Year: 2006

[chuckle] I know … I might even clear off the emails tomorrow. If I rush 🙂

ah ye lazy git, we’ve been back for two days already…

Ah well. End of holiday tomorrow with me going back into the office.

On the one hand, I’ve got the normal anti-work feelings but on the other hand, I’m strangely looking forward to going back in.

I’ll be handing over the David Weber book to the fella who’s been borrowing them off me. I’ll be catching up with the friends. I’ll be interacting with the Crazies over email and I’ll be hopefully finding excuses to harass certain people 🙂

In the meantime though, 5 minutes until my dinner burns, which will probably make me pause Return of the Jedi during the scene when Leia gets introduced in disguise.

Yep – I’m looking forward to work. There’s the IT Girl to harass, Diablo to take the mick out of and an RCA to wind up. Plus a few more besides … Just gotta get up in time to get a car parking space … That reminds me – I better get a picture of me with the minibeard so I can pass it on to RCA. It’s coming off tomorrow – I think I’m allergic to my own beard !

Is a term that people use in the online games when talking about the people who play the multiplayer online games professionally. Search on Ebay for World of Warcraft gold sellers and you’ll get to them rather quickly. It’s a term used to describe the people who will be on the game, going from mob to fast respawning mob, trying to get as much gold or items from them. They’re the source of much ridicule and hate, especially when the mobs they are farming tend to be quest mobs … (They get in the way of people getting on in the game.)

And then there’s the requirements for something coming soon to WoW – the things needed for the opening of a gate in one of the new regions :

60,000 Heavy Leather 60,000 Rugged Leather 80,000 Thick Leather 96,000 Peacebloom 19,000 Firebloom 26,000 Purple Lotus 90,000 Copper Bars 18,000 Mithril Bars 22,000 Tin Bars 400,000 Runecloth Bandages 250,000 Mageweave Bandages 250,000 Wool Bandages 17,000 Spotted yellowtail 10,000 Baked Salmon 10,000 Lean Wolf Steak

Ok, some of that is easy and it’s made easier by the bits being gathered by all of the players on the server. Yep – between 1000 and 1500 online at peak times on the Maelstrom. But to me, it just looks like another example of the insane amount of farming that has to be done to get on in the game.

Think I got out at the right time.

… are always the best.

(I like my cliches)

Just from the opening half hour or so of Star Wars A New Hope, I’m reminded of why it must have been such a sensation in its day. And then I’m reminded of the Star Wars games that were around in the early days of proper PC gaming. Games like XWing, Tie Fighter and lastly, XWing v Tie Fighter.

I never went all the way through XWing, it was quality … but it had missions that were insanely difficult. And I got my first PC after its successor, Tie Fighter, came out. So I ended up fighting for the Imperials. There’s been certain games that have stood out in the era they were produced and Tie Fighter definitely is one of the best of its era. Of course, you’d struggle to run it on a modern PC now but that’s what Slowpoke is for. Slowpoke is my old PC, specially rebuilt to run games like Tie Fighter and Master of Magic. I’m not likely to play Tie Fighter again as the more modern games have gone past it. But it still has its charm … Like the original XCom, I’m known to have the odd raid into that one still …

Hmm. Subject for future Blog entry – what’s my favourite games ! Hmm. That would be :
1 – What’s my favourite games
2 – What games have I spent most time on
Different list for both – we shall see what I come up with sometime soon.

In the meantime, it’s nearly time for Mos Eisley. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

PS Music can have a definite effect. I think it’s one of the things that make the first Star Wars what it is. It fits what’s happening on screen perfectly. It also works well with those Star Wars games as well, as the games adapt the music to play different bits of the score according to what you’re up to. And it does a very good job of it too …

2 down, now watching the third …

Only seen Revenge of the Sith once and that was in the cinema. It’s been good watching them in turn as I’m seeing more of the setups come together. Mind you, it’s George Lucas here, so the setups are in plain sight and easy to decipher. But I like Star Wars anyway.

Going to have to read the Rogue Squadron books again. They’re by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston, who both set up excellent, believable characters. And any story should be about the characters. If the authors get too impressed by the technology, a la Star Trek, it can bog down the story and make it boring.

Currently reading a book by Michael Stackpole set in the Mechwarrior universe. It’s not bad, I’m enjoying it so far. It’s definitely going better than the last book I read, War of Honor by David Weber. 920 pages in that, with over 700 dedicated to interstellar politics (yawn) and not enough on the actual war bit.

Anyway, back to the film … and my dinner which will be burning in 7 minutes.

Time for a big grin …

Been meaning to watch all six Star Wars films in a run for a little while now, session starts here 🙂 I won’t finish tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. Nah. 2 films and I’ll break for the night. Think I’d faint from lack of food before the third one finished anyway.

Got caught in Civ 4 today … which meant starting at around 11.30am and coming out with a Domination win at 9.00pm after terrorizing most of the known world with my all conquering tanks. The year at the end of the game ? 1754. Yep – tank rush started at around 1680AD. Think I must have got a good start. Maybe I need to up the difficulty as well.

Oh no ! Jar Jar Binks just made his entrance. Glad I’m distracted by blogging …

Last thought – this is my second day (could be third) away from World of Warcraft and that feeling of being heavily used is happily going away. No – that feeling’s not down to the people in the guild, it’s to do with something else to do with the server we play on. I might expand on that in a future post.

I hope 2006 brings people all the good things they were expecting and a few nice surprises that they weren’t expecting.

(crosses fingers for Suzi Perry knocking on me door)