Hawesome Sauces!

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/29/report-baldurs-gate-site-teases-beamdog-developed-franchise-pr

Let us Rejoice:

Yub nub eee chop yub nub
ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene g'noop dock
fling oh ah Yah wah eee chop yah wah
ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene g'noop
dock fling oh ah Coatee chah tu yub nub
coatee chah tu yahwah coatee chah
tu glowah allay loo t a nuv Glowah eee
chop glowah ya glowah pee chu nee
foam ah toot dee awe goon daa Coatee cha tu goo
(Yub nub!) coatee cha tu doo (Yahwah!)
coatee cha tu too (Ya chaa!) allay loo ta nuv allay
loo ta nuv allay loo ta nuv Glowah eee chop glowah
ya glowah pee chu nee foam ah toot dee awe goon daa
Allay loo ta nuv

EDIT: The blog isn't displaying the older posts. I shall fix this...

Heroes one Retrospecitve

Heroes one is the very overlooked game that started it all. For its time, Heroes was definitely a very original turn based strategy game. It had a few scant RPG elements, a big fantasy world to explore, and four different factions to utilize. Heroes 1 established the formula that all the successive games would build upon. However, Heroes was not New World Computing's first stab at turn based strategy. Their first successful stab at the genre was a fairly obscure game called King's Bounty.















While my first stabbing landed me in jail, when Jon Van Caneghem released King's Bounty, he was able to test the market on turn based strategy games. While I've only watched King's Bounty being played, I've got the gist of what the game was about. You need to collect the 24 map pieces to find the specter of power in order to save your countries ailing king. To get these map pieces you needed to defeat villains spread out across the continent and return to your main town to collect the king's bounty on the villains. King's Bounty created was to become the core of Heroes of Might and Magic. You had limited resources and had to choose what creatures to spend it on. You could pick from 4 different classes each with its own special abilities and stats. A lot of the meat was there. What was missing was the town screens and the emphasis on resource management since I think there was only gold as a resource. The big emphasis of the game was how you assembled your army, which according to Wikipedia, remains a hotly debated issue among fans to this day, which reminds me of the eternal debate of Heroes 2: Are Titans or Dragons the best creature?

So when NWC was making a sequel to King's Bounty, they decided to slap the Might and Magic namesake onto the product and have it very tenuously tie into the continuity of their famed RPG series. They greatly expanded the strategic elements in HoMM 1. They added all the non-gold resources and took all the creatures of their previous game and threw them into the various factions, which as a side-note is why the knight town, even in HoMM 1 is somewhat weaker than the other towns since King's Bounty made the basic human troops weak so that the player would be encouraged to use the creature they found while exploring.

Both the town screen and the non-gold resources left the player with a lot meaningful choice to make such as whether or not to sit back and wait for your army to grow, or to go out and explore to find resources and enemies. Also the player had to decide whether to buy creatures or to build the next dwelling structure in their town. Surprisingly, as I found out, building up your town isn't always the best decision. The computer plays very aggressively in HoMM 1. They will almost always buy troops before building new structures. Usually, the first opportunity I get, I will build the top tier structure and computer will proceed to take over my town with 3rd level troops. Another annoying thing about the AI, and this seems to be true of almost all Heroes games, but this one especially, is that they always have way more heroes than they need or can afford. This leads to irritating mind fuck situations where two of your castles are being approached and your main hero can only defend one of them. When you do choose a castle to defend, the enemy hero proceeds to skirt around your castle and to take half your mines while your other castle gets taken.

Annoying AI aside, HoMM is very simple and addicting. This game progenitated several key elements that gave the series its addictive gameplay:











1)Unique Factions-
Long before Starcraft and Warcraft existed, HoMM 1 had 4 distinctive factions that were fairly balanced without sacrificing personality *glares passive aggressively at Warcraft 2*. (BTW peasants don't suck nearly as much in HoMM1 since the battlefield is smaller their slow speed isn't nearly as big of a handicap).











2) Resource management-
So many Heroes games are decided by economics. Generally, whoever has the most gold production tends to win. However, the other resources prohibit from players from building up too quickly. The resources also help to give towns personality, in that certain towns tend to eat through certain resources more quickly. For example, I always remember the knight town eats through a ton of wood thanks to crusaders and cavalries.











3) RPG Elements- Being called Heroes, heroes are kind of the center of the game. A good hero can change the flow of combat. While there are no skills in Heroes 1, the heroes of each faction are distinguishable by their stats, with faction focusing on a different stat. Even without skills to choose between, watching your hero slowly level up is still very satisfying. The heroes act as the ego for the player to insert themselves into the game. Who wouldn't want to be a badassed warlock bent on world domination or an armor clad knight defending his kingdom?











4) Schweet Loot-
Artifacts help to reinforce the fantasy conceit and also provide your heroes with a wide range of different bonuses. Most of the artifacts in Heroes 1 are stat boosts, but even so, they provide motivation for players to explore and to take risks. While an artifact might be guarded by some fairly tough creatures, the pay off is that your hero get signifacant boost to his or her abilities.

Overall Heroes 1 is fairly simple, but still very fun and rewarding to play. Heroes 1 is very much overshadowed by 2 and 3, simply because they are filled with many more features and far superior interfaces and graphics. Without Heroes 1, none of the other games would exist nor would any of the cheap knock-offs that came out in the early 2000's have been made.

Introduction to A Heroes of Might and Magic Retrospective

Since the blog is sort of dead and I have an intense addiction to Heroes, I've decided to do Heroes Retrospective and run through each game plus its expansions and discuss what was cool and lame about each game. After getting over my aversion to change, I've been playing Heroes 4 and 5 and I have found them to be quite enjoyable. After wracking my brain for years as to which Heroes game is my favorite I've come to this conclusion: Heroes 1 created a basic formula and each successive game is just a reinterpretation of the basic formula. Sort of like legend of Zelda where each game is a new interpretation of the same basic components. Where core of Zelda is dungeon crawling, exploration, and the acquisition of new gear, the core of the Heroes is resource management and Hero development. I think all totaled, I've sank more hours into all the Heroes games (mostly 2 and 3) than any other game series. I want to try and break down what makes these games so damn fun and interesting. Also, I want to analyze the different interpretations of the formula, particularly Heroes 4 and 5, which are considered black sheep of the Series.

Another Gift

So below you'll find a text that Veronica and I worked on together. It's a gift for my Mom, so ssshhhhhhhhh. It's part of a story about an Egyptian magician who creates a small crocodile out of wax and then turns it into a real crocodile that hunts down and eats an evil servant. Fun! In the center is Sobek, the crocodile god.

Happy Holidays from Rough Raleigh

Just in time for Xmas, I have made another small adventure game. It's only 6 screens and shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. It contains beer, gorillas, and plenty of commentary on the current theories of quantum physics and relativity. Suck it Einstein. If any of this interests you and you care to waste some time, I'd love some feedback. Download here.

House-Warming Gifts

So a certain person's house-warming party is coming up this Christmas break. Veronica and I decided to do something creative (read: inexpensive but unique), so I found some interesting ancient Near Eastern texts that we could recreate. The first is taken from the tomb of Unas (2375-2345 BCE), the last king of the 5th Dynasty. He is the first to have elaborate prayers inscribed on the walls of his tomb, which would later be called the "Pyramid Texts." I found a suitable passage (i.e. one not referring to cannibalism or baboon penises). During this period of Egyptian history, after the Pharaoh died he was supposed to rise into the sky and join the gods, either becoming a star or merging with the sun itself. The passage I selected is a prayer/incantation/blessing to enable Unas to rise into the sky to take his rightful place. After selecting the text, I found how Alexander the Great had his name written in Egyptian after he conquered the area and replaced Unas' name with that. Then taught Veronica how to draw the signs, as she's more artistically inclined than myself. We consulted images of painted inscriptions to try to get the right colors. When information was not available, we made choices based on aesthetics. Here is the final product, which is about the size of a sheet of paper.

Here is the translation, taken from James Allen's The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts:

Ascending Toward the Sky:
The sky has been bled and Sothis lives, for Alexander is the living one, Sothis’s son, for whom the Dual Ennead have cleaned the imperishable Striker. Alexander’s house for the sky will not perish, Alexander’s seat for the earth will not end.
People have hidden, the gods have flown away, for Sothis has flown Alexander to the sky amidst his brothers, the gods. Nut has bared her arms to Alexander; the two foremost bas of the bas of Heliopolis, who spent the night making the god’s bewailing, have knelt down at the Sun’s head.
Alexander’s seat is with you, Sun, and he will not give it to any other. So, Alexander will go up to the sky by you, Sun, the face of Alexander as that of falcons, Alexander’s wings as those of birds, his nails as the talons of Him of Atfet.
There is no case involving Alexander at the earth with people, there is no guilty verdict of his at the sky with the gods, for Alexander has removed the case involving him and Alexander has destroyed the one against his ascending to the sky.
Paths-Parter has flown Alexander to the sky among his brothers the gods. Alexander has acquired arms as a Nile goose, Alexander has beaten wings as a kite. A flier has flown, people: Alexander has flown away from you.


Next, I found an Ugaritic text which celebrates when Baalu, the storm god and king of the gods, finally got a home (temple) for himself. The Baal cycle dates to about 1400-1350 BCE. The passage describes the building of the house and the beginning of the house warming celebration he has afterwards. I got some sculpty clay and used a wooden wedge that I have to inscribe the passage. Here is the result:

Here is the translation, taken from Mark Smith and Wayne Pitard's The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume II:

Quickly his house was built,
Quickly his palace was erected.
He went to Lebanon for its trees,
to Siryan for its choicest cedars.
Lebanon for its trees,
Siryan for its choicest cedars.
A fire was set in the house,
a flame in the palace.
There! For a day and a second,
a fire burned in the house,
a flame in the palace.
For a third and a fourth day,
a fire burned in the house,
a flame in the palace.
For a fifth and sixth day,
a fire burned in the house,
a flame amid the palace.
Then on the seventh day,
the fire went out in the house,
the flame, in the palace.
The silver had turned to plates,
the gold had turned to bricks.
Mightest Baalu rejoiced:
“My house I have built of silver,
my place of gold.”
Baalu made arrangements for his house,
Haddu made arrangements for his palace.
He slaughtered large stock (as well as) small:
He killed bulls (and) fatling rams,
year old calves.

Both passages mention homes, so I thought they would be appropriate. Let me know what you think.

Youtube Post Rock Comments

• This would be the most life changing experience if it was played to a nature video. Even thought it's already life changing.
• Poppy flowers are beautiflul - just as beautiful as this composition.
• The second that first note played of the song, My heart sunk, sunk with joy. but then it floated back up and is drifting in the ocean, humming the melody of this song. Because it's just so amazing.
• Ambiance and beauty; loudness, the lack thereof, and space; continuity to your soul, led by an open road of emotions coated lightly with gentleness; the fading of forgetfulness and worldly clamor; the beginning of now.
• This is the music I have come so far to conquer, to explore, and to find the deep, never-ending spiritual connection that is me to this world. Hammock has found a gateway to this, and for that I am thankful.
• I was listening to this yesterday, and i accidentally opened the same song in another tab, it started about 20 seconds after the first one. The effect was so beautiful. This sond in itself is just amazing but that double effect kind of blew my mind in a completely different way. Try it. It's like teh differnce between a simple cup of sweet delicious tea and a rich cup of milk tea.
  
• Ya know a song is music with words. This piece doesn't have any words...so...yeah.
  

New Blog Update

Muahahaha. I have finally figured out how to make the banner change each day using my skills in the dark arts. Check back tomorow and see if it has changed...

The Zombie Horde

Here is my first draft of the zombie horde that I have put together in physical form for you evaluation.

2 Noxious Ghoul
1 Army of the Damned
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
1 Unbreathing Horde
2 Dross Crocodile
1 Twilight's Call
1 Undead Warchief
1 Skulking Knight
2 Severed Legion
1 Death Baron
4 Cackling Fiend
1 Carrion Wurm
3 Maggot Carrier
1 Fleshbag Marauder
2 Vengeful Dead
2 Soulless One
2 Delirium Skeins
2 Infectious Horror
2 Nested Ghoul
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Forsaken Wastes
2 Syphon Flesh
2 Bad Moon
1 Plague Wind
1 Call to the Grave
5 Zombie Giant Tokens

55 Zombie token card

Multiplayer Cube

So, I have been working on a pauper cube that will be mostly for one-v-one drafting, which I have almost completed and will post here for comments once I have it done and entered in cockatrice. I have been enjoying making this cube and was thinking it would be great if we could make a cube to draft for our favorite format: Chaos Multiplayer. It seems to me that a well made multiplayer cube with all cards chosen specifically because they would work well in multiplayer could be a ton of fun, allow us to play with cards we wouldn't usually play with and shake up the way our games work a bit.

I don't want to overload us with alternate formats, especially if I am the only one who thinks this sounds like fun, but I am really looking forward to constructing this. Similar to the craft of the lumberjack, it is like creating a work of art.

So, here are my ideas for some different possible themes for a multiplayer cube:

1. Mono-green with lots of acceleration, big creatures and token generation
2. Big creatures+pump spells+auras and limited (possibly no?) creature removal
3. Tons of chaos cards (Goblin Game, Shared Fate, Coin Flip Cards, etc.)
4. A Mill-centric cube, where all the cards revolve around milling
5. A (more traditional and probably boring) power cube that takes all the most powerful multiplayer cards and throws them together

What do you guys think? Do you have any other ideas for cube themes?

From Veronica's Dream Journal

Veronica found this old email she had sent me years ago about a strange dream. I thought it was pretty funny, so here it is for your enjoyment:

"In one dream, I think that your parents, the Waalkes' and my family were having a get together. It was outdoor, in some place like a park, and everybody was sitting in a circle talking about nothing important and drinking. The Waalkes (the boys), you, a friend of mine and I were sitting on a large couch, the others were sitting on chairs. I know it's weird, but Mr. Waalkes and Joey were wearing some kind of white men's afro. Some of us were drunk, and Mr. Waalkes was one of them. At one point, he left his chair, came close to the couch to make a joke about Phil and suddenly he punched Phil in his stomach. It became an awkward situation and I was already a little bit nervous, so I let out a loud laugh, but you and the boys seemed to be very offended by that and glared at me while Mr. Waalkes walked away like nothing had happened. Later, all of us were in another place but it was still the same park and there was a rock concert going on inside one building. I spent most time in this part of the dream walking around the park by myself while everybody was enjoying the concert (even our parents). Towards the end of the dream I decided to go inside the building to see what you were doing. The Waalkes and you were laughing loudly and making fun of the band and you were totally wasted. I couldn't understand what you were saying, so I asked you how much beer you had drunk and you said that you had had only nine glasses, but you were actually talking about those big German beer mugs (I don't know the name in English). There was a bench next to us and we sat there, I had my arm around you, suddenly you started to lay down on the bench and you past out in a few seconds. "

My favorite moment is when Mr. Waalkes punches Phil. Priceless moments.

Horde Magic

I don't know if you guys saw this already, but it looked like a cool alternative format to try out. I was thinking of creating a deck for it, if you all would be interested in playing it. Whaddayathink?

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/09/horde-magic-a-new-way-to-play-magic-and-survive-zombie-invasions/