A Time and A Place

Star Chamber: Rebellions beta testing rolls on, as we weed out the crappy cards and find that new archetypes are emerging. Particularly one card has created a new definition for "Combo Deck" in regards to Star Chamber, and needless to say me and the devs waxed poetic on Is Solitare Type Playing Good For The Game. I think it is, it simply because it presents a new option for the player, and a new archetype to play against (Solitare isn't an archetype was a classic line during the argument).

Anyway, head on over and check it out, good times.

In other news, my loving, thoughtful wife bought me GTA: San Andreas for Xmas and I have yet to crack the plastic (though that isn't saying much, the only things I've gotten a lot of use out of from Christmas are clothes/new shoes and I got to watch Spiderman 2). I think my PS2 is fuxored (bad controller port), and I'm not the hardware geek guy to go cracking the case open to fuck with it. Particularly with two small kids running around, you never know what could happen. Someone Could Die.

In other news, Folklore is a fantastic nostaglia site written by Andy Herzfeld, one of those guys who was in on the ground floor and now makes cash writing about it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Did I mention its in book form via O'Reilly? But all of the stories are available online, and I take mine in 5 minute shots. Good reading, fun times.

Meanwhile, some work has been done in skips and starts on my Half Life 2 Mod, Haunted. This mod was created from an idea of my own (Can we really scare a player without restoring to Monster Closets?) and has gestated via another guy I met on the HL2 mappers mailing list, Toby. Together we wax poetic, getting the design features down when we get around to it. While this isn't the Most Important Thing In My Life Ever, it does represent more game design experience, and I really like that aspect of it. More on this As It Happens.

If you're a CCG Player, it doesn't get any better than Magic Workstation. They're almost finished with their Complete Client Rewrite (who's bright idea was this?) that has taken them I believe almost two years. Anyway, the new version supposed to have the capability according to the developers of having a Collector's Mode where you can serve booster packs/starter decks from a centralized server to player. This gave me the CCG Design Itch again, which bites now and then. I have in my mind a military-based collectable card game, most specifically detailed around World War 2. I envision a playing field of tanks, troops, support trucks, generals and battlegrounds. Giving up one advantage for another.

With a Collector's Server, you could theoretically setup a game server where you distribute packs and you get payments in return.

I think about this often, and if any breakthroughs come, you'll know where I'll post em.

I think I've rambled enough for today. Since my excellent new job has given me the day off tomorrow, don't expect any more posts until Monday, but do keep those RSS Readers handy just in case (and you are using the ass-kicking Onfolio aren't you? You should.)

I would like to leave you with some funny shit.

The Obligatory Tsunami Post

A lot of people have posted far more insightful things about this monster tragedy than I have, but hearing the latest death toll at over 80,000 people...that's just an astounding number. It will also be astounding to watch as they rebuild those nations and clean up the bodies.

Meanwhile Jerry Orbach died today. That' s a shame. I will miss his work on Law and Order, and I stopped watching because he isn't on it any longer. Farina is a decent character actor, but he simply can't carry a show.

Anyway, I would like to note that my Top 24 posts do not mean those are the top events of the year (quitting smoking was one of them, but hey). The best present was via my wife, in the form of our beautiful daughter Abigail. She is getting more and more (and more!) mobile every day, into everything, has a glorious smile (you have seen these pictures, right?) and is a joy to come home to.

Oh yeah, and my new Thundercats T-shirt pimps. So there.

We're about to launch the new beta of Star Chamber over at the main site, so if there was ever a time to try it out, here ya go. The beta removes the collectability of the game (we give you 4 of each card, the most you can have in a deck), so play to your heart's content, or when we officially launch, which will be by Jan. 7th. After the launch you'll have to purchase your cards in packs or trade to get them, so I'd take advantage of this if I were you.

misterorange.com Top 24 of 2004

In honor of apennyfor.com's Top 24 list, I present to you the top 24 posts of this year, in no real order, complete with Small Description Blurb(tm). Seeing as I've only been using Blogger for six months (I used phpnuke before then, but it got hacked), there are still a 104 posts to choose from and here is my short list:

- Lex the Wonder Kid. A post congratulating my best bud Jeremy on the birth of his son. He continues to grow cooler by the day.

- Bob Had Bitch Tits. You just wouldn't believe the number of google referrals from this one (there are a lot of people interested in bitch tits). Regardless, it commemorates my brother-in-law's purchase of a new home. Nice home too (ps - I need a digital camera).

- Well, That Was Embarrassing. How I pissed off an idol of mine and got banned from his messageboards forever.

- God 2.0. A rough post in terms of language and tone, but it also opened up a line of communication to a great blogger and guy by the name of Brian Bailey. I now link his blog from my own. Here's the followup.

- Progress. The family got a new car. I was enthused.

- Of Beds and Broomsticks, Vol. 2. A long night of parenting.

- Playing Roles and Games. Roleplaying in 15 minute chunks? Popcap's big idea that, to date, hasn't shown up yet.

- Brush With Greatness. My meeting and magic-playing with Gary Adkison, father of the Wizards of the Coast founder, Peter Adkison at Origins 2004. See Work and Play for more of Origins 2004, and a run-in with a hometown kid working at a booth there.

- Kicking the Habit. I smoked, now I don't. Live and learn. A definite highlight of the year.

- Showdown at the IE Corral. Featuring the great opening line "IE is garbage."

- Gold Ring. What's wrong with Hollywood and their video game ideas.

- As the Words Turn. My thoughts, in response to Brian Hook, on the status of gaming journalism.

- Nintendo Doing Something? My reactions to the Nintendo DS.

- The End of an Era. SCWatch.net closes its doors, and I lament on its passing. It's funny how that little fansite has brought me such good fortune (anything from game development/design to paying writing gigs), and I thought it deserved a few words.

- Parenting 202. Lessons in parenting and how I learned some of them.

- Black Day. The day I left my job at ORNL. This was the start of my Black Period, where I had no job and began a very low-profile existence.

- A Long Silence. Some thoughts on me leaving ORNL and how I dealt with joblessness.

- Pet Project: Complete. One of the projects that kept me awake and enthused during my Black Period was the creation of a complete Magic the Gathering expansion, Fires of Heaven.

- HL2, Come and Gone. My review of Half Life 2, and thoughts in regards to its gameplay, themes, and replayability.

- And Announcing... My post commemorating my new employment! Woohoo!

- Pro Tours and Car Adventures. I do well at a Pro Tour Qualifier and afterwards my brother in law is forced to help me hobble my brokedown car to Carmax. Hilarity ensues.

- LOST. I lost an entire season due to my exit from ORNL. A few words regarding it and my love of the new show of the same name.

- Savage Beatdown. I attain and profess my love for World of Warcraft and the VS. System CCG.

- The World Wide and Connected. I throw a few words around at some other sites and suddenly I get some attention of the positive variety. It feels good to contribute and be noticed.

- Karaoke and Me. My first time doing karaoke, in front of all of my new coworkers nonetheless, and thankfully it went well.

And that about wraps it up. While this is culled from 6 months worth of posts, this little trip down memory lane gives me new incentive to dig up the previous 6 months, as I feel there are sure to be some posts in there worth reading.

Until next time folks, it hasn't been a great year, but I have my wonderful wife and kids, they're all healthy, and I have a fantastic new job. So, hell, maybe it has been great after all.

How to Dismantle Nintendo

This is in response to loonyboi's blog post. Take that into consideration. Today I speak of Nintendo and What Went Wrong.

I was a Nintendo kid beginning September 24th, 1985 (my 5th birthday), the day I got my NES complete with The Robot That Never Worked. It came with Gyromite, which supposedly was what the Robot played, but it never did anything that I could tell.

Anyway, I loved Nintendo. I played all of the major titles, I enjoyed each Mario adventure (even the dreadful Super Mario 2), and Zelda was a big fave.

Hell, I even remember making my mother drive around Knoxville one weekend looking for a showing of The Wizard, that Fred Savage movie that showed Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time.

I was ferociously Nintendo-driven, and I despised the Master System and particularly the Genesis. There were two groups, and you belonged in one of them. Plenty of my friends were Sega geeks, but this was largely in part thanks to monetary restrictions. While I wouldn't have a Genesis based on principle alone, I'm sure they would be open to having a SuperNES if the money would allow.

I simply didn't like Sonic. Secretly I enjoyed the feeling of speed, but I hated the 6-button controller, I hated most of the other games (okay, Altered Beast and Golden Axe were fun), and I didn't like how the rivalry forced me into picking sides. I'm nothing if not loyal.

The Playstation, however, is a different beast. It was hyped extensively, and featured Ridge Racer, Battle Arena Toshinden, and the amazing WipeOut. The system was brash, the URnotE was a pretty damn brilliant campaign for the kids out there only used to hearing SEGA! screamed at them, or the soft comforting image of Princess Peach.

It arrived, life changed, I put in so many hours into Ridge Racer it was embarrassing. I still recall the demo disc that came with a bunch of promo songs from Sony label bands like Korn. It had "Blind" on the CD, right before they got big. I can still recall racing against the Black Car (whatever its name was, the hardest competitor) while rocking out to Korn and my own Smashing Pumpkins CDs. I even bought Battle Arena Toshinden, captivated by its graphics and the feeling of 3D, even though it was apparent after a week or two that the game had little to offer. WipeOut was brilliant in its speed, control, and craft. In my nostalgia I remember it as being different, cool, challenging, and spending a lot of time in my PSone. Back before anyone ever saw a PSOne and it was still called the PSX.

This is all leading to why Nintendo sucks. And I hate to say it like that, because I really enjoy my Gamecube (when I get around to playing it), but the Nintendo 64, in its cartridge-based ways, was a step backwards. I've told this story before, but I bought it once (along with Zelda and the Ocarina of Time) and immediately took it back. I hated "Z-targeting", I hated the controller, I hated the cartridges and their silly limitations. Zelda had interesting and in-depth gameplay, but this was not the system for me. A few lies later, and I had my money back.

The Gamecube is a step in the right direction (the Gameboy SP even more so), but the developer support just isn't there. The DS is a novelty as loonyboi correctly notes, and its just so boring after a few minutes of play. Hell, I got more than my fair share in the EB Games setup, let alone having to buy the thing to find out I don't like it. While Advance Wars DS would own, it would be no different than any other RTS on the DS. It would simply be playing Starcraft with a stylus, and while I love the RTS genre, the DS just isn't quite capable of it I don't believe, nor the hardware it would require to do correctly.

This is all leading to "Revolution", the next Nintendo console, which apparently isn't going to have A or B buttons (yeah, right), nor a directional pad (this I can see). The point is, it will be goofy, a novelty, with small discs that can hold little content when compared to the big boys.

The more I hear of Nintendo's future, the more I hear of how they've become the niche's niche, the more I try to understand just what in the hell they're trying to accomplish with their new gaming systems...it makes me sad. For a boy who loved Nintendo, who adored his Gameboy, who lost hours upon hours of his life to Mario and Metroid and Zelda...it is a death kneel, years in the making.

I'll look back on this post someday, maybe the day that Mario debuts on the Playstation. That will be the saddest day, and many moments of silence will be necessary.