Well, no kidding, right?
Obviously, I haven't posted in a long time. And honestly, this blog never really got off the ground to begin with. I enjoyed what writing I did do for it, though.
Into each life, some rain must fall -- as the saying goes. I'm getting some now. That means gaming has been on the back back back burner. I still have nothing remotely interesting to say -- but now, I've also lost the desire to say it.
So farewell.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
HaX0red
So get this.
Back in January, as I mentioned at the time, I cancelled my WoW account. Actually, that should be accounts (plural) because, like many gamers, I always had a couple. One was my "main" account, and the other was used either by my wife (on the uncommon occasions when she played) or by me for mule characters and the like. Anyway, cancelled them both back in January.
So, imagine my surprise when my wife forwarded to me an e-mail she'd gotten last week (note well: "last week" as in "late April") from Blizzard saying that her account had been banned, for disruptive activities or somesuch similar nonsense. When she first told me about it, my first reaction was that it surely was some kind of phishing attempt. But when I read the actual e-mail, it looked real and didn't ask for anything. Then, when I tried to log in to the account through their website, I discovered that the message was legit.
Banned! Accused of buying/selling game items for "real world" money!
I'm going to try to make a long story short here, so I'll gloss over some of the details. I immediately sent Blizzard an e-mail saying, in essence, "no WAY!!!11!"; a few days passed; they must have believed me or whatever; the account got reinstated; I was able to log on to their account management website. I then discovered that the account had in fact been reactivated about a week earlier by someone using a free Burning Crusade 10-day trial (like I said, she never played too much, so BC was never activated on that account). There were a couple (literally) of days left on the trial, so I logged in (after sitting through the inevitable/interminable patching process) and discovered a new character (i.e., one that I am certain neither my wife nor I created) holding a fair amount of coin (with a lot more in its mailbox from the Auction House) and piles and piles and piles of mithril and gold ore. Some of the pre-existing (i.e., legitimate) characters on the account also had piles of mithril ore in their mailboxes too.
Seeing all of that demonstrates conclusively that this wasn't just some kind of weird glitch in Blizzard's system. Rather, some person actually got access to our account and used it for apparently (and in Blizzard's opinion, definitely) nefarious purposes. I'm going to call that right there about the damnedest thing I've ever had happen to me (or someone I directly know) relating to computer or online account security.
Whoever used the free trial to reactivate the account had to have two pieces of information: the account name and the associated password. The name: fine. It's an e-mail address. Not a "main" address, or even one that's commonly used, but still. Not exactly super-secret information. But the PW? What the hell? I knew it, my wife knew it, and that should have been it. I know with absolute certainty that we never shared a WoW password with any third party, either intentionally or by falling for some kind of scam. We aren't exactly airheads about that kind of thing. She even works in a field where computer security is of extreme importance, for crying out loud.
I'd pay a fair amount of money to know how this happened, but I'm sure I never will. So, I will remain more or less beside myself in the near term, and wonder what other pieces of our personal security may have been compromised as well.
Back in January, as I mentioned at the time, I cancelled my WoW account. Actually, that should be accounts (plural) because, like many gamers, I always had a couple. One was my "main" account, and the other was used either by my wife (on the uncommon occasions when she played) or by me for mule characters and the like. Anyway, cancelled them both back in January.
So, imagine my surprise when my wife forwarded to me an e-mail she'd gotten last week (note well: "last week" as in "late April") from Blizzard saying that her account had been banned, for disruptive activities or somesuch similar nonsense. When she first told me about it, my first reaction was that it surely was some kind of phishing attempt. But when I read the actual e-mail, it looked real and didn't ask for anything. Then, when I tried to log in to the account through their website, I discovered that the message was legit.
Banned! Accused of buying/selling game items for "real world" money!
I'm going to try to make a long story short here, so I'll gloss over some of the details. I immediately sent Blizzard an e-mail saying, in essence, "no WAY!!!11!"; a few days passed; they must have believed me or whatever; the account got reinstated; I was able to log on to their account management website. I then discovered that the account had in fact been reactivated about a week earlier by someone using a free Burning Crusade 10-day trial (like I said, she never played too much, so BC was never activated on that account). There were a couple (literally) of days left on the trial, so I logged in (after sitting through the inevitable/interminable patching process) and discovered a new character (i.e., one that I am certain neither my wife nor I created) holding a fair amount of coin (with a lot more in its mailbox from the Auction House) and piles and piles and piles of mithril and gold ore. Some of the pre-existing (i.e., legitimate) characters on the account also had piles of mithril ore in their mailboxes too.
Seeing all of that demonstrates conclusively that this wasn't just some kind of weird glitch in Blizzard's system. Rather, some person actually got access to our account and used it for apparently (and in Blizzard's opinion, definitely) nefarious purposes. I'm going to call that right there about the damnedest thing I've ever had happen to me (or someone I directly know) relating to computer or online account security.
Whoever used the free trial to reactivate the account had to have two pieces of information: the account name and the associated password. The name: fine. It's an e-mail address. Not a "main" address, or even one that's commonly used, but still. Not exactly super-secret information. But the PW? What the hell? I knew it, my wife knew it, and that should have been it. I know with absolute certainty that we never shared a WoW password with any third party, either intentionally or by falling for some kind of scam. We aren't exactly airheads about that kind of thing. She even works in a field where computer security is of extreme importance, for crying out loud.
I'd pay a fair amount of money to know how this happened, but I'm sure I never will. So, I will remain more or less beside myself in the near term, and wonder what other pieces of our personal security may have been compromised as well.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friendly forces pull out of Eisenbach
When I wrote about World at War: Eisenbach Gap last month, I said I wasn't ready to put it up for trade just then. Well, I'm somewhat sad to report that I did give up on it. I put it in the mail today. I never could get past the issues that put me off from the very beginning.
I really did want to like it.
I really did want to like it.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Carriers at War
From about the mid '80s through the late '90s, my main hobby was, hands down, computer gaming. No other pastime or interest came close. I started on the Commodore 64 -- Pool of Radiance, Gunship, and Red Storm Rising remain among my all-time favorites to this day. When I moved on to the PC, my favorites were generally the usual suspects: the Civilization games, Master of What-have-you, X-Com.
As much as I loved "strategy" games, for some reason I tended to pass on the full-fledged war games. There were certainly exceptions to that tendency; the original Harpoon and Steel Panthers being two of the most notable. In general, though, I had a strong preference for fantasy- or SF-themed games.
So, overall, it's not too surprising that I missed out on one of the big war game series of that era, Carriers at War by SSG. It's too bad, in a way. Looking back, it seems like it would have been a natural for me. Naval + WWII = Win.
Sometimes, though, you get second chances -- of sorts. Back in '07, SSG released a shiny new installment to this venerable (by industry standards) series. I was completely out of the hobby at that point, so the new release entirely escaped my notice. It has only been in the last year or so that I've found my interest in computer wargaming to be perking up. And, to make a long story (slightly) shorter, it was about a month ago that I decided to pull the trigger and download it from Matrix Games.
This was not an inconsequential decision for me. Fifty bucks is past my impulse buy threshold (usually) -- so I mulled this one over for quite a while. I ended up giving it a try because I've been itching to find a computer war game that I can sink my teeth into, and I figured this one might fit the bill, especially since I've been on a Midway kick lately. My bottom-line reaction: I'm sorry to say that I'm having quite a bit of "buyer's remorse."
Not that it's a bad game; in fact it's a well-done product. It has, however, almost completely failed to "grab" me.
It is an extremely understated game. There's not an ounce of anything you might consider calling "flash" associated with this title. In a vacuum, that is not at all a problem. It becomes something of an issue, however, when I consider that I paid $50 in 2010 for a game that looks like this. If it had been $35, I wouldn't even be mentioning it. If I had gotten a nice printed manual, I might not be mentioning it. But, in fact, it was $50 for a no-physical-product download, so that's how it has to be judged.
OK, so there's no (or very little) sizzle, so the product has to live or die completely on its steak. And that's fine; that's more or less what I expected, and after all, it was the anticipation of said steak that got me punching my credit card number into Matrix's site. The game could have blown me away with its content, and I would have been delighted to have gotten it at the price. Sad to say, that absolutely hasn't happened.
I don't know if I can put my finger on the problem, exactly. The basic issue, I think, arises from the fact that I just feel too far removed somehow from the events unfolding on my monitor. It's partly due, I'm sure, to the level of detail the game presents me with. A lot of things feel too glossed over or abstracted. (I usually have no idea of exactly what's going on with my CAP, for example.) On a closely related note, the gameplay decisions feel so broad brushed that I never feel like I have real control over what's happening.
I do not want to micromanage the firing of every AA gun in my TFs, but it does seem like there should be a middle ground between that level of silliness and what CaW is giving me. I'm not going to give up on it just now, but unless things turn around dramatically, I don't think I'll be sinking too many more hours into it.
I'm glad companies like SSG exist. I'm glad games like CaW can still be made. Unfortunately, this particular one hasn't gone over too well with me, particularly given its price point. I'm feeling a little burned by it.
As much as I loved "strategy" games, for some reason I tended to pass on the full-fledged war games. There were certainly exceptions to that tendency; the original Harpoon and Steel Panthers being two of the most notable. In general, though, I had a strong preference for fantasy- or SF-themed games.
So, overall, it's not too surprising that I missed out on one of the big war game series of that era, Carriers at War by SSG. It's too bad, in a way. Looking back, it seems like it would have been a natural for me. Naval + WWII = Win.
This was not an inconsequential decision for me. Fifty bucks is past my impulse buy threshold (usually) -- so I mulled this one over for quite a while. I ended up giving it a try because I've been itching to find a computer war game that I can sink my teeth into, and I figured this one might fit the bill, especially since I've been on a Midway kick lately. My bottom-line reaction: I'm sorry to say that I'm having quite a bit of "buyer's remorse."
Not that it's a bad game; in fact it's a well-done product. It has, however, almost completely failed to "grab" me.
It is an extremely understated game. There's not an ounce of anything you might consider calling "flash" associated with this title. In a vacuum, that is not at all a problem. It becomes something of an issue, however, when I consider that I paid $50 in 2010 for a game that looks like this. If it had been $35, I wouldn't even be mentioning it. If I had gotten a nice printed manual, I might not be mentioning it. But, in fact, it was $50 for a no-physical-product download, so that's how it has to be judged.
OK, so there's no (or very little) sizzle, so the product has to live or die completely on its steak. And that's fine; that's more or less what I expected, and after all, it was the anticipation of said steak that got me punching my credit card number into Matrix's site. The game could have blown me away with its content, and I would have been delighted to have gotten it at the price. Sad to say, that absolutely hasn't happened.
I don't know if I can put my finger on the problem, exactly. The basic issue, I think, arises from the fact that I just feel too far removed somehow from the events unfolding on my monitor. It's partly due, I'm sure, to the level of detail the game presents me with. A lot of things feel too glossed over or abstracted. (I usually have no idea of exactly what's going on with my CAP, for example.) On a closely related note, the gameplay decisions feel so broad brushed that I never feel like I have real control over what's happening.
I do not want to micromanage the firing of every AA gun in my TFs, but it does seem like there should be a middle ground between that level of silliness and what CaW is giving me. I'm not going to give up on it just now, but unless things turn around dramatically, I don't think I'll be sinking too many more hours into it.
I'm glad companies like SSG exist. I'm glad games like CaW can still be made. Unfortunately, this particular one hasn't gone over too well with me, particularly given its price point. I'm feeling a little burned by it.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Out of left field
Last Wednesday was board game night at the Monkey Den. Faithful readers may recall that, last time, we played Nexus Ops. Now, Nexus Ops is a strong game. It is manly. It is as American as a huge cheeseburger. You are made palpably heartier for having played it.
We did not play Nexus Ops last week. We went in a slightly different direction.
I know ... I'm as surprised as you are.
Here's how it happened. One of the guys, the newest Monkey in fact, had been saying for a while that he was going to buy The 'Gric. He'd played it a bunch before he moved away from his old town, and he really liked it. Being a man of open mind, I agreed to give it a shot ... once.
My thought process was something like this: Every single thing I knew about the game led me to believe playing would be a kind of slow torture. Seriously, actual subsistence farming sounded like more fun to me than this game. But, what the hell, I figured. I can sit through one play, right? Then, I can at least say that I've done it. In the future, when I sneer in scorn at it, that scorn will be marginally less ill informed than my normal scorn.
So we played. And I cannot tell you how much I'd love to say that my unerring(!) instincts were right on target again(!). Really, I would love that. I'd love it so much that there's at least a 50-50 chance that I'll come back later and edit this post into one big 'Gric-hating, face-saving lie. But, that's what it would be, a lie. For you see, friends, I did not hate it.
I loved it.
I am flabbergasted by that, but what are you going to do? I don't remember the last time I thought about a game so much in the days following my first exposure to it. It is a brilliant gaming experience. It is remarkably easy to pick up. It moves quickly. It offers interesting choices. It is -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- fun. I didn't think euros were supposed to be fun? Maybe we were doing it wrong.
So, I've said it, and I'm not ashamed of it (much). It's not like I'm going to start selling my lead and plastic to buy tweed jackets and a pipe or whatever. But I've got some things to think about, that's for sure.
We did not play Nexus Ops last week. We went in a slightly different direction.
I know ... I'm as surprised as you are.
Here's how it happened. One of the guys, the newest Monkey in fact, had been saying for a while that he was going to buy The 'Gric. He'd played it a bunch before he moved away from his old town, and he really liked it. Being a man of open mind, I agreed to give it a shot ... once.
My thought process was something like this: Every single thing I knew about the game led me to believe playing would be a kind of slow torture. Seriously, actual subsistence farming sounded like more fun to me than this game. But, what the hell, I figured. I can sit through one play, right? Then, I can at least say that I've done it. In the future, when I sneer in scorn at it, that scorn will be marginally less ill informed than my normal scorn.
So we played. And I cannot tell you how much I'd love to say that my unerring(!) instincts were right on target again(!). Really, I would love that. I'd love it so much that there's at least a 50-50 chance that I'll come back later and edit this post into one big 'Gric-hating, face-saving lie. But, that's what it would be, a lie. For you see, friends, I did not hate it.
I loved it.
I am flabbergasted by that, but what are you going to do? I don't remember the last time I thought about a game so much in the days following my first exposure to it. It is a brilliant gaming experience. It is remarkably easy to pick up. It moves quickly. It offers interesting choices. It is -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- fun. I didn't think euros were supposed to be fun? Maybe we were doing it wrong.
So, I've said it, and I'm not ashamed of it (much). It's not like I'm going to start selling my lead and plastic to buy tweed jackets and a pipe or whatever. But I've got some things to think about, that's for sure.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Ultimatum FAIL
So, I didn't make it.
I didn't even come that close, actually. Here's what happened: The week after I posted my self-imposed deadline, I made some good progress. I got the three 'jacks completely assembled and primed, so at least there's that.
Assembly wasn't as trivial a task as it may sound. I'm pretty compulsive about pinning (practically) all of the joints on these models, so that's a lot of drilling. Plus, I spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to best attach some Litko magnetic base bottoms to the bases. I haven't used those before, and they were really stumping me there for a while. Finally, I was following the BrushThralls tutorial and using green stuff to try to replicate the cracked earth look from the (earlier) studio models. Now I don't for a second mean to imply that's any kind of major sculpting work or whatever, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Green stuff and I aren't exactly BFFs. So, yes: it was just assembly. But I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself when I got it done.
The wheels came off the tracks right after I got the guys primed, though. I had high hopes for that first weekend. My last completed painting project came together when I got to devote a bunch of time over a weekend to it, and I wanted to replicate that experience. Didn't happen. Long story short: a couple of real world events intervened, and (despite my best intentions) I simply wasn't able to touch the models at all that Saturday or Sunday. That sapped my will to work on them, and there they sat, and then the deadline passed, and that was that.
I just cannot find the motivation to complete this project, or any other painting, for that matter. So, I've decided to stop trying to force it and give it a rest for a while. I honestly don't know when I'll get back to them. I do know this: I'm not spending another nickel on miniatures, any miniatures, until I get to a point where I can get something painted.
Assembly wasn't as trivial a task as it may sound. I'm pretty compulsive about pinning (practically) all of the joints on these models, so that's a lot of drilling. Plus, I spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to best attach some Litko magnetic base bottoms to the bases. I haven't used those before, and they were really stumping me there for a while. Finally, I was following the BrushThralls tutorial and using green stuff to try to replicate the cracked earth look from the (earlier) studio models. Now I don't for a second mean to imply that's any kind of major sculpting work or whatever, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. Green stuff and I aren't exactly BFFs. So, yes: it was just assembly. But I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself when I got it done.
The wheels came off the tracks right after I got the guys primed, though. I had high hopes for that first weekend. My last completed painting project came together when I got to devote a bunch of time over a weekend to it, and I wanted to replicate that experience. Didn't happen. Long story short: a couple of real world events intervened, and (despite my best intentions) I simply wasn't able to touch the models at all that Saturday or Sunday. That sapped my will to work on them, and there they sat, and then the deadline passed, and that was that.
I just cannot find the motivation to complete this project, or any other painting, for that matter. So, I've decided to stop trying to force it and give it a rest for a while. I honestly don't know when I'll get back to them. I do know this: I'm not spending another nickel on miniatures, any miniatures, until I get to a point where I can get something painted.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
World at War: Eisenbach Gap -- can't miss, right?
WaW:EG is one of those games that I'd wanted for a long time before I actually got around to getting it. I always figured it would be a "can't miss" buy for me. I'm a child of the Cold War. Red Storm Rising is probably my favorite piece of military fiction. The game itself is very highly regarded and extremely well produced (i.e., pretty!). Frankly, everything about it points to me loving it. I want to love it. The bottom line, though, is that I'm having a very hard time warming up to it.
I'm not up for doing a full-scale review because, for one thing, I'm still getting to grips with it. Instead, I'm going to do a bullet-pointed snapshot of some of the things that I find aggravating (or at least distracting) at this early point in my experience with the system.
- As I mentioned when I described getting the game, I'm really not crazy about the rule book. Some of that may be subjective on my part. Maybe the author simply didn't organize and word things the way my brain idiosyncratically wants to see them. (How about a nice table concisely showing me exactly how the different weapon types interact with the different target types?) Be that as it may, there are some objective problems there as well. Probably the worst example is Rule 7.0, covering Line of Sight (hello, fundamental wargaming concept!). It's just a mess -- and I think LoS is actually intended to be quite simple in this game.
- I'm not crazy about this word, but it's a very fiddly game. Every counter gets an "Ops Complete" counter put on top of it when it finishes its activation, then taken back off when it next activates (or at the beginning of a new turn). "Disrupted" counters live under an appropriate marker until they rally. Less commonly, units might be under "Out of Command" and/or (depleted) "Ammo" markers. And though the stacking limit is two units, some things (like HQs and support weapons, all of which have their own counters) don't count against that limit. So, it's not hard at all to accumulate a real menagerie of cardboard crammed into one hex. And, since some of the counters are units and some are markers which apply only to specific units in a stack, you have to be pretty careful about the order you arrange them in. That's obviously an issue when you have to go digging through the stack -- which you have to do in order to do basically anything. Now, lots of war games use lots of counters -- I'm certainly not unused to that fact. It wasn't until I started working on this post that I realized why this issue bothers me particularly with WaW. The game is supposed to be relatively light, and it plays quite fast. Combine that with the fact that units' statuses are changing constantly, and that amounts to a lot of counter shuffling. It's aggravating.
- This one is completely subjective, but there's something about the scale of the game that puts me off a little bit. The counters represent platoons, rather than individual vehicles. I guess I just have conceptual difficulties with tactical games (i.e., where things like elevation and terrain effects on LoS are considerations) that don't use individual vehicles as the maneuver elements. It's an abstraction that I'm simply uncomfortable with. (All of the tanks in the platoon are behind the hill, or none of the tanks in the platoon are behind the hill.) Plus, in this specific case, the platoons aren't the same size. The Soviets organized their tank companies into three vehicle platoons, while (at the time) the US Army used four tank platoons. (At least I'm about 80% sure it was four. I'm no expert on the Army's organizational practices, and I believe the mid-'80's was a weird period for them anyway.) This has zero impact on gameplay, of course, but it does add a tiny bit to the cognitive dissonance I feel every time I move a unit.
Now, on the positive side, none of these things are inherent insoluble problems with the game system itself. So I'm not planning on putting the thing up for trade just yet. But I'm not immediately interested in getting any of the other games in the series, either. I will, however, give this one a little more effort before I give up on it. I really do want to like it.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
I can explain everything
Remember that rant about not buying new stuff (no matter how pretty) while I've got so many other projects already hanging over my head? Remember how I resolved to resist that urge and focus on the things I already have?
OK, yes. Yes, that is mine. Yes, I did buy it and it came in the mail a couple of days ago. But I can explain everything.
I remain totally committed to the concept of resistance! In fact, I may very well be resistier right now than I was when I first made my Declaration of Resistance. I'm so resistant that I put Ohmmeters in my general vicinity at risk of literally exploding.
But here's the thing: one still browses eBay, doesn't one? And surely, one looks at listings for things in which one is interested? And one occasionally finds bargains? And, when one finds such a bargain -- say, a $35 book (that one desperately covets) for $10 -- wouldn't it be irresponsible for one NOT to buy it?
Seriously, it was a little too good a deal to pass up, and I'm glad I pulled the trigger on it. It's a beautiful book, well made and lavishly illustrated. I've enjoyed thumbing through it and getting at least a glancing familiarity with the ruleset. But -- and this is why I don't feel bad about the purchase -- I have no intention of jumping into it as a full-scale hobby any time in the near future. So, on one hand, yes: I did buy a new game that I was trying to hold out on. But on the other, it's just a $10 book, not $100+ of unpainted lead. Maybe next year? In the meantime, I might pick up an army book or two, but no miniatures, and that's the real key.
OK, yes. Yes, that is mine. Yes, I did buy it and it came in the mail a couple of days ago. But I can explain everything.
I remain totally committed to the concept of resistance! In fact, I may very well be resistier right now than I was when I first made my Declaration of Resistance. I'm so resistant that I put Ohmmeters in my general vicinity at risk of literally exploding.
But here's the thing: one still browses eBay, doesn't one? And surely, one looks at listings for things in which one is interested? And one occasionally finds bargains? And, when one finds such a bargain -- say, a $35 book (that one desperately covets) for $10 -- wouldn't it be irresponsible for one NOT to buy it?
Seriously, it was a little too good a deal to pass up, and I'm glad I pulled the trigger on it. It's a beautiful book, well made and lavishly illustrated. I've enjoyed thumbing through it and getting at least a glancing familiarity with the ruleset. But -- and this is why I don't feel bad about the purchase -- I have no intention of jumping into it as a full-scale hobby any time in the near future. So, on one hand, yes: I did buy a new game that I was trying to hold out on. But on the other, it's just a $10 book, not $100+ of unpainted lead. Maybe next year? In the meantime, I might pick up an army book or two, but no miniatures, and that's the real key.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Gale Force Nine did a nice thing
I'm a big fan of GF9's stuff. As I've said many times before, I'm all about the eye candy, and GF9 makes some great products -- things that are both neat looking and very useful. (I especially like their Flames of War marker tokens, as one particular example.) They used to make licensed templates for Warmachine. They lost that license a while back (I have no idea of the circumstances there), but they continued the product line under their "WarCogs" trademark.
When Mk II first came out, GF9 naturally updated their WarCog spray template to match the new 10" Warmachine version. And here's where the "nice thing" comes in: they offered to replace their old 8" templates for free. All you had to do was send them your old one, and they'd send you back a new one. (They even picked up the postage on the new one.)
That's just an extraordinarily cool move on GF9's part, in my book. In no way did they "owe" a new template to those of us who had previously bought the original version: we got exactly what we paid for and got full use of it while it was current. And, of course, GF9 had absolutely nothing to do with the rule change that obsoleted the old one. Bottom line: no obligation whatsoever on their part to do anything to defray the cost of updating the product. But, defray it they did, to the tune of 100%. Again: extraordinarily cool move.
I'll feel good about spending money on GF9 products in the future.
And yeah, I know: right now the world's got a lot of problems a lot bigger than whether or not a company replaces a couple dollar chunk of plastic. Still. Miniatures gaming is a hobby wherein the 500-lb. gorilla of the industry isn't exactly known for bending over backwards to save its customers money. So, I can't help noticing -- and commenting on -- this instance where a company went out of its way to do something at its own expense that was unambiguously pro-customer.
So, thank you, Gale Force Nine.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
I think I'm in love
In short: it rocks.
In slightly-less-short: What a delightful, delightful game. I had high hopes for it, and they were met or exceeded. This is pretty much exactly what I want to be playing right now. It's light, but not flimsy; fast, but not frantic. It's fun to look at, fun to play -- just fun. I cannot imagine why this wasn't a huge commercial success.
I say all of the above even though I got pummeled last night. Joe F. won with 12 VP's before anyone else had half that many (I think). It seems like he was burying us under Special Mission cards right from the first turn. I felt like I was doing OK -- I held the monolith most of the game -- but I guess I wasn't aggressive enough.
Anyway, I can't wait to play this again. I think I'm going to try a two-player game with Mrs. Greywing sometime soon and see how that works. I know it will be a very different experience with two instead of four, but I'm hoping we find it worthwhile.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
A self-imposed deadline
I am getting just about fed up with getting big heaps of nothing accomplished.
Maybe it's the season; whatever. I can't seem to shake the WoW-induced malaise toward miniatures that I've been suffering through over the last few months. It's really starting to bug me.
Hobbies (even this one) are supposed to be fun. Guilting out over not getting my new toys painted is not fun.
I don't know, maybe some formal (-ish) deadlines will get me moving, even if they are self-imposed. It's worth a try, at least, I guess. So here goes, with my first one:
I will get the miniatures from my Protectorate of Menoth starter box completely assembled and painted by the end of the day on March 7, 2010, or I will light them on fire.
OK, that's two full weeks, so it's not exactly a stretch to say that I should be able to pull that off. But: baby steps.
Maybe it's the season; whatever. I can't seem to shake the WoW-induced malaise toward miniatures that I've been suffering through over the last few months. It's really starting to bug me.
Hobbies (even this one) are supposed to be fun. Guilting out over not getting my new toys painted is not fun.
I don't know, maybe some formal (-ish) deadlines will get me moving, even if they are self-imposed. It's worth a try, at least, I guess. So here goes, with my first one:
I will get the miniatures from my Protectorate of Menoth starter box completely assembled and painted by the end of the day on March 7, 2010, or I will light them on fire.
OK, that's two full weeks, so it's not exactly a stretch to say that I should be able to pull that off. But: baby steps.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Punch drunk
No way around it; I just am. And, I have a pretty dodgy attention span too. Stacking those two traits, it's no wonder that it's so hard for me to get around to game-related "chores" like punching games and clipping counters.
But, I am not hopeless! On occasion, I'll unleash a veritable flurry of game-prepping activity on my unsuspecting collection. For whatever reason, this past week was such an occasion. I completely punched not one, not two, but three games.
First up was Twilight Struggle. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had just bought the new deluxe edition, and it was delivered last week. It's a very impressive looking game, and I turned this one around from "in shrink" to "ready to play" in record time. The cards are sleeved (and not penny sleeves either -- I broke out the Dragon Shields for this one) and the counters are punched and sorted. The counters are the nice thick ones with rounded corners (no clipping!). I love those. I really hope to get some games of this in soon. We'll see.
Next was Nexus Ops. I picked this one up about a year ago. Up until a couple of days ago, it was out of shrink, but otherwise completely unpunched. I finally got around to prepping this one because we were going to play it at the Monkey Den this week, until Snowmageddon intervened. More nice, thick, rounded counters. I edged those, and the hex tiles, with a black Sharpie and they look very -- sharp. I still need to figure out something to do with the monolith hex, though. I don't want to use the stock fold-up tower thing for a variety of reasons. I bought a small sheet of black foamcore, and I'll probably start hacking at that this weekend in an attempt to rig up a replacement. Anyway, I am salivating to play this.
Finally, I tackled Fields of Fire. Holy cow. This probably deserved its own post, but here we are. Let me start by saying that the first sign that FoF is not for the faint of heart is the five counter sheets that greet one upon the unboxing. (Well, OK, the first sign is probably the 3,000 BGG threads with titles like "ZOMG THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!!" But the counter sheets are definitely the second.) Seriously, this is not a hex-and-counter game, but it has 880 counters.
I was taken aback.
As I said before, I think learning to play this is going to be a massive undertaking. I'm not quite ready to tear into that task right at the moment, but I do see the day coming in the near term when I will be. In preparation, I decided to get the game physically ready to go. The cards (the action and Normandy decks at least) also got Dragon Shielded (I am totally out of them now), and then I dove into the counter sheets. I worked on them here and there for a week, and they are finally done. Punched, sorted (roughly), bagged, and clipped.
I should add that I find them (and the cards too, for that matter) very nicely done. They are attractive and understated. They are colorful, but still entirely practical and functional -- never busy. I especially like some of the graphics choices -- the use of unit badges instead of little drawings of soldiers, for example. Plus, I have an absolutely irrational love for the use of any variety of Courier font on WWII game components. (I said it, and I'm not ashamed of it.)
In fact, the entire aesthetic presence of Fields of Fire is pretty close to perfect in my eyes. To summarize the look of the game in one word: classy. I've said before that the eye candy aspect of gaming is genuinely important to me, so I mean all of that as very high praise.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Must... resist...
And not just the computer version. I am battling a wracking physical compulsion directing me to go out and buy the tabletop rules and about three or four 15 mm armies.
Until about ten days ago, I never had the slightest interest in ancient warfare. Then I happened across this review, which led me to the above-linked site, which led me to additional research, etc., etc. Bottom line: the Wanting Mind has kicked in. Hard.
Pretty, pretty hoplites.
But! 2010 is the Year of Warmachine. And, I have an entire Flames of War panzergren army to paint. "Have" as in have. As in bought and paid for. As in the boxes are strewn around my office right now.
So. I will be thankful for what I have. I will work on the projects I have already undertaken before I bite off any new ones. I will resist.
Today.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
New acquisitions since the WoWpocalypse
One of the things I'd been doing in this space was running down my new game acquisitions. While I was obsessively playing the WoW, I still managed to pick up a handful of new things -- I just didn't write about them. That lapse has been a thorn in the side of my sense of order, a thorn whose pricking I will suffer no longer!
First, a quick thought on "collecting," since this is, plain and simple, a post describing my collection. I actually don't think of myself as a "collector," really, but: the facts are the facts. I buy a lot of games that, on some level, I know I probably won't actually play (or at least, play much). I derive pleasure from the actual owning of the things, apart from and in addition to the pleasure that comes from their use. I guess that's a pretty reasonable definition of "collector," whether I like it or not. So there. I guess I'm a collector, but a half-assed collector, to be sure.
Anyway: here, in no particular order, are the things that I've picked up but not mentioned previously.
World at War: Eisenbach Gap. The Cold War era is a little under represented in my collection (there's that word again!) and that's a little surprising to me. It's the era during which I grew up, and I find the potential military conflicts of the age absolutely fascinating. Accordingly, WaW is a title I've always intended to pick up at some point. I finally put in a request for it as one of the two games I asked for at Christmas. The game covers a fictional invasion of the West by the USSR in the mid-80's. It's a tactical-level game, but at 1 counter = 1 platoon (rather than 1 counter = 1 vehicle). It has had a lot of positive buzz, and I definitely see the appeal -- it's a very nice looking game, among other things. It hasn't exactly grabbed me yet, though. I've been through the rules pretty thoroughly, and they could be tighter, frankly. Still, I'm looking forward to getting into this.
Fields of Fire. This was my other (gaming) Christmas present. Its reputation is that it is a highly complex, highly innovative solitaire infantry/tactical game. It spans three eras, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It also has the reputation of having an extremely difficult-to-grasp rule book. I've done little more than take the shrink off this one at this point. I'm not going to dig into it until I am in the mood for a major project.
Lock 'n Load: Band of Heroes. (Note well: not "Lock and Load," lordy no; one presumes that wouldn't be "keepin' it real." Or whatever. And I would love to have sat in on the production meeting wherein it was decided that the omission of the "a" in "and" was worthy of denoting with an apostrophe, but the "d"--well, the "d" can just hit the damned road.) I got a used copy of this game in a BGG math trade. I gave up my copy of the WWII version of Wings of War--a game which I'd also gotten in a math trade. (Hello, my name is Greywing, and I have a problem.) I apparently have embarked upon a mission to own every WWII tactical board game except Advanced Squad Leader, and this acquisition fits into that plan (?) nicely. Nothing really to say about this one beyond that; I've done barely more than open the box.
Patton's Best. This is another game I got second-hand in a BGG math trade. I traded away my copy of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition Player's Handbook for it. (Have I mentioned that I wasn't crazy about 4E?) It's a solitaire game that I've sort of been looking for for a while now. I really like the look of this one -- it's a detailed simulation of the experiences of a tank crew in WWII Europe, down to the level that each individual crew member is represented. I have every intention of learning this one in the near term. This was an excellent trade for me, which broke a streak of less-than-great luck. My copy is complete and in really good shape for a game first published over 20 years ago.
Midway. I won an auction for this one for a pretty low price (under $20 including shipping). I bid on this as kind of a lark, actually. I thought I'd take a flyer on trying to get one of the real classics of the genre, and it worked out. This is, right now, definitely in the "have it just to have it" category, but who knows? I might actually set it up at some point, since the subject matter is the most interesting (to me) single battle in history. Read Shattered Sword!
So, there you go. I've got one order in right now, for the deluxe reprint of Twilight Stuggle, and after that -- scout's honor! -- I'm cutting back on new purchases. Seriously. The goal for the year is to get my Warmachine on. Beyond that, I need to seriously cut into the my number of owned-but-unplayed games, and cut down on the new acquisitions!
First, a quick thought on "collecting," since this is, plain and simple, a post describing my collection. I actually don't think of myself as a "collector," really, but: the facts are the facts. I buy a lot of games that, on some level, I know I probably won't actually play (or at least, play much). I derive pleasure from the actual owning of the things, apart from and in addition to the pleasure that comes from their use. I guess that's a pretty reasonable definition of "collector," whether I like it or not. So there. I guess I'm a collector, but a half-assed collector, to be sure.
Anyway: here, in no particular order, are the things that I've picked up but not mentioned previously.
World at War: Eisenbach Gap. The Cold War era is a little under represented in my collection (there's that word again!) and that's a little surprising to me. It's the era during which I grew up, and I find the potential military conflicts of the age absolutely fascinating. Accordingly, WaW is a title I've always intended to pick up at some point. I finally put in a request for it as one of the two games I asked for at Christmas. The game covers a fictional invasion of the West by the USSR in the mid-80's. It's a tactical-level game, but at 1 counter = 1 platoon (rather than 1 counter = 1 vehicle). It has had a lot of positive buzz, and I definitely see the appeal -- it's a very nice looking game, among other things. It hasn't exactly grabbed me yet, though. I've been through the rules pretty thoroughly, and they could be tighter, frankly. Still, I'm looking forward to getting into this.
Fields of Fire. This was my other (gaming) Christmas present. Its reputation is that it is a highly complex, highly innovative solitaire infantry/tactical game. It spans three eras, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It also has the reputation of having an extremely difficult-to-grasp rule book. I've done little more than take the shrink off this one at this point. I'm not going to dig into it until I am in the mood for a major project.
Lock 'n Load: Band of Heroes. (Note well: not "Lock and Load," lordy no; one presumes that wouldn't be "keepin' it real." Or whatever. And I would love to have sat in on the production meeting wherein it was decided that the omission of the "a" in "and" was worthy of denoting with an apostrophe, but the "d"--well, the "d" can just hit the damned road.) I got a used copy of this game in a BGG math trade. I gave up my copy of the WWII version of Wings of War--a game which I'd also gotten in a math trade. (Hello, my name is Greywing, and I have a problem.) I apparently have embarked upon a mission to own every WWII tactical board game except Advanced Squad Leader, and this acquisition fits into that plan (?) nicely. Nothing really to say about this one beyond that; I've done barely more than open the box.
Patton's Best. This is another game I got second-hand in a BGG math trade. I traded away my copy of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition Player's Handbook for it. (Have I mentioned that I wasn't crazy about 4E?) It's a solitaire game that I've sort of been looking for for a while now. I really like the look of this one -- it's a detailed simulation of the experiences of a tank crew in WWII Europe, down to the level that each individual crew member is represented. I have every intention of learning this one in the near term. This was an excellent trade for me, which broke a streak of less-than-great luck. My copy is complete and in really good shape for a game first published over 20 years ago.
Midway. I won an auction for this one for a pretty low price (under $20 including shipping). I bid on this as kind of a lark, actually. I thought I'd take a flyer on trying to get one of the real classics of the genre, and it worked out. This is, right now, definitely in the "have it just to have it" category, but who knows? I might actually set it up at some point, since the subject matter is the most interesting (to me) single battle in history. Read Shattered Sword!
So, there you go. I've got one order in right now, for the deluxe reprint of Twilight Stuggle, and after that -- scout's honor! -- I'm cutting back on new purchases. Seriously. The goal for the year is to get my Warmachine on. Beyond that, I need to seriously cut into the my number of owned-but-unplayed games, and cut down on the new acquisitions!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Thieving monkeys
I am playing somewhat against type and running a rogue in this campaign. I say "against type" because I'm generally a game mechanics kind of guy (I'm a wargamer, after all) but I'm going to try to approach this as more of a role playing experience. My character is an actor, and thinks of himself as such (rather than as a "rogue" or an "adventurer"). His highest stat is Charisma, and I'm planning on keeping all of his social skills (especially Bluff!) maxed out, even if I have to skimp on the thievery. (I'll keep Perception and Disable Device maxed though.) Again, this will be a new experience for me, so we'll see.
Our first session went pretty well, I thought. We spent the majority of it fleeing through Westcrown's elaborate sewer system with a pack of Hell Knights on our tails. We had a nice mix of RP (pre-sewer fleeing) and combat, so that was good. Joe has really outdone himself in one regard: all of the combat action took place on elaborate 3D terrain that he bought from WorldWorks Games and assembled for this campaign. I'm a huge eye candy fan, I admit it, so that kind of thing really adds to my enjoyment.
Despite what I said above about focusing on the RP rather than mechanics aspect of my character, I was delighted by the fact that I had a great night in combat. I have a bit of a reputation for runs of less than stellar luck with a d20, let's just say. Last night it was really clicking though. It seemed like I was dropping a badguy on practically every turn. Here's hoping that trend continues.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Speed kills
I ran six miles this morning. Just under 58 and a half minutes. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with gaming or this blog, but I'm extremely proud of it and wanted to write it down.
Back on topic. My FLGS hosted a Flames of War "speed tournament" yesterday, and I took my trusty Russians. The rules were straightforward. The players each brought a fixed 600-point list (at least an HQ and one combat platoon; no tanks with top armour of 2) and the idea was to get in as many games as possible. All scenarios were modified Free For Alls (only one objective on each side, half-width tables). Wins were worth 3 points, draws 2, and losses 1. There was also a scoring bonus for having a high winning percentage.
I put my list together relatively quickly. I went with:
WIN vs. German tanks. Andrew had a platoon of Pz IVs and an 88. This was the first game of the day for both of us, and frankly, I may not have been completely awake. Totally static tank fight on desert board. I stood and shot, he stood and shot, and in the end I gave worse than I got. My mortars knocked out the 88(!), so they justified their place in the list right off the bat. I'm pretty sure Andrew would have played me differently if we'd had a re-match, but, as it happened, I was happy to kick the day off with a victory.
WIN vs. US tanks. We played this one on a heavily forested board with a road running across it. Scott had five Shermans and an infantry platoon. He played very aggressively and tried to get his tanks in my face -- which I was more than happy to see: I stood still and blasted him. Scott finished second overall in the tournament, so I am proud to have won this one.
WIN vs. US armored rifles. Back to the desert for this one, but on a different board with more hills and a wadi. Aaron brought five (-ish?) Stuarts and a huge infantry platoon. He tried to do an objective rush with the tanks, but five Stewies vs. ten T-34s is not going to be a winning proposition. After his tanks were gone, I turned my guns on his infantry, and I have never ever seen such bad luck on save rolls. He couldn't buy a roll over a 2.
WIN vs. German Fallschirmjagers. This turned out to be my last game of the day, on another hilly, forested board. Jordan (whom I had not met before and who was a super nice guy to play against) brought a couple of FJ platoons supported by two StuGs. He played hyper-aggressively, stormtroopering his StuGs around the woods on my right flank and toward my objective. Much like I said above, two StuGs vs. 10 T-34s is practically hopeless. After they were gone, he got pinned down while trying to assault my tanks, and that was that.
LOSS vs. Russian tanks. Clint's list wasn't quite a mirror image of mine. He built it on T-34s, but brought fewer than I did. He spent the rest of his points on tank destroyers and some light AT guns. This was another very static slugfest, and, honestly, I had a chance here, but I couldn't pull it out. On what turned out to be my last turn, I failed two morale checks to re-mount bailed-out tanks (failing re-rolls on both) and I had a feeling that was going to end up being the ballgame. Clint is a very strong player (and a super guy) and I've never beaten him (0-3).
LOSS vs. German engineers. This game was a real eye-opener for me. Boone fielded a platoon of engineers and 4 big AT guns (not 88s, though). I thought I was in great shape when I killed two guns and their platoon commander and he failed the ensuing platoon morale check. He decided to use his CO for a re-roll (which I absolutely would have done too), and he failed that too. So, not only were his guns gone, his company commander had run off with him. Now, it's just a matter of me mopping up, right?
Well, not so fast, my friend (to quote a great American). He had a bunch (3? 4?) of flamethrowers, which he had definitely told me while we were setting up, yet somehow I had completely (and I mean completely) failed to process. So I moved my tanks up closer to the woods to start machinegunning his infantry, which I did ineffectively (dug-in, gone to ground veterans in the woods -- a tough nut to crack). Next turn, he jumps all over me with the FTs, bailing three of the five tanks I had left at that point. Then in the assault step, the defensive fire from the remaining two wasn't enough to stop his pioneers from assaulting and, of course, they roflstomped me.
I've never had my head handed to me by infantry like that before. Not coincidentally, it was also my first experience with massed flamethrowers. I'd be perfectly happy for it to be my last, too.
I could have played better -- a lot better -- in some of my games, for sure. But, when all was said and done, I had a pretty good time and won more than I lost. I'll take that pretty much every time.
I put my list together relatively quickly. I went with:
- HQ: T-34/85 (with cupola);
- Combat platoon: Tankovy company (5 x T-34/85, 4 x T-34/76);
- Weapons platoon: Motorised mortar company (3 stands of light mortars).
- The simplest possible thing I could have done would have been to drop the mortars and add the tenth tank to the tank company (and give them cupolas). More tanks = good, so I gave this very serious consideration. In the end, though, I thought that the mortars would turn out to be worth the one tank. I figured they might have a shot of knocking out an AT gun or two. Plus, I really like having a template thrower when possible, for psychological reasons if nothing else.
- Alternatively, I could have dropped the mortars, changed up the tank company composition a bit, and added tankodesantniki. Now, I love tank riders. Thematically, they're one of my favorite elements of the game, and I run them a lot -- even though I'm not entirely convinced that (a) they are worth it and/or (b) that I'm doing it right. In the end, I decided to leave them home yesterday, in part because I didn't relish the thought of explaining their rules over and over all day.
WIN vs. German tanks. Andrew had a platoon of Pz IVs and an 88. This was the first game of the day for both of us, and frankly, I may not have been completely awake. Totally static tank fight on desert board. I stood and shot, he stood and shot, and in the end I gave worse than I got. My mortars knocked out the 88(!), so they justified their place in the list right off the bat. I'm pretty sure Andrew would have played me differently if we'd had a re-match, but, as it happened, I was happy to kick the day off with a victory.
WIN vs. US tanks. We played this one on a heavily forested board with a road running across it. Scott had five Shermans and an infantry platoon. He played very aggressively and tried to get his tanks in my face -- which I was more than happy to see: I stood still and blasted him. Scott finished second overall in the tournament, so I am proud to have won this one.
WIN vs. US armored rifles. Back to the desert for this one, but on a different board with more hills and a wadi. Aaron brought five (-ish?) Stuarts and a huge infantry platoon. He tried to do an objective rush with the tanks, but five Stewies vs. ten T-34s is not going to be a winning proposition. After his tanks were gone, I turned my guns on his infantry, and I have never ever seen such bad luck on save rolls. He couldn't buy a roll over a 2.
WIN vs. German Fallschirmjagers. This turned out to be my last game of the day, on another hilly, forested board. Jordan (whom I had not met before and who was a super nice guy to play against) brought a couple of FJ platoons supported by two StuGs. He played hyper-aggressively, stormtroopering his StuGs around the woods on my right flank and toward my objective. Much like I said above, two StuGs vs. 10 T-34s is practically hopeless. After they were gone, he got pinned down while trying to assault my tanks, and that was that.
LOSS vs. Russian tanks. Clint's list wasn't quite a mirror image of mine. He built it on T-34s, but brought fewer than I did. He spent the rest of his points on tank destroyers and some light AT guns. This was another very static slugfest, and, honestly, I had a chance here, but I couldn't pull it out. On what turned out to be my last turn, I failed two morale checks to re-mount bailed-out tanks (failing re-rolls on both) and I had a feeling that was going to end up being the ballgame. Clint is a very strong player (and a super guy) and I've never beaten him (0-3).
LOSS vs. German engineers. This game was a real eye-opener for me. Boone fielded a platoon of engineers and 4 big AT guns (not 88s, though). I thought I was in great shape when I killed two guns and their platoon commander and he failed the ensuing platoon morale check. He decided to use his CO for a re-roll (which I absolutely would have done too), and he failed that too. So, not only were his guns gone, his company commander had run off with him. Now, it's just a matter of me mopping up, right?
Well, not so fast, my friend (to quote a great American). He had a bunch (3? 4?) of flamethrowers, which he had definitely told me while we were setting up, yet somehow I had completely (and I mean completely) failed to process. So I moved my tanks up closer to the woods to start machinegunning his infantry, which I did ineffectively (dug-in, gone to ground veterans in the woods -- a tough nut to crack). Next turn, he jumps all over me with the FTs, bailing three of the five tanks I had left at that point. Then in the assault step, the defensive fire from the remaining two wasn't enough to stop his pioneers from assaulting and, of course, they roflstomped me.
I've never had my head handed to me by infantry like that before. Not coincidentally, it was also my first experience with massed flamethrowers. I'd be perfectly happy for it to be my last, too.
I could have played better -- a lot better -- in some of my games, for sure. But, when all was said and done, I had a pretty good time and won more than I lost. I'll take that pretty much every time.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
You may call me ... master
The scenario was Voice in the Void -- a return to the oft-troubled Blakros Museum. We had a good time, I guess. Nobody died, the mission was a success, and all characters finished their faction missions. So, from that standpoint, it was all good. The only real downside was that it took us forever to get through the scenario. It was after midnight when we wrapped up, and this was even though I really made an effort to move things along smartly. (Granted, there was a pizza break in there, but still.) I'm pretty shot today.
As to the scenario itself: I wasn't that crazy about it, to be honest. No spoilers or anything, but I didn't feel the story it told made much sense. Still, I'm looking forward to the next session, and playing rather than running it.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Top goal for 2010
I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of the Warmachine game, but I've never gotten too far into it for a variety of reasons. First, I kind of set it aside in order to focus on getting my Flames of War army done (or close to it, anyway). Then, when I learned that a second edition was in the works, I decided to wait for that.
Now that it's out, I'm extremely excited about it. The book itself is absolutely top-notch (as was the Mk I version). From an aesthetic and production values standpoint, I believe that it is as good as the hobby has ever produced.
So, after a lot of thought, I've decided that this is the game I'm going to focus on this year. I want to get my Khador force finished, and at least get a good start on a Protectorate of Menoth army (I got the starter box on Friday too). Most important, I want to get some games in, and I'm definitely going to try to get into some local organized play.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Not dead yet!
So, every so often, I have a relapse.
I am speaking, in this instance, of my weakness for MMORPGs generally and World of Warcraft specifically. There is something in the nature of these games that grabs me right at the core of my psyche.
So, anyway, very shortly after my last post back in November, I re-activated my WoW account, which had been dormant for almost exactly a year at the time. Picked a particular character, a mid-30's Tauren Hunter, and started playing him. And playing. And playing. Got him up to 70 (my level cap, since I don't own the latest expansion) and kept playing and playing and playing.
It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that immediately after restarting my account, all I wanted to do was play WoW. That's the way these games work on me. When I'm playing them, they consume literally every second of my leisure time -- I don't want to do anything else. (I haven't picked up a paintbrush, for example, since I finished my last batch of tanks.) I certainly don't want to write blog posts.
But, then Christmas came, and you know how that goes. I had to scale back my playing considerably due to all the holiday-related shenanigans. Plus, I was out of town (and thus, completely cold turkey) for a few days. And here's the funny thing about the way these games work on me: when I'm playing, all I want to do is play; but when I can't play all the time, don't really want to play at all. If you follow me.
So, bottom line: Christmas kind of killed it for me. I've barely played since the out-of-town trip I mentioned and I'm completely cool with that. I've turned a big part of my attention back to "real" games. There are a couple of things coming up that I'm really excited about (including, especially, a UPS package that's scheduled to arrive today!), and I plan to write more about them soon. Onward!
I am speaking, in this instance, of my weakness for MMORPGs generally and World of Warcraft specifically. There is something in the nature of these games that grabs me right at the core of my psyche.
So, anyway, very shortly after my last post back in November, I re-activated my WoW account, which had been dormant for almost exactly a year at the time. Picked a particular character, a mid-30's Tauren Hunter, and started playing him. And playing. And playing. Got him up to 70 (my level cap, since I don't own the latest expansion) and kept playing and playing and playing.
It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that immediately after restarting my account, all I wanted to do was play WoW. That's the way these games work on me. When I'm playing them, they consume literally every second of my leisure time -- I don't want to do anything else. (I haven't picked up a paintbrush, for example, since I finished my last batch of tanks.) I certainly don't want to write blog posts.
But, then Christmas came, and you know how that goes. I had to scale back my playing considerably due to all the holiday-related shenanigans. Plus, I was out of town (and thus, completely cold turkey) for a few days. And here's the funny thing about the way these games work on me: when I'm playing, all I want to do is play; but when I can't play all the time, don't really want to play at all. If you follow me.
So, bottom line: Christmas kind of killed it for me. I've barely played since the out-of-town trip I mentioned and I'm completely cool with that. I've turned a big part of my attention back to "real" games. There are a couple of things coming up that I'm really excited about (including, especially, a UPS package that's scheduled to arrive today!), and I plan to write more about them soon. Onward!
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