I just realized that I never bothered to crosspost this video to the blog. I’ve been playing the crap out of this game for the past couple of weeks in my spare time. It’s got me hooked something fierce and right on the verge of spending money for some of the more elusive things. Here, take a peek at some rambly video bits.
I’ve given up on using OBS for recording review and gameplay videos. Perhaps it wasn’t as apparent to me because of the lower quality games that I’ve done reviews on, but in FarCry 3 I just couldn’t handle it. Instead I’ve gone back to using FRAPS, which I have a full license for, to do some really high quality stuff. Even though Youtube compresses a bit and takes several hours in the process, it’s at least compressing something much closer to a raw file than the FLV files OBS puts out.
Oh, and FarCry 3 is hella fun. Check it out.
Sometimes I do writing because I’m bored at work. This is a little short story/chapter 1 that happened today. I don’t intend to actually make it into something, but thought I would share. Make use of the blog and such.
Such a horrible controller, and a terribly undervalued console.
Jet Set Radio is one of the many games that launched with the Dreamcast, and my GOD did this game age with grace and dignity. I’m not going to waste a whole lot of words here when you could just be watching me ramble pointlessly. The gameplay trumps these graphics all day every day, but sometimes, you just need a good game like that.
If you wouldn’t mind go fap some likes on my youtube page, or subscribe, or something. Or don’t! Ya’ll know I’m just going to keep doing this shit anyway.
Cheers!
Excellent. This is the example of what I’ve been looking for as far as getting a full list of spells using specific domains or spheres for a Cleric. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, and I wish there were an easier way to get things formatted into place when I find other spell resources to draw from. I’ve also got a post for all of the domains separated in this manner as well that I’ll throw up as soon as I manage to dump it to HTML and then strip all of the excess tagging out.
So hopefully, if you’re looking for a pretty comprehensive spell list that you could hand straight to your Cleric of Tyr, this will suit you well.
A couple caveats, Tyr is not a Life/Healing deity, therefore these Clerics in my campaign receive no basic healing ability. They get the All domain, and that’s about it (I did revise this to include Cure Light and Cure Serious as All/Healing spells). Another thing, the Guardian and Wards domains have been merged together. The War and Combat domains have also been merged together. That will be more apparent when I get my full list of domains on the blog.
Normal – 2e Players Handbook
Bold - Tome of Magic
Underline - Player’s Option – Spells and Magic
_Underscore – Campaign Specific/Altered spells
italics - Reversible
*Asterisk – Cooperative Spells
Clerics of Tyr Spell List
Divination, Guardian, Law, War
Level 1
Analyze Balance (1st)
Bless (1st)
Blessed Watchfulness (1st)
Combine (1st)
Command (1st)
Courage (1st)
Detect Evil (1st)
Detect Magic(1st)
Detect Poison (1st)
Light (1st)
Magical Stone (1st)
Morale (1st)
Orison (1st)
Protection from Chaos (1st)
Purify Food and Drink (1st)
Sacred Guardian (1st)
Weighty Chest (1st)
Level 2
Aid (2nd)
Augury (2nd)
Calm Chaos (2nd)
Chant (2nd)
Detect Charm (2nd)
Emotion Perception (2nd)
Enthrall (2nd)
Ethereal Barrier (2nd)
Find Traps (2nd)
Frisky Chest (2nd)
Hold Person (2nd)
Iron Vigil (2nd)
Mystic Transfer* (2nd)
Rally (2nd)
Sanctify* (2nd)
Spiritual Hammer (2nd)
Wyvem Watch (2nd)
Zone of Truth (2nd)
Level 3
Adaptation (3rd)
Caltrops (3rd)
Continual Light (3rd)
Detect Spirits (3rd)
Dictate (3rd)
Dispel Magic (3rd)
Efficacious Monster Ward (3rd)
Extradimensional Detection (3rd)
Fortify (3rd)
Glyph of Warding (3rd)
Invisibility Purge (3rd)
Locate Object (3rd)
Prayer (3rd)
Rigid Thinking (3rd)
Remove Curse (3rd)
Speak with Dead (3rd)
Squeaking Floor (3rd)
Strength of One (3rd)
Thief’s Lament (3rd)
Unearthly Choir* (3rd)
Zone of Sweet Air (3rd)
Level 4
Abjure (4th)
Compulsive Order (4th)
Defensive Harmony (4th)
Detect Lie (4th)
Dimensional Anchor (4th)
Divination (4th)
Entrench (4th)
Fire Purge (4th)
Focus* (4th)
Leadership (4th)
Omiscient Eye (4th)
Recitation (4th)
Tanglefoot (4th)
Tongues (4th)
Uplift* (4th)
Weather Stasis (4th)
Level 5
Atonement (5th)
Barrier of Retention (5th)
Champion’s Strength (5th)
Commune (5th)
Consequence (5th)
Disguise (5th)
Elemental Forbiddance (5th)
Flame Strike (5th)
Grounding (5th)
Illusory Artillery (5th)
Impeding Permission (5th)
Magic Font (5th)
Meld* (5th)
Quest (5th)
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (5th)
Shrieking Walls (5th)
True Seeing (5th)
Unceasing Vigilance of the Holy Sentinel (5th)
Undead Ward (5th)
Level 6
Blade Barrier (6th)
Crushing Walls (6th)
Dragonbane (6th)
Find the Path (6th)
Forbiddance (6th)
Gravity Variation (6th)
Land of Stability (6th)
Legal Thoughts (6th)
Speak with Monsters (6th)
Spiritual Wrath* (6th)
Stone Tell (6th)
Word of Recall (6th)
Level 7
Divine Inspiration (7th)
Gate (7th)
Holy Word (7th)
Illusory Fortification (7th)
Shadow Engine (7th)
Symbol (7th)
Tentacle Walls (7th)
Don’t mind me, I take lengthy reprieves from the blog every now and again. Sometimes work rears it’s ugly head and absorbs all of the creativity out of me, sometimes there’s just other games I’d rather be playing. Most recently, the campaign has hit a rut. Players have dropped from the game citing work/college issues which means either attempting to recruit brand new, restart the campaign, or wait it out.
I’m a little tired of waiting to be quite honest. My mistake of course was picking up two guys that both work at the same place. When they get busy, chances are both of them have issues at the same time. Two other guys are both in college, and mid-term labs and tests all ran across a couple weeks which made things difficult to get rolling. The most recent being one of my players in the Navy Reserve. His weekend ended up being 4 straight days of intense drills and he slept straight through til Tuesday, missing game and everything.
Two of my guys have been solid since the get-go, and even they are getting annoyed that we haven’t had a solid group. These things are to be expected I guess. Life is challenging, D&D night with the guys is just not that important in the long run. We still hang out, but it’s usually playing M:tG or Munchkin, drinking and bullshitting, sans dice. It makes me sad a little. I have creative things! So many things!
We did pick up a guy however, and he wanted to roll with a Templar, which is cool. However it brought up the issue that I’ve had for a long time regarding Clerics. I’ve always wanted a more solid role for Clerics in my game as far as deities and domain spells go. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with a plain Cleric, but it doesn’t rub me the right way. With all my free time lately I’ve been compiling domains of spells and organizing which domains certain gods would control.
Gratuitous Picture! via http://rpg.brainclouds.net/2012/04/15/the-dnd-pantheon/
The concept so far is each deity would control 4, 3, or 2 domains, and the list of spells from those would be all any Cleric type could select from for that deity. The problem is, and go ahead and feel free to check on this, most domain lists for spells have a single spell per level up to 9.
That’s not really gonna fly.
First off, I run 2e, which means max spell level for a Cleric is 7. The balance of d20 systems onwards stretches the balance for spell levels out an additional 2. Second, there’s WAY more spells in a domain than 9. I want a source that lists all of the spells in a domain/sphere, not just the suggested ones for each level. That’s annoying.
Now at work, I can’t really bust open a D&D PDF to copy over lists of spells, they’d get on me about that. However, I can google-fu all day long, and even that with a pile of anti-d20 filters, still returns page after page of 1-spell-per-level lists of these domains. What gives? I’m just about to the end of all of it, which means I can start compiling the full lists of spells directly to the deities, but god damn, has this never been done before or something?
So yeah, all that is coming. I suppose I’ll do a couple more of the dual classes that I had intended to finish out. I’m even working in kits for an additional 8 base classes in my game as well. More campaign specific takes on the base four classes ala Barbarian, Duelist, Thief, Assassin, Priest, Warden, Sorcerer, and Specialist Mage.
One of the guys I game with asked me about the stuff I have drawn up for the campaign, I linked him what I make available to my players which he was rather impressed with. Almost every aspect of the game that I commonly need to explain, or I feel doesn’t quite fit has been rewritten. There’s a lot more than just this blog going on, but I’ll keep poking it to keep any of you loyal followers updated.
Next up in your Tri-Realm™ RvR games is what’s basically looking like an indie developer with the finely-aged Mark Jacobs at the helm. He’s like a fine wine, or aged cheese, depending on your opinion of the guy. Is this going to be the next big hit? Probably not, and admittedly he’s not looking for that sort of AAA big-time game. I would have hoped for a Shadowbane-esque dozens-of-guilds-fighting-over-territory type of realms, but hey, three is better than two. We’re getting (back) there, slowly.
This is more for the hardcore players and to annoy the mainstream gaming audience. Setting a goal of 30k players, that’s small ball. I think he is going to find a whole lot more than that, but the Kickstarter coming in March (I’ve been refreshing the page all morning, guess I can stop now) will be a good indicator of interest. Word on the street is, because you know MJ is a street guy, they’re going to attempt 10 million dollars to get the game launched, if there’s extra left over I’m guessing they’ll mix that in with some development gravy and butter it over the top with some extra features.
How many of us were burned by the white-hot fire that was the expectations of WAR? Exactly, you can all put your hands back down. I’ll be waiting, patiently, while frothing into my towel, for updates from City-State Entertainment and whatever musings seep from the greying dome of the venerable MJ at the helm. Just like the rest of you. For probably a year at least.
Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln axe-wielding leader of the Americas. Fuck yeah.
It’s that day that I generally forgo a normal blog post and give some props out to a pair of posts in the blogging community. I mean, it’s been a week right? I’ve got to have at least two blog posts that I’ve read which have blown my mind at least a little bit. This thing is fragile, old, and prone to acts of violence. I’m quite susceptible to inspired fits of furious fingering on the keyboard. Also, it’s a nice reprieve from what seems to be a permanently painful Monday work schedule that may or may not have me up until the wee hours listening to the squeals of irate clients and their broken computer issues. I also play D&D on Monday nights, which absorbs much of my blog preparation time.
Without further interruption from your blogger extraordinaire, I give you my two picks for the week. It’s Two-On-Tuesday.
Ah, a blog title after my own heart, or loins. Something is throbbing when tl-dr is posting. It’s been quiet since the new year, but maybe the winter months have waned enough to bring these folks out of hibernation. Quality ramblings here from educated minds, that’s just the way I like it. Also, maybe you didn’t realize this but…
Perhaps it’s my inner-narcissist (controlling my every thought and whim, or so he believes), but mentioning me in a blog post is sure to increase your chances of winding up here. Blessing or a curse that may be has yet to be determined. More onto the point, @linkskywalker is an excellent sort of sir that not only politely rebuked an opinion of mine, but also made a compelling defense for crafting in D&D tabletop in a much longer form blog post. I am a frequent reader of his work, the new look at older Gary Gygax material in particular strikes my fancy. But go now, and gaze upon a gentlemans retort.
Just a quick post here.
Over the weekend I played about 20 hours of Eden Eternal. It is really not my cup of tea… normally. I mean, I’ve played bad games before, and I don’t play them for 20 hours at a time. This was practically all in one sitting and was mostly kicked off because I had a 7 hour maintenance window at work that I had to sit on a conference call through, just never switched games.
It’s a Korean MMO, chibi style, happy looking, F2P, grindy sort of game. It hooked me. Maybe it was that the frog person engineer basically turns into a Battletoad. I’m pretty sure there’s a throng of Korean devs out there locked in a basement/complex somewhere grinding these games out for pennies an hour, while they sell ridiculously priced items in the cash shops to fund them. I’m seriously torn between tearing down this game bit by bit and lighting it on fire, but it does a lot of things right that I can only attribute to fast and furious iteration of MMO development that only a Korean MMO farm can make. Seriously, Aeria has like 20 MMO’s. They’re either doing something right, or they’re throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks. Throw enough shit, collect the sticky stuff, then release that? Seems like it’s working.
I’ll let you google around for the link to the game, I’m not sure if I really want to endorse it yet, and it’s D&D night for me which means I have other things to prep for. Tomorrow though, a pair of blogs, then on Wednesday another class. The Arcanite, the powerhouse magic blasting arcane energy fighter gets a spot on my front page. It’s a fun class to play. Then later in the week, I’m not sure yet. Maybe something about Season 3 in League of Legends if I finish my 10 placement matches any time soon. Oh yeah, ranked PvP. I’m doing that thing.
Check out www.twitch.tv/kayin_zel , usually he will be the one streaming matches when we play. Duo queue.
That’s all for now. I’m out. Gotta go kill me some players, they’ve been asking for it.
I had a moment a few nights ago when I was waiting for something that kicked off a cluster of neurons deep in my brain and a lot of things started coming together awfully quick. What I’ve come up with is a rough framework for a game world and some mechanics that it would use in place or alongside a traditional leveling system. Something about the influence bars from Warhammer that went along with each chapter of the game must have spurred it. It’s a long read, get something to eat first.
So let’s say you have this huge open world, like most MMO’s (this could totally be done non-MMO I would imagine). In there you have dozens of towns and camps with small communities based around them. In the nearby area there’s plenty of enemies to be fought and problems to run into. Naturally each of these quest hubs would have some pretty thematically similar problems that they run into, namely opposing factions. The quests for the area would be a mix of daily/weekly events and balances out so capping the influence for an area would take a full 7 days of clearing up all the problems.
This all sounds fairly ho-hum, but it takes a twist here. Completing these quests grants you specific influence at this hub, it also grants you a similar amount of infamy/renown with factions (allied and opposed) involved in the questing. All the influence and infamy that you acquire decays over time, at a rate that would take being maxed out 3 months of real-time to drop back to 0. This would allow you to balance the amount of hubs and enemy factions based on the time that it takes to keep them all farmed up around 100% influence. This also solves the problem of starting areas going unused over time. You would still having thriving communities towards the end-game as players would always have reasons to come back.
This would work by having the challenge (or leveling system) be based on how much influence you have in a hub. The more influence you have there, the more geared up you would need to be in order to fight against it. Naturally someone who has been tearing up enemies for a week would be recognized and not be offered that low-level Kill Ten Rats mission. You’re a badass in this city! The quests you receive at higher levels of influence can reflect this without having to move on to another area entirely. This also alleviates the problem of “starter towns” going quiet after a game launch by keeping more experienced players engaged in the management of a towns problems, but on scale relative to how often the player is in the area, or fighting a common enemy.
This creates a problem in giving players that move onto new territory challenges that are far too weak for them, however with the infamy system it can be partially averted. Basically, if there are quests in a brand new area a player would be starting at 0, but with infamy against a specific faction, they would be elevated to the average of the two. If the new area has 0, and your infamy against a faction is 7, it would throw you into the 3+ bracket for quest difficulty. Okay, so I haven’t really gone into numbered specifics yet, so here goes…
Hubs belong to factions, in my mind they work on a hex-grid system in that each area connects to 6 other areas politically. Politically, I say. Not physically, it would look stupid to have physical zones set to hexes, really. Some of the political factions connected are their own, some are opposing factions, some are allied factions. You could visualize this as seven interconnected points of interest. Three human towns connected by the same road (FactionA 1,2,3), Two nearby orc camps (Faction B 1,2), One mine controlled by Lizardmen (Faction C1), and a captured farmstead controlled by Lizardmen (C2).
You’re well within your rights to laugh at this quality. ;D
Now everything that transpires between these seven zones as far as scripted content would be determined by connected interests. The human hubs would be interested in ways to cull the nearby orc camps, or fight off their advances. They would also be interested in reclaiming the mine and fields captured by the Lizardmen. Because these are more than just points of interest through there’s the opportunity to write all sorts of quests that have to do with minor incidents in the area related to those points of interest.
The mine, camp, and farm would all be just as hard to take by the humans as it would be for the others to capture a whole town. These would be zone events that would take place at by the higher tiers of influence. The natural progression of the game would be to start leveling by making a name for yourself in a town, finish the quests there, move onto another town that is either a connected faction, or shares a common enemy, so your renown and infamy carry over and you’re not starting from 0 in new areas. As you get influence at each hub you are rewarded with special items, weapons, armor, unique to the faction, but only awarded once.
Influence – Hub based.
Renown – Faction based.
Infamy – Faction Based
Challenge Level – Quest Based
So yeah, that’s the level of crazy my brain starts leaking out at 2am instead of sleeping. I’m pretty sure all of this hit me like a ton of bricks and immediately demanded that I at very least scratch out the main points and then clean them up later.
