Umbral Echoes Blog

First off, let me say that I’ve only been in one Google Wave gaming session so far, and have seen a few other sessions.  So I haven’t done very in-depth or broad testing of this stuff.  Also, Google Wave itself is evolving — it’s still in beta, so I’m not going to talk about bugs, or technical issues that I’m sure will be hammered out.

My friend and former coworker Justin Achilli is running a 3.5 D&D game via Google Wave, as an experiment in its viability for online roleplay.  He’s shared his own thoughts, and I’d like to share a few of mine from a player’s perspective.

So, from my perspective, so far I’m getting exactly what I expected.   It’s somewhat of a mix of playing via live chat (of which I have several years experience on White Wolf’s now-defunct moderated chats) and play-by-post, with most of the advantages and disadvantages therein.   I’ll list some below, and again, I’m going to refrain from putting any disadvantages down that I expect to be addressed (e.g. it’s still fairly slow and has the occasional glitch).

Advantages (compared to tabletop)

• It’s easier to schedule.  No transit time to/from; just log in and bam, you’re in game.
• When a player misses a session, the playback feature makes it easy for them to get caught up.
• It’s possible to narrate aspects of your character’s actions in more stylish detail.
• It’s easier to have secret side-conversations where necessary (no passing of notes or leaning over and whispering).
• There’s a complete record of each session, which game masters or payers can look back on (or search) if they’ve forgotten something.
• It’s possible for several people to type simultaneously without the “talking over one another” effect you get in real life.
• It allows you to multitask without being distracting to others.

Disadvantages

• Hell of a lot slower-going than tabletop for character interaction.
• Even slower than that for combat — and the more crunchy the combat, the slower it is.
• More impersonal.
• Can’t use things like mood music/lighting to set the mood (though it would be easy to use a third-party app to stream a playlist).

Overall I prefer tabletop, but I do like online mediums (including Wave) as an option if tabletop isn’t.   I think Wave offers some advantages over both chat-based and PbM/PbP play as well — it’s the best of both worlds when talking about those two options.  I also think Wave is better for more story-centric games/systems than crunchy games, but I’m sure that there will be a number of plugins (or “robots” as Wave calls them) for that sort of thing.  There are already some robots for things like dice rolling, maps, and other such things.  I’m excited to see what can and will be done.

I haven’t really felt like writing much recently — I suppose I’ve just been preoccupied with too many other things in life.

The big news is that my company has decided to ditch the office, so I am now working remotely full-time.  I’m still doing a weekly face-to-face lunch meeting, because I think face time is important, but other than that I’m chillin’ at home during the workday.  This week has been the first week of that, and it’s definitely taking some mental adjustments, but I’m really happy about this change.

This also means that I will have much more flexibility to visit a lot of my friends.  Aside from those weekly meetings (which I can skip from time to time), it really doesn’t matter whether I’m working from my house or Istanbul, as long as I can keep the same working schedule as the other employees.

In other news, I was invited to a Halloween party at the Playboy mansion.  Sadly, it’s a bit late notice and the person who invited me really didn’t have his ducks in a row, so I’m not going to be able to make it.  Which is a pity, since it looked quite cool — professional set creators had designed a haunted house, actors walking around in zombie makeup, Paul Oakenfold spinning (though I am told by a very reliable source that Oakenfold got pwnt by the DJ Sarah Collins when spinning in a club in Seattle), and of course boobs galore.  I was seriously considering getting a captain’s hat and going as the Motorboat Captain.  Feel free to use that one at your own Halloween parties — so long as it’s not one I’ll be at, in which case I reserve the right to that idea.

On the plus side, this guy pretty much has a standing invite, and the New Years party is looking good.

I’m getting more into World of Warcraft, and will be even more so when Wrath of the Lich King comes out.  When I went to Doug’s wedding in Louisville a few weekends ago, the old gang decided to get back together in an online fashion on the Baelgun server.  I’ll have to roll a Deathknight so I can get a head-start to 55, but I was wanting to do that anyway.  It will be awesome to be in better contact with the guys again.

I hear Fable 2 is the new hotness.  I wish I had more time for gaming.  But when faced with the choice of going out with friends or staying at home and watching a TV screen, I generally take the former.  And in the case of the latter… well, aforementioned Warcrack tends to take up that time.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, and would like me to come visit at some point, toss me an email and I’ll work something out.  Sis, you’re at the top of my list.

I apparently left my instant messenger on last night when I was out, as I am wont to do.  So my apologies for not responding — I wasn’t ignoring you, I promise.  Except for you, Bagwell.  You, I was ignoring, you tall bastard.

I was hanging out at Stephen and Amanda’s place the other night, and Amanda tells me that Stephen was trying to get her to play World of Warcraft.  I paused and just blinked, confused.  Why doesn’t he just play himself?  Well, apparently he used to like watching his roommate play when stuff was going on (raids, whatever), but things liek the grinding and the travel time just bored him to tears.  So he’d just say, “Let me know when you get to the place,” then he’d come watch.

This struck me as pretty interesting, and I realize that I’ve done this myself in the past.  My Louisville crew used to be really into EverQuest, and though I never once played the game, quite frequently I’d come over and just chill at their house, munching on some Taco Bell and watching them raid.  It was vicarious gaming, and it actually kept my interest pretty well.  I’ve done this with roleplaying and console gaming, too — just take it in as someone else plays.  Granted, it’s not quite as fun as participating yourself, but there’s also much less of a time (and monetary) investment.  So while it seemed very odd at first, upon further thought it makes sense.

But regardless of the fact that it makes a weird kind of sense, I still find it pretty funny that Stephen asked Amanda to start playing WoW so that he could watch.

Helped my friend Blue move into her new apartment yesterday, which was an all-day affair.  It seems that most people think that helping someone move is a huge favor.  For me, it’s just hanging out with friends while you happen to be doing some physical activity.  Then again, I moved seven times in a span of five years, so perhaps I’m just used to it.  I love lifting heavy objects.  I just hate having to navigate around sharp corners and through finger-crushingly narrow entryways.

Also, dealing with objects that aren’t really heavy, but awkwardly shaped, is a pain.  I’ve got a nice bruise and minor laceration from carrying a (full) filing cabinet.  To keep a grip on it, I had to squeeze one of the edges against my bicep.  And the more I squeezed, the more the muscle flexed, and the harder the edge pressed into it.

Blue: Jesus, Mike… are you okay?
Me: What?  Oh, that.  Yeah, I’m fine.
Blue: [smirking] Oh, that’s right.  You like marks.

Hey, a little pain never hurt anybody, right?

Sometimes I miss apartment living.  Much less to worry about, and if the place pisses you off or you decide you don’t like it… you get another one.  But then I remember why houses are awesome.  In my first apartment here in Atlanta, the front door had a gap even when it was closed, and I’m fairly sure the seven-year-old neighbor kids used to watch… certain activities that went on in the living room from time to time.

I remember one time in particular when my partner was getting rather loud, and I heard some muffled gasps and high-pitched voices from the hallway.  The next day, one of the neighbor’s kids asked me if I was hurting that girl that was over.  I opened my mouth, meaning to say, “No, we were just wrestling,” or something to that effect.  Instead, what came out was, “Yeah, but she liked it.”

Do you ever have cases of the filter dropping at inappropriate times like that?

So I’m belatedly posting about my trip to Charleston, to visit Niquie and Jared.  I blame Niquie, for not getting back to me with a picture.  It is not my own lax attitude.  Seriously.

Though it was a bit rushed — only stayed one night — it was fun.  There was beer, and lots of walking around downtown Charleston.  They have some beautiful historic buildings there, and there was lots of wind by the coast.  I love me some wind.  I also watched Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels for the first time ever.  Guy Ritchie films remind me of Ravel’s Bolero.  They start out slow, and then eventually build to a fever pitch where blood is flying, things are exploding, and baby Jesus is running around twirling his umbilical cord like a lasso and crying out, “Yippee kayay, motherfucker!!!” as he ropes in triple-cunted undead hookers.

Anyway, here are a few pics from the trip.  Apparently the new WordPress 2.5 “gallery” feature doesn’t work so well for me, so I’ll have to do this manually….

Okay, so it took me longer than planned.

Video – Chris McDonough deepthroating a corndog:

Video – The crew singing some Pat Benatar:

Pictures below the cut, so I don’t spam people’s friend page. Full gallery here.

Continue reading

I’ve had a few discussions with people over the past few weeks concerning friendship. If a friend disagrees with you on something, does a “real friend” tell you, or do they keep their mouth shut? Or do they bite it down, and agree with whatever you’re saying?

Personally, I’ve always told friends when I disagree with something they say, or do. I don’t (or at least, try not to) do it in an in-your-face manner, but strongly enough to let them know that there might be another way of looking at things. Then again, I’ve always played the devil’s advocate — and not just after I played the part of Satan in a church play when I was 16.  I hate the “yes-man” type of friend, who always agrees with you, and never challenges anything you do or say.

On the other hand, friends should always be supportive of one another, even if they don’t agree with each other.  I guess it’s the same sort of mentality as, “I don’t support the war, but I support our troops.”  That isn’t to say that if your friend is getting hooked on heroin, you should support that.  Which I guess is another dimension — if you think a friend is doing something detrimental, how far do you go to try to stop them?  At what point do you say, “It’s their life, and they’ve made their decision?”