T w e n t y S i d e d
– Shamus, Friday Dec 22, 2006
The cold weather is making my arthritis think it’s time for war. The brain fog is horrible. I got confused three times trying to put this post together and became convinced that I was working on the wrong strip. Any and all complaints can be handed to my editor at this time.
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
Hardware Review
So what happens when a SOFTWARE engineer tries to review hardware? This. This happens.
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.
The Plot-Driven Door
You know how videogames sometimes do that thing where it's preposterously hard to go through a simple door? This one is really bad.
It’s an incredible decision on our fictional GM’S part to, upon watching the players with the plot mcguffing abandon the game, to not find some way to write them out and give the remaining players the plot coupon to journey with. No, his plan is to have those characters fuck off entirely to do the main plot, while the remainder is sent off to the middle of nowhere with no plan in mind.
Just absolutely stellar response.
It’s slightly even better than that.
We lose 4 players, not 2.
The GM (apparently, because I don’t see anyone else driving this trainwreck) has declared that:
* NONE of them are dead.
* TWO of them are captured by the Orcs
* TWO of them have said “screw you” to the party and decided to go off on their own.
The GM has further decreed that the 2 who decided to leave and never be heard from again (or pursued in ANY WAY by the party who believe their quest will save the world) took the Magic Macguffin with them. The two who aren’t terrible useful are captured.
The save that’s so obvious it hurts is to say all 4 hobbits were captured (along with the Maguffin), which would make Aragorn and co’s actions from here out somewhat sensible – we need to rescue the hobbits because they’re our friends, but ALSO because we need the Macguffin back. Maybe they’re alive (and we can have them as NPC’s after they’re rescued), maybe they’re dead (but we can get the Macuffin back and avenge them).
As a fallback, you could at LEAST make it such that the remaining characters DON’T KNOW who has the ring – they know 2 hobbits ran off and 2 were captured. Our remaining heroes decide to pursue the captured ones, because we want to free our friends, and because IF the orcs captured the ring bearer we need it back.
Instead, the presentation here is “OK, 2 of the hobbits went off to do the main quest, 2 others who have no major plot significance were captured by orcs going a different way, so let’s chase those orcs!”
Waffle game is a game you can play whenever you want right in the browser. The rules of the game are very simple: You just need to use the given characters. Change them so that they link together to make meaningful words. Moreover, the waffle game has suggestions for you with colors including, dark orange, light orange and original color. Use this to find out what the words mean and where they stand. From there find the keyword. Play the waffle game now to be the fastest to find hidden keywords
Somebody needs to bring back Shamus’s “Messages from Spammers” series; these are hilarious!
I’m almost tempted to open the link just to see if the “original color” is also a shade of orange…
The Original! The Regular! The New Original! The Old Classic!