The plight of power

Only a few more days do I need to hold the position of Steward of Scotland in Renaissance Kingdoms before the National Assembly selects another as per the Constitution. I won't be standing for the position again. Not really my cup of tea. Not so much the job, or the RP potential that goes with it, but the fact one becomes a target for assorted psychpathic souls who populate the renaissance world and troll around for something to do or someone to harrass. Also, my view of the job varies a fair bit from most other 'movers and shakers' in the land.

An army that wants to hunt down the robbers and extrajudicially execute, Judges who want a functioning court, Counts and Dukes who want their own particular County to be 'number one', robbers who demand their rights, travellers who complain as much about an army that is too busy with its own affairs as they do about robbers who own the roads more than they do, clans who wish to rule their own particular towns, mayors who feel they are discriminated against, an Assembly that won't listen, a Speaker of the Assembly who locks me out of the hall, etc etc etc.

All good fun and predictable. I guess I just want to spread the joy. Hopefully I'll get a chance to veto a law before I go. I always wanted to do that.

Crossfire - change of game name

Well, I used 'devolved' to learn the basics of online First Person Shooter games. And totally trashed my prospects of ever having a respectable kill/be-killed ratio. Which would prevent me joining a clan one day in the crossfire world, or mean that i would have to go hunting newbies which I don't particularly want to do. I mean, I have a hard enough time keeping up with reflexes of most of the other players (perhaps being twice their average age has something to do with it).

So, I looked to see if I could eradicate my character and start up another. No such option.

So I had to use an old email address i use for such situations. I don't like creating multiple sets of characters anywhere. Can lead to problems sometimes (eg. permanent eradication in some worlds).

One thing of interest in Crossfire is its 'honour' system, whereby the code allocates an 'honour ranking' upon a character, starting as 'neutral' and then changing depending upon one's actions ingame. Not sure exactly what it measures, but Devolved developed a 'highly honourable' ranking at the same time as his kill/be-killed ratio plumetted. I think this is why I get chosen by the system as 'host' for the room I'm in if the current host departs the game (the host sets the 'map', victory criteria, duration and mission type of a game - as well as determining when to hit the 'start' button). Ironic, at times, with the least experienced and most ineffective of up to 32 soldiers being chosen as game host.

My new ingame tag is Capn_Bligh ('Bligh,' for short), btw.

Medieval Total War II

I recently picked up the almost latest in the Total War series of comp games. Having missed the initial 'Samurai', loved the original 'Medieval', played 'Rome' for many hours, I was keen to finally pick this copy up. I had to wait until they released the latest 'Empire' game for the price to drop. But it finally did, so I did.

It's quite like Rome Total War in its gameplay, albeit with DVD quality battle scenes etc. Haven't played it enough to get a grip on whether the ingame action has improved or not.

I have only the 'basic' version of Medieval II with none of the expansions included in the 'Gold Edition'. Thus, I only get the 'short' or 'Long' campaign options for each of the five basic nations - England, France, 'Germany', Venice and Spain. I am hoping that the options open up like they did in Rome once one has successfully completed a short campaign.

Both short and long games start in 1080 ad. For my first attempt i am playing the Holy Roman Empire (Germany). Hopefully that will let me have some teutonic knights and some Knights Hospitilar to play with in time.

More on it as I get the hang of it.

Cross Fire - Free online chaos

Long time readers of this blog will know that I can get quite passionate in the online world of games. Low tech strategy (Medieval Dip, Diplomacy), Flight Simulation (IL 46), Cut throat management strategy (Ogame), MMPORG text based (Renaissance Kingdoms, Tribal Nations). I've looked at a few others, but most of them don't interest me, or they irritate my belief that the internet must remain free.

To date, I've not played First Person Shooters online much at all, except for a brief period of Ghost Recon. That's now changed. I discovered 'Cross Fire', a well rendered, well populated and free FPS. All you need to do is download the client and logon.

Set in a vaguely hyper modern world one can choose to base one's character on either SAS, SWAT or Spetnaz type troops. These determine your overall 'look' and basic weapon load. Then it's a brief try out of the keyboard commands in the 'tutorial' and you can then enter the world as a 'rookie'. A few hours of being shot up online on the various maps (transport, columbia urban, monaco (part of the car circuit!), Egypt, Mexico village, ship, harbour, train, industrial) and in a few of the mission 'types' (I've tried 'team death' and 'mission' so far) and you're on your way.

As you gain experience you gain experience points (surprise surprise) and gold. You get promoted through XP, you buy new equipment and maintain the old with your gold. Advancing through the ranks opens up better weapon possibilities for you to purchase, allows you to join and eventually form clans. I understand there are organised 'scrims' (clan v clan duels) and associated hierarchies. All good fun.

Anyway, if you want to check it out, go here. I'm out there having a ball.

I am 'devolved' ingame, btw.

Passed up a game of Squad Leader

In the weekend just passed a gaming buddy looked like being relieved from his childrearing duties. He immediately suggested that he had a +3 mod on being able to have a game of Squad Leader with me. I, however, was feeling rather unwell (have had heavy two weeks at work and a resultant summer 'cold') and dodged (-2) the request for Saturday.

By Sunday, I was feeling better, to the point that suggested to an intermediary that a game of Tigris and Euphrates might be okay, me not being up to the intensity of Squad Leader but keen for a social game.

Didn't happen, in the end. Our LOS diverged from same target and we went our merry ways.

Sigh

Anyone else out there still get to play the original Squad Leader?

Table Top Teasers

Steve the Wargamer has reproduced the wonderful series of articles published by 'Military Modelling' and 'Battle' in times past by the legendary wargames god, Charles Grant (CS Grant wrote the book that introduced me, at the tender age of ten, to wargaming). I remember as a youngster being huddled up in public libraries studying past copies of the aforesaid magazines, reading some of the very articles that are now reproduced on THIS SITE.

Steve the Wargamer keeps a number of blogs and resources out there. Good on you Steve.

I've added the 'Table Top Teasers' site to my wargames resources links.

An Elfish Gene in Cyburbia

There's a book out there called The Elfish Gene, which I came across over at Jeff's Game Blog (where he's reading it). From the book there is a blog (or is it the other way around(?)), and from the blog there are links to radio interviews about the book. When I listened to the second of these, found here (Jan at about 14 to 24 minutes in the hour long program (11 Jan 2009, part A)), it sounded a bit to me like a dude talking about some of his ol' gaming nights with his buddies and who's a bit surprised that he's found himself on the radio talking about it.

No comment on the book as I haven't read it, but i note on the blog the author says on January 31 that he is thinking of toning down the negativity about the gaming community that is apparently evident in his book for the soft cover print run. He says this has come about following conversations with gamers since the first print run. Good on him for being flexible enough to do this. I hope his publisher is as flexible.

I'm reading Cyburbia - a kind of ethnographic montage of history observation sociology of the shift into cyber space that has occurred over the past ten years, much of it during the life of this blog. The book covers a big space of ideas, and I don't know how much i agree with its conclusions, but it is intriguing in that it is looking at what I think is the subjective experience underlying online existence (!) that interests me in my anthropogical mode. If I pull of this back to gaming specific stuff, I'll let you know.

For now, back to the Renaissance...

Blast from the Past - Rise and Decline of the Third Reich

While reading Roll Dice and Kick Ass I had a memory flashback when I saw the recent post about the old Avalon Hill Classic, Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. For those that don't know, this was one of the original 'monster games', complexity level 10, massive board, upto seven players, 64 page small font three column rule book, zillions of pieces.

I got a copy in the early eighties. I was the only person in the region who had a copy. I played one game against a school friend (or, part of a game) and several 'against' myself. Never did find another player to play it against. Still have my battered copy of it, hoping against hope that one day I'll get a chance.

In the early 90s I saw a pirated copy of a computerised (Amiga) version which was a hoot to play, but I never again finished as I had to move from the house where the copy was and I didn't have an amiga.

I don't think there's a functioning community even now on the cyberworld for it, and don't know if at this stage of my life I'd have time to go through all those rules again, let alone play it. Sure would love to though!

Maybe when I've retired, as long as my eyesight hasn't gone to shite so I don't miss the fine print.

Cyberspy Warning

I have had an interest in the anthropology of online worlds since I discovered them. Besides the study of the play, I am interested in the 'leakage' between realworld and online cultures. (as may be slightly obvious in my passage through RK). Seems I'm not the only one so interested.

Besides the marketeers and the hucksters, there's another breed I'm at least as interested in, the soldiers and the spies. If you look at this page and surf the links you'll find plenty of interesting stuff if you're interested in it.

The one that grabbed me is this tendentious piece of CIA work, written it seems sometime in 2007. They really don't seem to get it.

And what has this to do with gaming? You'll see that the corporations and the spymasters are trawling with their scientist friends the online worlds of social networks, games, and the hazy territory in between. The assumptions behind their analyses will soon, if it doesn't already, affect your realworld opportunities and experiences. All because you won't know about it doesn't mean it won't be happening.

Makes me sound like a paranoid Call of Cthulhu player!

Dark and Moody Online Dice Roller

As part of my job as Steward of Scotland in RK it became necessary to use an online dice roller that was simple to use and provided accessible time stamped results that are publicly viewable. I needed it for the selection of Scotland's first Grand Jury from a number of volunteers for this important work. It was very important that the process be transparent, nothing worse than a bunch of suspicious scots with an axe to grind, so I thought I'd remove the most likely source of their suspicions.

After calling for volunteers, we needed to cut down the number to the eighteen that were needed, and then to allocate them to either the Grand Jury per se or one of its two alternatives. Doing it by random lot seemed to be the way to go.

After looking at several sites, I settled on using this one.

The Dark and Moody site also seems to be the home of traditional RPGs translated into an online environment, and bears checking out for that alone. I particularly like the fact that there are Call of Cthulhu games going on here, that being my favoritist ever game system and amongst my favoritists games to play.

Steward of Scotland

In Renaissance Kingdoms Scotland we have recently lost a number of players to the Kingdom(s) of Ireland. Amongst those that emigrated was the recently elected Steward of Scotland. He says it was due to an affair of the heart. Be that as it may, and without any personal animosity, the player really let the Kingdom down with his departure. The Steward is the pre-eminent position within the Kingdom available to players, providing leadership to the nation. Losing a leader is like a kick in the guts.

Anyways ... there was an election for a new Steward. I was nominated and elected without opening my mouth. So now I am the Steward of Scotland, and everyone expects me to solve their problems. Which I can't do, but can help them solve their own together. I hope I do better at it than I did as General of the Galloway Regiment. I am more diplomatically inclined as a player than militarily. Or maybe I am more of the Strategist type thinker than the Operational level activist. Either way, I think I'm better suited to the present role.

Needless to say, I have created a new banner:

Dadlean Anthropology

Some of you may recall that I have an interest in anthropology. Sometimes I feel like an ethnographer when I play on the MMPORG worlds I'm involved in. I do try and keep an interest in the general state of play in academic anthropology on cyber realities. I haven't really tightened my own thinking on the subject a great deal but do keep it in the background amongst my intellectual pursuits.

Recently came across this site, the Dadleaus Project which uses a sociological approach to tracking World of Warcraft and other video based MMPORGs, and deriving social science insights on the cyber realities that millions share. If you're into this kind of thing you might find it interesting.

Roadside Sacrifice

My character from Tribal Nations has recently been travelling through distant provinces of 15th Century Aztec Mexico with the intention of using the coded mechanism for 'robbing' to conduct 'sacrifices' of travellers to the road gods (you can follow my travels on this evolving map).

We had our first successful attack on the first day we set ourselves up on a 'node'. We made a tidy profit and, judging by the following mail which my character received, rather upset the victim:

"You are aware that I want back everything you stole from me. Of course ... I'll make an official complain (sic)."

Judging by what he was carrying at the time he was transporting goods between towns as either a trader or as an 'official' who was moving goods to help the economic development of the more isolated towns.

I sent him the following mail in response:

"We thank you for participating in our roadside sacrifice. The high priests of your tribe will no doubt also be pleased at your sacrifice to the gods of the road, in conformity with the sacred lasw of Yohualtepec which encourage devout worshipers of the road gods to sacrifice travelers who travel alone."

The silly bugger might in future make an effort to form a group before travelling with such valuable goods as he was.

We have moved on to another location in the province to conduct further sacrifices. More news as it comes to hand...

Another TN Map

This map of TN world at the moment is by 'Metztli' from the TN forums. Me and my buddy are at Cuauhtinchan at time of writing*. We're not going to spend any time here, instead continueing to head down through the major central road intersection. We are going to ignore the new province of Quiyauhteopan (Blue) to the west of the five way intersection and continue south on the nodes on the road through Huehuehtlan and places south in the province of Youhualtepec (Green). The five way intersection node is in the later province.

*I will keep updating this map with our journey as I find it a nicer map to look at.

Map of the RK

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the RK world, here's a map of it (albeit, there's now another county in Ireland with 4 towns in it that has just been added, and a few connecting roads in the balkans that aren't shown here). As you can see it is a huge place. The only english speaking parts are Ireland, England and Scotland.