Asher

As I was walking through the train station this morning, I suddenly had a strong recollection of the past night's dream, so I thought I'd write about it.

The station floor was very slippery, you see, just like the stone steps leading to Asher Temple. Although it may be "The Asher Temple", "Temple of the Ashers" or simply "Asher". Its origins and history are obscure, and its denizens were not quick to enlighten such questioners.

The steps were not typical; a long time past they had been sundered by a furious barbarian who did not receive the answers he sought. The path became unsafe, then unusable. Many years later, a visiting sorcerer noticed the path and offered to repair it for a price. The monks could not afford it, so they paid half and this resulted in the anomaly we see today.

The rocks which made up what used to be a rough staircase now float freely in the air; not enough to be simple to traverse but possible with determination and dexterity. Occasionally the rocks drift away from the path a little, requiring leaps of faith to reach. Perversely, the monks prefer it this way. Despite this challenge, it is still common for the temple to receive visitors, so the rocks have become worn over time and very smooth. It's said that the monks are uncharacteristically warm if you manage to reach them on a rainy day.

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One day I'm going to actually write an RPG or a story or something, and people are going to love it or hate it.

Lord Davies

I have a ton of things to talk about since last time, but I just needed to mention this.

@lagdotcom Lord Davies, At last our lands are free of the scourge of Minax and the evils she unleashed upon our lands! We are in thy debt.
— Richard Garriott (@RichardGarriott) January 31, 2015

On Twitch and Hating Fun

I have an ongoing problem with the Twitch community at large.

If you know anything about me, I'm sure you know what's coming. I don't enjoy spam, the faces, the bandwagoning or the hero worship. I think it detracts and distracts from the enjoyment of the stream itself. Hiding the chat is a non-solution; discussing the stream is what I want to do.

However, all this is distant compared to the actual issue here. Look at my opening sentence again: I have a problem.

My feelings on this situation are no more or less valid than anybody else's. My hatred of noise stems from my real-life aversion to crowds and sensory overload. The faces strike me as protecting the interests of insular groups I don't identify with. Bandwagoning? My love of variety and sometimes petulant insistence on being different from others, occasionally to my own detriment. Hero worship; my own realisation of (and cynical insistence upon) everyone's fallibility.

My introversion has given me a lot of free time to examine my own beliefs, and the outcome is being less sure of them. An echo chamber is a dangerous thing. Of course, such a chamber can have many voices.

I defend (or invite criticism of) my own views here to help others understand. Sometimes I have been too willing to dismiss other's views out of hand; I'm not always as logical as I want to be, and emotions can ruin any otherwise good situation. I have said some inflammatory things in the past that I regret.

Reconciling my own feelings and preferences with the current state of affairs is something I have to do, not others. Nothing I've said is particularly profound and I expect no immediate change in others' relationships with me. I just want to start the process of mutual respect.

Of course I don't hate fun. I just don't like your fun.

The Nature of Luck

I'm very lucky.

It manifests in a few ways; the obvious but often overlooked things like being a western white male with a job and home, having consistent access to current knowledge and technology, having somehow convinced a gorgeous clever sweet woman to marry me...

One of the ways in which I am currently experiencing my luck is in the quality and quantity of presents my family and in-laws provide me. I never really ask for much anymore as there have been too many times where I've got what I asked for and then never used it, but at Emily's insistence I maintain an Amazon wish list to point her family in the right direction. Here's the haul:

• Lip-shaped soap on a rope
• "Brain bender" wire puzzle
• "Play!" Chocolate gamepad
• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs
• The Chanur Saga, C. J. Cherryh
• Nova, Samuel R. Delany
• "We R Igors" Discworld Diary
• "Dragon Wars" Volume 1 Parts 1-4
• Tetris lights
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2
• Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain
• Assassin's Creed: Rogue
• Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl
• Pokémon Alpha Sapphire
• Bravely Default
• Suikoden Tierkreis
• The Planet Construction Kit, Mark Rosenfelder

I'll also list my wife's presents, because I'm sure I'll get around to the games and books eventually:

• Pokémon Omega Ruby
• Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
• Rooms: The Main Building
• More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima
• Martin the Warrior, Brian Jacques
• Outcast of Redwall, Brian Jacques
• Mariel of Redwall, Brian Jacques
• The Witches of Karres, James Schmitz
• On the Town
• The Night of the Hunter
• Rock & Roll Music IQ, C. Dismas Burgess
• Dragons at Crumbling Castle, Terry Pratchett
• Mind-Boggling Lateral Thinking Riddles
• Another chocolate gamepad
• Maneki Neko

Now is also the traditional time for retrospective. This year hasn't been great; we've both suffered from illness and Emily has mourned for a long time. Thankfully, we've come out of it alive and ready to keep going, so here's to an excellent 2015.

Next year, I resolve to make better use of my time. On too many occasions have I complained of having nothing to do, or too much to do, or of being bored or directionless. It's making it difficult to achieve any of my goals, and I want to become more efficient. To this end I'm putting together a schedule and attempting to stick to it.

Too Busy

It seems like it's been forever since I last posted. I have this terrible habit of spending hours thinking about what I'm going to write and then not actually doing it. To that end, I'm just going to update with all the games I've acquired since last time, then think about it some more.

• Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise - free on Games With Gold. I know nothing about this series
• Little Big Adventure - free on GOG. I never got into this series when I was younger, but I do know that it's considered something of a classic. Also, there's a speedrun which beats it in about an hour.
• Metro 2033 - free on Steam. It's an FPS, has some kind of very depressing setting.
• Red Faction Guerilla - free on Games With Gold. I have this on Steam already, so I'll probably play that version instead, but still. Free games!
• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - free on GOG. Haven't played the first one yet, but I've seen some footage and it does seem my sort of thing.

Hey, I didn't spend any money on games! I did spend some time on them, though. Here's the results.

Once I got back from America, I decided to start tackling the behemoth Heroes of Might and Magic series. Naturally I started with the first game, and so far I've beaten two missions. Mission 1 is a simple one designed to ease you into the mechanics, as HoMM was pretty revolutionary at the time. Technically the series started with King's Bounty, but that has since spiralled off into its own franchise; I'm not sure how similar they are now. The graphics are pretty good but the spell sounds are starting to grate on me a little. However, Mission 2 beat me up the first time I attempted it; I did a poor job of defending my earlier acquisitions and gradually lost so much ground that it was pointless to carry on. The second time had me recruiting a lot of heroes (I hit the maximum, in fact) in order to stand watch over the many villages I crushed along the way. Also I discovered how broken Dragons are. It seems fun, and I'm told that HoMM3 is considered a high point so I'm looking forward to it.

Iron Man (PS2) has been sitting on my games shelf for a little over two years, so I decided to take it off and actually play it. Being a film tie-in, I didn't expect anything great, but it sufficed. For the first few levels I thought it was impossible to die; I was playing on easy, but I couldn't even find anything in the interface suggesting a health bar. A few further missions in, the game decided to disabuse me of that notion by cramming the entire level full of dudes with missile launchers, and it actually became kind of fun. There was some hiccoughs along the way, but I beat the entire game in one sitting. Considering I got it for the low price of 'free', I guess I got my money's worth. Might speedrun it one day. A nice addition is that Robert Downey Jr. actually provided voice acting for the game.

I had been itching to try out The Lord of The Rings: The Third Age ever since I spotted it in the shop, so I pulled it out and excitedly spent 20 minutes trying to get Emily's NTSC PS2 to run it. Finally I got started, and it crashed after another 20 minutes of gameplay. Thankfully it's been fine after that. The game is essentially a side-story to the film series where you lead your own not-a-fellowship consisting of a Gondorian, Rivendell elf, Dunedain and Dwarf (and more later I guess). Currently my goal is to find Boromir, so I imagine that won't end well. Third Age plays like Final Fantasy X; the battle system is almost identical, which is not a bad thing. Graphics are fine, I like how party members go RARRRR when they get buffs/heals cast on them, the strategy is fun but a little easy so far, it's all good. Also, there's this secondary mode where you can play as the bad guys in a series of fights - a good addition, because the combat is obviously the strongest part. Killing The Watcher in the Water was an amusing aside. I wonder if we also end up killing the Witch King and Sauron himself. Maybe even Saruman. That would be fun.

Emily's family are visiting England again, so a fair amount of my time from now on will be spent with them, but I did manage to spend a couple of hours playing Kuri Kuri Mix / The Adventures of Cookie and Cream with my faithful coop partner. We ploughed through Music World and Trick World but Magical World is ending up being a real headache; there's a section on level 1 which seems to demand an incredibly precise jump, and if you've seen that game, precision does not enter into it. Hopefully we'll manage to get past and finish that level so we can never see it again.

Englishman no longer in New York, part 2

And... for some reason Emily's dad decided to buy a PlayStation 3. So, that's going to be staying in America so it doesn't paralyse me with yet another choice of games to play. Here's what we have for it so far.

• Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed II - yes I know I already have them, but Emily's sister wants to see me play through the series
• The Last Of Us - pack-in game, heard it's good
• Batman: Arkham Origins - also pack-in, I've actually heard this is the worst one of the series so far, but it's a good introduction because it's a prequel and I'm not tired of the combat yet
• Ico / Shadow of the Colossus HD - yessss
• Heavy Rain - Emily wants to see it

OH MY GOD

Englishman no longer in New York

That's right, Emily and I are back from visiting her parents. I acquired a zillion games there. I'll post about them right now, and then write another post on events there. When I remember.

First of all, birthday presents!

• Project X Zone (3DS) - had my eye on it for a while
• Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS) - wanted to get into the series for a long time
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS) - this is actually Emily's present, but I'm sure I'll play it eventually

Then, did some shopping of my own.

• Earth Defense Force 2025 (360) - bought to play with Emptyeye, I thoroughly enjoyed 2017
• Suikoden (PS1) - finally! been trying to get more of the series for ages
• Suikoden III (PS2) - yay
• Mass Effect 2 (360) - finished the first game sometime last year, want to continue the plot
• The Lord of the Rings: Tactics (PSP) - heard fairly good things about this
• The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2) - I like RPGs
• Legion: The Legend of Excalibur (PS2) - like I said

Oh also free games.

• Darksiders II (360) - currently playing through the first game
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (360) - yep

Split into second post for tags.