Another quiet year in the Renaissance

Dracmuller MacTavish has been alive (mostly) and kicking in the online RP world, Renaissance Kingdoms, for nearly four years. It's been over a year since I last related his exploits in any detail, and even that was merely a reprint of his ingame profile.

At that time, Dracmuller's horizons had generally shrunk to what was visible from where the walls once stood surrounding his hometown of Ardencaple. After spending years in the army and in public life, usually surrounded by controversy, he had retired and taken up sheep farming on the hills above the Clyde.

When we last left him there, his most public activity was a weekly rostered shift in the Clan Guard, helping maintain a watch over comings and goings in the quiet village (does this sound like the start of an Asterix comic to you?). As it's rather late but I still feel creative, I'll blog for our mutual pleasure the exploits of Dracmuller MacTavish since then:

1458

27 May, Take up sheep farming - where we left our hero the last time we looked.

19 Jun, Oscar Hohenzollern MacTavish born to Arien. A busy night for Drac and his cousins as they provided moral support.

10 Oct, Convert fields to corn - in response to the threat of the new Count to bankrupt all sheepfarmers. To this threat is added increased levies of taxes on local town halls, closures of mines, massive tax hikes on vegetable farms. To this is added the continual insult of a shouting, deaf, aging madman as Count. The Count takes control of the courts and laws, all verdicts and legislation being reduced to his whim and backed by his mercenary muscle.

22 Oct, MacTavish Torc Tog Aghaidh. The flag of protest is raised outside Ardencaple, shortly followed by two allied commands. Over the following week the county marshals its own and allied forces in the capital, while free citizenry and clansfolk congregate around their banners and organise themselves at Ardencaple. Eventually, the county army marches on the town. The locals retreat behind the walls at the last moment.

1 Nov, The Siege of Ardencaple begins. It will last about a month. Significant events of the siege would include: the attempted rebellions of a 'fifth column' within the town; the imposition of martial law to restore order by the MacTavish Commander; the furious debates that occured about tactics and strategy amongst the town inhabitants; the cameraderie of the town taverns; the dying expressions of liberty or death by clan, citizen (and even a revolutionary frenchman who happened to be present on his honeymoon); the aid given the non professional rebels by a handful of hardened foreign volunteers; the Count's need to retreat back to the capital on one occasion to reorganise and re-equip; the valiant though illiterate milita; the international interest; the fact that the town did not declare independence from the king, and that work on the harbour continued almost without break through the siege; the mad escapade of a couple surviving MacTavishes near siege's end to burst through the besieging army and make a mad cross-county dash to confront the count in his home town (he cowered and didn't show himself) before returning past a second hostile army hunting them down, back through the seige lines, in time for the last of six or so battles - all but one (the last) won by the rebels.

8 - 16 Nov, Treason Trial of Dracmuller MacTavish occurred in the County Courts. He had been grievously wounded in the first assault on the gates, about a week into the siege, and found himself before a trumped up court with a judge who dispensed with all evidence or charge in his urgency to finish the trial and execute the clan leader. Condemned, the Count's men came at dead of night to do the deed - but failed. In the morning Drac was to be found at death's door, but at home (and his would-be executioners, unexplainedly found dead in his old cell). And there he remained till the final days of the siege, protected by the King's Edict until he again raised the sword of rebellion.

29 Nov, Siege of Ardencaple ends in a welter of blood. All the defenders have been either killed or badly wounded in battle, most have been bound up by the king's bailiffs following trumped up trials. The rebellion's leaders and their advisors are all put on trial for their life, lesser rebels are generally paroled after a hefty bribe. The final battle occurs on the day Dracmuller first feels fit enough to again pick up a sword (!) and he is taken down again, the last man to fall, taking the banner from his valiant wife as she is struck down, and holding it aloft before being overwhelmed (somehow, smuggling it to a cousin before he is again led off to captivity and trial).

30 Nov, Disorderly trial starts. The first ever trial in Scotland where the penalty for disorderly conduct is death.

2 Dec, 'The Wounded Boar' opens, Drac's tavern. Displaying the blood stained banner of the rebellion behind the bar, many come and have a drink with Drac while he waits for the drawn out trial procedures to end and him to be put into custody.

9 Dec, Disorderly trials ends. Needless to say, Drac loses the trial (which is a repeat of the farce of the first trial). In total, 36 MacTavishes and friends face the courts, 35 are found guilty, there are 9 executions. The repression begins. Drac executed, exists in limbo for four days before deciding to 'resurrect'. NB 'death' in RK need not be permanent unless one wishes it to be. There are, however, attendant ingame penalties and restrictions that follow a 'death' - even after one 'resurrects'. These penalties are particularly harsh if one dies by 'execution'.

1459

13 Jan, Return to good health, the regulation 45 days after the execution. Now able to travel again, if he chooses, his stats are markedly poorer than they were when the banner was first raised.

19 Jan - 1 Feb, Picnic in Stirling with an armed mob of cousins to get some wood from their forest as there is none in Arden due the Count's austerity measures.

Feb - Mar, Childcare and home duties. Self explanatory, while Arien goes into longterm retreat following long term harassment from our foes. Drac does not blame her, is himself tempted, but who would look after the baby?

April - producer of fine axewear to support the local forestry industry, freeing other smiths to work on the harbour's defences.

2 May - Clan Guard reforms and takes up duty, this time in accordance with a contract with local authorities. Outside the town a county army lurks, ostensibly keeping watch over the harbour but equally keeping a watch on the locals.

These days, Drac occupies himself doing a couple days on town hall duty per week with the clan guard, parcels out the rest of his time between various tasks at his blacksmith forge. He keeps the Boar's Head open despite the fact it loses him money (everyone needs a hobby) and can be found in one of the local taverns (not necessarily his own) for between a half hour and an hour of an evening. Life goes on.

In other words, just another quiet year in the Renaissance!

WoT? Whoops!

World of Tanks was recently recommended me by a friend. I had recently also been reading about it (on one of Mitch Williamson's sites, can't remember which), after hearing of it for a couple months (in a Renaissance tavern!). So, as I occasionally do when the gods of synchronicity roll a double, I went to have a look at this free-to-play online MMO. Not much luck.

The download of the client onto my machine required 1.8 Gb so it took a couple hours to get ready. Installation took awhile also. Right at the end of the process (just before it asked if I want a desktop icon) a windows message flashed up on screen telling me that the program's needs exceeded my system's capability and that the installation was thus aborted.

I'm not used to seeing messages like that, so went to the FAQ on the forums. System Requirements: 2 Gb RAM. Check my system specs: 1GB RAM. No dice. How sad. I haven't been so disappointed since I found out that Conan Online wanted my credit card number after downloading the 4Gb client ('play for free' promotion (for which I'd bought a magazine I normally wouldn't, all because I dig R.E.Howard))*.

At one level, WoT appears to be a pretty standard shootemup, (excepting the premise that you are a (upgradeable) tank amongst other tanks rather than a psychotic killer amongst other psychos). It operates the way a lot of games do these days, with a free player able to grind their way forward just at a slower rate to payers. You can join a platoon, even a clan. There are clan wars.

This is where it gets interesting, as there is another 'level' of game set on a provincialised map of europe, with warring clans struggling for world conquest by taking over one province at a time via a formalised 'tournament style' scheduling of battles. This in turn creates a long term persistent 'story arc', and opens up a whole 'Risk' style of strategic meaning to interclan battles, with a bunch of live players rather than lifeless drones as one's opponents in tactics as well as strategy. And that, to me, was and is interesting.

Alas, I'll just have to read/hear about it as I'm not planning to upgrade my RAM anytime soon.

* Over at the Blog that Time Forgot, Big Al is in Howard Country. He's made the trip to the grave. Reading that, I had to work in a Howard allusion somehow for the link! Also ... if I find the link for Mitch's article on WoT, I'll let you know.

Thanks Mitch!

A Shed Circa 2001

While looking for a picture of a shed on the web (chasing down a witty idea for a post) I came across one of Mitch Williamson's websites and got diverted. He has created and built a number of websites with a whole heap of stuff on a whole heap of things of interest to wargamers (and others). He's collected a lot of information and links and made them available in useful format. A grand service indeed. Casting my eye down one of the lists of sites on one of his sites, for example, I see the following niche sites on subjects which appeal to one of the various gamers in me...

Broch, Crannog and Hillfort - the centrepiece of an idea for my RK 'other' life ...
Jacobite Rising - ... where I am a scot royalist.
Spanish Civil War - a Military Legacy - a couple armies of 6mm waiting to play.
Malvinas Conflict - long held desire to create a TOAW III scenario based on this.
Best Mods Central - frontpages a mod for TOAW III at time of post, need I say more?
Minor Nations' Militaries 1914 - 45 - mmm, the 'interwar' years.
World War I in Africa - again, a minor theatre of major interest to me.

The above is a sample only. There are others. Well worth checking out the links from any of these sites, something will grab your attention. I'm not going to nominate a single site to go see for this dude, but have included one on my blogroll to make access easy for me - Warfare and Wargaming.

If you ever read this Mitch, thanks!

Computers, the Final Solution?

Wizardry Screenshot

My issue of "Wargames! Presenting all aspects of this exciting hobby" magazine (1985) is full of gems of articles and titles. For example, the final (unattributed) article is entitled, 'Computers, the final solution?'

The article doesn't really make clear what the problem is, but spends a good two pages covering the usage of computers in gamingland circa mid eighties (with competition between Atari and BBC at the upper end of the author's perception of the market). I assume Asquith wrote the piece, as he was the editor at the time. If so, it makes an interesting development on his ideas put forth in the opening piece, 'Computer Wargaming ... is easy?'

The author in 'Final solution' surveys the field of 'wargamers' as we then were; tabletop players, board gamers, role players*. In brief, the author doesn't think that tabletop wargamers will have much need for the computer and that it won't affect them much in what they do. For the boardgamer, the limited range of quality product at the time seems the main concern. So, jury still out on whether computers will solve all their gaming needs.

For roleplayers, the author first looks at the range of classic dungeon crawl games that were around. I personally remember two of these, Zork (text based) and Wizardry. For the record, I never got the chance to get any further than frustrated with either of these games. All a bit lonely, however, on one's own.

This is where the author makes their most interesting and final comment, announcing that Ultima III, which allowed for group play on networked computers, was the reason that computers indeed were the final solution for our ultimate gaming needs.

Which is kinda comforting to know.

*Note the absence of the dedicated 'computer gamer', one who's gaming existence is defined by the computer itself.

Computer wargaming ... is easy?

Tandy TRS 80

The title of this post was the title of an article by Stuart Asquith in "Wargaming: presenting all aspects of the Hobby" (1985). At the time he wrote that article we'd moved past the kit built TRS-80 (illustrated above) and into the age of BBC, Commodore 64, Apple 2e and the early IBM PC's. Asquith saw the main role of computers as an adjunct to tabletop gaming rule mathematics, spent a lot of time putting his rules into BASIC code, thought there was a role for computers in this aspect of the hobby. He was pretty excited at the prospect of being able to link computers together to hundreds of "K's" of processing power and looked forward to the future.

It is particularly heartening to note that one of his group's first two projects was to 'computerise' their Spanish Civil War rules (a point which I missed at the time). Good to see that SCW and interwar period gamers were at the front of the wave, even in 1985!

Needless to say, I report the above after finding a copy of said magazine in my 'archive' of the era. Lots of other goodies also, including a 1980 'Breakout' magazine "Dedicated to the future of gaming with computers". I'll read and report when I find the thing again (as I already filed it away in a fit of organisedness).

When that was published, we were building our first PC's at school instead of going to sports (true geekness). Hence the picture of the TRS 80. It had an onboard memory of 4Kb and used a audio-tape and tape deck for data storage. You had to program your own game for it. I was very proud the following year when 'taught' the computer to 'teach itself' how to play noughts and crosses (tic tac toe).

Ah, memories...

Bookish Indulgence

Here's the bulk of my books on military history, strategy, etc. Since taking this snap I have found a few more, including the quarto sized picture books. When I have them all sorted and settled, I'll post another update pic. It's hard to believe, but in the mid nineties I had but a literal handful of these books. Scary. On the other hand, I had quite a few science fiction and fantasy novels, so when I sort those out I'll wack up a pic of them also (as I know more than a few of my regular readers are into that sort of thing).

The emphasis on history and strategy is probably reflective of my approach to wargaming. Not much emphasis on the minutae of uniforms and weapons systems, only a little on small unit tactics, more on campaigns and operational aspects, interest in the 'ancillary' aspects (eg. logistics, command structures, signals and intelligence, training) and lots of maps. And aeroplanes.

Congratulations to Ubergeek for his winning entry to the treasure hunt. Now I just need to figure out what the prize will be. While I do that, there's opportunity for others to still get their late entries in if they wish. Then I'll have to think of consolation prizes...

Can you spot the treasure?

Actually, there's more than one magic item in this lot. For example, the 'Education for All' sticker on the spine of the upright blue folder in the top left 'cube' denotes that in the folder are contained the battle plans and records for two divisions worth of 6mm Germans that fought in the epic Battle for Stalingrad in a mate's back room many many moons ago. Or, in the taped up box in the cubical right upper centre are contained the tomes associated with a terrifyingly enjoyable Call of Cthulhu campaign. But neither of these is the 'treasure' that I am thinking of. More to come.

WOW - online grind by real life slaves

You might guess from my past posts that I'm not into the style of online gaming exemplified by World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The Rings Online, Guildwars, etc. You'd be right. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in them (in a sociological kinda way). Especially when I come across news items like this, reporting on a disturbing practice developed by chinese prison guards who make a nice little bit on the side by forcing their charges to 'play' at such games as WOW, generate ingame credits, and then sell these credits to consumers for real currency which they then pocket. Yet another example of how the intersection of online games with real life can lead to serious problems. It's not all glitz.

Bookcases and hidden treasures

I recently acquired a bunch of bookcases from the one 'Borders' store in Adelaide, now defunct. Getting them home was quite an adventure, but that's a tale for another day. Besides picking up some much needed bookshelves I can't say I'm overly happy about another bookshop going down the tube (though I never saw a wargaming book in there, they did have an 'indoor games' section of about two or three shelves). And, of course, one has to feel sorry for the staff. But there's a bit of karma involved here, because I remember when Borders opened here and a whole swag of bookshops closed in the following year or two.

Of relevance is the fact that with all these bookshelves I should be able to pack most if not all of my unshelved books onto shelves, freeing up a bit of room for other more important things. High on the list of which are the reintroduction of my modeling rolltop desk thingy to a place where it can be used, and maybe even the setting up of at least one of my wargaming 'half tables' for my first game of miniatures in nearly five years (wow how time flies). Or a game of Squad Leader.

Of some interest is that when I dismantled my old planks on milk crates sets of shelving I had a chance to look inside the milk crates, where my almost mint set of AD&D books has been hiding for almost a couple of decades. They still have that smell. Mmmmm.

Learning Curves

As someone who came relatively late in life to console gaming, my first major disadvantage when competing with anyone under thirty is their seemingly innate symbiosis with the controller (above), though after a hundred races I am becoming more familiar with its subtleties. I am, however, more familiar and thus more comfortable with something like this...

Of course, lack of comfort with the 'controller' is not the only form of disadvantage one faces as a dinosaur with a new toy, although it is rather obvious when one first plays a game which one first played in a PC version (eg. Call of Duty Blackops - biggest budgeted and biggest selling (PS3) game - or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter - about which I have previously written a bit). I've even tried out the latest iteration of my favorite IL2 flight simulater - Birds of Prey (a subject post in itself). For now, suffice to say that I find the keyboard is my preferred, though the console is more convenient (don't need an encyclopediaic knowledge of Alt QWERTY to master it), means of doing stuff in an action game.

Which all means that, when combined with youth's natural neurological advantage in picking up things quickly and reacting to new surroundings faster, not to mention better reflexes and hand/eye coordination, we older gamers are thrown back on those old staples, rat cunning and persistence.

All in good fun, of course.

Gran Turismo - GT5

This is the game for which I was willing to buy my first ever console based game platform (PS3) so that I could play it. It's a car racing game. I recall playing the original a long time ago on one of the predecessor playstation models, and then got to play the current version against my nephews over summer when I stayed over their place for a few days. What a buzz!

The usual comments about GT5 amongst those game afficianados that have visited our PS3 since purchase is that it 'takes ages' to learn, 'isn't very easy', 'swallows up the hours'. For that reason various other driving games are mentioned as more suitable, social, alternatives (such as Need for Speed). However, when playing these other games they seem just that, games. GT5, on the other hand, seems to swallow one's sense of the here and now when playing the 'campaign' mode, in that familiar immersive effect that is one of the gamer's holy grails.

Here's the gamespot review for GT5. I haven't had so much fun with a driving simulation since that old game of 'Driver' (campaigned the 2002 Australian V8 Supercar season - I can't find a link to it).

Some silly facts to do with the economics of GT5 - five years and $80 million for design and production, 6.5 million copies sold in the first couple months. Do the maths yourself.

Console gamer sociology 101

Indeed, I did purchase a Playstation 3 because I decided that I still wanted 'that' toy after all these years / decades, and that I am in a position in life that I could actually afford to do so, but why did I go for the the PS3 rather than its competing game systems? Afterall, there isn't that much difference between them as pieces of furniture or pieces of technology. At least, not to this dinosaur's eye.

It is of course, the games. Or, in this case, a particular game. But before I get into all that I'll digress onto that subject of market segmentation. If there was once a single amphorous class of 'gamer', which later bled into the subcategories of 'video gamer' and 'others', then these categories have themselves hived off into subcategories ever since.

A layperson's view of it distinguishes 'chess men' from 'checkers men', 'cards' from 'dice' from 'dominoes' from 'boardgames'. To the educated, the last bifurcates into 'parlour games' and 'heavy games', and then one breaks it down into subject matter and mechanism of game. Usually. But I am digressing in my digression...

In the case of video games, 'Pong' has morphed into a vast multiverse of sumptuous graphic adventures in gaming. And because they're all branded, and there's a limited number of brands (the economics of the industry presently dictates this), they've differentiated between themselves. Thus, one gaming platform seems aimed at the non-gamer, ironically, and probably uses the word 'family' a lot in the fine print. Another has gone for the 'cute' kind of non violent simulation. And then there's playstation, with a whole universe of gore, adrenalin and simulating challenges to explore. Sony has gone for the 'serious gamer' in consolespeak.

But I gotta say, most of Sony's games are of the same sort that I don't play on my PC, so the fate of my loungeroom didn't entirely depend on the category of 'gamer' I best fell into, but upon the spec's of a particular game.

Remember Pong?

Older readers may recall the original video game, creatively named 'Pong', which in my mind came out about the time colour television came to Adelaide (early seventies). Basically, players controlled a graphic bar which moved up and down 'their' side of the tv screen. A 'ball' shuttled back and forth between the bats. The idea was of course to move you bar up and down your side of the screen to hit the ball back to your opponent. They would try and return it the same way. If you missed the ball, your opponent scored a point. Here is a modern java based imitation from which you can get an idea of how it works.

What's made me reminisce like this? The fact that we recently became the proud owners of a Playstation 3. The people in the electronic shops must love seeing middle aged gamers come into their stores saying 'it's time to upgrade'. And if you're buying a telly for the first time in ages, why not get the modern equivalent of the toy you wanted as a kid and still want as an adult? So you end up walking out with the full complement.

It becomes immediately obvious when you look in the stores that there are about three main gaming console 'brands', and that the games are different for each. It's pretty blatant market segmentation, but that's capitalism for ya. Anyways... why did we get a playstation? Afterall, that meant that we couldn't play Mario (an old favorite) as he works for Nintendo (I think), so there must be a good reason.

Resuming life

Hi, back again after an extended break. Not sure why that happened, but such is life and life has been busy. I still kept going with my MMPORGs, particularly Renaissance (in which time I became a grumpy highland rebel chief, hung for treasonous activity purely due my leadership role, and an even grumpier post rebellion highland chief as the admin and the ingame rulers together conspired to take the fun out of the game), had a look at some online games, had a few games of cards, and played a lot of The Operational Art of War III (playing the partisans, about 90 turns into the 400 turn Yugoslavia 1941-45 scenario), read a lot of books, found a new game shop, and had an abortive attempt to be interviewed on a gaming podcasting site (when i get a microphone that works AND if they have me back again, I'll post up details here).

And that's the longest post I've done in ages. I'll put in a few details in near future.

Latest RK Banner

Another sign of life post, this time to show that not only am I 'here' still but also life is going on in Renaissance Kingdoms. Will fill in more in future, but for the moment put up this, the latest banner.