MaW’s Blog

I think this might actually be dangerous. Sat at my computer contentedly playing SimCity 4 and I am abruptly and inexplicably seized by the urge to turn my chair, wiggle the mouse attached to my Powerbook and fire up a web browser in order to write a blog entry. I’m not entirely sure what the reasons for doing that are, but I suspect they have something to do with having not written an entry for a while, and people might perhaps be wondering what I’ve been doing, since I’ve also not been all that active on IRC.

Well dear friends, the reason is simple: I’ve been ill. I took a nasty cold and it’s been delighting me with endless variations of the classic cold symptoms. At the moment I think I’ll be okay to go to work tomorrow, but it’s not really that certain as I’m currently on my second ‘oh I’m better now’ phase. Hopefully this is it, I’m sick of being sick and I’m sure that my colleagues would appreciate me coming in and doing some work.

In other news, I’ve ordered an import Nintendo DS, because it seems that it won’t cost me more than ten pounds or so more than the normal retail price of the DS when it launches in the UK on the eleventh of March, but I get it within a fortnight. Games are region-free so there shouldn’t be any trouble, and the people who’re supplying it have thoughtfully provided a suitable mains adaptor so I can charge it. That should keep me occupied and out of trouble, as I’ve ordered Super Mario 64 DS to play on it, and of course my sister has a few games for her Game Boy Advance SP which will play on it. Plenty of good games coming out over the next few months as well - Warioware Touched, Yoshi’s Touch and Go, and a new Kirby game are three I have my eye on. Also looks like DS games will be reasonably priced for a change. Console games are often hideously expensive, so it’s nice to see the expected price point for DS games being below the normal price points for PC games.

But enough of that, I’ll be rhapsodising about it a lot when I get it I’m sure, so if you’re interested you’ll get to hear more about it then. I shall probably make a new topic for it.

What else? Been trying to finish off Unfinished History, but it carries on getting longer. This seems to happen to all of my stories for the h2g2 Post, so I shall have to get to a point where I can stop and perhaps put the rest into a sequel some time. I’ve got another story idea floating around which I’m very keen on doing, and I also need to talk to Richard about our collaborative project some time.

And to Ross about perhaps doing another one with him, although a short one this time. I do like to write

Well I got hold of a copy of City of Heroes — completely legitimately, I hasten to add. It’s my first MMOPRG so perhaps my expectations are different to someone who’d been playing something like EverQuest, but personally I’m very pleased with it. Sure, it doesn’t have a craft system or a player-run economy or anything like that, but it’s just pure fun. Character creation is fantastic, with vast amounts of costume to choose from, all in customisable colours in vast combinations. While my primary hero Eldhrin has lightning-decorated flared trousers, the first hero I created has a skintight blue spandex suit with a very silly headdress, and a tail.

So once you’ve gone past that, the atmosphere within the game is great. Virtually everybody currently playing seems to be very polite, heroes help each other out if they see someone getting into trouble, people are usually willing to team up to tackle the tougher missions, and just walking/running/jumping/flying around the city is interesting in itself, as you’ll come across various muggings, car thefts and so forth to stop — or ones which other heroes are already taking care of. Watching other heroes can be as interesting as doing it yourself, especially if they’re playing a different archetype to your own, or with substantially different power sets.

Archetypes are much like classes in a traditional RPG. You can be a Blaster, which is what Eldhrin is. Blasters aren’t all that tough, but they get all the long-range high-damage powers, so are a bit like having an AK-47 but only a light flak jacket.

Other classes include the Scrapper, who gets in close and dispatches enemies with high-powered melee attacks; the Tanker, who is similar to the Scrapper but deals less damage, being capable of withstanding vast amounts of it instead. There’s also the Controller, who’s very weak offensively but gets access to various powers allowing immobilisation, incapacitation or outright mental control of enemies (getting them to kill each other appears to be quite amusing); and finally the Defender, who specialises in powers which enhance, heal and augment other heroes.

Needless to say, the weaknesses of all these types mean they work best if you combine into a team with a number of other heroes of different archetypes. Taking a couple of Scrappers, a Blaster, a Controller and a Defender as I did earlier today and taking on a mission suddenly becomes a very different experience to doing it solo. And it’s a lot more fun. The game adjusts the difficulty based on the team attempting it, so it never seems too easy, but certainly many missions are much more suited to team-based play than soloing, especially as a Blaster.

Anyway, that’s about enough of that — if you want to know more, the reviews are rapidly appearing online now. In the mean time, I’ve got a new gallery of screenshots from City of Heroes. That’s available from my main photo gallery — enjoy!

Yup, got some more mines in. He’s not very happy about this now, but I’m making a reasonable profit on it all… of course, if I had a few more turns things would be considerably simpler. But that, I suppose, would defeat the object.

Playing Space Merchant Realms this morning. Logged in, dropped by the bank to pick up some cash and headed off to my favourite money-making trade route. And guess what. Some little whatsit mined it!

Thankfully there weren’t many, and I’ve got into the habit of flying around with the maximum allowable weapons load I can have and still get federal protection, so I made short work of the things, then made some money and bought some mines of my own, as a kind of present for the other guy who trades that route.

Maybe if I get some more turns before he comes there again I can put a few more mines down. I like mines. But only when they belong to my alliance.