Delta Quadrant Developments

t6report It turns out my guess yesterday was pretty good about what the redacted Engineering Corp Report was. We got a little bit more detail today about Tier 6 ships. The additional bridge officer slot was to be expected along with the usual hull and shield points and additional console slot, but the new stuff sounds pretty good: Specialist Bridge Officer seats, Starship Mastery system, and Starship Traits.

The Specialist Bridge Officers have access to the normal abilities for either Tactical, Engineering, or Science depending on which profession they belong to. In addition they’ll have a access to a new Specialist pool of abilities. Unfortunately that’s all Cryptic is saying for now. The way the report is written suggests that there’s only one new pool of abilities, but I may be reading too much into it.

The Starship Mastery system is a little bit more interesting to me. Basically Cryptic is adding a level attribute to Tier 6 ships that will grow from 0 to 5 as Captains gain Skill Points. Gaining Mastery levels will unlock passive abilities which vary depending on the class of the ship. A Starship Trait will unlock at level 5 and if slotted into your Captain’s traits gives a powerful bonus regardless of whether or not you’re flying a Tier 6 ship.

Unfortunately that’s the extent of the details in the latest Dev Blog. This has become a theme so far where Cryptic unveils some new information about the upcoming expansion but only really provides an outline of what’s coming. I was starting to get a little frustrated at the trickle of information Cryptic is releasing until I saw the new expansion trailer.

This has gotten me excited again. I’m especially curious about what ship is at 0:57, and more importantly can I get my hands on one.

Unknown Ship in DR trailer at 57 seconds

Day 26 of Blaugust

Different Kinds of Excitement

Since becoming a parent, I’ve had to say and do a lot of things that I never thought I would ever say or do. For instance tonight I had to explain to my five year old that it doesn’t matter if he only pooped a little bit in the tub, he still has to get out of it so I can drain it and clean it. Fun times.

Star Trek Online

On a more fun note Captain Smirk, the Community Manager for STO teased this today:

Calling all Captains, this will be a big week for #STO so keep your com channels open! So much cool stuff is coming…

I can only guess that means there will be a bunch of dev blogs released. Hopefully with substantial details to placate and/or inflame the playerbase.

And after checking the STO site, there is indeed a Starfleet Operations Report posted. Most of the sections are marked redacted for now and lead to a “Coming Soon” page, but I like the LCARS-ish format they’ve been using for these posts. I’m not sure that the Engineering Core report would be, maybe something more about Tier 6 ships? There’s another Intelligence Briefing about a Delta Quadrant species. Hopefully it will be an exciting week in the no-drama no-forum rage sense of the word.

Adventure Co.

I got my copy of the D&D Player’s Handbook today for 5th Edition. I had actually already started  on my character but I’m not sure now. My first impulse was to make a Human Wizard, which is the same character I ran in our first campaign. My character in our aborted second campaign was a Goliath Warden, but the quick start rules I was using last night were pretty bare. Flipping through the book today, I’m leaning towards rolling a Gnome instead but either keeping the Wizard class or maybe going with Sorcerer. I’ve always loved magic-using classes.

Day 25 of Blaugust

Mondays and Shadowrun

Parenthood

  • Monday’s aren’t all bad.
  • Kids don’t have limitless energy, they drain it from their parents.

Home Ownership

One of the elusive achievements in home ownership has always been completing a repair or improvement project in one trip the to the hardware store. In twenty or so years of owning a home and somewhere over 40 projects undertaken, I have never managed to complete a project in exactly one trip to the store. Either I have to go back and get something additional, or I have to go back afterwards to return something I didn’t need.

This weekend I completed the very minor fix of replacing the toilet seat in the master bathroom. Probably about the simplest repair possible, but I’m counting it. I got a seat that matched in color, and that my wife was happy with when I got home. Neither of those are easy tasks.

Shadowrun: Crossfire

Crossfire Job CardLast night I got out my copy of Shadowrun: Crossfire to try a solo play. I had originally planned to try the Extraction job that’s included with the game since I’d seen it was geared for 1-4 players, but it is marked as advanced difficulty recommended for runners with 5 or more points in upgrades (more on that in a future post). So instead, I set up for the Crossfire job and planned to play with two runners.

My first play through started well enough but I ended up losing the just before the halfway point. I retried after swapping in a Troll for the Elf I was using for the second runner and going from a character with 4 hitpoints available to one with 9 made a massive difference, even if the Troll had a limited initial hand of cards.

I enjoyed the game, although not as much as I did the one I played at GenCon for the release event. Partly just because it is more fun with more player cooperation, and partly because we had a fifth person managing the game and teaching us the rules. I know I made a few mistakes last night and that always drives me nuts, even though it’s pretty much a part of the board gaming experience.

I’m planning a full impressions post sometime soon. I just really need to get a few more games in and get a better handle on the rules. In the meantime though, here’s a picture of the setup from the first game last night with a brief description.

Crossfire Solo Game LayoutOn the left side are the two runners I was using, a Human and an Elf. Each runner has two role cards, in a four person game each runner would have one role, and in a three person game one runner would have two roles. Next to the race and role cards are the runner’s draw deck and current hand. On the right side at the top are the six Black Market cards which can be purchased and added to a runner’s hand. As cards are bought, they are replaced from the Black Market deck. Below the Market are three more decks: Crossfire Events, Normal Obstacles (one bullet hole), Hard Obstacles (two bullet holes). Obstacles are dealt out to runners to defeat and Events are used to add additional hurdles to the game.

Day 24 of Blaugust

 

Back to the Virtual Table

D&D

Adventure Co. version 2 is going to start up soon™- okay I just took a quick break to find my original posts about our virtual D&D group’s adventures last year… and there aren’t any. So instead if you’re curious, Tipa at West Karana did some great writeups.

The short version is we had a small group playing D&D 4e using G+ Hangouts and Fantasy Grounds. It was a lot of fun. It did make me realize how rusty I was at doing actual role-playing. I hadn’t seriously done pen and paper gaming since high school, and the intervening decades of MMOs had really given me tunnel vision towards combat. I found myself feeling unsure anytime we were in a mostly interactive scene.

For this second round we’re going to use D&D 5e, Roll20, and we’ve got a few new people in the group. I’m pretty excited. I didn’t mind 4e at all, I’m pretty easy going about edition changes, but combats did seem to take a lot longer than I remembered. With the general talk about how streamlined 5e is, I’m hoping combats will go faster so we can get a little more done in each weekly session.

Fate

Between Adventure Co starting back up and seeing all of the role-playing going on at GenCon last week, I’m feeling motivated to start working on getting a group together online to play a game of Fate Core. Fate is very narrative and not crunchy. Characters, NPCs, and settings are all assembled from Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. There’s no gold pieces to track. Hit points are reduced to Stress and Consequences. My favorite part is that character and game creation is a group activity. It is a major shift in mindset from D&D, Pathfinder, or any of the other rulesets I’ve read, and I think it will be a lot of fun.

Day 23 of Blaugust

Firefly Online

FFO_bgrdFirefly Online (FFO) was announced over a year ago at 2013’s San Diego Comic Con. I watched the teaser video and got excited. Then I saw in the video description that is was a “multi-user, social online role-playing game that will initially be available for smartphones and tablets” and got depressed. I’ve kept a hopeful eye on it anyway, and over time the direction of the game seems to have changed dramatically. Or it could just be that someone really screwed up the original PR for the game.

IMG_20130723_132123One of the reasons why I kept an eye on the project, aside from sheer contrariness and masochism, was that QMx was listed as working on the project with Spark Plug Games. Quantum Mechanix has made a lot of really nice Firefly merchandise including the Serenity Little Damn Heroes Maquette that I have on my shelf. This gave me a little hope that the game would at least look good and be true to the series.

A game play article posted near the end of 2013 specifically called out the social tag as well as clarified that the game would be available on desktops, both of which helped allay my initial fears. Based on an article about persistent play, it actually looks like the mobile platforms will be for a limited subset of the game features. If the actually game works like the article outlines, it will actually be pretty nice and something that myself and many other players have been wanting for Star Trek Online’s Duty Officer system. It would be great to be able to manage Doff assignments from my phone rather than having to wait until I can log into the full game.

With the Big Damn Heroes announcement earlier this summer, I’m getting cautiously excited about the game. Spark Plug Games has already gotten voice work recorded by Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Ron Glass, and Sean Maher. At the time of posting Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, and Summer Glau were scheduled to come in. And Gina Torres is still getting the timing worked out. I really hadn’t expected SPG to get that kind of support for the game. It’s also interesting from a timeline that Ron and Alan are doing voicework.

The release date has been pushed back two quarters from summer 2014 (which is nearly over anyway) to spring 2015, so I’ll have a while longer to wait and see if my initial skepticism was warranted. I have to say though that I like that the release was pushed back. It says a lot about Spark Plug, QMx and Fox that they were willing to invest several more months into the project rather than just release with what they had and fix it afterwards. Not every development studio gets that kind of support.

Day 22 of Blaugust

On Tooth Fairies

The Tooth Fairy’s Midnight Mission

I thought having my oldest start Kindergarten would be the biggest milestone for a while. Seeing him get on the bus that first day certainly brought home how much he’s grown up. So I was unprepared for how much it hit me when he lost his first tooth last night.

Our normal nightly routine is I get the boys into PJs and brush their teeth, then my wife reads to them before bed. Last night he starts fusing when I brush his teeth and wants to spit the toothpaste out. This is a bad habit of his we’ve been working on so I keep going, then freak out a bit when he finally spits in the sink and I see blood before I realize he’s saying, “My tooth is gone!” Luckily I rescued the tooth before it was lost down the drain.

I was really surprised how much the whole thing got to me. I suppose it’s because it was unexpected, unlike starting school. Plus having a baby tooth come out is a biological thing versus starting school which is arbitrary based on a date (well somewhat depending on kids’ emotional maturity), and it really brought the whole “he’s growing up” thing home to me much more so than starting school did.

All in all an interesting night last night. Thankfully the tooth fairy’s covert midnight mission was successful.

Parenting and Fear

For forty years I’ve been a heavy sleeper. Literally forty years. According to my mom I was sleeping through the night from the first day they brought me home, until my sister was born three years later she thought other mom’s were whiners.

As a habitual over-snoozer, I’ve gotten used to being late in the morning. At least until my oldest started school. For the last three weeks I’ve been keeping a paranoid eye on the clock on the evenings to make sure time doesn’t get away from me and I get to bed before midnight so I won’t oversleep in the morning. The fear of screwing up your kid’s life provides an amazing amount of motivation. Not that being late would be that horrible, but I don’t see any reason to pass on my bad habits.

Day 21 of Blaugust

Perks of being a Fleet Admiral

The Path to Level 60 in Star Trek Online

Cryptic released the first of many, I assume, dev blogs regarding the Delta Rising expansion. This one deals with raising the level cap from to 60 from 50, Admiral to Fleet Admiral ranks. Before I get into it, I just wanted to mention how much I’ve enjoyed the LCARs formatting they’ve added to most of the blogs recently. It’s the small touches like this that add so much to the game experience.

A new Specialization Tree system is going to be added, with captains awarded 1 point per level after 50. This doesn’t stop at level 60 but continues to award points every time enough skill points are accumulated that you would have earned another level. So theoretically you’ll eventually be able to max out all your Specialization Trees. The blog doesn’t say what the curve looks like for skill points per level or if the curve flattens out after 60, nor are there any specifics on the Specializations yet.

I’m think the Specializations sound interesting. I like that Skill Points will stop converting to Expertise. I believe I have about 5 million points of that unused by now (after checking I actually have 6.1 million), so it’s not like Expertise is in demand once you get your Bridge Officers’ skills figured out. There’s not enough detail here yet though to get excited about.

Jasyla’s Gaming Questionaire, Part Two

With STO news out of the way, here’s questions 11-21 from Cannot Be Tamed:

11. Describe your perfect video game.

Highly customizable character, great story, smart dialog, combat and puzzles that gradually get tougher and prepare you for the challenges that follow.

12. What video game character do have you have a crush on?

Tali’Zorah

13. What game has the best music?

My favorite game soundtrack, at least recently, has been the one for Planetary Annihilation from Uber.

14. Most memorable moment in a game:

There’s more I’m sure, but the first one that popped into my head was wandering into the Lone Lands in the Lord of the Rings Online and seeing Weathertop for the first time.

15. Scariest moment in a game:

Nothing comes to mind, I don’t play horror games though.

16. Most heart-wrenching moment in a game:

Mordin’s final scene in Mass Effect 3.

17. What are your favourite websites/blogs about games?

That’s what blogrolls are for! 🙂

18. What’s the last game you finished?

I think it was Dishonored. Since I play a lot of MMOs and Minecraft, I really can’t finish many of the games I spend time on.

19. What future releases are you most excited about?

Star Crawlers and Last Life are two games that I backed on Kickstarter that I’m excited to see come out (and hopefully do well). BioWare’s new Shadow Realms looks interesting but there’s hardly enough known yet to warrant excitement.

If I could pick any game that’s been announced as in development and have it magically done and released tomorrow, I’d go for the next Mass Effect game that’s in the works. Looking at my answers today and yesterday I apparently have Mass Effect on the brain, no clue as to why that is.

20. Do you identify as a gamer?

Absolutely. I’ve taken some crap about that in the past, normally from co-workers saying it seems like a waste of time, more than once they’ve said this after talking about watching football all weekend on the couch.

21. Why do you play video games?

The same reasons why I read books: entertainment, escapism, and mental stimulation.

Day 20 of Blaugust

Blaugust Progress

Blaugust

Today being the 19th, I am roughly 60% done with Blaugust. I haven’t missed a day yet and (knock on wood) I don’t think I will.

Confidence aside, I definitely have had some of the same struggles that Welshtroll, Rowan, and Missy’s Mojo have already talked about. Several nights were a real struggle for me to come up with something to write about. I got through it and then was lucky to have four days of builtin topics because of GenCon. Despite the difficulties, I’ve been enjoying Blaugust quite a bit and fully intend to do it next year. I hope to keep up a much more regular schedule outside of Blaugust although I’m definitely taking weekends off.

Aside from blogging everyday, the best change that Blaugust has helped me make is breaking my habit of saving drafts and then going back a day or more later to edit them. Or often go back a month later and delete them because they weren’t topical any more. This is something I’ve been trying to shake for a few years now, and Blaugust has finally pushed me to do it.

Jasyla’s Gaming Questionaire, Part One

I got this link to a gaming questionnaire on Jasyla’s blog, Cannot Be Tamed, today over the Blaugust hash tag and thought it would be good material while I work on my impressions for Shadowrun: Crossfire.

1. When did you stat playing video games?

I was young, somewhere between six and ten.

2. What is the first game you remember playing?

The first video game I played was Pong. It was a large brown rectangular box that hooked up to the TV and the controllers were on coiled cords.

3. PC or Console?

I definitely prefer PC over console. I’ll play a console if the game I want isn’t available on PC but I generally prefer mouse and keyboard over anything else, and PC games generally allow for more customization and modding.

4. XBox, PlayStation, or Wii?

I had an original Xbox as well as a PS2, but in the last gen I skipped the PS3 because there just weren’t any games for it I wanted to play that weren’t on the Xbox 360 which I bought when Mass Effect was released. I haven’t played a Nintendo console since the original NES.

5. What’s the best game you’ve ever played?

This is tough, I’m not even sure what criteria I’d use to determine best. Hours played? Most replayed? Most memorable? I guess I cheat a little bit and say Mass Effect, meaning the series as a whole. I’m generally pretty bad about finishing games, so to have finished three Mass Effect games says a lot about how much I enjoyed them.

6. What’s the worst game you’ve ever played?

Spore is pretty high on the list. I was so excited for that game and equally disappointed by how basic and limited it turned out to be. I’d have to say that the top spot goes to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, three years later and I’m still bitter about the boss battles.

7. Name a game that was popular/critically adored that you just didn’t like.

There are lots of great games in genres that I just don’t enjoy, like JRPGs, so take you pick from any of the Final Fantasy games. I know a few of them are considered classics, but they just don’t do it for me.

8. Name a game that was poorly received that you really like.

The recent installment of the Batman Arkham series, Batman: Arkham Origins, I was quite enjoying until I got distracted by other games. Mechanically it was very close to the previous two games, but I really like the storyline and writing.

9. What are you favourite game genres?

MMOs, RPGs, strategy games, space sims, adventure games, and Minecraft (pretty much a genre of it’s own).

10. Who is your favourite game protagonist?

A lot of my favourite games don’t have a protagonist, at least not a predefined one. I am very attached to several of my MMO characters, for example the Silver Hunter from Champions. My main character in Star Trek Online is also very dear to me as are two of the original bridge officers he recruited which I still use on my Away Team.

And that’s it for now, I’ll save 11-21 for tomorrow.

Day 19 of Blaugust

GenCon Loot and Recovery

IMG_1880

GenCon is over and I can say now that I spent more than I should have, but not as much as I wanted to, so I count that as a win.

The Loot

The card boxes on top are Bug Out and My Word from Out of the Box. Bug Out is a basic matching game that has funny pictures of bugs on them, for instance a termite dress as a construction worked eating a wooden board. It’s not particularly deep, but that’s great for a five year old with a short attention span. My Word is one that I’m going to use differently than intended. You’re supposed to draw cards and make words out of them, but I’m going to use them as letter flash cards and to make specific words he’s supposed to be learning to sight read in kindergarten/

The next one down is The Hare & the Tortoise from iello and is part of their Tales & Games series. The box is made to look like a book and has a nice insert and magnetic closure. It’s a racing game, obviously based on the title, and just a little on the advanced side for my son, which is good since he can grow into it. I’ve played it once with him so far and he had fun moving pieces and drawing cards even though he wasn’t grasping any of the strategy involved yet.

The blue box is the Blue Sun expansion for Filefly: The Game from Gale Force Nine. This includes and add-on board which will make the table space required a little bit more ridiculous than it already is and adds Rim Space to the game, which is the area that the movie took place in. Mr. Universe, Reaver Space, and the planet Miranda. I didn’t get to demo this one, but I couldn’t pass up Firefly related product even if it’s related to the movie part of the franchise.

The two white boxes are the Durani and Guldana factions for Golem Aranca and the white banded stack of cardboard below those is the second tileset. I got the other two factions and the first tileset as part of my original Kickstarter pledge, but I decided after running through the tutorial that I wanted to pick up the other two. I’ve not played enough yet to really comment on how different each of the factions works. I got to play two games at GenCon and I’ve been through one of the tutorial games twice. I’m planning to post some unboxing photos and more thoughts on the game after I get more time with it. I will say that I really like what I’ve played so far and I appreciate being able to off load all of the book keeping to an app. Sometimes I enjoy doing that kind of thing and there’s other miniatures games like Galaxy Defenders for that, but Golem Arcana will be really nice for times when I don’t want to do everything myself.

Downwood Tales is the latest expansion for Mice and Mystics from Plaid Hat. Mice and Mystics is a coop miniatures game, provides a strong narrative experience, and is very family friendly. While I haven’t played the expansion at all yet, I have played the base game twice and quite enjoyed it. I hope to sit down with my oldest sometime in the next year and start a playthrough, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to get the expansion without having to worry about shipping. Having a few promo card included didn’t hurt either. Plus Plaid Hat is one of two small game publishers that I’m a big fan of and I like to support them as directly as possible.

Shadowrun: Crossfire is at the bottom of the stack. It’s a cooperative deck builder from Catalyst Game Labs. I got the chance to play a full game at the release party on Thursday night and really loved it. Being a fan of deck builders and coop games as well as the Shadowrun setting, this was a game that I was fully expecting to buy coming into GenCon. I’m still a little unsure about the character progression aspect as it involves using stickers, but that’s a personal hangup on my part. It feels too much like marking in a book, which I never do except for getting an author’s signature.

Pig and Creeper I also picked up two Minecraft plushies. The Creeper for my oldest and the baby pig for my youngest. They were a big hit, although I started regretting the Creeper choice immediately after getting home as Thing One started chasing Thing Two around the house hissing and then shouting, “Boom!”

Return to Real Life

Today I got back to my real life again. This morning was a real struggle trying to get my kids ready for school/daycare while my body had only started to recover from too much walking and not enough sleep. Coffee was just enough to let me function. The rest of the day was spent trying to remember what I was doing at work last week, catching up on chores around the house, and digging into the massive backlog on my RSS reader. Not much fun but I have no regrets whatsoever. GenCon was absolutely worth it. Totally fun.

Day 18 of Blaugust

GenCon Day Four, Little Kae’s Button Quest

Little KaeToday was the last day for GenCon for me, but it was the first day and only day for my son. This is his actually his third GenCon although I doubt he remembers the first one since he was only three. He’s five now, nearly six, and just starting to get to the point where he really gets something from the experience.

We got to the convention about 10:30. I had planned to hit some of the kid’s games booths in the Exhibit Hall first and then figured we would wander a bit and check out some of the family activities. That changed though when a the first person we see after entering the convention center was a man handing out buttons. We found out that there were eight more people scattered around GenCon with more buttons and that became the quest for the day.

We did still manage to hit the big children friendly publishers: Blue Orange, IELLO, and HABA. I also found a new one call Out of the Box which had several fun (and cheap) educational games. The big purchase in my son’s opinion though was the latest Tales and Games volume: The Hare and the Tortoise. Which I realized after about the fifth time he asked to go somewhere and find a spot on the floor to play.

The other big hit for him was the food trucks next door to the convention. He couldn’t believe that there was a whole street blocked off for people to walk on, or that there were real trucks with people inside of them cooking food for him to eat.

I’m never sure how plans will turn out, but he did a great job walking all over the convention center and following directions. We made it until 3pm before he decided he was ready to go home, which was two hours longer than I expected. He’s still not real sure about cosplayers. On the way down he was talking a lot about wanting to see Darth Vader, but that changed once we actually started seeing people in costumes.

Day 17 of Blaugust