Chat Box

Sonic Rob: I want that hard counter feel
Sonic Rob: that crunch

FyreHaar: the positive click
FyreHaar: of a seat belt
FyreHaar: or a clip into a nine mm
FyreHaar: that moment of rightness

Sonic Rob: we should market a toy
Sonic Rob: that just is a machined piece of metal that makes like 4 or 5 of those
Sonic Rob: like a tension sheet

FyreHaar: yes
FyreHaar: yes we should!

Sonic Rob: I think it would sell well
Sonic Rob: there could be bits that pop out and you seat them back in
Sonic Rob: buttons to crunch, slides to move
Sonic Rob: every time you pop something into place something else pops out
FyreHaar: you mean a nine mm?
Sonic Rob: well, but not gun shaped
FyreHaar: spring loaded
Sonic Rob: a little thing you could put in your pocket for the bus or stressful times at work
Sonic Rob: we could sell a silent model that just feels clicky
Sonic Rob: and a loud one for home
Sonic Rob: any time you feel stressed, spend 5 minutes replaying one of those “field strip an M-16” moments in your head with this thing
Sonic Rob: you will feel badass and right as rain

Squishing From Beyond the Grave

Reality show contestant found dead in Canada motel

HOPE, British Columbia – Police said Monday they have identified and are investigating a woman who allegedly helped a former reality television show contestant hide from authorities in his native Canada after his ex-wife was found dead in the U.S.

Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not release the identity of the woman who checked Ryan Jenkins into a remote motel in British Columbia days before he was found dead there Sunday of an apparent suicide.

[snip]

Jenkins, a contestant on VH1’s “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” was accused of killing his ex-wife, a model whose body was so badly mutilated when found in a trash bin outside Los Angeles it had to be identified by her breast implants’ serial numbers.

This is a horrible story, of course, and I feel for the victim and her family. Even if we can’t be surprised at her husband’s actions, given his crass and bestial line of work, we can still be appalled. On the other hand, I can’t be the only one absolutely transfixed by that last detail, can I? A model’s corpse is savagely disfigured to try and hide her identity, and they figure out who she is because her fake boobs have serial numbers in them? You know that’s going in CSI next year, right? It’s like zomething out of Zoolander, where everyone underestimates the cunning of a model. Or even worse, the cunning of a baggie full of silicone.

One shudders at the crimes to come once murderers get wise to this.

-ssr

Chat Box

FyreHaar: sweet lord
FyreHaar: miserere nobis
Sonic Rob: noobis!
FyreHaar: OMG!!
FyreHaar: Miserere Noobis!!!
FyreHaar: This is our Guild!!
Sonic Rob: we have a guild?
FyreHaar: for anything we might need a guild/group for, we have a name
Sonic Rob: ah
Sonic Rob: wot’s miserere?
FyreHaar: Miserere nobis means lord have mercy on us
FyreHaar: or just, have mercy on us
FyreHaar: Miserere Noobis, have mercy on Noobs

An End to XP

I was thinking again about the upcoming 40K MMO, and what I might do if I were designing it. One interesting sort of design question that I’ve been pondering is whether you could get rid of levels in an RPG, or in an MMO at all, for that matter.

Levels are a nice way to measure and reward player progression steadily. As long as players do stuff for which you give them XP (or whatever your leveling currency is), they will eventually level up, along with that nice heroin-shot-in-the-vein feeling that always accompanies a good ding. Levels also allow players to easily compare characters against one another, and they are a handy way to gate content, for example by only allowing characters of a certain level into various content.

Still, levels feel awfully artificial in the context of most fiction, and it’s the fiction that draws in people like me. Worse, XP in particular lends itself to grinding, that soul-sucking treadmill that so many gamers put themselves on in the course of turning their fun into work. I was pondering what you might replace levels and/or XP with, at least in the context of 40K, and began thinking about campaigns. Nobody talks about how many levels a Marine captain has gained, but they often mention how old they are. This doesn’t really have enough reward for player effort; you can’t get old any faster or slower than other people, and you gain age even if you don’t play at all. The other thing that often arises in a discussion of a marine’s history is what campaigns they have served in. Ding! Continue reading An End to XP

Bonus: Tac Chat

Sonic Rob: Best
Sonic Rob: loss
Sonic Rob: ever
Sonic Rob: 0-78, went down fighting
Sonic Rob: two orc waaghs + SM (us) vs 2 eldar and SM
Sonic Rob: I’ve never killed so many walkers in my whole life
FyreHaar: did you save it?
Sonic Rob: I did
Sonic Rob: or I thought I did
Sonic Rob: where’d you go, you effer
Sonic Rob: ah, there we go
Sonic Rob: files are saved with the level and the date, not the name you save them under
Sonic Rob: tricky Relic grotz
FyreHaar: yeah
FyreHaar: sneakery
Sonic Rob: so, a couple lessons from this one about tankbustas Continue reading Bonus: Tac Chat