Goerth

Drawing LOTS

She couldn't help staggering slightly as she walked to her quarters, the slight variations in artificial gravity created the sensation of the ground rising and falling beneath her feet. Finally the nameplate 'Mira Androveka' came into view, marking her destination. Briefly, she took note of the nameplate resting above it, 'Goila Eckert', before opening the door and staggering inside the dark room.

The dim glow of various pilot lights kept the room from being pitch black, but still it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. There were two sleeping racks on either side of the room, one was already pilled high with blankets and eliciting the sounds of steady breathing. Goila, she presumed, as she slid her duffel underneath the empty rack and practically fell onto to rack hoping to relieve herself of the unsteady ground. Too late she realized her mistake as the up and down motion spread to her entire body.

A few hours later.

She couldn't help still feeling a little queasy as she sat in the mess hall watching her new roommate eat. The cause was now in some debate though, she wasn't sure if it was the movement of the ship or the way the blonde girl was tucking away her food like it was going to be her last meal.

"You going to eat that?" The young blonde asked, grinning wide.

"No thanks, I'm not so hungry at the moment."

"Cheers!" It took only moments for the first dish of the newly appropriated rations to disappear. "Must be your first time in FTL travel. Works the same on everyone, you get over it eventually. So where ya from?"

"Etegria, this is my first time off planet." She forced herself to give a mild smile, though it was less than a second before her grimace returned.

"Galactic fissure, huh. Yeah, I guess you probably don't get many ships headed that ways anyway. Me, I'm a Navy brat, used to have to run all over the galaxy chasing my dad." The girl looked a bit sad, then brightened and turned back. "You must be a big fan of the former empress though, getting your face done up to look just like her and all that. My dad was in the Koyobi when it went down protecting her. He even got the Imperial Medal of Valor despite being just a regular gunnery sarge."

Mira gave an awkward smile, "actually I haven't changed my face at all, I've always looked like this."

The girl paused for a moment then gave her a serious look, "you ain't a Unionist are you?"

The awkward smile was now permanently imprinted on Mira's face, "actually we don't hear much of outside politics on Etegria, so I don't really know what you're talking about."

The girl gave a heavy sigh and leaned back in her chair, "you're wandering out into space without even knowing this much. You'll get yourself killed like that, y'know. Listen, after the civil war eighteen years ago a bunch of the reformer fleet just upped and retired. Since the new government didn't have the military to hold the peace on it's own they had to reinstate almost half of the Imperial fleet right then and there, and while they may have disbanded the nobies on paper, most of them kept all their military and economic power as well as most of their lands. So right now the political factions in the empire are roughly divided between the Unionists who want the nobies to give their armies over to the cabinet, and the loyalists who are generally in favor of the nobies staying right where they are, thank you shittin' much."

"Ahh, I'll try to keep that in mind then, thank you." I don't really get it, she thought.

"So where you headed, your highness?"

"Your highness?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, with your face like that, it totally suits you. Although, given your home planet you might have to settle for empress of the sheep!" The blonde girl guffawed over her own joke for awhile before catching her breath and continuing, "but seriously, what brings you this far from the homestead?"

Mira rolled her eyes and started absentmindedly playing with a lock of her black hair. "I've been enrolled in military academy on Orpheus."

"Wouldn't happen to be Luphi Officer Training School would it?" Goila gave a mischievous half smile at that.

"Yeah, that's it exactly. Are you going there too?" For the first time in the conversation felt herself give a real smile.

"And that's a direct hit! I know dad was always talking about me being some kind of intellectual, but I just can't imagine nothing but Navy life, so I thought, for him at least, I could try and make officer. At least do that much to make sure he can be proud from the other side, ya'know." Mira couldn't help but admire how the girl was able to put so much earnestness into the last bit only to finish with a completely mischievous grin.

"Well, I don't have any great reasoning like that, I just wanted to get out and see the galaxy, you know. Mom, just happened to have an old buddy who could get me in, so I decided to go. Besides, my mother went there when she was younger but she doesn't talk much about stuff like that so I was curious."

Goila laughed, "I hear ya, but careful there sheep empress, Navy life ain't to be underestimated. Still, you never know, it may turn out better than you think, gonna be a lot of hard times 'fore that though, I guarantee it."

"Well then I'll just have to make some friends to ride out those bad times with." The two girls laughed together a while longer.

A little sick today

Not only am I sick today, but I've been working my ass lately. Then I had my dad getting pissed, ironically, at my not working, that is working within his acceptable bounds. (Yay manual labor!) So the stress and all that has kind of been getting to me. Anyways don't really like the arm on this, but the rest is about as good I could have asked for.

By the way, that was done from reference of a photo by Runolfur Gudbjornsson. (http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/magical-metamorphosis)

Bonus Item: Priest

Just some Modest Mouse for now.

More to Come Soon

Hopefully I'll get back to actively writing on here soon.

Until then, enjoy some good music.

Intercession Tanking

In order to run an intercession tank you don't really need much prep work. You'll need +3 speed and +2 strength in order to unlock the intercession skill, and from there it's all a matter of making the other skills work for you.

The most important part is the Shield's skill cloud. It's abilities are as follows:

Name - Description - Stats Requirement
Block - For the next round, your shield takes 50% of the damage directed towards you. - No requirements

Intercession - Move between a nearby ally and enemy at melee range of each other, knocking both away from each other by 2 meters. - +3 spd, +2 str

Clipping - Swing the shield out in front of you for a chance to knock back an enemy 2 meters. - +4 str

Shield Smash - An overhead attack with the shield that hits for double the critical damage on a critical hit. +1 spd, +2 str

Burrow - Push your shield under an enemies guard to open them up for attack, enemy gains -20% armor for 2 rounds. - Body size must be at least one level lower than enemy's, +6 str

Long Yard - +33% intercession range for 1 round. - +4 spd

Double Body Blow - Use the edge of your shield to punch the enemy's body twice in quick succession, deals 2x normal attack damage. - +7 spd

Dual Shields - Allows you to wield two shields at the same time. - Medium/Large body size

Dual Block - Requires Dual Shields. Block with both shields at the same time for 2 rounds, each taking 50% of the damage intended for you.

Dangerous Impediment - Swing your shield(s) around in front of you to ward off enemies, lasts 2 rounds, knockback anyone within range 1 meter and makes 1 meter of ground in front of you impassable. - Medium/Large body size, +3 str, +2 spd

Crashing Symbols - Requires Dual Shields. Attack with both shields at once swinging them from opposite sides for +100 damage and a 36% chance to stun for 1 round. - Medium/Large body size, +5 str

Wall of Flesh - Open yourself up entirely to physically occupy as wide a space as possible, all attacks taken automatically ignore 50% armor. - Large body size

Crushing Blow - An overhand attack with both hands for 250 damage. - Large body size, +6 str.

Interceding Step - So long as two allies within intercession range are being attacked at melee range, intercede both enemies in the same round. - Large body size, +6 spd

The bull's head is also an excellent choice for a tank as it adds the hard head skill.

Hard Head - Head butt an opponent knocking them back 3 meters with a 20% chance to stun for 2 rounds.

Tanking Styles
There are two main styles of intercession tank, the knock back tank and the zone of control tank. Kb tanks focus heavily on strength, the idea being to intercede an enemy then physically remove them from the fight long enough for your back rows teammates to move out of the way or change the flow of battle. ZoC tanks on the other hand should be constantly moving. Obviously though you'll need to prioritize correctly so that you break enemy damage dealers off your squishier members, while not interfering in your damage dealers taking out their squishier members. Both are highly tactical positions, but the kb tank is more likely to make a single weighty decision every few rounds, while the ZoC tank is going to be constantly attempting to adjust the situation.

ZoC tanks are also very good for protecting sniper nests since the highly specialized units need to take almost no damage in order to survive. Kb tanks on the other hand are really at their best against other tanks, they can temporarily shut down a ZoC tank, or run merry havoc against cannoneers by preventing them from firing a loaded charge.
Both tanks benefit from size increases, though the strength based kb tank can also benefit from being smaller than an opponent due to burrow.

Combo Setup
In terms of combo rotations, you'll really want to set up a first track of five very quick abilities starting with intercede. This way you can run a cycle against a single opponent then go back to the start to intercede another player. Kb tanks will want their second track to focus on knock back abilities, and third track to focus on utility, and maybe an extra intercede just in case. For the ZoC tank the second track should be all intercedes (you can change the first ability on the first track), and the third track should be utility and especially Long Yard.

Things to Keep in Mind
Make judicious use of Block. While there may not be any healers, there are channelers who can repair your shields in the field. Any damage directed instead to your shields could be a major advantage in a fight.
Bring spare shields. You never know when a huge attack is going to whallop your shields into submission. If you can pull out a new one and get right back in the fight, all the better.
Don't suicide lightly. Wall of Flesh can prevent a whole lot of damage from reaching your team, but it's not wise to throw yourself under the bus if you're the team's only or main tank. You'll have to weigh the effects of this particular barrage of damage, against how much you could save your team from by not taking it.

What I've been up to

Cleaned out the garage.

Beat Dragon Age: Origins twice.

Having some fun with League of Legends.

Gave up on partnerships and started programming Ronin Beat myself in XNA.

Started playing Darkfall.

A lot of drawing that I decided not to keep.

Sleeping, lots of sleeping.

This caught my eye.

main road|post showreel 2009 from Arman Yahin on Vimeo.

Primary Source care of Abduzeedo

Showreel from a group named road|post

The Sound of Gaming

An Argument for Studying Music in Relation to Gaming Rather Than Film

Get ready for some heavy listening.

Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Bunny Hop
In the clip above Julie Andrews character is teaching the children using a system called solfège. The notes are sung aloud at the proper tune using a solfège syllable, do, re, mi, etc...

Unfortunately, game design doesn't seem to have any direct analogue to solfège, though any individual genre within games could probably create something close. Fighting games especially, fore, back, left, right, punch, kick, block, jump. Indeed, if you open up the dojo in Virtua Fighter 5 you may see that very notation attempting to teach you the various combos.

At it's core, solfège exists to give voice to the fundamental basics of musical graphing and notation.


A concept not wholly unfamiliar to game designers.


Bare Metal Mechanics (Ludology)
Any time we attempt to discuss games in relation to films or novels we are immediately caught in discussing the narrative(narratological?) issues of games. While not necessarily a heinous act, it creates a problem quite similar to discussing music purely in terms of lyrics.

For instance, if you watch the first couple minutes, of the next two videos, then the third for at least the first four minutes or so, you'll notice something about the relationship of lyrics to music.




The narrative of a game has, I believe, almost exactly the same relation to games. In music, the tune of a song can be expressed through the voice as an instrument, or the lyrics can simply be a layer applied over top of whatever music is playing. Similarly the narrative of a game can be built with interesting choices, becoming itself part of the game, or can be layered over the existing game play as something completely separate.



I'm not saying that lyrics are bad, it's just that as lyrics are not in and of themselves music, narrative is not in and of itself a game.

What's more music is, at it's core, an abstract set of rules applied to sound to create something our mind recognizes as more than simple sound. A game is much the same, an abstract set of rules applied to a space such that our mind recognizes it as more than simply a space. What's most important, I think, is the abstraction. To use a somewhat famous example, a film can show you a peach in detail, a book can describe it in detail, but a piece of musical notes cannot go into detail about the peach. In order to express a peach in musical notation, you must call upon the emotional underpinnings, on connections in our ontological basis. So it is with games, the rules of a game cannot describe a peach in detail, so it must attach itself to the mechanical and emotional associations of how we interact with a peach.

Sling that gun for great justice!

A Brief Intermission

While I'm trying to think some things over, we can have a quick intermission.


Gotye: Hearts a Mess


C Block - Vladimir Kooperman of Sheridan College

The Specific Problem of Game Ecology

The UO Ecology Problem
First Raph Koster's posts on the ecology system planned for UO, first, second, third. Now the problem is, I think, best summarized by a commenter named Derrick over at Hardcore Casual. Let's take a quick look at what he says.

Derrick

... You see, the reason these things don’t work on the large scale is, quite frankly, that the players ruin them. People suck.

In these systems, from a player/armchair designer perspective, it’s easy to say “This is what I’d like to see”, to design a masterpiece of a virtual environment.

The reality, though, is you need to be absolutely cognizant of “How can a large group of players, acting out of nothing but pure malice, cause this system to fail?”...

This problem is one that needs answering in the conceptual "NPC ecosystem" I implied in my last post.

Why Not UO Ecology
Our friend Derrick gives a very specific reason why the UO system of ecology fails against griefers. "The fundamental problem is one of consequences. Until a game is designed in such a way as to remove anonymnity and the lack of real consequences, people will act like utter asshats." Well, in this instance, I actually don't think the flaw lies with the players. Rather, I think there is a very fundamental flaw with the resource ecology itself.

The UO ecosystem was an open system. Things entered the system and exited the system, even worse players were given control of one of those opening. It was such in an attempt to mimic real life ecosystems, but that doesn't mean that our game, Skies of Mondea, needs to attempt something similar. In fact we can fairly easily close off the vast majority of the system.



Our System
For the sake of simplicity we'll start with a five layered social system top to bottom, with three resources and one currency. The social layers are detailed in this image. There will be a finite number of NPCs, a finite amount of money, and a finite amount of one of the resources. This third resource will be essential to the construction of Superheavies. One of the remaining resources will be fuel, which can be sold to NPCs, but the NPCs will automatically gather enough of to meet needs if not. The last resource would be aluminum which is required for all construction projects, again NPCs will gather enough to meet their own needs if they haven't already bought enough from players. In both of the latter cases, the NPCs will pay less for anything beyond their needs, and once filled to carrying capacity will simply stop buying all together.

Now the social hierarchy is self perpetuating, to get a taste of it, let's look at the original example of a flight deck attendant.

Our theoretical attendant exists on the labor strata so long as he makes between 20k and 50k. Now if he does not receive tips and drops to 20k he immediately search for another opening in labor level jobs that does not match his current one, same job different ship or different job on any ship including the same one. Failing that he falls into the poverty class. That sounds awful, but if the regulars of his region tip him decently there isn't any reason a bunch of random griefers would be able to force him to drop. So long as his regulars still pay him enough to stay above 20K, the griefers actively not tipping is no more damaging than all the players who've never seen them passively not tipping.

Now if he raises above 50k, he will move up into the pilot/crew strata. At this strata he can become a transport pilot delivering between carious shops, be a shop pilot opening a special shopping ship up near the initial ship, or get a job as a crew in another superheavy ship. His job on the deck will be filled either by a job hunting labor or be filled by someone from the poverty strata. If the pilot/crew strata is saturated and they cannot maintain enough sales from a shop, enough traffic in their transport and/or there are no open crew positions then they will soon fall back into the labor strata and seek a job there. Failing that they move down into the poverty strata. So if griefers were attempting to instead promote our flight deck attendants, they could only really effect those individual attendants without a truly massive effort across the board from nearly all players which would end the instant they ran out of money.

The system will always defend itself. There can only be so many wealthy, so many middle class, so many pilots/crews, so many laborers, and no matter how large the disruption, others will enter to fill the vacuum, or simply and inevitably fall to the bottom. By this mechanic the system cannot be gamed to cause significant problems for other players. On the other hand, on the level of an individual NPC players can do irreparable harm or exceptional good.

However, on the systemic level players as a total force are capable of removing the bottom of the strata. In order to increase the need for crews and laborers you can build superheavies, however these are based on one of the limited resources meaning you can never build enough to leave no labor for anyone else. (It also means any time an account lapses to the point of deletion, is permanently banned, or for any reason deleted, the superheavies associated with it will be taken and put up for auction.) The sheer difference in money between the rich and everyone else, though, means that while players could technically destroy it as a strata, by making only players rich and then "tipping" it all off to the lowest stratas, it would take a concerted effort of an extremely large proportion of the players and could only really "damage" those actively taking part.

Oh and I've already thought of player based inflation. Have a number of slots for player characters on the server hard capped. Then make an equal number of positions with a code tag of "young pilot" that do nothing but fly around all the time. When a player joins, you remove one of the young pilot positions so that they fall back into the laborer strata and drop an npc in the poverty strata (starved to death, how sad). Whenever a player is deleted a position opens in the young pilots, is filled by a laborer, and a new person comes of age in the poverty strata. When the number of total player positions on a server is stressed, it's time to open a new server and probably think about closing off access to that server all together.