A statement of values

Second favorite thing about blogging: getting to work out ideas in writing (first favorite was the community.  When I figure out how to get that back, I’ll be in touch).

1.  I love intellectualism.  Our brains are useful assets, we should use them.  And just because not everyone can follow what someone is thinking does not mean they are wrong (nor does it mean they are brilliant and misunderstood).  However, if you can take whatever insights you have, especially if they are esoteric and make them readily accessible, that’s great.  Especially if you can do it without losing the elegance and completeness of your thoughts.  Being right is not just good, it’s one of the most important things.

2.  Being different is not inherently bad, and may have some inherent value.  Evolution couldn’t happen without mutation.  Diversity makes a collective strong.  I don’t care if you wear funny clothes, talk different, or have obscure hobbies.  Who am I kidding?  I think all those things are awesome.

3. Honesty rules.  I spent too many miserable years lying about who I was and am to value privacy and secrets over open-ness and honesty.

4. One should generally assume the best about others’ intentions and attitudes.  Most people mean well, and we all make mistakes.

That’s all I really feel like writing on that front at this point.  This has been a test of Stephen’s RSS broadcast setup on facebook.

RIFT

So, I’ve taken a shine to a new MMORPG, RIFT, aka, waster of much time.

While it doesn’t have a trial membership, per se, there are occasional event-based free-trial weekends.  I got in on one and liked it well enough to go in for the full deal a few weeks later, with a discounted download ($15) from amazon.  Current deal is only $10 down.

The game will be compared to WoW for a couple reasons:

  1. WoW is the biggest MMORPG out there, and the one with the broadest fan/familiarity base, so if you make that comparison, more people will get it;
  2. RIFT works like WoW. Even comparing it to the universe of MMORPGs including GuildWars, Everquest, and FFXI, the MMORPG I played the second most of, the game works far more like WoW:
    • Fantasy setting;
    • two opposing factions, with multiple races each;
    • purchasable mounts to speed up non-combat movement;
    • a character development system that looks and feels very like WoW’s talent trees;
    • very similar crafting and gathering systems (one patch fixed a tooltip to correctly refer to “Apothecary”, rather than “Alchemy” skill, which is what it’s called in WoW);
    • instances;
    • guild levels;
    • a nearly identical auction house and banking system;
    • similar underlying mechanics for character abilities;
    • dragons each affiliated with a particular other-worldly/elemental plane (all the dragons are bad guys in RIFT though); and more
    • The similarities abound.

However, there are noteworthy differences, some improvements, some deficiencies, and some just neutral.

Continue reading “RIFT”

WoW Mechanics Review

As I was writing a quick impressions piece on RIFT, I had to write a long diatribe on WoW’s mechanics.  This was out of place, so I’m giving it a post unto itself.

Character development in WoW

In WoW, each character has 1 class chosen from 10 at character creation, with some racial variation in available classes, but all classes have been available to each faction since the burning crusade, the first expansion.  In terms of the archetypal roles to fill (damage/healer/tank/buff), depending on how the player customizes the character, any class can do significant damage, 4 classes can heal and 4 classes can tank, including 2 that can do both, and there are at least two classes with substantial buffing powers.

Each class has three categories of abilities, and three corresponding “talent trees”.  For example, mages gain access to “frost”, “fire”, and “arcane” abilities, have “frost”, “fire” and “arcane” talent trees.  Characters gain access to abilities as they level, paying a trainer to learn new abilities.  Starting at level 10 and continuing with increasing levels, players also gain points to use in their talent tree.  Talents typically improve an ability associated with that talent tree.  Some talents also give abilities.  This system was expanded without fundamental changes in the first two expansions.  In the third expansion, Cataclysm, it underwent a more fundamental revision.

I’ll skip the historical versions and describe the current system.  Each talent tree has 9 tiers.  The first 8 tiers generally have 5 or more places to put points per tier.  In order to open up the next tier of talents, you have to spend 5 more points in the tree.  Generally higher tier talents are better, and so talent builds tend to put 5 in each tier until reaching the ninth tier, which has only one spot, which gives the player a .  WoW eventually added the ability to have two talent setups, with the ability to switch between them when out of combat.  After Cataclysm, characters had to choose one of their three trees, and spend all their points in it up until level 69. (hehe), with freedom to distribute the remaining 10 points after that in whatever talent tree the player chooses.  Characters gain special abilities appropriate to their initial talent tree.  A character may be able to completely fill in one tree, but will never hit the top of more than one talent tree.

Good weekend

We had a good first weekend in SF. My work obligations were actually pretty well taken care of when I left town. Friday we finished watching the second SciFi dune mini series disk before crashing. (it had been our primary in flight entertainment). Saturday was board games, and we started off with shadow hunters with its expansion (a reasonable length 8 player game), then we tried out dead_platypus‘s birthday gift to me, Vasco da Gama. and handed our butts to us. Then it was 5 player Mu. I kept bidding aggressively (as always). Until someone who actually knows how to play trick taking games () started bidding aggressively. He won. We followed this with an annoying struggle to get in to our apartment rental, and then vegetarian restaurant tastiness with nearby.

Sunday we hiked on the peninsula, watched simpsons & law and order with , and then had dinner with , , and , followed up by ticket to ride. Pliny decided he’d lost in the first couple of turns, and made it his life mission to block everyone else from scoring. He did so very effectively with me. With two routes that did him absolutely no good, he knocked me from 57 points to -17 points.

Monday is our most unplanned day out here. I’m currently thinking a bike rental and riding the three bears, followed by dinner of some sort, but that’s about all I have planned. Rest of the week pretty booked with fun things.

mmorpg: final fantasy XIV

I just found out that a new MMORPG is supposed to come out this year: final fantasy XIV. I liked FFXI, and Seth, Pliny’s old friend and our host in Seattle (Redmond) this week, told me they fixed many of the problems: now it has solo play, level matching capabilities (totally absent in WoW, present in CoH), and more instance options. I want to play it. But, I also want to make sure as many friends of mine as possible are on the same damn server. Pliny has said he wants to try playing it casually. I fear for his tenure under these circumstances, but understand.

So, who out there would be likely to try Final Fantasy XIV, and interested in being on the same server as me? =)

Life in quotes

Things that are running through my head right now:

“I am Vindicated.
I am Selfish.
I am Wrong.
I am Right.
I swear I’m Right
I swear I knew it all along.

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well.
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself.

– Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional

A scene from a near final, if not actually final, west wing episode that I haven’t seen in full yet:
Toby: “You didn’t pick him up in a bar last Thursday, you’ve been close for eight years.”

CJ: “That doesn’t mean it magically falls into place once we take the leap…. What? I’m not resisting.”

Toby: “You’re not?”

CJ: “I’m not one of those women who can’t handle a good thing when it’s standing in front of them.”

Toby: “Good.”

CJ: “Why don’t you sound convinced?”

Toby: “You spend your whole life working for powerful, demanding men 24/7, that’s a lot of testosterone in your world.”

CJ: “Which has what to do with anything?”

Toby: “Well, maybe you didn’t need to date – you had Josh and Sam and me… and 180 reporters flirting with you day in and day out.”

CJ: “Come on.”

Toby: “It’s a lot of positive male attention. Now you’re slotting in Matt Santos, maybe Frank Hollis.”

CJ: “So, what, you think this all some sort of Freudian temper tantrum?”

Toby: “You showed up here at eight o’clock at night with a bottle of wine asking me about a pardon we both know is out of the question, telling me about a man who’s crowding you. I think a lot of things.”

CJ: “You think I came here to take advantage of you before they cart you off to the big house?”

Toby: “I think you don’t know why you came here. You’re a woman with a lot of options. You’re acting like the world’s backing you into a corner, bouncing from one thing to the next – from Bartlet to Santos, to Danny, to me. Maybe you should stop bouncing, pick something. What do you want?”

CJ: “I don’t know…. I’d like to learn how to make a chicken like that.”

Toby: “Stick a lemon up it and throw on some rosemary.”

CJ: “Yeah?”

Toby: “Yeah, a little salt.”

CJ: “I’d like to learn how to ski. I think would be soothing. Be a ski bum. Operate the ski chair for 6 months, clear my head.”

Toby: “It’s a chair lift.”

CJ: “Well, first I’d learn the lingo, take it from there.”

Toby: “I missed you.”

CJ: “Yeah. We had it good there for a while.”

Toby: “Yeah, we did… You should go.”

CJ: “You kicking me out?”

Toby: “Yeah.”

CJ: “Okay.”

I am so very CJ, but not as good at the job thing. =)

Good things

Hmmm, good things.

I’m almost done with this annoying project at work. Just another month or two. (It’s been over a year. All did not go according to plan. Anyone’s plan, at any point in time.) (does that count as positive? Probably not).

I love my friends.

Sleep will make me happier.

Exercise might help too.

I could get a gym membership.

Meh.