Dia-Dia-Di-a-blo...

Many years ago, when I lived in a pokey little flat with Jo and we had ONE computer between us (back in the stone age), we got addicted to the Internet.  And by getting addicted to the internet, we got addicted to internet gaming of various sorts.  Mostly, it was the Doom-style type games, or online board games...

Being that it was the stone age, there was no Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, EvE Online - though there were some games, hosted in the states, which meant playing gave a huuuge amount of lag, so we never bothered.

Then, out of the blue, a company called Blizzard released a rather fun game called Diablo.  Typical fantasy slash-through-the-dungeon type of game, get better gear, go up in levels...  And we got hooked on that too.  That game kept me awake for well over a year - the thing with it was, each time you restarted, the levels were different, you could find different unique monsters, different gear... And then there was the Online Aspect of it - you could play together in the same place over a network, or you could (for those that remember, use dial up!) connect directly to another person and play with them.  Failing that, there was Battle.net to connect to the thousands of other players out there...

I never actually got bored of Diablo - I ran out of time, more than anything, as Jaysen was born, and having a baby made gaming rather awkward.

Time passed, and Diablo 2 came out, and was bigger, altered, changed - Blizzard know how to do cinematics, video, storyline, music - and the sequel was no let down.  Actually, before the sequel, there was the expansion, Hellfire, but that seemed rather unpopular, prolly because it wasn't Blizzard that made it...

Once again, the world of Diablo sucked me in, and I sat up all hours playing with friends and strangers alike... 

A few weeks ago, I reinstalled Diablo and played it for a while, killing time, and slowly getting sucked in.

Then this morning, while kicking my way through my blogs, I notice someone mention Diablo 3.  Well, that pretty much set me for the day - despite running late, stressing and flapping and everything else.

The biggest thing I remember with the original, and, to an extent, the sequel, was the cheating.  The cheats people used, trainers, gear, life, stats - people would sift through code, find the best item in the game, then hack it so you could wear the same thing on your head, body, hands, legs, feet, both hands AND potion slots...  For a while, we DID play that way just to see how fast we could get through the game, but it did make it very boring.  Fun for a while, but killed it in the end.

With Diablo 3 in the works, that is now the third game I am looking forward to being released...  Spore, Wrath of the Lich King, and now Diablo3.

I'm sure Kellie won't mind becoming a gaming widow for a while... Right?

Itty Bitty Geekism

Diablo 3 is being made.
I am now willing time to whizz by so I can buy it! Check the movie and gameplay trailers...

I'll embellish on this post later - I just had to jump up and down and cheer ;)

It Really IS A Small World

People often use the phrase "What a small world" when a seemingly impossible coincidence crops up. I've always been a firm believer in this phrase, because, after all, it really is a small world. With people growing up together, then moving away and spreading their roots in a new area, it is inevitable that eventually, people will meet a friend of a friend.

My mum always used to say to me "No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing, there is someone who knows you, watching" It's a phrase that was my undoing on so many occasions as a child it's now part of my Daddy Repertoire. When ever I was up to no good, I always, without fail, got caught. Someone that knew me saw me doing something and would always let someone know, that would let someone know, that invariably got back to my mother.

Yesterday, while sitting around picking my nose, I get a message from one of my heart mum friends, Karlie who lives in Wales. Known her for quite a while from the CHD-UK list, and we occasionally chat and text. Out of nowhere, she messages me and asks "You know a Rich Smith?"

Well, yes, one of my childhood friends was Richard Smith - which, let's face it, a pretty common name - and he moved away several years ago to, of all places, Wales. Turns out that Karlie's other half is friends with, and works with, the very same chap. Now, had it been that he moved an hour up the road, fair enough. But to the other side of the country?

It got me to thinking about how we're all interconnected, especially around here. It seems that people that partake of the Role Playing hobby especially - D&D players, Live Action Role Players, Vampire Players - we all seem to be inbred and inter mingled. Now, bear with me on this, as I'm hoping it translates into a list...

My local childhood friends were Jay and Rich, the only ones of the similar age.
Jay came home with a girlfriend one day, Sarah.
Sarah went on to marry someone called Grant.
Rich got a girlfriend I'd never met.
I got to know Grant through the local games shop.
Grant invited me and Jay to a live roleplay game.
Rich went along with his girlfriend, Jo.
Jo turned out to be Grants brother.
Me and Jay would go some evenings to play Vampire with Amber.
Amber was Sarahs sister.
The guy I thought was Jo's boyfriend was Ben.
Ben is Amber and Sarahs brother.

There were other links as well - a guy from school I lost contact with turned out to be Ambers fella. Another guy from school hung around with Grant. A kid I was in a fight with in my area went to school with Jo's little brother Greg. Bens missus is someone that Jo used to go Live Roleplaying with in Portsmouth. A guy I used to play WoW with on another server is good friends with another of our friends, Gailey.

And on and on.

Facebook has a fairly nifty little application that lets you see the links between and to all your friends on there. Called Friend Wheel, it basically puts all your friends in a circle and connects them with lines. Here's mine:



One hundred and twelve friends, most of which are connected through other friends in some way or another. This Link will take you to the flash-based version (Well, I HOPE it does!), whereby hovering over one person will show you their links. Hovering over Jo is scary ;)

I mentioned it before back in the dim distant past, but I wonder how many friends or friends-of-friends know one another. I'm a firm believer in the Six Degrees of Seperation theory, in that everyone in the world can be connected to any other person by six or less people... This craziness just proves it to be even more likely.

Wiiiiii!

Without making any urine jokes*, last night we had our first brush with the Wii console. I keep thinking that we need to get one for the sheer hell of it - the physical exercise, the companionship for playing with friends, the keep-fit aspect of it. Sure, I've seen a few cases of damage, but all in all, it looked amusing and a piece of piss.

So, cue last-nights alcohol-fuelled Wii'ing, and much hilarity was to follow. Gailey and Al "showed us how it was done". We started off easy with brain games, which, I hasten to add, the boys lost only because Gailey cheats. Then it was boxing. Gailey beat up Al, then Jo beat up me. I sense a theme. A spot of Bowling, in which, amazingly, *I* won. Jo blames cheating. Baseball = nigh on impossible. Then golf for me which was just a case of "smacking a ball till it went in the hole". Eleven over par. On three holes.

Huzzah!

AND we even managed a single injury. Bowling, which Dan is notoriously bad at (despite the win) saw me struggling at first with the technique. A technique that most 5 year olds grasp. I blame the wine and the Smirnoff. I stepped back, raised my arm, and *FLING-CRUNCH* into the ankle of Jo, who was sat on the sofa behind me.

I got a spare though ;)

I am, however, on pain of death to NOT mention a mishap incurred by another person while playing, a mishap that caused much laughter and time-out of playing for several minutes.


*OK, maybe one urine-comment

Warcraft Movies

World of Warcraft is responsible for lots of things. Not only has it spawned an army nation of gaming geeks, but there is the merchandise, the expansions (The Burning Crusade, and the up-and-coming Wrath of the Lich King), the card game, the fan art, the roleplaying game and even a movie.

But WoW also appeals to the chap that sits at home making movies from game footage. Over the last couple of years, there have been contests and competitions of all kinds - some official Blizzard competitions, some third-party - as well as people making them "just for the hell of it".

The videos vary in quality, ranging from "something cobbled together" to "near-professional editing", not to mention the types - comedy, love stories, videos of someone showing off their skills, music videos...

Today, messing around on FaceBook, I noticed some daft Italian guy had a video on his profile (not his video, I should add) of a very good WoW Video. From what I can make out, it's an entry (and subsequent winner) of a Blizzard competition:


If you aren't a WoW player, have never seen anything about it - this guy has taken his character from creation, running all the way through, editing the models into his video. The bits flying around are screen elements used during play... All very well done.

Even if you're not a gamer, you have to appreciate the skill and time taken to make a video of this quality. And the song kicks bottom too!

Hollywierd Mind Readers?

Several years ago, I saw a piece of artwork that I fell in love with. I kept it for as long as I can remember because it spurred the creativity in me for a certain genre, both writing and gaming.

I've always been a fantasy geek (like you didn't realise that); dragons, knights, magic, good vs. evil - I know there are those out there that frown upon it, but me, it's my bread and butter. However, mixing the fantasy genre with modern-day life just... I don't know, it appealed in a big way.

The picture in question was by a famous fantasy artist named Larry Elmore. If you've ever read or even seen the Dragonlance books, any of the D&D books, or been to gaming conventions, then chances are you've seen his work. The picture in question is this:


Simple concept - Dragon chasing a Fighter Plane. Nothing amazing, nothing funky, but I don't know. I love it.

So, enough rambling - a few nights back, me and Jo were chatting about movies, and the topic of "there needs to be a good Fantasy-Meets-Modern movie" cropped up. Granted, a few years back there was "Reign of Fire" - dragons take over and destory everything. Close, but more a post-apocalypse movie.

Now fast forward to this evening, and here's me wandering around the web when I see a banner ad Firefox hasn't blocked. Curses - but, no, wait... "Dragon-Wars" So I click it. And end up at the official page for a movie due out next month, Dragon Wars: D-War.

The trailer looks very cool - lots of CGI monsters and suchlike, so if that's not your bag, you might want to skip it. I just find it rather odd that not a few days back we were talking about such things and lo-and-behold, here it is.

*ahem*

In semi-related news, the afore-mentioned Dragonlance books... Well, if you read them, be prepared for the movie. This weekend, the world preview of the trailer was shown to those that were able to attend GenCon US in Indiana. By all accounts, it kicked bottom. Lots of famous names, especially for a low-budget animated movie, especially given how much people hated the "other" D&D Movie, which I happened to like. Of course, it's sequel was a Straight-To-DVD-Crapfest!

(Dragonlance links: Wikipedia, D&D Site, Movie Site, IMdb)

Computer Game Geek Alert

While I consider myself to be a gamer, I'm not one of these that sit watching every single game due out, scouring the web for tid-bits and snippets. MOST games out there don't interest me, and I can count on one hand (with fingers left over) the number of games installed on my computer. There are a few games "in the pipework" that I AM waiting for though. If you're not into games, you can skip past this post if you so desire ;)

I don't have a "favorite genre" though of course, I tend to play more MMO (Massive-Multiplayer Online) games like World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot and EvE Online than regular games. The first two are fantasy-based "Kill the Dragon" sorts, while the latter, EvE, is a space-simulator - space ships, lasers, asteroids, pirates - very fun. Then I like a few "First Person Shooters" - Doom3, Half Life (and it's sequels), Unreal Tournament. Get the guns, kill everything and everyone, win. I'm also very much into an old game that has been around since the dawn of time on computers - before the days of graphics, back when critters were represented by characters on a keyboard. "d" for young dragons, "S" for giant spiders, "o" for orcs, "O" for ogres. You either loved or hated Angband, and I loved it, all part of the "Roguelike" genre.

My childhood was spent with computers - not consoles, but actual computers. Be it at school or at home, I'd be tinkering with something, or playing with it, or just using it somehow. My step-dad was the same and we used to work together, learning the in's and out's. School lunch times were spent with Stuart either at his place (on the computer), or friend Steves (on the computer) or at school in the computer lab (unsurprisingly, on a computer).

I never really got caught up in the Console Craze - I had a Playstation, but mostly used it when we had a few people over and played multiplayer stuff. Jaysen got a PS2 and loves it (but then, he loves the PC as well), and when he blew that up, we let him use our GameCube.

With all the next-gen consoles either out in the wild (Xbox 360), or due to hit shelves soon (Nintendo Wii) or not-so-soon (PS3), I look at them and think "Meh, it's not my PC". Obviously, I use my PC for more than gaming - much more - and couldn't justify spending £300-£500 on a machine that only plays games. With my PC, I can play Warcraft, then read some webpages, check my mail, chat to my friends on MSN, remove spyware, and generally keep occupied. A friend said to me yesterday "What would you do if you didn't have your computer?" and honestly, I don't know. How odd is that. It's a huge part of my - well, OUR - life. I have more friends around the world than I do "in the flesh", I can read about things as they happen, and not the following day in the newspapers, and unlike the TV, there is always something to do/watch!

So, back to the original point - it takes something really interesting to make me think "Wow, I want that game", and there are a few things coming out that I actually want:

• WoW: The Burning Crusade - MMO - The first World of Warcraft Expansion, adding new races and new places (Official Site)
• Spore - Sim Game - start as a microscopic organism, and evolve up and up to civilisation, then dominate the galaxy (Official Site)
• Portal - First Person Puzzle/Shooter - using a weapon to make portals, you have to solve puzzles to exit the area. Should be bundled with Half-Life Episode 2. (Official Site)
• Crysis - First Person Shooter - Collect guns, improve armour, use stealth and brute-force to save the day. (Official Site)

So yes, in case you didn't realise - I am a big ol' geek at heart. But you knew that.

A Lay In!

For the first time in a very long time, I woke up at 10am. I can't even remember the last time I slept in so late. Granted, it probably helped that we didn't go to bed nearer one in the morning as we had Amber & Pete over. We pissed around, had a lot of laughs, and are sorting out playing D&D more regularly after people advised me it was something I should do.

You know who you are!

However, the downside? Well, it's 11am and I've only just gotten dressed, so I feel REALLY lazy. Added to this, I feel like I was up all night drinking, and have a pounding headache. Jo has acted on this, and is taking her and the kids out with her mum for a few hours so I can have peace and quiet. Her idea, not mine.

Those of you living around here - the rain at 2-3am was incredible. We have a flat roof upstairs, so the rain was hammering on there, feet above us in bed. Long Riding - as usual - disappeared under water for a while, but it was made more surreal by the fact I was on pain killers.

The cam is on and pointing out to the world once more. For those not seeing it, I am not sure WHY you're not seeing it. I suspect you're missing a plug-in of some kind, but can't figure what - if anyone can, please let me know.

As for the report of a virus being on my page somewhere, I've checked and double-checked the code this morning, and can't see anything malicious. Those of you that are technically-minded, could you have a quick peek if you have 5 minutes? I suspect it is the amount of Javascript running on the page that is causing it, but not sure why it would have started all of a sudden.

Still, with Jo off out, and me pushing this headache to the rear of my head, I am likely to jump on Warcraft today and mosh through a dungeon or something for laughs. I've discovered that if I play WoW, the camera and it have a fit over who-gets-the-most-memory, so the cam will go off when that happens.

Well...

Well, so far so good - the only reports of the camera not working seem to be after I turned it off, so that's all good. *touches wood* MSN is on and has had several people jump on since last night. Nothing has broken (yet) and everything seems to be running smoothly (so far), so I'll chalk this down as a win for me.

Yay Dan!

In other news. Well, it appears that I am the only person on this green earth to have never seen Braveheart. Yeah yeah, shoot me. Of course, while I enjoy epic-scale/historical movies, the last few days have seen me in a frame of mind to not really watch one. Jo has been telling me how great a film it is, so we put it on last night.

It went on forever and ever. At 10pm, Jo told me we were only half-way through, so we turned it off and went to bed. I just couldn't face it, and not even sure I can face the other half today. I suppose I should make myself scarce ;)

On the bright side, it's Friday. Today is only the second day this week I've gotten up to take Jaysen to school, Jo has been doing it mostly. I still feel icky, but I'm bored and I am sure the rest of the house is sick of hearing me complain and moan, so I'll just have to suck it up and get on with it. No doubt tomorrow - Saturday - I will be up at the crack of dawn doing something daft.

I tried the Everquest 2 trial the other day after all. It sucked for me. Wasn't a patch on World of Warcraft.

Anyways - I need to whip the boy into his uniform and get my proverbial skates on - enjoy the scenery of "Out the Window". I'm sure you will be mesmerised for hours to come. FYI - there is a 20 second delay between here, and the screen you see there. Most odd watching a car go past out the corner of my eye, only to see it go past on the screen a short time later!

People...

You ever go through phases when it just seems that people in general are conspiring against you. I like to think I am a pretty well-organised person. I'm very very rarely late for anything, remember where I am supposed to be at any given chance, and generally have decent planning skills. Right up to a point. And you know what that point is? As soon as you have to add "Other People" to the mix. Now granted, I've been told that my timekeeping is borderline obsessive/compulsive - I feel sick if I know I am going to be late somewhere - but there are days when it seems like those that know what the plans are, they stick the proverbial spanner in the proverbial works.

As you can tell, I'm Dan McGrouchy today.

On the other side of the coin, we've started a teeny bit of table-top roleplaying again. While we used to play Dungeons & Dragons multiple times per week, it dried to zero after we lost Bethy, and all my Email D&D games fizzled through me having a real lack of description and motivation. We're only playing the game once per week, but again, we're relying on someone else, and he seems to not give a crap if we have fun or not. If we cancel, then we'll keep cancelling. Of course, in true Dan-Style trying to keep others happy, I am letting him get on with it, and even sat last night and drew out his fantasy world as a map, which I finished and coloured today. It's probably the most fantasy-based stuff I've done in a long while.

Jo is toying with running a game for people, and I keep debating to start one up, but since we lost Bethy, it's like my roleplaying flame died down to a glowing ember. It's still there, it just needs re-stoking. I can't even put finger-to-keyboard for a short story or anything which is VERY unlike me.

I think I need to pop a wad of pain killers and veg in bed. Early night, try to sleep, as I'm just "feh" today. I've also got the concentration span of a glass of lukewarm lemonade, hence the rambling post.