is a goody two-shoes, equip this one, and your character is a pure Mr. Clean Trousers. So during the day, you go and interact with NPCs or whatever. And depending on your personality, you’re going to have different adventures and different options to deal with things. Perhaps even what personality you start a quest with could affect the way it goes. Say if you start out being nice, then the quest becomes helping someone out, but if you start out as an asshole, the quest turns into trying to steal something that was already stolen for yourself.
As far as combat, I feel you could have actual combat too, in a Persona sort of “dark hour” kind of way, but it would also be neat if it could all be metaphorical sorts of combat to deal with various situation. Not real combat, just an abstraction of conversation shown with hit points and magic attacks and whatnot.
Granted, this would take a TON of writing, even more than something like KoL or whatever. But I would love it. That’s the general idea. Basically, a game with supernatural elements but which is based mostly on social interactions, I suppose. Or hell, just a game based mostly on social interactions in a neat way would make me very happy.

Other ideas I have that I think could tie into this concept would be the idea of having a “Soul Link” which was another player character that you would connect yourself to and help you out in some way. Perhaps who would become an NPC in the story somehow. Perhaps helping you out in battle “KoL familiar” style without actually being there, but giving the actual character some sort of cost and bonus for doing so. Granted, every way I think of to make this work in a neat way would be crazily exploitable with the idea of multis, which is kind of unfortunate, because I think that takes away the coolness, but I like the idea anyway.

I also see a problem with making this game work in that the main way I see games like this paying for themselves that seems to work well and I’m all for is this “item of the month” model, and I don’t know how this sort of model could be adapted to my idea. I think the likelihood of having equipment in any normal fashion would be very low. I don’t know.

Anyway, I got the idea down. Feel free to steal it, and I’ll play your game all day. Steal it and adapt it into some sort of card-based game, and I’d probably marry you. Or something.

Man, did you see all that ice? Man! That’s a lot of ice.
Of course, the extended vacation from classes is making me even more iffy on the whole… doing homework thing… but oh well, so it goes. I’ll get back in the groove when I need to tomorrow. And who knows, maybe they’ll cancel my afternoon class too? They already canceled my morning one. I can dream, can’t I?

So for lack of anything better to do, I decided to try to get involved with the Twilight Heroes community more and chat. Results were mixed. I talked for a little, got buffed with Metal Detector, which is nice, and returned some lost objects to people who were nice to me, which was an awesome feeling, knowing I was giving them a buff they might not ever have access to… and then I ran out of things to say and just watched the text scroll by… and… yeah. Back to normal. KoL’s community is thick and I don’t know how to get into it, and so many Twilight Heroes players are just from KoL. Like me, actually, though I joined up before most of them did. But yeah, I don’t know. I guess I just need to be vocal, but I have so little to say. I’m not optimal, so I can’t often offer advice or anything. Eh, who knows.

In other news, Professor Layton is pretty completely awesome, although if I keep burning through it at this rate I’m sure I’ll have it beat in another day. Worth 30 dollars? Honestly, probably not. It’d be much, much easier to suggest at 20. But in the end, it’s another unique sort of experience that I’m having, and I’m willing to go that extra mile to support niche games, so I’m happy with my purchase. It’s fun stuff. Now if only I could get the weekly puzzle downloads to work…

Anyway, time to get food and go to work, I suppose. Wish me luck driving in the ice.

So apparently all this crazy sailing plinth crap ends up leading to a neat little side quest that gets you a crazy familiar called the El VIbrato Megadrone. And I want. So I’m working through the pirate content again so I can start figuring out how to get one. Who knows how long this will take me. Luckily, I don’t give a rat’s ass about being optimal, so I’m willing to waste however many days it takes.
Building my jetpack in Twilight Heroes also goes well. Twilight Heroes is really quite good, you know? I keep debating about donating for the Pouch of Many Lost Things this month, and then deciding against it. I mean it’s good, but I was overly dedicated to KoL for like… close to a year before I started donating a lot, because I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I took that many month break from Twilight Heroes because I thought there was no more content. It turns out I was wrong, but still. I just don’t know if it’s worth it yet. Also, the Pouch is neat because it is a heart vector, and as awesome as I think that is, I don’t get into the in-game chat or anything so as to have someone to go heart up in game. So who knows.
Apparently my mother is playing Picross DS? I showed it to her on a whim, and let her have Jonathan’s DS because he never uses it. It turns out she’s been doing them! Which is completely awesome in my book. Makes me think I should throw even more stuff her way, just to see what happens.
So Valentine’s is almost here. It was Valentine’s in KoL today, but, you know, real Valentine’s is coming up. I got to write some poetry today for it, I think…
Jonathan just paid me for half of Smash Brothers Melee. That was weird.
I’m still kind of moody, though I think I’m better in general? I’m still showing those little things I do when I get that way, but I don’t feel depressed. So I suppose I can deal with that.
People on the Talking Time are starting up Animal Crossing Wild World action. So I suppose I need to start picking all of those weeds, eh? I already got all the roaches out of my house yesterday.

So I think my “moody-ness,” as I call it, comes in a monthly cycle, but I have no proof. So I’ve decided to start marking my moody days with quick posts or tacked on to other posts with the tag “Moody Day.” This is mostly for my own curiosity, I suppose. Just letting you know.

Also, apparently Amphibian Sympathy is amazing? Somebody should have told me! I am so doing a Hardcore Boozetafarian Moxie-Sign Turtle Tamer run after this. (Why Boozetafarian? Because I’d like to try doing the Saint Sneaky Pete’s Day super-drunkenness adventures.)
Also amazing is this thing, which is some sort of KoL Ascension Database. You can look up any character, but that’s me, of course. The way it has a calendar tracking the whole run and what special days were in the run is incredibly awesome. Also, apparently I’m a fairly dedicated Softcore player. Like… 84% of the player base has less Softcore runs than me. Neat.
I hope my question got on the Jick Show. I suppose I’ll know tomorrow.

I should go to bed. I’m going to bed.

So I was burning time in Toys R Us before class and I see not one, not two, but five copies of the original Phoenix Wright sitting in a clearance bin for 10 bucks a pop. I know the internet well enough to know that you cannot find it on the internets for less than 30. So after a little deliberation and calling Jonathan to make sure I wasn’t crazy on how much it was going for, I bought all five, and then went home and put them all up on Amazon Marketplace for 25 dollars. By the time I got back from work, they were all sold. I’ve made like 60 bucks and got copies of a game I love into worthy hands. So I suppose it’s a win all around, huh?
Anyway, sorry, I had to brag. That money is going straight into my “buy a laptop because I want one and I should buy one before they stop selling Windows XP” fund.

In other news, Diggnation is coming to St. Louis on the 20th? What? I’m almost tempted to go. I probably won’t, but as I said, I’m tempted. I’d have to say, meeting Kevin and Alex would be pretty neat. The downside is it’s obviously going to be at a bar that will be crowded and filled with very, very drunk people, if listening to previous live Diggnations is any indication.
…wait, the 20th is a Wednesday. So cancel that, I have class. Oh well, as I said, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway.

Well, I guess it’s time to KoL before bed.