A Return to Rokugan Part 1

I really didn’t plan on playing Legend of the Five Rings again. No, I just wanted to satisfy my craving for role playing and anything would’ve been OK for me. But I did have a certain theme in mind. A few months ago I ran into an article about “Kaidan”. Kaidan is a collection of Japanese tales of the ghostly and supernatural. Just around the Edo period, a game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai grew in popularity. The game consisted of players gathering around a hundred candles each taking turns telling Kaidan. After each kaidan, a single candle was extinguished until all but one was left. This whole “game” was considered to evoke a supernatural entity or event. This game in turn led to an increased demand of ghost stories and folk tales to be gathered from different parts of Japan thus giving birth to the literary genre of Kaidan. I was blown away - the whole thing evoked imagery of a mysterious and supernatural orient of antiquity - the kind of mythical out-of-time horros we see in current J-Horror then combine it with the dangerous and elegant samurai of Feudal Japan - I had a game that I wanted to run. I scoured the web, hoping to find the perfect book and system. I even considered brewing one of my own. In my oversight, I forgot that this sort of thing was already published. An RPG exactly about this subject is in existence for almost 12 years to this date. Legend of the Five Rings had oni, ghosts, samurai, geisha and every stereotype from the samurai/ninja fantasy genre that you can shake a katana at.

So I hit up the torrent sites and searched for old L5r books online. L5R RPG, it seems from its original inception, is already in its third edition. I read reviews of the new system, gathered opinions and compared differences from the first editions. From what I have read about the L5R series, I found the following information: L5R has switched hands between AEG to WOTC then back to AEG; Do not bother with the second edition at all-it was a bad transitioning phase for the game line; the third edition hearkens to the first edition more than it does to the second (forget the second edition) thus conversion from first to third is done easily; there was a d20 version of L5R (waste of time); The third edition adds a bit of complexity to convey more variety especially in character creation. With all that information in mind, I ended up downloading almost all of the books anyway.

The contemporary timeline of Rokugan including everything post Time of the Void is utter crap, however. There are characters that shine (Naseru, Sunetra and Hachi) but the overall setting and events were based on the results of the CCG tournaments. I found that characters that grew and outshined the dull and uninspired setting were dispatched with random impunity; their storylines ending in an unspectacular fashion. This did nothing but fuel my opinion against the current canon. I had to look somewhere else for background setting - I looked to Ree Soesbee's and John Wick's First Edition.

To be continued

I Vant Your Vlood! WoD MMOG Coming Out?

I recieved a message on YM this morning from the Greasybull telling me that White-Wolf is coming out with a World of Darkness Online RPG. Maybe if It were five years ago, I wouldve have been either screaming uncontrollably like a little bitch for Robbie Rosa or just flat out fainted from the excitement but no, times have changed and my opinion about White-wolf's New WOD just barely crosses the border of apathy.

But Still.

Thoughts of coteries/packs of Vampires or a Sept of Garou running around town doing instances did have it's appeal. So I just went ahead and Googled the thing. Turns out that Iceland based game developer CCP, the same company that brought us EVE Online (whoop de fuckin do) has acquired White Wolf. So one site has this:

Greetings from the EVE Online fan fest in Reykjavik, Iceland. CCP's CEO Hilmar Pétursson just announced that his company is merging with White Wolf — the U.S. company behind Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game and the whole World of Darnkess series of IP. Mike Tinney, the president of White Wolf and the soon-to-be leader of CCP North America made an appearance to bless the alliance.

The possibilities this opens up for the new company are two-fold: 1) taking successful White Wolf properties and turning them into massively-multiplayer games; and 2) leveraging EVE Online IP outside the MMO genre. A World of Darnkess MMO is apparently already being planned. Tinney on ther other hand said he is looking forward to using EVE IP in pen-and-paper role-playing games, strategy games, card games, miniatures, collectibles, novels, and comic books.

EVE Online has already been branched into a collectible card game and a novel. Pétursson says the merge will allow the original team to concentrate on the MMO. The merger has apparently been prepared for a year now.

Turns out that this piece of news is almost three years old. In any case, rumors also has it that the release for this MMO is expected to be on 2010. Im sure CCP can pull this off and probably, at best, gain a cult following for the game. I on the other hand, couldn't care any less. I just dont know why. IF this were Exalted the MMO then it would be an entirely different matter. Nah, I just couldnt really muster enough enthusiasm about this one.

Dawn of War 2

I never thought I would see the release of this game. I have been an avid fan of the first Dawn of War and thinking about how brutal the carnage was in that game, I never thought a sequel can do It justice. Oh wait, only movie sequels suck. As far as games go, it just keeps getting better and better. But dont take my word for it. Here are some vids taken off fraps from the Silver Box.

I should get a better avi converter though.

WARHAMMER® 40,000™: DAWN OF WAR® II MULTIPLAYER BETA OPEN TO WORLDWIDE PUBLIC

– LIVE Marketplace and Steam

January 27, 2009 — THQ Inc. today announced that the multiplayer beta for Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II, the award winning Real-time strategy (RTS) game from Relic Entertainment, will be available to the worldwide public via download on Games for Windows – LIVE Marketplace and Steam today at 7:01 p.m. EST (12:01 a.m. GMT).
“Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II exemplifies the seamless combination of technology and creativity that keeps the PC at the forefront of gaming innovation,” said Michael Wolf, senior marketing manager of Games for Windows – LIVE, Microsoft. “The multiplayer modes truly set a new bar for the genre, and Games for Windows – LIVE helps make it more accessible than ever before. We’re incredibly excited to be a part of the Dawn of War community.”
The beta features five multiplayer maps and all four of the game’s playable races: the Space Marines, Orks, Eldar and for the first time ever in the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War series, Tyranids.
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II, developed by THQ’s internal studio, Relic Entertainment, is a Real-time strategy (RTS) game set in the grim, war-ravaged world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 science fiction universe. Featuring vicious front-line combat, destructible environments, a fully cooperative multiplayer mode, four unique playable races, and a non-linear single player campaign with branching storylines, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II delivers the ultimate sci-fi fantasy RTS experience for Windows PC. The game is scheduled for release nationwide on February 19, 2009 and will be available through retail and online outlets. For more information on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, please visit http://www.dawnofwar2.com/.


That news last week totally made me cream my pants. Now that the beta is out and I'm in full swing playing it, I cannot wait to get my hands on the final release! This game is so going to be totally awesome

The Silver Box Revived

A couple of years ago, A friend and I ganked 2 high-powered gaming machines (a pair of Compaq X09's to be exact) being held hostage by a ruthless, world dominating tele-marketing operation. As agreed upon, one wounded up with me. We dubbed the 2 gaming computers as the "Silver Boxes" after their sleek silver Cooler Master casing. We adored those boxes as they were good awesome enough to let us visit Shattrath without a serious frame rate drop! We had a solid run with those rigs for a good year and a half until they, as with every other high tech mars manufactured technology faded into obsoletism.

Maybe it was chance, but a few weeks ago I was in my office desk browsing for both Nvidia and Intel parts. One thing led to another and, after an hour of putting off work for personal browsing, I decided that I had to get a new ass kicking, frame rate stomping rig. And when I did go out and canvassed parts for my new computer, I was surprised at the casing that they offered me.

I knew from that moment on that the spirit of the old Silver Box was calling out to me. "You shall resurrect me and infuse me with power overwhelming!" the imaginary voice of the Silver box commanded. What else can I do? so I went on and assembled the most awesome parts my money at the time can muster:

Core i7 2.66GHZ Overclocked to 3.8GHZ
6 Gigabytes of Triple Channel RAM
x2 Nvidia GTX 285
Scavenged Parts from the Death Star 2

Given that game developers are on a constant quest to fuck over our framerates, I have yet to play one that can lag the newly revived Silver Box.

This is Where It's Frickin At!

Alright, so now I have a blog! (again). I just need things to post. Now after a crack-instant of thinking up a topic that is monumentally clever and profound, I decided to blog (god i hate this word) about something which has the potential to change the majority's perspective in life and ultimately bring about world peace; Gaming!

Yes, gaming. This is something that we, as a collective, can agree about (Agree about that it's a sensless waste of time? what?! bastard!). But what kind of gaming? you ask. Well, what else than hardcore, balls-to-the-wall computer gaming. After getting my new Silver Box and runnning Dawn of War 2 at a jaw-dropping 60 frame rates per second (meh! you say..but more on this later) I could firmly say that I am an authority on this subject.

Overall, it's good to be back and trying to re-establish my long AWOL online presona and struggling to rise above literary mediocrity. There will be copius amounts of fucking profanity on this blog so best beware.( Ha! that was so clever, posting that warning at the end of the blog. Beat that, dickwad!).