Spouse Aggro

Spouse Aggro #74
Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:06:00 GMT [download/play]

“Breakfast Raiding and Runes of Magic!“

The Highlights from show 74!

1) Beau and Leala welcome you to one of their favorite, and quieter, breakfast places. It’s on main street. While it does get annoying when the after-church crowd shows up with their pent up loud kids, the place has good donuts. We talk about raiding and some of the issues Leala has been facing lately. (Hint: Crawl is a noob! hehe)

2) Then, sit in with Riknas from the Free 2 Play podcast, Troy from Travels with Troy, Shawn from Massively and someone’s mother as they play Runes of Magic live. Instead of doing a typical edit (since we were all over the place,) I pushed all sorts of clips together to see how they sound. Funny? Yes, if you recognize how a bunch of dudes joke around!

Look! Music? Of course. You will recognize all the small clips of songs, but our main theme this week was from Imogen Heap, and her song was called “Hide and Seek.” Cool stuff.

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The Turkeys

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(This is an older message from back in November) I haven’t played Vanguard: Saga of Heroes in a few months. To be honest, I have missed it for quite a while but had to take some time to reset my main character, Rikoo, after he “died” a perma-death and was deleted. It was a fun chapter in my “Immersion Project”, but not one I want to repeat again. Perma-death would work in a game that had it built in from the very beginning, and even then it would have to be something less of a permanent death, and would leave some traces of your character behind. In other words, it would really be just another kind of temporary death, and one that allowed the passing of skills or gear on to another character.

But I did re-roll Rikoo with the exact same look and class as the original. He is around level 12 or so and will be back to his original level 32 in no time. I am not sure if I will continue to level him after that or will stop the leveling by using the “no XP” spell that Vanguard provides, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I joined the “National Novel Writing Month” when I saw a Twitter friend mention it, and for the last few weeks I have been writing a rough draft of the story in my head while on dog walks. Dog walks are one of the best places to write or to conceive a story! I plan on writing about Rikoo and his further struggles with his feelings on death, using his friends and adventure buddies as sounding boards. There will some adventure, and some violence, but I am mostly looking forward to writing about characters that I have had floating around in my head for a long time. There will be Burtimus: the ageless humanoid that helps Rikoo admit his feelings, Luperza: the mage that dabbles in some dark matters, Lealah: the Goblin that kicks a lot of butt, and Grup: the healer that snaps Rikoo back to reality.

I will be using the Vanguard universe as my back-drop, but will not be mentioning any in-game names or places. I will use more vague descriptions as to avoid being sued-as-Hell by SOE, but to any player of the game it will be obvious what I am talking about. To those that don’t play, I hope it will be entertaining.

Anyway, I need to write near 1500 words per day, which equals most of my blog posts, so I need to get writing.

Wish me luck, and although I will be blogging it will not be at the normal rate, I think. Instead of 5 or 6 per week, it might get cut down to a few per week. NOTE: I decided after posting this to make a category for the writing in this project, and if you click on the “novel” category, you will be able to follow my writing as it goes along. It is November 1st as of this writing, and I will be posting my first part today. I will edit it as I go along, and I am open to any suggestions! Thank you for reading, and thank you for your patience during this not-so-normal month fro Spouse Aggro.

*pulls out pen and paper*

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Rikoo woke up feeling amazing. He felt so well rested, so loose and limber. His arms felt strong and didn’t ache, his ears were not ringing and his mouth not dry. He smelt the food and people in the city, and could make out distinct odors mixed within. He could smell specific types of bread and fruit, the whole of the city smelled like a wonderful bouquet made up of everyone and everything in the world.

Spices, rich pungent spices.

Beef sizzling over a fire, fat dripping onto the coals.

There were squash flowers, watermelons dripping, oranges and strawberries.

He stood up, grabbed his cloak and kicked the door that led to the deck of the ship. The day was bright, clear and cloud-free. He wanted to shoot at something, wanted to grab the nearest thing and throttle it. He felt like biting on the ropes of the boat or bending his arrows over his knew until they snapped, he felt he needed to bend his bow backwards until it sprung forward and smashed into his nose. His head was filling with pictures of conquest, of destroying anyone that says hello to him, and images of smashing down this creature he was off to find. Violence!

He grabbed his pack, inspected the pockets inside to make sure he had everything he needed:

A small amount of food, dried and nourishing.

A tiny blade for cutting cloth or tinder.

A flint and stone, for starting fires.

Some spools of cloth, in strips, for wounds.

A bottle of water. He knew where to refill it.

Sugar cubes for Royal.

Some raw beef, wrapped and kept in an air-tight bladder, for Bette.

A pair of dry socks.

A pouch of gold, a small amount. He rarely needed more than 10 or 20.

A small torch.

A flask of oil for the torch.

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“Rikoo! Rik wake up!” Faeran said as he shook Rikoo.

Rikoo shot his eyes open, but felt so cold wet and sore that he barely leaned forward. “What is it? Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“Shhhh! KEep it down. I know where we are, but it isn’t good.” the halfling looked worried. He had his drum and was nervously tapping on the skin. Rikoo leaned up and onto his knees and got his good together. Faeran went back to the hole in the tree and looked out of it. Rikoo could see past him and could see the dim light of day shining through. It had a greenish glow, and he could now hear the buzzing and trilling of a million insects.

“No, no, not the swamps!” Rikoo whispered. As he leaned over Faerans shoulder, he could see that they were, indeed, in some putrid swamp. They had just made it in on the edge of it, and he could see that the muck began a fe wfeet away from them and stretched off in the distance for a long, long time.

“Yeh, but which one?” asked Faeran. “They all look the same, smell the same. And they change over time, like dunes in the desert.”

Rikoo could see the trouble they were in, dozens upon dozens of large winged insects. They had a wingspan of about the length of Rikoos arms stretched out, long thin legs that hung down loosely as they hovered, two giant round eyes on top of a tiny head and a long pointed mouth used for stabbing their victims and draining the blood out of them. He knew they had smelt them both, smelt their breath, but until they moved and showed themselves and their size to the creatures, they would not attack. In a place like the swamp, all creatures had learned that attacks should always be cautious.

“How many, you think?” he asked Faeran.

“At least 100, but they are gathered over there in that clump. Mating time perhaps?” the halfling guessed.

“Maybe they will be distracted? Their smaller cousins always ignore you when they are clumped in those groups like that.” Rikoo was trying to make himself feel better. He knew that the smaller version of these swamp creatures, even if pressed to, could not do the damage that only one of these could do. “What do we do? Sit here until they disperse? Likely, that would be never. This is their home, after all. I have my pack of arrows, and you have your drum, but what can we do with that even?”

The two sat back and watched through the opening as the giant insects buzzed around each other. Occasionally onewould come near the tree to investigate, but would not go further in case it was just a trap.

“I might be able to take a great number of them out, if I can get them to stay together.” Faeran guessed. ” I can cause a force to smash them from above. It’s not easy, and is usually reserved for pushing away from me horizontally, not up or down. But if I could get them to clump together like that and to stay in one spot I can kill quite a few of them at once.”

“What if I were to get them to form around me? If I could somehow resist their stingers, they would be on me like a fly on cow dung!”

“Well, Rikoo, then you would be smashed too!” Faeran giggled.

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This sounds much simpler than it is, and it will take at least an afternoon. Here are the items you will need:

1) One pack of Trolli Brand Gummi Bears.

2) One cup, glass or swig of Kool Aid. (It has a third less sugar that most sodas, according to sources.)

3) A desk that will hold at least two monitors.

4) Two monitors.

5) Two PC’s.

6) All the crap that plugs into the PC’s.

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I love searching for little gems of the MMO world, and I find so many that I wanted to start telling everyone else about them!I want to post a lil blurb about new games I come across, in the hopes that other players try them out and add to the discussion!

I frequent so many sites and get a lot of tips from friends as to what games look good, or what to try. This week I stumbled across a game called “Taikodom.” Essentially, it is reminding me of EVE/Jumpgate, complete with dogfights, avatars (walking around in apts/stations will be featured soon, according to dev’s) missions and skills.

It looks great, is a tiny download and something about having the tutorial voice-over in a foriegn language soothes me. Check out some of the screenies below:

Mining is done simply by destroying asteroids and looting them. The skills look numerous, and the ships are plenty. I will have to give a better review after some more of the game is implemented, but in the meanwhile it’s a great cash shop/free game to try!

Give it a whirl at http://taikodom.com/

Beau Turkey

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That’s right, us Turkeys are getting together with the Free 2 Play podcast guys to play some Runes of Magic! Go download it, install it and get ‘er going!

April 24th, Free Play Gamers Night on Runes of Magic!  This Friday night on the Govinda (US) server. Currently 9pm EST.

Add Spouse Aggro to your MSN, Yahoo messenger or AOL all under the name spouseaggro. OR, add me to your Skype under the name Beauturkey!

See ya there!

Beau

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1) Blog Walking: I blog on a pretty consistent level, although the quality of my blogs can be debated! Either way, I am proud of the fact that I have the time (sometimes) and the imagination to keep blogging. I have been at it for years, and through my blogs/vidcasts/podcasts I have met so many cool people ranging from insiders to players. One of the easiest way for me to keep blogging is to make sure I talk about my experience, and not about my research. While I think research is needed for certain kinda of blogs, mine is one of experience, not of information.

One way for me to get my thoughts together for a blog is too simply think about what I want to write, and write it out in my head like a mental rough draft. The perfect time to do this is while walking my dogs. At the minimum, I walk my dogs for an hour each day, sometimes 2. That’s a lot of time to either listen to podcasts, music, or to “write” in my head. Also, it’s exercise. Exercise has been proven to do more for brain-power than just reading or doing crosswords. And if you exercise or do physical activities that you have not done before, or do them in a different way than normal, your brain can really benefit from the variety. On a blog-walk I am exercising my brain and body as well as getting some work done!

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That’s right, us Turkeys are getting together with the Free 2 Play podcast guys to play some Runes of Magic! Go download it, install it and get ‘er going!

April 24th, Free Play Gamers Night on Runes of Magic!  This Friday night on the Govinda (US) server. Currently 9pm EST.

Add Spouse Aggro to your MSN, Yahoo messenger or AOL all under the name spouseaggro. OR, add me to your Skype under the name Beauturkey!

See ya there!

Beau

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Spouse Aggro Vidcast #13: Learning from Puzzle Pirates and Tragedy! from Spouse Aggro on Vimeo.

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Mabinogi does a lot of things really well, from character development to actual game-play. It is a game of choices that allows for all types of gamers to come together to play in their own way.

But I wonder how a disabled gamer or a gamer with limited time (for a number of reasons) might fare in the world of Mabinogi?

Before I get started, be sure to check out http://www.ablegamers.com/ for game reviews, articles and networking for all types of gamers. I would like to say that even though I am not disabled, I find this conversation fascinating. Do games do enough for the disabled? Or is it a question that many of the developers never even think of?

Next time you are playing your favorite game, ask yourself how you might play if you had an issue that limited your play..how would you play it? But on to Mabinogi. Let’s look at some of the features that I think should be looked for, and how Mabinogi might be used to tackle those issues:

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Spouse Aggro #73
Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:21:00 GMT [download/play]

“Developer Transparency!..”

The Highlights from show 73!

1) Shuttler gives us an intro. He likes apples? In grits?

2) Beau and Leala discuss a Ryzom thread that brought up the question: “Are developers transparent enough?” No, not see through. You know, like, do they communicate with their players?

3) The Couple of The Year talk a bit about beta’s.

4) A little talk about what Beau and Leala have been playing (bad beta’s, WoW, and too many games.)

Look! Beau didn’t forget to link the music notes!! Here’s the artist, a lady named Ingrid Michaelson. The song is called “Corner of Your Heart.” Good stuff. And yes, I KNOW that song was on that turd of a show called “Grey’s Anatomy.” Ok, I haven’t seen it, but South Park made fun of it, so like, I have to think it’s totally bad, mmkay?

Send emails to spouseaggro at yahoo dot com.

Website found at spouseaggro dot com.

Twitter name: spouseaggro

Skype name: beauturkey

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The Turkeys

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ILLINOIS  – A 22 year old man was found dead earlier Saturday morning after neighbors hear a loud popping sound followed by a great rush of air. On the scene officials found the man still sitting at his computer with at least 2 inches of snack debris around his feet, his computer still on and the 350 GB hard-drive filled with a random assortment of MMORPGs, popular video games frequented by boys 12-23 and girls 25-47.

Further investigation showed that the boy had died of a sudden mind-blowing experience in which the boy realized that he not only had grown bored by the gaming that had taken over his life, but had no alternative but to be bored with the thoughts of boredom. He had wallpapered his walls with printed images of popular MMORPGs, and all of them having cryptic one-word phrases like “MEH” and “FAIL” scribbled across them.

The CDC has become more concerned in recent years over similar deaths, stating that “..today’s young men and older women face a gruesome, boring death if they do not learn to cope with their feelings of boredom. We have begun to see a rise in this kind of behaviour, usually triggered by a combination of playing these games for years straight while visiting such websites as www.imboredalready.com or www.meaningfulpvp.org.” The CDC website has posted some tips for parents of this children (and adults that still live at home) to recognize the signs of an individual suffering with MMO fatigue.

The gaming industry has begun to use very creative measures to insure that players don’t grow bored with games as quickly. One popular MMORPG called “Dragonsbane: The Glistening” has capped their Frames Per Second (the smallest unit of E-Peen) at 3 so that players wait longer to see what happens. Another major release by Inebria Studios has not even been named yet, for fear that players will grow bored with the organization of letters or the font.

Here are a few of the tips from the CDC website for helping combat gaming boredom:

1) Only allow 3 screen-shots to be viewed for each upcoming release.

2) No viewing of websites that have forums, or that allow any contact between gamers.

3) Only allow play sessions of any game to last a maximum of 15 minutes.

4) Do not allow games to leave “short-cuts” on the desktop of the afflicted gamer as this would allow a bored gamer to easily spend hours hovering over the icons with his/her mouse without actually playing any of the games.

5) Unplug the PC if ever the gamer brings home any boxes marked “Clearance” or with a price of 4.99 or under. At that point, the gamer has begun to reach desperation.

For more tips and guidelines to a healthy gaming life-style, visit www.cdc.gov/meh.

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Ain’t she a beaut?

Beau

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Funny things happen to you when you start to get into your 30′s.

I have read about physical changes, but other than my lower buzz-to-beer ratio, I feel better than I have in my entire life. My eyes have gotten worse, but that’s normal for a guy with, you know, bad eyes. My tennis elbow is a lot better, but I am not playing drums nearly as much, exercise more and don’t spend as much time drawing or using the mouse.

Emotionally, I am more super-charged than ever. They say that as a man gets older, his emotions become stronger. It is supposedly the opposite for women. If you want proof, go up to an elderly couple and ask the man to tell you about his childhood. His eyes will water up immediately while his wife rolls her eyes! I cry at everything, even abused dog commercials, but again this is to be expected from someone that has always been “in touch with his feelings.”

But my gaming habits haven’t so much changed as solidified. I have become very comfortable with my gaming habits.

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They came from WoW to WAR, and before WoW they came from any number of games (that are only mentioned for MMO cred, if they were indeed old enough to play something before WoW.)

You can already see the posts coming:

a) “This game actually sucks.”

b) “I realize now that this game isn’t the second coming.”

c) “This game consists of good ideas poorly executed.”

They will blame their boredom on the game, of course, instead of the fact that they not only obsessed over the game, but over every detail about the game before it came out.

Also, they will not recognize the pattern that goes like this:

a) Say “There’s a new game in development, it looks like it might have meaningful PVP.”

b) Collect screen-shots, make forum posts discussing possible game-play mechanics.

c) Write blogs about the upcoming game, and how it might fulfill something that has been missing from their gaming life (which is what WoW actually did, but they would save the “Hey, I returned to WoW” posts for later.)

d) Play the game obsessively when it comes out, write about it, form guilds, play it so much that the entirety of the game has been exposed (if not conquered) within a few months.

e) Get bored, blame the game, and move onto the next one that isn’t WoW, because WoW is for pussies (but play it in secret.)

Whenever those players leave, the game will see it’s true “hardcore” base. The term should be reserved not for those that play a certain style game in a certain style of play, but for those subscribers that stick with a game through thick and thin, ups and downs, waves of bored players looking for that next (non-WoW) thrill, because WoW is for pussies.

Now, if I could only BUY the game and get in.

I’ll give it a few more weeks…the signs are there, but a lot of these players hold on until no one is looking. Hurry up, guys, I wanna’ play without finding myself a victim of your boredom (“Hey! Someone new logged on! KILL THEM!”)

Beau

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I have been playing Wizard 101 again, much to my delight. The hard part about having so many games, and so many FUN games at that, is that occasionally you miss out on playing some of them. Kind of ironic, actually, that if you have too much fun you can sometimes miss out on fun.

Wizard 101 is, if you go by looks alone, made for children. I am not a child, or have any children (thank goodness.)

But the game-play is a blast. It’s basically a turn-based card battle game, complete with a cash shop that’s pretty darn cheap. I gave up playing for a bit because of some annoying Golem that just kept kicking my butt. I guess what was needed was a small break to give me some perspective and some fresh eyes, because when I logged and and tried again I kicked the snot out of him. Don’t know why…perhaps some patch happened in the meanwhile that made me uber?

Either way, as a student of the Death school, I need to look all evil and stuff. So, I threw down 10 bucks to see what I get.  I log in and buy 5000 crowns with my 10 dollars. The cash was on my character within seconds. Here’s what I looked like before, followed by my stats:

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