melkathi

So, are you guys ready to give some more advise? I am pondering how to best handle things. I usually played campaigns where I'd let players do whatever they want after an initial session, making things up on the spot based on their actions. This time round I actually know what I basically want them to do (even though I don't particularly care how they reach the goal) and that is a bit terra nova for me. The basic outline is this: A series of murders has been happening. Bodies of victims have been dumped all over the city, seemingly at random. What they have in common is that all have been killed with a single blow from a sharp object, all victims are completly unknown and they mostly wear pretty outlandish clothing. The players inadvertently stumble upon and interrupt the killer as he is about to stab his latest victim. The killer, suprised, flees the scene. Obviously he isn't happy and after he rallies himself, he is going to be after both his original victim and the people who interrupted him. The victim is completly disoriented and has no idea where they are and what is going on. This could just be shock, or the killer truly does magicaly teleport his victims to the city before killing them. Either way, the players should soon find themselves in the middle of things, as various factions are trying for their own reasons to find out what is going on. Eventually the players should need to flee the city and embark on a quest that will send the person they saved back home and at least put an end to the killings, even if they probably won't be able to get on good terms with every faction. So far my thoughts are these: the kingdom only recently came out of a long war (the 6 year war over Oz, which saw the emerald city razed and turned into a penal colony with prisoners doing hard labour in the emerald mines). With there still being fear of enemy agents, spies, terrorists, a curfew would make sense. Because of the incident with the serial killer, the players are caught outside after curfew and the city guards have been rather trigger happy with all the talk about a serial killer stalking victims in the fog. This should make sure that players are on the run from the guard and can't just go to the next watch-house. If over the first few sessions I introduce a few factions until I have 3-4 factions plus the guard involved, it should make the city hot enough for players to take the road. Once on the road I guess it should be fairly easy to come up with interesting things that happen along the way. I guess the real problem is: how do I keep the serial killer a constant threat without there being a real combat situation with him, so I don't need to find reasons why the players can't kill him?

GoG just went crazy. End of the World Sale for the next 23 hours 50 minutes

Riot Games is issueing "pro-active" refunds. Kinda wierd comming home and getting a surprise-refund for something you never remotely considered requiring one for.

Your workplace sounds a bit schizophrenic

I just hate playing games on a grid. It kills it for me. Had a big argument about the realism of someone in a combat situation being able to target the fireball at the exact spot where the blast will burn the kobold but not the big barbarian looming over it.

Need to finish my Age of Wonders playthrough. Need to finish Walking Dead. Need to reach sector 8 in FTL. Need to finish Giana Sisters: Twisted Dream. Need to finish The Book of Unwritten Tales. Need to do some questing in The Secret World. Need to earn questionite in Champions Online. Need to build some sort of time stasis device so I can do all that gaming.

Finished writing my internship report for my masters. Fixed two typos in it and spend yesterday formatting it. Looking forward to re-doing the cover page when I get home from the office. My deadline is the 31st, so I am feeling really wierd being done two weeks early. The people at the office threw a "going away" party since this is my last week here. Where party means having drinks at 8am. And drinks means having one, far from full glass. Now I need job...

The guys and gals over at Black Forest Games send out an email asking for fans of the game to share their christmas wishes with the world So since I troll their forum and they put up with me, here goes: The Giana Sisters: XMas stand alone level: http://d1hris5kk3wy8s.cloudfront.net/GianaSistersTwistedDreams_Xmas_Demo.exe And the soundtrack file for the level in mp3 and flac: http://d1hris5kk3wy8s.cloudfront.net/GianaSistersTwistedDreams_Xmas_MP3.zip http://d1hris5kk3wy8s.cloudfront.net/GianaSistersTwistedDreams_Xmas_FLAC.zip Merry Christmas Hope people will have fun with it. ----------------------------------------------- And since you may ask what this is. The game is a platformer that was funded through a kickstarter in August. It is a platformer reminiscant of both old school mario and sonic. You play as Giana and travel through a dream/nightmare world, collecting crystals as you go and trying to *spoiler*. But Giana has grown up... well, has become a teenager. The nightmares she had as a little girl no longer scare her, while the cutesy things she liked as a kid she now rejects. As a result she has control over her dream. You can switch seamlessly between the two dream version, changing the environment, the enemies and your abilities and the soundtrack. Cute Giana in the nightmare carelesly spins and twirls through the air, while angry punk Giana bashes and dashes through things in the nice dream world. It's a challenging game and ramps up the difficulty. It's absolutely gorgrous and the twisting through dreams actually does work seamlessly. If you read this far, thanks

We got send a report on public opinion in anticipation of a two day summit. They send the report after the end of the summit... What am I to do with the information now? *sigh*

I find ASOIAF criticism funny sometimes. You know those discusions where group A says the later books are terrible because not enough people are dying anymore, while group B is saying that the series is terrible because too many people are dying... I am a bit disappointed that the wrong people are always dying. Probably why my favourid quote is:

Oh yeah. I keep forgetting that.

Yeah, I know that situation. And I have my eyes on a certain book myself.

That's good then. And I guess that means that the above sentence are my thoughts on your thoughts on his thoughts. (yes I am shirking work, if it isn't obvious)

So what are your thoughts on his thoughts?

Nope, you haven't. But you should because it is a great game.

Nope, probably is a female lawyer

Loved this: The Good - it came out Great humour

was going to grab Deponia but forgot...

Yeah. That's what I thought.

Damn you christmas deals!

Yeah, as a subscriber you can easily outlevel anything. Not sure how this will sit with retuning players though who try free and know how rapidly they are falling behind the leveling curve. Then again, they do have to make money somehow.

Regarding the XP. As a completionist, doing every Heroic mission on Dromund Kaas or Coruscant, I'd get to Balmora/Taris at level 21 as a subscriber. Right now, as a fr00b, I am level 16 on Dromund Kaas and predict having reached 17 by the time I am done with the planet but expect 18 to require an effort of repeating heroics several times.

I am not lazy, I am a recovering workaholic *nodnod*

Woke up and noticed that zombies had ooverrun Giddings Mall and the Morrish Building. Killed the zeds in Morrish, dumped their bodies outside, repaired the damage and started on rebarricading. Went to Bromley Autorepir to rest. Woke up to find two zombies on top of me. Ran off to warn other survivors. Meanwhile in Grigs Heights: Zombies made it through the barricades of Lee Boulevard PD. Did all I could, but am out of bullets and first aid kits.

Let's just say: am putting loads of effort into a paper which will be seriously underappreciated come evaluation time. Getting ready to write a stern letter though... edit: also, if people already don't like you, that means you can start affairs with their wives, girlfriends, sisters, sister-in-laws and adult daughters just to spite them and not worry about them not liking you afterward