Third Time's the Charm?

I almost had to force myself to wait three days for my next post.  If I force myself to wait until I can't stand it anymore, I'm hoping I'll have more to say of higher quality material, and it'll keep it from getting stale from over-writing (something I've done in the past).  I'm not sure if any of this is an accurate assessment; but, we'll just see...

Only thing really of note in the meta is that Kate had two wisdom teeth extracted.  Ouch.  Her recovery isn't exactly speedy, but it's steady.  The swelling of her jaw reminds me of Mark McGuire, which makes me a jerk.  But, the fact that she cried when I showed up when she was finished with the surgery out of relief makes me an awesome dad (in that "she wouldn't feel relief at my presence if I was a jerk" kind of way).  The paradox of parenthood.  We bought her a ton of non-chew type food, so that she'd have a selection of her choosing, regardless of her mood.  This also saturated the kitchen with a nice selection of snacks that she hasn't been in the mood for.  Well... can't let anything go to waste...

Otherwise, I haven't started the book yet.  I want to, really.  When I get home from work, the baby's up and about, so no quiet time there.  Only hope is once the baby goes to sleep.  Trouble is, once that happens, then it's time for 'what I'm watching' (another post, soon enough) with Mrs. Jones.  Once that's done, it's getting close to time to wrap things up for bed.  I'll see about getting a nice chunk of reading time in this weekend; if that doesn't happen, I'll need to re-evaluate how to maximize my leisure time.  All that being said, this is what I HAVE been doing during those smaller leisure chunks...

PLAYING - "Diablo III" - Blizzard Entertainment

If there's any game that would be the death of me, this is it.  And I don't mean in a good way.  But, I kind of do.  But it's bad.  But it's awesome.  I really do love this game.  But, I hate it so much.  Well played, Blizzard.  Jerks.

The Good

Originally, I was taken aback by the levelling system used in Diablo III, as it's a very start departure from the way it was done by its predecessors.  Lack of permanent choice and decision making mean less character growth, and I'm already a doomsayer on the whole "spoonfed" gaming that this generation demands; but... it's nice, at the same time.  Being able to adjust all your skills on the fly (at no cost other than cooldown timers) means being able to try any options for your character at will without penalty, change up your skills based on who you have in your group, and be able to actually formulate strategies for bosses beyond just knowing where to click on the screen at the right time.  I really didn't like it at first, didn't want to like it, but actually getting some skill with skill swapping on the fly really improved my outlook of the system and now I think I use it to very keen advantage.

The class available in the game aren't really anything new in concept for Diablo; but the flavor they've given the classes are very unique and provide a great reason for replayability.  Given that every character has every skill available to them at any given time (level dependent), unlike Diablo 2, this means that the game can be balanced for a more uniform skillset, rather than having to be tweaked to meet the 'flavor of the month' at any given time, as well.  My first run through (to Act I in Inferno) was with a Witch Doctor.  The class is essentially the D2 necromancer, with fewer pets, but more varied ways to do damage.  While a lot of fun, it seems to be the most gear dependent, and is far less forgiving for having less-than-perfect equipment than seemingly anything else.  This is backed by my experience with the Monk (D2's Paladin), which allows a greater use of skill and is a bit more forgiving with the gear issue.  Either that, or I'm just more comfortable in the Monk skin.

The multiplayer is seamless and, depending on your settings, you can have other people join your game at will without so much as an invitation or having to hunt people down.  This USED to be a very, very bad point of the game, in that it used to punish you for playing multiplayer by making the bosses health and strength 90% tougher per extra player beyond the first.  While you'd think the monsters would be easier to compensate for extra players, this wasn't the case.  Despite having four players teamwork to work with, each hit from the boss is still only hitting one character, and that one character doesn't have four times the health to take that 370% strength hit he just took.  Kablooey!  However, this has been addressed by removing the extra strength of the monsters, but leaving the health.  The monsters are now tougher to kill to compensate for the extra player balance, but they don't wreck your face four times harder because of it.  Very smart move on their part, and something I now wholly advocate.

The graphics are great, smashing hordes of monsters to bits is great, loot pinatas galore are great.  I could seriously go into significant detail about every facet of the game; but that would get tedious, and I'm not here to sell it to you (as you'll clearly see soon).  However... despite all the other awesome things that Blizzard does with their enormous game pioneering machine... if I had to pick one, and only one, item to pick as my favorite element of the game, it's the story.  There's one general story that plays out, but it's customized to your character as you go.  The dialogue between you and the NPCs you encounter is customized in minor ways and goes a great deal to speaking to YOU as the hero of the story.  There are story-scenes that are narrated by your character, customized by your class and gender, and these are pretty great.  But.  The cinematic scenes between each act of the game.  Amazing.  That's it, that's all I can say.  Hell... just see for yourself... oh... unless you hate spoilers, but man, you REALLY wanna see this... (and it looks even better in game)


The Bad

Lest anyone fear that I'm on the Blizzard payroll, let me give you the other, just as important, side of the story.  When I said the game might be the death of me, I meant it.  I doubt my blood-pressure has ever been so high because of a game.  I'm seriously not a rager (at least with gaming, amirite?!), but this game has had me fuming.  And playing with others on Inferno or later acts of Hell level blends a mix of sympathy for the rage of others and dealing with my own feelings in a way that keeps me feeling that I'm intentionally putting myself through things I never would never deal with in any other environment.

The reason for all that grief is that on the final level of the game, Inferno, the game is ridiculously hard.  In gaming, there's a term called "Nintendo hard"; well, Nintendo takes one look at Diablo III and simply says "nuh uh, I'm out".  The funny thing is, it's not the difficulty that gets me.  I honestly feel like they truly set out to create the hardest game you could ever play, and met the marker well.  It SHOULD be crazy hard, I get that, and I agree with it.  It's just that the delivery of that difficulty is wrapped in this shell of frustration that really pushes you to the boundaries of needing to replace your electronics after sending them to meet the wall at high velocity.

It's online only.  That bit there is just the worst of it.  There's a real money auction house (RMAH), so I understand that keeping the game online controls the code and content on both the server and client side and also allows/promotes the seamless online interaction.  The problem with this is that with most games before this, the customer was limited by their own hardware; but, it was a factor the user had complete control over.  With Diablo III, if you have a crappy connection, it's quite literally "game over pal".  One bad set of packets, and you're suddenly staring all over on that level it just took you an hour to clear (pre-Inferno).  Let me make it clear again that the user does have control of, and is responsible for their own hardware; the user can potentially have no control over their internet connection and have the game rendered unplayable for circumstances beyond their control.  If you add Hardcore mode (permadeath, die once and your character is no longer playable) and combine it with a connection that is the pits, well... so much for the 60-80 hours it took you to get to the end of Hell level, your amazing skill and prowess has been rendered moot by the Pizza Hut delivery driver who took out the pole carrying your fiber optic line to the server three miles away.

Honestly, my person gripe though, is that the game is nowhere near as random as Diablo 2.  The game is pseudo-random, meaning each part of the game has a few different options for layout, and the events are random only in as much as they may or may not be present if the tile they occur on is selected for the layout. Otherwise, once you've played the game through... that's it.  You pretty much know exactly where everything's gonna be afterwards.  Diablo 2 was fantastically replayable in that the game layout was extremely random, as was the specific monsters that were chosen for each area and so on.  And despite my new love for the character skill/level system, permanent skill choices in Diablo 2 gave you a reason to play the same class again, as you could still play it entirely different.  In Diablo 2, every time you played, the game changed, for good or bad; in Diablo 3... playing again is repetitive and tedious.

The End


Ok, I had a lot more to say on the subject than I expected.  Well, that's the way it goes.  I do love Diablo 3... but at the same time, I was done playing it a week ago.  I'm not honestly sure why I fire it up whenever I've got half an hour or more to spare, but I do.  And I probably will for a while to come.  I've enjoyed other games more, but there's a crazy satisfaction that I get from playing it that despite what's previously been said here, I really can't explain.

Guess Who's Back?

Another year, another blog.

I can't help needing to write. I also can't seem to help that I start to care too much about who's reading, or obligating myself to write for some arbitrary goal, or that I start feeling weighed down by my need to be an outlier. It happens, I'm over it, and you never knew it existed. Another problem is that I'm great at content (or, so I feel); but, I keep missing the hook. I had a hook once, but it was very specific to World of Warcraft - a) I don't play WoW any longer; and b) I don't want to limit any potential readership. Maybe I've found a hook this time, maybe I've missed it, maybe I've started to realize that it doesn't matter quite so much. I'm not writing for attention (this time), I'm writing because that creative steam pressure valve is popping and I need to let it all out or I'm gonna explode.

Also, I've found a love for the Ruby scripting language, and there may come a time in the near future when I can take this blog and put it to practical use with improving Ruby skills. Maybe. Or maybe I should worry about tidying this place up first and making it more presentable to company.

The premise is VERY loosely attempting to consolidate everything I'm enjoying in a variety of mediums. We all have favorite music; maybe a favorite movie, or television show; some of us still enjoy to read. I'm going to attempt pulling these together into a perspective that really does nothing more than lets you get to know me through my experiences. I can't even promise that it'll always stay on topic; I'm only going to keep one blog and if something needs to come out, this is where it's going to happen.

Now is the perfect place in my life for this as I'm experiencing my mid-life crisis and discovering that I'm actually only now shedding the cocoon for the first time. I've always cared too much about either what I am (in as much as a label can define me) or what I could/should have been. At some point in my life I either was, or wanted to be, a goth, punk, prep, game-designer, entrepreneur, programmer, MMO end game master, high score leader on game ***, successful, etc, etc. I've NEVER been just me. There's always been a goal, there's always been ambition, even if it wasn't pointed in the right direction. I've definitely turned my life towards a much more positive direction and am starting to experience the rewards of that. Still, there's a definition there that limits what I'm comfortable with or what I feel I can accomplish. There are labels I am rather proud to wear, such as father, husband, employee; but, I tend to let those labels define me more than I should, still, and I'm really trying to let go of expectations and limitations in this. What that all comes down to is really learning how to stop telling myself "no", and sabotaging myself with all those reasons I can't do the things I really feel the need to do. So... I've put school on hold (only temporarily, I do love to learn), am working on putting together a band from scratch (I've been in two in the past, but... those aren't even worth mentioning in an uber-open-honest blog here), am trying to step away from the keyboard more (the irony...), and am proactively trying to spend more time with my daughters, especially when it isn't needed, per se.

I do need to exercise more. Barrier to that is the fact I have class III stress fractures in each leg and anything that involves jumping or repetitive impact (running) produces far more pain than exercise should. And it's dangerous. So I let that be an excuse/fear towards all types of exercise. I'm learning. I need to get a Wii Fit again. Right after I replace the Playstation 3 that died on me today. Blu-Ray > fitness.

Yes, yes... the blog. I don't want to give too much away; after all, this isn't 'just' about purging, I WOULD like some input and dialog with anyone patient enough to read this. If I tell you everything, what is there left for you to ask? That being said, here's what I really have to say...

READING (Book) - Stephen King - "Carrie"

I stopped reading for pleasure due to my brain being sucked out of my ears every time I picked up a text book for the last 4+ years of my higher education journey. I saw too many words on the page and they would start swimming around and confusing me. Stupid words. Then, a miracle occurred... I put my education on hold, a couple months passed, and suddenly the need to read lept upon me like a ravishing beast of literary mania. It's been so long and I'm out of practice. You might find it funny to think someone could be out of practice with reading, but it's a real problem, so stop teasing.

The biggest question is certainly, "What to read?". This question also somewhat helped me leap back over the edge into blogging... surely if it's a question worth asking, it's worth a discussion of some type... and then one tangent leads to another... here we are, several sets of ellipses later.

My favorite author for most of my life has been Stephen King. Oddly, I find myself thinking about liking a favorite author, or band, or television show, and the stigma that surrounds it. I do care; but, not so much because of what other people might think, but because I want to be able to identify with others in a way that sparks conversation - not causes judgement that shuts off dialog. Another way to think of this is that I want to read something I can talk to someone else about, not something that will cause others to turn away. It may not be healthy, but that's the truth of it.

Anyway, Stephen King. Back on track, Jack. The truth is not that I love his writing style (sometimes it makes my eyes bleed), or that I love everything he's written (downright hate some of it). The real reason I love Stephen King is that he has a great, big inside joke, and I want in on it. I would assume that anyone with a real familiarity of King's works will know that he ties most (all?) of his stories together in some way. The brief encounters I've had with the inside joke have always been so, so, so rewarding. When that character that you'd only know if you'd read another book shows up and you can identify it right away... but know that if you hadn't, you'd have no clue... that feeling is strangely awesome. Seriously, check out the following image...

Those are all parts of the inside joke. That 'map' also doesn't include his opus Dark Tower series, which frankly took the inside joke to a level that map doesn't even scratch the surface of. I want to know the joke. I want to know the secret handshake that anyone else who knows the joke will identify with; and no one else will have a clue. I want to understand the world he writes in from the perspective of the membrane that ties it all together. I want the third dimension to his two dimensional pages. I'm gonna read it all.

Well, I'm gonna try anyway. Honestly, I have no delusions of being able to ever stick with it that far... again, sometimes I REALLY hate his writing. But, I'd really, really like to try. So, that means starting at the start; and that means "Carrie". This is actually one of the few books of his I haven't read that he wrote pre-1995. Didn't really like the idea of the movie, so why bother reading it? Well... it's where the joke starts, so that's where I need to start.

As Seger said, "turn the page".