Day 9, gaming
Aug. 9th, 2010 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrToday I'm going to write about some of my recent adventures in computer gaming. In case you don't know me very well, I'm not a fan of DRM (that's a whole other post), and I am a Linux user, so I enjoy a weird cross section of new and classic games of all sorts, and occasionally avoid games I might otherwise enjoy.
I've been playing a lot of Heroes of Newerth, a DOTA clone from S2 Games. This is a multiplayer game involving (mostly) two teams of 5 players each, where each player controls one hero unit (as in Warcraft 3) and engages in combat with the other team's players, while both teams have waves of autonomous NPCs advancing down predetermined paths on the map that will engage each other and enemy players. There is an element of twitch gameplay, emphasizing reflexes over strategy, during combat, but there is also a higher level of strategy involved with selecting heroes, of which the 60+ have distinct powers and weaknesses, and then choosing your battles while in-game to maximize various advantages. One reason that I purchased this game, other than it's high production quality and the amount I enjoy it, is that S2 Games releases a native linux version of all of their games. I support companies who support my platform, especially if their work is of high caliber.
I still, as I have for years, put in some time on BrettSpielWelt. This is a portal, with a Java client, that allows players worldwide to play modern board games with each other in a GUI. Carcassonne, Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Category 5, and hundreds of others. The majority of the playerbase is German, but almost all of the games and interface, and most of the website outside the forums, are localized for English-speaking players. There is a meta-game where players earn points for their city/town, and can host specific games in their own rooms, but the majority of players ignore that. This is by far the best way to play the most modern/euro board games on the internet.
I have recently resurrected and re-killed my nethack addiction, over the course of about two months. I have still never ascended, or even gotten halfway there. I managed to reach the Valkyrie quest for the second time ever, but continue to encounter YASDs. I have almost as much fun source diving to explain my deaths and improve the spoilers on the wiki as I do playing.
I have spent some time playing through all of the new official campaigns in Battle for Wesnoth, a hex-grid Turn-Based-Strategy game that might look familiar to players of the Heroes of Might and Magic series. I've made content and code contributions to the project in the past, and am considering doing so again, as it is a game that I love to play and to develop for.
I have also been playing a lot of flash games on Kongregate.com, for a few minutes at a time when bored. None of them stand out especially, although some old ideas like physics puzzle solving (thank you The Incredible Machine!) continue to be reborn in new and interesting ways.
I have done a very little console gaming, mostly music/dexterity games at parties and with friends. I have grown apart with consoles over the last 5 years or so, they hold little enough appeal to me to not be worth the hundreds or thousands of dollars required to experience them fully. Eventually I may try to be this guy with regards to consoles.
Even my board gaming life has come to a halt lately. I managed to play just two demos at Play On Con, and no open gaming, and haven't made it to an Atlanta Boardgames Meetup in a couple of months, and a few months before that even. I look forward to getting back into all of that once I have a few paychecks under my belt and can spend my free time and money on things I enjoy instead of things I need.
That's about all I have to say on the topic. I actually offered a friend the chance to choose my topic today. Her only suggestion was both tentative and also something that I plan to cover in detail in a post later this month (in preparation for Dragon*Con), so I declined. If any of my other loyal readers have any requests, feel free to send them along. I might make a whole post out of them, or just a paragraph, or even a sentence, but virtually no question will I leave unanswered. Be warned, though, my answers may raise more questions than they resolve.
I've been playing a lot of Heroes of Newerth, a DOTA clone from S2 Games. This is a multiplayer game involving (mostly) two teams of 5 players each, where each player controls one hero unit (as in Warcraft 3) and engages in combat with the other team's players, while both teams have waves of autonomous NPCs advancing down predetermined paths on the map that will engage each other and enemy players. There is an element of twitch gameplay, emphasizing reflexes over strategy, during combat, but there is also a higher level of strategy involved with selecting heroes, of which the 60+ have distinct powers and weaknesses, and then choosing your battles while in-game to maximize various advantages. One reason that I purchased this game, other than it's high production quality and the amount I enjoy it, is that S2 Games releases a native linux version of all of their games. I support companies who support my platform, especially if their work is of high caliber.
I still, as I have for years, put in some time on BrettSpielWelt. This is a portal, with a Java client, that allows players worldwide to play modern board games with each other in a GUI. Carcassonne, Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Category 5, and hundreds of others. The majority of the playerbase is German, but almost all of the games and interface, and most of the website outside the forums, are localized for English-speaking players. There is a meta-game where players earn points for their city/town, and can host specific games in their own rooms, but the majority of players ignore that. This is by far the best way to play the most modern/euro board games on the internet.
I have recently resurrected and re-killed my nethack addiction, over the course of about two months. I have still never ascended, or even gotten halfway there. I managed to reach the Valkyrie quest for the second time ever, but continue to encounter YASDs. I have almost as much fun source diving to explain my deaths and improve the spoilers on the wiki as I do playing.
I have spent some time playing through all of the new official campaigns in Battle for Wesnoth, a hex-grid Turn-Based-Strategy game that might look familiar to players of the Heroes of Might and Magic series. I've made content and code contributions to the project in the past, and am considering doing so again, as it is a game that I love to play and to develop for.
I have also been playing a lot of flash games on Kongregate.com, for a few minutes at a time when bored. None of them stand out especially, although some old ideas like physics puzzle solving (thank you The Incredible Machine!) continue to be reborn in new and interesting ways.
I have done a very little console gaming, mostly music/dexterity games at parties and with friends. I have grown apart with consoles over the last 5 years or so, they hold little enough appeal to me to not be worth the hundreds or thousands of dollars required to experience them fully. Eventually I may try to be this guy with regards to consoles.
Even my board gaming life has come to a halt lately. I managed to play just two demos at Play On Con, and no open gaming, and haven't made it to an Atlanta Boardgames Meetup in a couple of months, and a few months before that even. I look forward to getting back into all of that once I have a few paychecks under my belt and can spend my free time and money on things I enjoy instead of things I need.
That's about all I have to say on the topic. I actually offered a friend the chance to choose my topic today. Her only suggestion was both tentative and also something that I plan to cover in detail in a post later this month (in preparation for Dragon*Con), so I declined. If any of my other loyal readers have any requests, feel free to send them along. I might make a whole post out of them, or just a paragraph, or even a sentence, but virtually no question will I leave unanswered. Be warned, though, my answers may raise more questions than they resolve.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 03:45 am (UTC)~Sor