Misc.
Feels odd. I was off my last night-shift week, so it's a little strange settling in for one. I also have to pick up my parents late tonight - assuming their flight gets in as scheduled. I have a couple projects I want to bust ass on and get done, but I keep getting roadblocked. My co-tech is taking tomorrow off, so replacing a critical workstation tonight is a bad idea without someone here in the morning, and licenses for another install showed up for his login, but not mine yet. Hrrf.
[Other stuff]
Friend-guild activities last night in GW2 were largely a bust. It's a little frustrating not to be able to get five people together to run a new dungeon, but... this also seems like a bit of a management failure. I had no idea that was even the goal for the night, but if I had, I would have studied some. And I would assume someone who particularly wanted to do that dungeon path would have studied some. So hearing it takes 2 hours or so for a "good" group shouldn't have been a surprise. But it was. What can ya do?
Big-guild activities continue along. I enjoy at least some of the guild missions. Bounties vary depending on targets and how long it takes to go - though we ran into some overflow issues when one of the targets was in Sparkfly Fen. I sort of like most of the rushes I've seen, though I always start out defending (and this time spent the entire run holding a platform rather than running it myself). I think the crystal challenge is the only one I dislike. Puzzles are a mixed bag because there's so much rushing and chaos with a ton of people (sometimes more than one guild) going through at once. It's an interesting, different perspective and I find the guild atmosphere there reasonably friendly, but I'm not particularly close to anyone I didn't already know there, so... not sure what to say overall.
Republic of Thieves is due out this week - I'm looking forward to having that reading material to sink my teeth into after much wondering when that comes out. No word on the next Dresden book's release date, though, last I checked. And who knows when Rothfuss might finish the supposed-conclusion to the Kingkiller trilogy.
I'm also eyeing Beyond: Two Souls, a PS3 release. I've not seen much in the way of reviews, but it looks reasonably interesting. It's a Quantum Dream game (the folks who made Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain), so I expect lots of contextual interaction, but mostly-linear gameplay (though it looks like it may jump between time periods in the protagonist's life) while centered around a story. I just hope the gameplay isn't bad and the story doesn't jump completely off the rails. Avoid those two pitfalls, and I'll probably be happy with it, though I might like to see a little more review feedback before I bite.
There's been some discussion on Furryfaire sparked by a proto-plot of sorts that's grown. It's difficult for me to express all my thoughts on that matter. There seems to be some hesitancy to actually run with it. And some people have varied between interested (in running or participating) and being disheartened by events or negative responses. Me, I've sorta wanted to be involved (it beats doing nothin'!) but there hasn't seemed a good way to do so, and whether anything is actually happening has been up in the air, so... I dunno...
There was some tangential discussion in which one player complained about people not being willing to think outside the box and try new things - specific reference came to changing basic physics and such in the Nimby experiment. And while I can see that viewpoint, they don't seem to be able to accept that other people may either 1) simply want to keep things more relatable or 2) may want to change things in a different way entirely. Whatever the case, sweeping setting changes futz with player expectation and can cause problems. The "spirit awakening" is proof of that - huge, sweeping change to the world with a crap-ton of implications... and most people either don't know, don't care, or don't accept it enough to play it, so it's practically been overruled simply my being ignored by... well, virtually every bit of RP I've seen since, honestly.
There was another comment about what the setting would be like pushed into later ages. And while one person may have a lot of ideas on the matter... the next person probably has different ideas. Sure, an industrial revolution would change things, but would it even happen? If magic is learned, and I've see no hard evidence that it's bloodline-dependent, then it may be cheaper to train an assembly line of low-power mages to make widgets than establishing the infrastructure to build something that does the same thing mechanically. Sure, magic and technology are not automatically mutually exclusive, but they can be in certain circumstances. And as far as societal transformations and progress, it's likely that whichever route has the higher return on investment is the one that would win out.
But when you get down to it, there are sooo many variables to consider, and a lot of them would boil down to a GM/setting-wiz/whatever decision of "well this is what happens at this pivotal point, so..." and not everyone's going to agree with it. Assuming that ever matters.
[Other stuff]
Friend-guild activities last night in GW2 were largely a bust. It's a little frustrating not to be able to get five people together to run a new dungeon, but... this also seems like a bit of a management failure. I had no idea that was even the goal for the night, but if I had, I would have studied some. And I would assume someone who particularly wanted to do that dungeon path would have studied some. So hearing it takes 2 hours or so for a "good" group shouldn't have been a surprise. But it was. What can ya do?
Big-guild activities continue along. I enjoy at least some of the guild missions. Bounties vary depending on targets and how long it takes to go - though we ran into some overflow issues when one of the targets was in Sparkfly Fen. I sort of like most of the rushes I've seen, though I always start out defending (and this time spent the entire run holding a platform rather than running it myself). I think the crystal challenge is the only one I dislike. Puzzles are a mixed bag because there's so much rushing and chaos with a ton of people (sometimes more than one guild) going through at once. It's an interesting, different perspective and I find the guild atmosphere there reasonably friendly, but I'm not particularly close to anyone I didn't already know there, so... not sure what to say overall.
Republic of Thieves is due out this week - I'm looking forward to having that reading material to sink my teeth into after much wondering when that comes out. No word on the next Dresden book's release date, though, last I checked. And who knows when Rothfuss might finish the supposed-conclusion to the Kingkiller trilogy.
I'm also eyeing Beyond: Two Souls, a PS3 release. I've not seen much in the way of reviews, but it looks reasonably interesting. It's a Quantum Dream game (the folks who made Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain), so I expect lots of contextual interaction, but mostly-linear gameplay (though it looks like it may jump between time periods in the protagonist's life) while centered around a story. I just hope the gameplay isn't bad and the story doesn't jump completely off the rails. Avoid those two pitfalls, and I'll probably be happy with it, though I might like to see a little more review feedback before I bite.
There's been some discussion on Furryfaire sparked by a proto-plot of sorts that's grown. It's difficult for me to express all my thoughts on that matter. There seems to be some hesitancy to actually run with it. And some people have varied between interested (in running or participating) and being disheartened by events or negative responses. Me, I've sorta wanted to be involved (it beats doing nothin'!) but there hasn't seemed a good way to do so, and whether anything is actually happening has been up in the air, so... I dunno...
There was some tangential discussion in which one player complained about people not being willing to think outside the box and try new things - specific reference came to changing basic physics and such in the Nimby experiment. And while I can see that viewpoint, they don't seem to be able to accept that other people may either 1) simply want to keep things more relatable or 2) may want to change things in a different way entirely. Whatever the case, sweeping setting changes futz with player expectation and can cause problems. The "spirit awakening" is proof of that - huge, sweeping change to the world with a crap-ton of implications... and most people either don't know, don't care, or don't accept it enough to play it, so it's practically been overruled simply my being ignored by... well, virtually every bit of RP I've seen since, honestly.
There was another comment about what the setting would be like pushed into later ages. And while one person may have a lot of ideas on the matter... the next person probably has different ideas. Sure, an industrial revolution would change things, but would it even happen? If magic is learned, and I've see no hard evidence that it's bloodline-dependent, then it may be cheaper to train an assembly line of low-power mages to make widgets than establishing the infrastructure to build something that does the same thing mechanically. Sure, magic and technology are not automatically mutually exclusive, but they can be in certain circumstances. And as far as societal transformations and progress, it's likely that whichever route has the higher return on investment is the one that would win out.
But when you get down to it, there are sooo many variables to consider, and a lot of them would boil down to a GM/setting-wiz/whatever decision of "well this is what happens at this pivotal point, so..." and not everyone's going to agree with it. Assuming that ever matters.