A Gaming Mini-Update
I'm currently working on the first revisions to Chapter 14 of 22 of Storm Heart, so I'm right at 2/3 done with draft two. I'm hoping to finish draft two within the next two weeks, and then start working on my query letter as my peer review board gets back to me on revisions. Hopefully by the time I'm happy with my query letter, draft three should be finished, and from there it should only be a matter of some very minor edits before submitting to interested agents.
11 months to go before I hit my self-imposed deadline.
So I started my first Hardcore Oxygenarian run on KoL today. I saved up two days worth of adventures, so that on Muscle Day I had 120 adventures to use. I had a fairly good run with those limited adventures - hit level 4, acquired my first useful semi-rare, defeated Baron Von Ratsworth, completed the larva and tavern quests, built the meatcar, discovered the hidden temple, and built my Mace of the Tortoise.
My only regret is that I came just short of having all the meat maid parts on day one. I ended up one base muscle shy of unlocking the tower ruins for the disembodied brain. Hopefully tomorrow (another muscle day) I can finish construction of the meat maid.
It's interesting not being able to eat or drink. The downsides are obvious (less adventures, no fortune cookie tracking), but there are some surprising upsides: more meat, and less time having to farm places like the Haunted Kitchen and Beanbat Burrow.
And I've got a Brimstone Bludgeon just waiting to crack some skulls... ^_^
I finally broke down and joined the rest of my gaming crew... I started playing Team Fortress 2 on Friday. I've had a chance to try out all the classes, and though my favorite is the engineer, I suck at it. I'm a somewhat formidable medic (and have a bizarre number of bonesaw kills), and I had a single good run as a scout on a capture the flag map, but other than that, I'm pretty much a drain on team resources.
Therein lies the problem I have with FPS games, and particularly team-strategy based FPS games. Games like TF2 have an extremely steep learning curve, which is downright daunting for those without a whole lot of FPS experience. I've never been good at FPS games, mostly because I haven't ever really had the chance to get over the basics skill curve (aiming with the mouse, predicting movement, learning hit boxes, etc.) I feel like my shotgun (engineer) is completely worthless. I have more kills with the wrench than the shotgun.
The problem is, no one wants to help a new player learn the game, they just want to bitch about how much you suck. The only 'learning time' I've really gotten in the game is when I turn the voice reception off, which you don't really want to do in a team-dependent game. (Hence the drain on team resources above, amongst other issues.) The inherent design problem in FPS games is that there is no 'training mode.' No tutorials to learn the controls and basic premises of the game. You're dropped in a map on day one, and your poor performance as you struggle to learn the basics of the game hurt the overall performance of your team, which slaps a downer on all their gaming experiences. So of course, they hate you, which ruins your time, and your options are to keep having a bad time, change servers and try to find one with less asshats, or just quit the game altogether and do something better with your time.
Therein lies the dilemma. The bottom line is, my life is too busy to waste on a game that's just not fun to play until you reach the level where the actual game "is." (say, for instance, the vast majority of MMORPGs currently on the market, whose content sucks up until endgame, when "the game begins.") In order for me to invest the time required to get good enough at a game to "play it," I have to be able to have fun while I'm in the newbie stage.
Currently the only time I'm really having fun in the game is finding servers that have less than 16 people on at a given time, so the teams are smaller (you can learn the map without having to contend with four friggin' snipers, etc.) and generally less experienced (so those said snipers will actually miss you from time to time). The only downside to that is, the teams seem to keep being 50% pyro/scout. (The upside to that is, I was able to learn why as a medic with an ubercharge, given the option between the pyro and the heavy, you want to slap it on the pyro.)
In general, I like the game and I see a great deal of potential in it. What I'm uncertain about currently is whether or not I have the time and patience to get good enough at it to play with the rest of the crew, and actually be able to have a good time on the level that they're on. *shrug*
11 months to go before I hit my self-imposed deadline.
So I started my first Hardcore Oxygenarian run on KoL today. I saved up two days worth of adventures, so that on Muscle Day I had 120 adventures to use. I had a fairly good run with those limited adventures - hit level 4, acquired my first useful semi-rare, defeated Baron Von Ratsworth, completed the larva and tavern quests, built the meatcar, discovered the hidden temple, and built my Mace of the Tortoise.
My only regret is that I came just short of having all the meat maid parts on day one. I ended up one base muscle shy of unlocking the tower ruins for the disembodied brain. Hopefully tomorrow (another muscle day) I can finish construction of the meat maid.
It's interesting not being able to eat or drink. The downsides are obvious (less adventures, no fortune cookie tracking), but there are some surprising upsides: more meat, and less time having to farm places like the Haunted Kitchen and Beanbat Burrow.
And I've got a Brimstone Bludgeon just waiting to crack some skulls... ^_^
I finally broke down and joined the rest of my gaming crew... I started playing Team Fortress 2 on Friday. I've had a chance to try out all the classes, and though my favorite is the engineer, I suck at it. I'm a somewhat formidable medic (and have a bizarre number of bonesaw kills), and I had a single good run as a scout on a capture the flag map, but other than that, I'm pretty much a drain on team resources.
Therein lies the problem I have with FPS games, and particularly team-strategy based FPS games. Games like TF2 have an extremely steep learning curve, which is downright daunting for those without a whole lot of FPS experience. I've never been good at FPS games, mostly because I haven't ever really had the chance to get over the basics skill curve (aiming with the mouse, predicting movement, learning hit boxes, etc.) I feel like my shotgun (engineer) is completely worthless. I have more kills with the wrench than the shotgun.
The problem is, no one wants to help a new player learn the game, they just want to bitch about how much you suck. The only 'learning time' I've really gotten in the game is when I turn the voice reception off, which you don't really want to do in a team-dependent game. (Hence the drain on team resources above, amongst other issues.) The inherent design problem in FPS games is that there is no 'training mode.' No tutorials to learn the controls and basic premises of the game. You're dropped in a map on day one, and your poor performance as you struggle to learn the basics of the game hurt the overall performance of your team, which slaps a downer on all their gaming experiences. So of course, they hate you, which ruins your time, and your options are to keep having a bad time, change servers and try to find one with less asshats, or just quit the game altogether and do something better with your time.
Therein lies the dilemma. The bottom line is, my life is too busy to waste on a game that's just not fun to play until you reach the level where the actual game "is." (say, for instance, the vast majority of MMORPGs currently on the market, whose content sucks up until endgame, when "the game begins.") In order for me to invest the time required to get good enough at a game to "play it," I have to be able to have fun while I'm in the newbie stage.
Currently the only time I'm really having fun in the game is finding servers that have less than 16 people on at a given time, so the teams are smaller (you can learn the map without having to contend with four friggin' snipers, etc.) and generally less experienced (so those said snipers will actually miss you from time to time). The only downside to that is, the teams seem to keep being 50% pyro/scout. (The upside to that is, I was able to learn why as a medic with an ubercharge, given the option between the pyro and the heavy, you want to slap it on the pyro.)
In general, I like the game and I see a great deal of potential in it. What I'm uncertain about currently is whether or not I have the time and patience to get good enough at it to play with the rest of the crew, and actually be able to have a good time on the level that they're on. *shrug*