jump to navigation

Starting to miss you. March 30, 2009

Posted by David in : Games, Guild Wars , add a comment

After a little over 2 weeks I am starting to fill the pull of Guild Wars once again. I have been thinking my Dervish is only one mission away from the bone palace and the elite armor I want to get for her. Not to mention one she is at the bone palace she is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from finishing Nightfall.

I also think I can get my monk through prophecies in about a day. Maybe another day to cap the elite for the 55 build and then I can start farming with her. That way come halloween I can get enough items to max the party animal title and maybe even sweet tooth.

There is also my Sin who although is level 20 is just barely off Sing Jea island. I was also playing my Rit with the hope to make her a survivor.

I also have 4 unused Droknar keys. Which means I need to kill the destroyer one more time, and no reason why my elementalist who is about half way done with Eye of the North shouldn’t be the one to use them.

I think if I set some goals I will have no issue not getting bored. As long as I bounce back and forth a little. I shouldn’t try and run both my Sin and Rit though factions at the same time. I shouldn’t do one character after another through Eye of the North. This kind of actions make the game boring. Not to mention I think I am going to PUG more. It is true that sometimes (ok most the time) a pick up group sucks and they are the reaon that we all love our heros, but at the same time some of the best groups I have ever had were PUGs. No reason to not do it again, ok maybe I do have reasons not to PUG, but I am going to do it anyway.

I am also going to start guild night again. Sundays and Mondays are for Guild Wars. Thats right two nights a week! Like a long lost lover I am coming back to you sweet Guild Wars!

DnD Loot/XP tracker March 26, 2009

Posted by David in : DnD 4th Edition, Games , add a comment

So with me setting up the H3 loot table I set the ground work for a tracker to be used by anyone. It will can tracker the XP per encounter for your character sort of like a mini history of events. It also can keep track of any normal items you get and does a price check on those items based on the prices listed in the PHB. At this time I have not placed all the items from the PHB2 or any other book, but will be doing that soon. It also has settings for sell back. The way my group has been doing it is 50% of value when sold to a merchant. We have also taken over a store and althought we have not set the details I am leaning to 80% sell to our store. Both of these percents are adjustable for your group.

You can download the sheet here.

Raeya where art thou? March 25, 2009

Posted by David in : Games , 4comments

So as I think back on the last week I come to the realization that I have not play a video game in over a week. I will wait while you let that sink in…ok lets continue. Yup the last game I played was Warhammer Online which I did during a 10 day trial. So I have not done any serious gaming in about 2 weeks (a little less, but not much) so I started to ask myself why. Not at first this question would seem to be easy to answer. There could be a number of reasons

But honestly none of these are the case. I have not been busy, I really want to play something and well I am typing this on my computer so it is save to assume that one is also out. So what is the real reason? Well to answer that question lets take a look at my game of choice. Guild Wars in my humble opinion on a greater game there is not. It has a great story, a truly epic story. A combat system that is both simple yet challenging. So what is the issue. Well the issues come from its gifts.

An epic story in fact were I own all 3 chapters and the expansion I have four great stories. But the story stays the same each time I play it. After playing all the classes I have that story memorized

A combat system the is both simple yet challenging, with only the limit of only 8 skills on your bar you must pick which skills go with your very carefully. Well after a while you hone your  bar to the point that you know exactly what to do and when. And with PvP it is just about learning the newest uber build and how to play it right.

What this means for me is the game I love has no more to offer me and I am looking for something new to play but I don’t want to play WoW or any of its silly clones. What I want is a game where story takes the lead. I want a game with a challenging combat system, but I don’t want to have to have 20 hotbars open just to play. I want to be entertained yet not feel like I have to play in order to get my money’s worth. I am not against paying a monthly fee, but it better be worth that $15 a month. And right now  nothing fits that mold.

Star War The Old Republic seems like it is going to have that epic story but I have not heard a lot about the combat or really anything yet, but I am keeping my eye on it.

DC Universe Online also has that epic story idea plus from what I read on MMORPG the combat although challenging is also simple.

Some both these games are on my radar, but as always time will tell if they will fill that void I currently have in my gaming heart

On a side note as I started writing this I realized some of my characters in Guild Wars may have an unopened birthday presents. Well I was wrong only one did. Cave spider kind of nice, but I also found 2 black dyes that I guess I forgot about. easy 15K sitting in my backpack…hmm maybe it is time to go back and get my Dervish to the bone palace for some new armor

Trouble Twitter March 24, 2009

Posted by David in : Technology , 1 comment so far

DM prepping March 23, 2009

Posted by David in : DnD 4th Edition, Games , 1 comment so far

So today I finished setting up the next campaign in MapTool. All the creatures are on the board either hidden or open depending on what the encounter requires. Nothing like knowing you will be ready. Based on our current rate and what our DM has hinted we have left I say two or three weeks and we will be finished and then it will be my turn take on the duty of DM.

I am doing everything I can think of to make sure I am ready. I am rolling up a few NPC characters just in case we have a small group and they need a little help. I have even come up with a way that it will work that will make the NPC characters nothing more they battle bots. The issue I have always seen when the DM controls a NPC Character is either they forget about them altogether or they say so much that you end up just following the NPS around and it because his story with you as a supporting actor. I am happy to say this has not been an issue with the people I am currently playing with. In the first adventure the NPC almost always died at the end of the battle and if they lived they were brain dead idiots which was fun. With the second adventure although we do have a much more intelligent NPC with us for the story she is very untrusting and although knows the area fairly well she only talks to one of the characters and then only if we ask. She does not go on spouting everything she knows about the area. Giant Kudos to the DM on playing her that way.

Loot TableBut back to the subject at hand one of the things I am doing is making up what I am calling a loot table for each encounter. One thing I have noticed is they slight delay when the DM is calculating the XP and loot we just earned. So I am going a head and make an excel sheet with a page for each encounter. This page will include the total XP possible for the encounter as well as all loot. It will then do the needed math to calculate how much each player gets for experience and gold. It then lists what loot is there first just the normal stuff which as a group we ship to the shop we opened called ‘Bloodbath and Beyond’. Then the special items that the group will fight over. For the normal stuff I will also go back and do a price look up on them…hmm wonder if I can do with with a vlook up process. I will have to look into that may take a little extra time but I think it will be worth it in the long run and I can share it with the next DM.

Anyway the whole thing ends up looking something like this without the loot values. This is one of the nice things about doing this via the Internet is I can create things like this to make the whole process easier.

Once I start DMing I will let you know if this is really worth all the work I am putting into it.

The Gamers March 20, 2009

Posted by David in : Games, Videos , add a comment

Has some adult language keep that in mind before watching.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 

Part 4

Part 5

How to play a table top RPG without a Table March 19, 2009

Posted by David in : DnD 4th Edition, Games , add a comment

So before we start a little history. I played DnD back around edition 2. I enjoyed it but honestly the people in my area, or at least the ones I played with, had some issues. Like they were a little crazy, like the DM that made us play by candle light, or they didn’t stay focused (It is one thing to get up for a moment to grab a drink or take a bio break it is a whole other issue to get up and flip the TV on right before it is your turn) or the took it way to seriously (I mean come on it is meant to be a FUN game) of course I also played with a fair share of those players that don’t realize that it is a standard practise to take a shower before a social outing. Between a basic I don’t want to play with these people and things like school I stopped playing.

That is until a guild mate of mine (goes by the name Delmar) suggest that he wanted to start of a pen and paper chapter of the guild. Now it seemed like a lot of people like this idea and he got a few pages of replies of people saying they wanted to play of course once it came time to play that number dropped to 4 regular players and we have since been joined by two more bring us to 6 total. 5 players and 1 DM of course we trade of DMing between the four original players

Now the first question must of us had when Delmar came up with this idea is how are we going to play a tabletop RPG without a table? We are by no means a local guild. We have members scattered all over the world. Well we came to find out that it really wasn’t that hard with a few good tools.

First we need something to replace the table. Now we tried 3 virtual tabletops and 2 of them we played with for awhile.

Now all 3 of these programs have a way to chat within them and MapTool even has a way to have you ‘talk’ as the character. Even with all this if you have to type everything you want to do it is going to take awhile so you are going to need some sort of voice chat. We are lucky our guild has a 400 person Ventrilo server we use. But anything you can use will be great TeamSpeak even makes it possible to host a small server (8-10 people) on your computer. Of course if you have a small group most messenger programs have a way to do chat in them. I know I have used Xfire to chat with a small group of up to 5 without issues. Although the voice chat is not 100% needed I would suggest you use something.

Now one of the great things about playing at your computer (besides being able to play in your underwear if you want) is having your computer freely available to use for things like character sheets and inventory lists or even just little notes now and again. I personally use MS office 2007, but I know not every one wants to play the $100ish for the home and student edition. For those people I will happily suggest OpenOffice besides the price tag of free it is close to MS office and honestly in some cases better, although it can’t do (or at least I couldn’t figure out how) some things but for someone that wants to be able to open excel files it works.

Speaking of excel files there are a couple of great ones out there for helping you keep track of your character. I mention these guys before but it is the sheet I use. It is far from basic, but it is easy to use and makes reading your skills a lot easier. HeroForge is a great place to get your character sheet.  My only issues is they can take a while to update for new books that Wizard releases. Now a website called dnd4e also hosts an excel character sheet they are faster with updates, but you need to download them out of the forum.

Now what I consider the biggest issue with online play. Wizards of the Coast put out a lot of new material. When you are playing with a group locally this isn’t usually a big deal someone in the group buys the book you all own a few and you share. When you are playing with someone on the other side on the country this is not an option. However I am a firm believer that a group should be able to share the books. Now I want to make this clear I am talking about sharing the books. So if you can not say someone owns the books in questions I do not want you to use this link. All the currently published books can be found on Scrib’d

So there you have it you can play a tabletop RPG very easily if you have the right tools.

Player's Handbook 2 March 18, 2009

Posted by David in : DnD 4th Edition, Games , add a comment
DnD 4th editon PHB2

So the player’s handbook 2 for Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition came out today. Although I have not had a chance to read all of it yet I am happy with what I have see so far. We have a bunch of new races and new class to play with. Both the races and classes bring back some old favorites(Lets hear it for Gnomes and Druids!) but they also introduce some brand new stuff we have not seen before.

I really like the idea of the new shift race and love what I am reading about the Sorcerer and the new Shaman class. I am kind of happy I am DMing the groups next module and can’t wait to roll some henchies and baddies with the new skills.

I have already rewritten a Dragonborn Fighter into a Goliathian Barbarian. And I think I want to make one of the wizards the group encounters in to a Sorcerer or perhaps a Druid. Yea Druid would work well. Perhaps a nice Shifter, perhaps a Razorclaw Shifter Druid. That sounds great to me.

Anyway I hope everyone else is as excited to get a hold of the new book. It promises to add some great new stuff.  

And for those of you that have excel and want a great character sheet app may I suggest the one that the people at HeroForge have created. It of course does not have the new PHB2 stuff but they updated it quick when something new comes out. They are also working on a computer program that does thing without the need for Excel.

Next Time: How to play a table top RPG without a table

Cadbury Eyebrows March 17, 2009

Posted by David in : Random Stuff, Videos , add a comment

British commercials are weird and I like it

Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning March 17, 2009

Posted by David in : Games, Reviews , add a comment

 

WarHammer Tilte

So Mythic Entertainment has finally opened up a free trail for the game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I know this game has been out for awhile, but the concept never appealed to me so I never picked it up. I think part of that had to do with all the hype that surronded it. I saw a lot of my guildies go on and on about it long before it was release. Of course now it isn’t a big chapter for the Covenant of the Phoenix and I think a lot of that has to do with over hype. But I will get to that shortly.

 

So the basic question is if the game is any good? Well all I can say is it isn’t bad. Graphics are nice. The story seems to be epic. Game play is fast and level grind seems well balanced. 

One of the more intresting features I have gotten to try was the public quests. For those of you that played UO it was like the 

I did a few of these it was a nice way to get into a big group without the whole LFG bull most game put us though.

I didn’t get a chance to do any real RvR but I am hoping to do that next weekend. Like I said the game isn’t bad, but I don’t see it keeping me entertained for any long periods of time. And I don’t think I could justifiy paying a monthly membership fee.