Them Canadian SCA Goers.

Them Canadians guys have had something of a fascination with maiming one another over the years. All things considered it's probably not the best hobby to have, but it's kept us busy. The main stay of our efforts has been swords. Yes, swords. It wasn't the brightest of ideas, but it caught our attention. It started with finding a practice blade in our local sword shop and deciding that it would be just perfect to buy a couple of them and wing 'em at one another. Now, these weren't just some wooden make-believe things either. No, apparently we managed to find the one place that sells steel swords you can use for practice. Real weight, real steel, just a blunt(-ish) edge.

Personal Portrait - Andrew

 Naturally our first course of action upon getting them home was to try them out. Since this was literally twenty minutes after we purchased them on a whim our protective gear consisted of a real firm hope that we wouldn't kill each other. As time went on and we learned; which is to say we've now included several pairs of thin leather gloves to the mix so we don't lose as many nails. At this point I think I'm forced to caution anyone who might be dumb enough to follow along a similar path that of how dumb doing anything even remotely like this was. Anyways, we had a hell of a time. It's quite amazing to see people get into wailing on one another so much that they're removed coats due to exhaustion in negative 20 Celsius. Eventually our collection would be upgraded over time to include four swords and a couple of bows. The latter proved quite an interesting addition - once we managed to assure ourselves that applying tennis balls to the tips of the arrows would keep them from taking out eyes. We could host ourselves tiny battles.

Trevor - At Work/Casual Sunday Outing/Sleeping/Sex


Of course it was about then that the SCA came to our attention. No, no, it wasn't like some one told us about it and we had a moment when we realised we could have done all this without endangering life and limb - no, we knew about it before. We even briefly looked into it. It just never struck us as a critical need to find a less insane way to wage our wars. Honestly I think the only reason we came across it a second time was the promise of bigger battles. Now that was something we couldn't swing all on our own.

Josh - Spreading Good Sportsmanship

Off we went to find a way to join a war. Somewhere along the line we found out that most people consider fighting without a full grade metal helmet using wooden sword was already mad. I'm not certain precisely how far off the scale of 'stupid shit to do' we fell in their eyes, but I'm willing to bet pretty high. So now we're trying the proper way to flail at one another using armour and all. The only stumbling step is a cost that might just kill us, but it beats paying in litre's of blood.

NEWS – A PRE-EMPTIVE TITLE

                This is a new focus we have. The concepts of dedication and regular updates have always been a reoccurring one in my posts. This has come up with all of us – both Josh and I have managed to start an amazing number of posts either on paper or on machine and never finish them. Trevor has joined us in our lazy trends with admirable speed. Now we’ve come up with a working plan to thwart our lethargic ways; we’re going to be strict professionals in the finest sense.

By that dramatic proclamation I mean we're going to harrass the hell out of one another. It's no longer going to be one of those post-whenever-you-want hobby things, no, now it will be a business. A business with no customers, supporters, income and a product we may be embarrassed to show people, but one nonetheless. Given our current model this means there will be a post every week - even if we need to kill some one to get it done. Possibly two people, though that may be pushing it. There aren't many of us.

What we hope to cover still entails whatever the hell we want, so things wont change much on the output end. Though I might finally find something else to begin my posts with than false attempts at assuring myself I'll post more frequently.

Anywho, to kick things off; today we're going to have Josh and Trevor consider the best way to convey a story inside of a game. It's an issue we're argued about for a while - namely whether interactivity is a helping hand in scenes conveying story or simply a hinderance. Now since we only have enough time to let them both have a single go at convincing you that they're the best shit to ever hit this site, we're have them roll for the right to post last. The tension is palpable. Possibly less so for people reading this rather than being present.

Trevor wins. Thus, Josh posts first, here's his words of wisdom;

Josh

Well, this came as a bit of a surprise. Not only am I unprepared in my postifying having run on coffee for the past two weeks sleeping only to make sure I don't die or whatever. I'm also not exactly sure what to make of the wording for the topic - luckily enough I know what he means and I shall give examples!

Firstly, I must say that interactivity in a general sense does not hinder storytelling, heck this is an interactive medium that I'm talking about and interactivity is the foundation of its existence. Or at least the differentiating factor.

Reducing the idea that being able to interact would only hinder the storytelling capability is frankly silly. What is being referred to and that I rage against are things like the cut scenes in Half-Life, Portal (heck many shooters) or the first Assassin's Creed. Notice how I call them cut scenes - because that is what they are except they give you full control during them to do nothing. Why is it that while Gordon Freeman is being talked to can I shoot the person talking to him? I don't know about anyone else but this is immersion breaking as all get out. However; I've been told both by the internet and the two fools that post with me that I'm doing it wrong.

This is the worst kind of authorial control that I can think of, Valve has consciously chosen to give full freedom to the player, but doing what you want is wrong? I can't think of another way to describe it because we know Freeman didn't shoot the toqued black-guy telling him to go through a door because they made him invincible and the freedom has absolutely no impact. Or perhaps Freeman jumped around while being spoken to like an ass - this entertains me absolutely, but takes away impact from the conversation.
I don't mean to sound like Roger Ebert, but I think authorial control is incredibly important. Now what the player does in game play is still under control of Director as we are always given choices, but why did Valve make this one choice wrong. Also in my opinion the alternative of standing and having the NPC monologue at you is so boring as to not be worth doing. This goes for Assassin's Creed (I walk like a maniac or if given the chance - stab someone) heck even in those damn scenes in any game where you control where you look for some reason I just constantly wave my head around.

The interactivity while characters are imparting exposition I personally feel detracts from the information or the scene. It's giving me the game play without giving me any of the fun and in most of these games my actions don't build on the world or the character. I suppose that the idea is that Gordon Freeman is ME so what I do builds his character except, as I said, he obviously didn't do the things I did in cut scene or game play for that matter. I am sure Alex Vance hated my Freeman since he shot her... often and when possible let her kill all of the enemies or absorb bullets with her corpse.

CLICK HERE FOR AN EXAMPLE OF MY SUMMARY!

http://www.offuhuge.com/files/c0fdb3efe3af.swf

Are you still paying attention to my argument or are you playing Mario?

Honoustly a well written and not overly verbose text-box is one of my favourite ways to present plot, characterisation etc in video games having the ability to stab people during the text would not improve it. If you think of it in that way I think you can compare and see why I just think it's distracting.


TREVOR

Hmm. Josh's points are better than anticipated. That being said, Josh, you're doing it wrong.

One of the best, possibly the very best way to create a story and world that feels like a cohesive whole that has been implemented by developers thus far is to put the player in the character's shoes. This creates an almost different kind of immersion, one that I suspect some cannot "get into" as much as others. You are not an audience, not an observer - a participant. Being a huge fan of this approach, I feel I have to counter Josh on the "boredom and pointlessness" of npc monologuing. When I've braved what I need to to reach that npc, to feel as if there has not been a "curtain drop", so to speak, that I am here and am now being spoken to by someone I've fought to catch up with, the world comes into it's own. I'm not watching something, I'm immersed in something rather than sitting in a chair.

One of the best examples of this I can muster is the Tentacle introduction in 1998's Half-Life. After coming through a heavy silo door into a rocket-test viewing chamber and being greeted by a panicking scientist, something crashes through a window five feet ahead of you, knocks the scientist to the ground, and pulls him out into the blast chamber. Perhaps your first instinct was to slam your back into the metal bulkhead and pray you go unnoticed. Maybe you dove towards the creature in an attempt to save your doomed buddy.

A cut scene could have conveyed the arrival of this enemy. Perhaps the camera would do a little pan, music would swell and and a radical camera angle would show the monster burst through the glass. But then it would have been a mechanical "look here, a new game element to learn!" moment, not a fluid moment where something just about ended your adventure, something just violated what you thought you knew about the world you are in. Something about the world interacting with you, rather than showing you things then letting you interact, conveys realism in a very powerful sense.





And back to me. I'm purposefully staying out of this argument largely for matters of balance, but I can't say it wasn't an entertaining experiment. A new one should be coming every week and with any luck I'll get to be more than a spokesperson next time. Hope it was as interesting for all of you (two people) as it was for us, 'til next week.

Bloody Minded Hope

I’m not entirely certain why that rather bleak title agrees with me, it’s not exactly filled with the normal excitement I feel when starting a new post. None the less it serves as well as any other and fits things neatly; you see, my current predicament came about because of that irritating feeling. 

                To fill in the applicable back story I should say I’m currently in the process of becoming a Police Officer. It’s a career I’ve been set on for a number of years and feel every bit assured will inevitable be where I finally end up – and happily so. The job certainly appeals to me and the training has made me eager. This is all fine and dandy for about 90% of my life, the issue arises in the last 10%. I have this absurd notion to try and thrive off the will to create alone.

                I love writing and I frequently rant, I am enthralled by the creativity and dedication put into every frame of movies, I think the higher class of game allows such freedom in design that the possibilities are fresh and endless. I love all of these things. The joy I get from pursuing how these things are made has been a long time in the running. However, it’s from such things my problem stems. Whenever I run across a special feature that explains production or I listen to the commentary on a movie or game I find myself thinking how fine of a thing it might be to make that a job for life. Trying to take the multitude of little fancies – Brief, fun, spurts of story or characters – and bring them to life on a screen or in a book. If I’m particularly enthused with the product in question this leads to several weeks of wistful dreams before reality asserts itself and I return to my current career.

I always wonder if this is a good or bad sign. I like what I chose for life. Policing does interest me. If it wasn’t for these rare occasions when all of that is thrown out the window in favor of dreams I think I’d be perfectly happy with what I’m doing. I do have doubts though. What if my enthusiasm for production and writing would never diminish? If I immersed myself in film and books and games made by others while dedicating my free time to create as much as I could would the feeling of satisfaction never go away? I only infrequently come across production special features draw my attention in and it’s generally the prolonged absence of anything similar that makes the feeling go away. However, to try and pursue the education required for any of these careers I’d need to dramatically change my life, and should it prove not to be the route I wanted to take in the end it would dramatically slow the start of my career and likely give me a new load of debt. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’d cripple me beyond the ability to recuperate, but it’d certainly delay things a great deal. The eagerness to finish schooling and finally start in on what people occasionally refer to as ‘real life’ is very nearly palpable.

Right now I alleviate my want to try all these things by writing short stories and do little things – like this blog – that let me putter away with some degree of freedom and cost myself very little. Regrettably there’re no questions to draw from this, no consoling conclusions to lay out. It’s just rambling and idling wondering about what could be. I simply don’t have the money or time to pursue all my possible options. I suppose I should start buying lottery tickets.

A New Poster

                No big rant today, just an update on news. We’re getting a third poster who’ll hopefully add to the mix of posts and make them a bit more frequent. I’m hoping this’ll kick us at least into a weekly schedule, but I’m not making any promises – I know me, and I’m terrible at those. His name is Trevor and he’s likely to fixate on games, given his past experience in write-ups consists on reviews for them. I don’t expect everything he posts to be a review however, and I’m going to try and egg him into making a few opinion pieces. He has some interesting thoughts on design and can be a harsh critic of stories when the mood strikes him, and who knows, maybe it’ll make Josh post something similar. Liveliness would be a welcome change.

               As for me, I’m being profoundly lazy. This post is being typed on a laptop with two other fully written posts that I wrote up weeks ago. They never got posted due to sheer laziness. With any luck if you’re reading this I’ve probably gotten around to at least throwing one of them up in conjunction with this post, I’ll save the second for my next news update.

An idea ~ That Canadian Guy

Gods it’s been a long time. Sorry.

I know, I’m horrendous at keeping anything like a consistent schedule, and apparently can’t be enthused to write about anything I don’t really care about – there goes the “Write something every week even if it’s complete shit!” mentality I posted before. It might have actually helped my writing too, if it wasn’t for that dratted time thing. That's the catch after all; even if you want to write it doesn’t matter if you can’t find the time to sit down and do it, or rather if everything else seems so much direr and demands doing in the small bits of time you get.

Anyways, I’m still vainly going to try and keep to that regular posting mentality in the future. I have no hopes that it’ll stick but hey, what the hell? Isn’t there a quasi-annoying phrase like “You miss every shot you don’t take” out there? I’ll pretend to adopt that, even if it turns out I just miss every shot I do take. Right. Well now that I’ve bored off anyone who might actually benefit from reading this, I’ll get back to the original idea.

Oh yes, I have one. I even thought it marginally clever when it originally strolled into my head two weeks back (See? If I had bothered to post then I would actually have kept my schedule. Blame life, not my mind), and it revolves around the gaming community. It was directly inspired, as it were, from my last post. No, it’s not a solution to the problem of the internet but it might be an interesting little project to try out on it. It starts, as all great ideas do, but blatantly ripping off some one else;

Newgrounds. Once again for the uninformed; it’s a site that primarily revolves around using the Flash Program to make movies or games, though I must admit despite the ‘G’ word showing up in that sentence Flash has absolutely nothing to do with what I want to make. Besides, the site is, if anything, a glorious declaration to the kind of community the internet habitually dishes up. Thankfully what’s run by the mob if policed by the mob so it’s not as bad as it could be – but let’s kill this digression right here. There’s important rambling to get down to. The aspect of Newgrounds I want to take is its system of supporting itself. See, Newgrounds is entirely run off user generated content and its bills are paid for by the advertising supported by the multitude of people who frequent the site. In essence, it’s self contained. As long as Flash exists, the community for it will exist, and Newgrounds will exist.

The manner of the system is easy to describe. Every single person who goes to the site can sign up for free and then upload a video or a game for free. The product will be thrown out in the masses that can, also for free, view or play whatever’s made and then judge it mercilessly with a voting system. Well made things get voted up become popular and win awards, crap is thrown down the crapshoot. Free free free, all supported by a couple of strips of advertisements that can be blissfully ignored. As far as systems go it’s an admirable one. It’ll function like that with minor interface changes until the community implodes one day in the far future.

What I want to do is take that system and implement it for games. Well, gaming culture to be more specific. Instead of Flash movies there could be video blogs, instead of games there could be…well, actually, there could still be games. But in addition to games there could be reviews, previews, user generated content about anything relevant to the gaming community. It could all be uploaded and run in a similar system and it would be every bit as self sustaining. We look at Rotten Tomatoes and see that sites can thrive entirely off people writing little paragraphs of criticism, why can’t we have the same for games instead of movies? We look at the Escapist, and see countless little video’s made out of nothing more than a slide show with a man talking into a microphone and they’re not only successful but occasionally run away hits!

I feel that if the Flash community, tiny compared to gaming as a whole, can create a site dedicated to the random creation and evaluation of it’s own hobby and thrive, the gaming community should be able to build one ten times as large. Gods knows we have the people for it and the creativity too. Why the hell hasn’t some one made this yet?

Eh, maybe for the same reasons I’m not ending this post with a valiant declaration of liquidating everything I own to put it into making a website.

A) I don’t for the life of me know how to make a website. What little HTML I know probably couldn’t get me past the first page, and

B) Money. I don’t know how expensive starting this off would be, but since it involves a lot of uploading I’m guessing it won’t just be pocket change.

So will this idea ever take off? Who knows. If I win the lottery, probably. If not, probably no. The idea is still out there though, I’m not liable to forget about it any time soon, and there are many more ideas about how the site could expand if it did take off. So we’ll just have to see what the future brings. Maybe I'll run into some one who does win the lottery.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

So, I would like to explain why I haven’t posted anything. In my original version of this document (opened around September 14th) I actually had things keeping me busy, but the long and the short of it: I am lazy. That is a depressing thing. So, now instead of a moral conundrum or question to stimulate your mind, I am going to do something that is essentially a Preview mixed with gushing about stuff I like.
Waiting, Waiting, Waiting is where I tell you what stuff I’m waiting for and why. I’ll try to make interesting comments - but objectivity will be nowhere near this article.

I would like to turn this (as well as actually wlogging) into a semi-regular occurrence, because I am always expecting something that is coming out to be good and steal away copious amounts of my time. Currently, Etrian Odyssey has stolen my heart with its map-making while you play and its addictive levelling. Unfortately, I’m behind the times and only started playing Etrian Odyssey 2:Heroes of Lagaard a couple of days ago mostly because I didn’t want to shell out the cash for EO3 when I wasn’t even sure I‘d like it. Now I am sure.

Without further ado I give you Catherine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZfTlqB-xyc

Next time I plan on having the video embedded, but in my half-baked search I couldn't find a download.

Catherine at it’s heart is an… erm, Adventure game that probably has puzzle solving elements. We do know there are enemies. And that horrible description is one of the reasons I am so excited for this game. When it was just 2 screenshots and a description of genre I was absorbed.

Look at that, just look. It’s gorgeous. Another great thing was this was only announced a few months ago and it will be coming out soon, since they’ve been working on it for a while now. What is really great, what I am truly excited about is the game was not revealed with a “gameplay genre” at all, it was just an Erotic Thriller. People started guessing, the most popular being an RPG (since this is Atlus after all), but it turns out they are taking the route of an Adventure game.

This is something that has been a longtime coming in my opinion, Catherine isn’t the first step but it is another step in the right direction as we head towards more sophistication in Games as a story-telling medium. Now, games need gameplay I get that, but guess what? Genre games will never die because of games needing to be games. We will always have plat formers, shooters and racers, RPGs, RTS and other acronyms. Especially with the proliferation of XBLA and other Indie-Gaming Platforms the old style Sh’mups, Puzzle and adventure games will live on.

What Catherine shows though is some maturity in story-telling aspects and focus. It is first and foremost not an adventure game, but an Erotic Thriller. I love this, clearly this is going to be a narrative driven game and it identifies itself by the themes in the plot. I hope this becomes a trend and so we can have a greater diversity in stories (I.E. not just stopping evil corporation, syndicate, empire, mercenary corp.) allowing for maybe Romantic Comedy as the focus or maybe an RTS that is actually a Military drama (we are moving there though). Plus, why can't videogames have plots-lines that involve sex in any kind of mature manner? It's a taboo that is slowly being dissolved, but still bugs me.

Gameplay wise it’s hard to judge as we’ve only seen obscure images from the trailers, but even still it looks like exactly what I want. It is a game that will use its horror, atmosphere and tension built up in the levels and combine it with the sexualization you see going bonkers in the trailer. Or atleast I can hope.

I’m not worried though. I feel very safe in my assumptions because after all this is Atlus making this game, the creators of Shin Megami Tensei. Specifically the Persona team is the one working on it. The SMT creed leads me to believe in their ability to make awesome atmosphere since Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga 2 are two of the handful (maybe 10) games to ever genuinely creep me out with setting alone. Those settings and the pitfalls of using them in an RPG might make for a good post sometime later on.

But, honestly that is another thing I’ve liked about the game so far. It’s made this nightmare look truly nightmarish, not only do the environments look horrific, but it seems like half of them make no sense. Hell, Vincent is part sheep when he is in his nightmares, that is particularly dream-like in it’s nonsense and knowing Atlus, it’s going to mean something (and you can make a few educated guesses with the trailer). Finally, to convey the nightmarishness of this game look at a picture of this enemy.

What the hell is that?

Story wise all we have is that Vincent is a 30-something loser stuck in a dead end job who feels that he is going nowhere. The girl at the end of the trailer is his girlfriend Katherine (with a K) and currently they are having problems. So, Vincent has a fling with Catherine (with a C) which is an exciting break from the monotony of everyday life… especially because after that he has horrible life-threatening sheep-man nightmares.

Does that sound like the plot of your average video-game? No, not at all, a movie or a book maybe, but it looks like Atlus knows what they are doing. With that premise and The Persona Team I expect this to be handled very well. The Persona games might be about highschoolers, but they aren't just your average garbage, in fact they are some of the most mature games I've ever played. They are teenagers that act like teenagers with problems about teenagers that are all appropriate thematically and tackle real issues about identity, growing up, love and friendship, sexual orientation and even more mundane things. My favourite is Yosuke in Persona 4.

Yosuke and Jiraiya his Persona

This is a boy who hates being out in the sticks because it's boring... and that's it. Well, actually it has more to do with his loneliness, he has no friends and he puts up this front and he blames it all on his new home in the country. Sounds like a problem one of my friends had. There is also some problems with a girl he liked that got killed, but that isn't important right now. From that, the trailers and the Director saying he wants to make a "mature" game I don't think we'll be seeing the normal Japanese Exploitation of teenage girls nor the objectification of women as prizes like in the first Mass Effect. A cold, indifferent, but still hilarious sex mini-game a la God of War? Maybe, I wouldn't object to it... atleast it would have more context than GoW.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, the music is being composed by the meistro Shouji Meguro a man whom I have a love-hate relationship with his work. Despite my hatred for the grating pop-rap sound of the music in Persona 3 I can acknowledge (some of) it as well made and accompanied by some fabulous pieces. However, other games he has composed for have ridiculously cool soundtracks. Below are links to my favourite battle theme and least favourite (although honestly it has grown on me).

Digital Devil Saga 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFXMb7vibM

Persona 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9E3VR8Fnj0

Listen to that quality and diversity. And the trailer music again. You know this game will sound good.

So, yeah. That is what I think of Catherine and I'm expecting even more from the next HD-SMT game since Catherine is supposed to be a test for the Devs on HD consoles. If they get this one right the next Persona, Devil Summoner or Mainline MegaTen game will knock it out of the park... again!

Games, GIFT, and Extra Credits

Right. I can’t think of any good preamble today (let alone a witty one), so we’re just going to muck right into it.

I recently ran across a very interesting new series. They run under the title Extra Credits and currently can be found on the Escapist, a website seemingly dedicated to giving a spotlight to the cream of the crop of all the random crap that’s hurled onto the internet. I must, I admit, congratulate them on doing a good job at finding neat new stuff and promoting this sort of thing. I think it’s a marvelous way to build the community up and encourage more of the same. Peering at the stuff people churn up there was part of what spurned me into making this blog.

Now, Extra Credits is a web-series (is that the official title of these now?) that discusses games in a professional, interesting and frequently humorous fashion. Its run by a three person crew with the work neatly divided between writing, presentations and of course artwork. This is the internet. We can’t listen to people talk for over five minutes unless some one gives us pretty pictures or our toddler-like attention span shoots off to find something with more flashing colors. The series is relatively new, only boosting a handful of shows so far, but the sheer quantity of comments and views they’re getting indicates a very successful future lies ahead. I’ll toss a link down to the archive of them at the bottom of this post (and I recommend looking through it) but today’s ramble focuses on the end point of one of their latest broadcasts.

The broadcast in question is concerning gamers, or rather the label that is ‘gamer’. What it means, how it’s presented in society and what it’s liable to become in the future. All in all it’s worth checking out below.

Video Can be Found Here

What I’m interested in is a small segment at the very back of it where they talking about the community of gamers at large. It’s not a particularly happy piece. Mentioning how gamers can, to put it mildly, be rude hateful bastards. And trust me, I am putting it mildly. This issue is one that actually gave me a bit of pause when they brought it up. On the surface, it’s very simple. In fact it’s explained in the most simple way possible by the couple of guys over at Penny Arcade in a lovely comic titled ‘Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory’, or GIFT from here on out.

GIFT theory in all its glory

For those of you who hate links, it can be summed up in politer language as so;

Average Person + Anonymity/No Consequences = Annoying Hostile Person

Proof of it can be seen everywhere on the internet. There’s no lack of it. In chat rooms, on XBOX live, in forums. It can be explained by understanding that the farther a person is from some one else, the less they feel when they hurt or offend that person. In other words it becomes more humorous and less terrible when you’re sufficiently distanced from the target of your ridicule. GIFT doesn’t elaborate on why people act this way and frankly I don’t have enough space either, but it hardly needs scientific tests to support it at this point. In fact, finding a community on the internet that isn’t plagued with this is considered shockingly rare.

So what does this say about the gamer community itself? Well, Extra Credits said it was our duty to clean up our community. Begin to reject the people who behave like this en mass and just like in society outside of games, it will be suppressed. This train of thought indicates that it’s certain individuals inside our community that are drawn to this behavior, that thrive off of it. Honestly I’m a hair’s breadth away from accepting that explanation and setting off as another man waging an impossible war against assholes that may or may not ever come to an end, but for one thing. I went to PAX.

Digression time!

 

What is PAX? PAX is Penny Arcade Expo. In terms that won’t confuse those of you who aren’t slaved to a computer, it’s a convention for gamers made by gamers with the express intent of trying to be fun (for gamers). It’s a gigantic building that gets annually crammed with over 75,000 people that have shown up to be wowed by the game developers that support the convention, showing off all the new titles coming out in the next year. The convention has spread and now it’s run twice a year, rotating between Boston in the spring and Seattle in the fall. Well, sufficient to say PAX succeeded in wowing me and I went to it last year, but it wasn’t only the shocking quantity of content that its hosts managed to contain in one building that surprised me. It was how people acted.

We’ve talked about GIFT enough now that it should be clear that the internet has a proportionally large amount of pricks in it. Or so it seems, anyways. PAX stands in defiance of that. It is still difficult to really describe the odder qualities of the people there. I could blather on about ‘trust’ for the next four paragraphs and I don’t think I’d quite get it across. People were just…nice. Confusingly accepting. Everything I saw was what years on the internet lead me to believe shouldn’t happen. It was the opposite of what I expected in fact. A community that was so riddled with hateful bastards became a community that just accepted a huge variety of people without as much as a shrug.

To make this clear I need to explain that gaming culture is by no means united. It is diverse. In the same way there’s about a dozen different groups for book lovers out there you’ll find a cluster of gaming cores that are all distinct from one another. There’s the tabletop crowd (Think RISK, just…really, really complicated and in-depth), there’s the FPS crowd (your ‘average game’, you have a gun and people who need to be shot), you have your RPG groups, your MMO groups, your Turn-based groups, your RTS folks – it goes on. Hell, those aren’t even all the major sets, I’m sure I missed a few, I’m not even going to touch the sub-sets. Almost all of these groups of cliques. Yes, yes, there are many people who play multiple types, but in every one of those cores there are people who hate at least some of the other ones. PAX shoves all of these people in one giant building and says “You people there. Be friends.”, and then they are. It’s baffling. It’s insane.

Now I’m not saying that everyone at PAX immediately broke out dancing at random and everyone who meets anyone else stays friends for the rest of their lives, but there’s almost no negativity. People are just accepted, regardless of what they look like or how they came dressed up (which many did) or what group they belonged to. Everyone got tagged as a ‘gamer’ those days and that meant no one was tagged at all. Many of the same reasons people are assholes on the internet were present at the convention. No one knew anyone else and after the three days there no one was ever going to see anyone they didn’t want to again. Hell, even in that building with 75,000 others it’s quite likely you won’t see the same person twice. No one knows anyone else too. After all, it’s not like anyone was wearing a name tag. So there we both have a distinct lack of consequences for hurting some one’s feelings, coupled with anonymity.

But no GIFT.

Why?

And what does this say about the community?

Now I’m not an idiot, I know there are additional factors. Making fun of some one directly in front of you means they can punch you in the face whether they know the name it belongs to or not. I’d say it’s not a huge one though, as gamers aren’t by nature the body-building sort. Is there a change when you can see some one’s face as they get insulted? Bullying exists with that in mind. Is it further reinforcement that you need to distance yourself before you can be hurtful to another person? Is it possible that the gaming community might be one of the nicest out there, just ruined by the fact that the internet lets it become cruel?

I can’t say for certain, but I’d suspect so. If that’s the case however, how do we clean up the problem? It’s no longer a matter of removing or shunning hostile individuals and gaining respect for people, it’s an issue with the medium we communicate. How can we fix that through the interface the internet and games provide for us? I honestly don’t know if we can. Not in every game, not in every facet of the internet.

Doing so was a key part of games becoming equal to things like movies and books, if the folks at Extra Credits are to be given any trust. If we accept that then the future of games and the people who play them could be dubious at best.

How to use Purple Prose effectively?

I bring a much more boring topic today. I'm sorry.

I'd like to talk to you about purple prose, a literary term that's been given to a shockingly large amount of hobby-writers. From here on out referred to as PP because I'm a lazy sod and you can only type those words so many times before they lose all meaning. For those of you uninformed, here's a brief tidbit from mankind's greatest easily accessible resource for trivia;

Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response. ~Wikipedia (who else?)

Now let's throw down the cards. For starters, I despise PP. Or rather it's recently shown up in alarming quantities in books that I despise and it's the closest thing I can find to justify my scorn. Secondly, I apparently am a victim of it's beguiling ways and made a habit of having to prune through my text with great big gardening sheers to try and remedy this. Thirdly, PP is occasionally put into text, as the quote above says, to create a response from the reader, but managing this has been... a hurdle to say the least.

That's where the first sticking point presents itself. It is, by definition, using text so over done that it draws attention to the fact that it's so overly elaborate. This works well if you're trying to represent a character that's heads over heels in love with some one else to the point they've become a bit unbalanced, but can there be other applications? Is the only way this style of writing can be applied when the perspective of the writing is deranged or otherwise in a state that the writing can be used to draw attention to? Does this mean that PP can be useful, but only as a gimmick in the odd paragraph?

Hell if I know. I am trying a few experiments though.

How Canadians write novels.

Purple prose is actually kinda fun to write, you see. It's a hilariously over-wrought description of...well, everything if it gets bad enough, but if you can make it passable in your work you can actually slip a number of critical details into it. Little things about the scenery or people that wouldn't otherwise fit into the narrative. Using PP to set up something that'll become much more prominent or important later one is an idea I've been fiddling with for a while. It effectively hides those few real bits of information in a dump of worthless stuff, making it either the best use of Red Herrings possible or eliminating the need for them all together. I'm not certain which yet.

The big issue is finding a way to incorporate it into a story that doesn't come off as gimmicky, forced, or detract from the bigger picture. Since part of PP is inherently distracting I think it might be impossible to accomplish the last point, but minimizing it's effect should be doable. My best idea is working it into one of the major characters as a trait - perhaps giving perspective to a savant with photographic memory? It'd fit, and if it was a re-occurring perspective it wouldn't be a one-off thing, but rather a part of the story as a whole. Seeing the world through common eyes, and then again through the infinitely more detailed ones of the savant, portrayed basically with PP. Many works of mystery (and every other Law & Order) have characters with acute or different ways of seeing details, but never is the perspective given to them that I've run across. It might be interesting.

I'll try it with a couple short stories, who knows? Maybe I'll even post them here. My dog was never the best critic anyways.

My turn to Wlog

Before we begin, Twoson's theme from Earthbound Listen to it.

So, That Canadian Guy got two posts up before I got one, eh? I'm not surprised every time I've gone to write an introduction post, there's been some problem or another every single time. Of course, it had been too long since the first introduction post for me not to post something of Substance, or so my thinking goes. Alas in 10 days I post nothing

Wait...

Harr, Harr bad joke.

If I can be forgiven for the bad visual pun (warning: more to follow in future posts) then we can get back to my introduction.

Starting from the beginning, I will propose a purpose for this Wlog. Primarily the function is to write and just to write, to get myself to write, to make it easier. As addressed in his previous post this is something that I share with my colleague. As for why there are the two of us we are going to be like workout partners, except for writing and eventually as this becomes more and more regular we will push each other into writing more often and (hopefully) with more depth. Writing for me has a bonus secondary function however, Success.

Or Hopefully. At the moment I am studying Film in University and I was told that if I do not write “[I] Will Fail!” Harsh words, but probably true. I was encouraged to, over the summer to review and analyze whatever I can to sharpen my skills and out of interest. Obviously, the summer is past, but better late than never. I was also told not to focus on just movies, but books, games, music, plays or pretty much anything which works well for me. This also has the bonus of helping me once I’m out of University given my area of study. Even after all that though, I’ll probably focus on Games since I play more than I watch or read or listen.

I am also in hopes that I can write enough about myself, religion, politics and all that stuff so that it doesn’t become to narrow focused on my end. Mind, with two of us I think we’ll be safe. I won't promise to have any content out in any amount of time as I am doomed to fail myself in that regard. I have a large backlog of half-written material that might make it up here since it's just easier to finish than write something new.

Oh, one last thing “Why Wlog“? Pretty simple, the term Blog is a combination of Web and Log and the portmanteau Blog is dumb, especially if we have V(ideo)logs. I just think a web log should be a Wlog and I am a very stubborn person so that‘s what it will be... I guess.

Huskies and writing and stuff

Let's talk about Huskies.

Or is it Husky's? Whatever.

Why should we talk about Husk(y/ies)? For a couple reasons.

First and foremost because I hope to be getting one shortly. This is, I've been lead to believe, a blog. It's meager descriptors include that things are rambled about on it and they presumably come from a person in Canada. I do think I've met the criteria to bring this topic to hand.

Before I dive madly into things about the dogs though I think it's worth mentioning the second reason. This blog was put together on the spur of the moment when I had cobbled together enough courage to make the introduction post. It was assumed (stupidly perhaps) of me that I would follow along and make a post or two every single week regular after that. The theory was something along the lines of once the first one is out, it should be like shattering a damn -- a torrent of pent up rants would just flow from my fingertips like an endless wave of bad water based analogies.

Whoosh? Swoosh? What kind of noise does that even make aside from 'lots'?
 What the hell does this have to do with writing?

Regrettably that was not so. See by now I've halfsies planned out a post about Limbo (an interesting game), another for Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (a fantastic movie) and finally a small tidbit on  The Expendables (a fun movie) -- hell I even began writing a combined post for all three put together. Nothing ever got posted though. I kept peering back at that first post I made and found I couldn't make something comparable in size and thus never tried. Now however I've come up with a solution, one that mirrors the actions of countless guys striving for the unattainable. I'm lowering my standards incredible amounts.


Which is why you can now see another post about, essentially, nothing. I haven't even gotten back on topic about the damn dog I want to buy yet. I'm just going to keep typing until it becomes natural. I still hope to make interesting posts, but that'll happen when my urge to type happily coincides with something interesting going on in the world. All the rest of the time? You'll get whatever thoughts are going through my head. Sometimes in very tiny posts sometimes in bigger less coherent ones like this. It may not be cool, it may not be relevant, but it puts me down at the keyboard and makes me type.









So. Yeah. Uh. That digressed a bit further than I anticipated it. That was meant to be about a single paragraph. Anywho, about them Husk(y/ies) again.

OK. It's now going to be Huskies. Damn it if I'm wrong, I don't care.

I've actually learned a great deal about these dogs in the recent months. It appears they have the odd poor trait, or so I found out when I started telling people that they were the dog I was aiming to nab. I dug up (translation; was forcibly made to read) several books on them before anyone was going to admit the idea wasn't entirely stupid. Amongst their bad traits are an unnerving habit of being able to out think their owners and escape virtually any environment they're put in, a tendency to destroy furniture if not properly trained and the ability to jump up and stick their face in yours to say hello. Personally I've lived with dogs all my life, gone through about a dozen pairs of shoes due to them and them alone and am not in the least bit upset when a dog can bound up and around head height. I appreciate this isn't the case for everyone though, so having a furry ball hurl itself through the air might be a cause for concern for any room mates or guests I may have around. Oh, they also howl. This is considered magnificent and beautiful for dog enthusiasts and a bloody nuisance by all their neighbours.

I've learned how to keep the dog from running madly away, I've learned how to safe guard my stuff and keep the dog entertained so it doesn't want to eat it anyways, and I've even picked up the odd trick to keep even the most excited dog's butt planted firmly on the ground when it would rather be sailing through the air. Now comes the real test; trying it with a new dog. Oh yes, the difference between theory and application. In the next couple weeks I'll be picking up the new puppy, and one can expect me to either post lots about it (yes, including pictures) or to just disappear off the face of the Internet as my time is consumed utterly.

Either way, that's what the future holds -- here's hoping the next post wont be so bloody difficult.

Getting things started

Bravely Sauntering Forward into the Internet

So, it appears the very first thing that struck me after making this was writers block. Thus, I'm going to abuse that as a sort of introduction -- it's not unwarranted, a form of it plays a large part in the creation of this little blog.

You see, I've long since contemplated making some form of blog purely for the joy of rambling. You may have noticed that word up there on the title, rest assure, you will see it quite a few more times. I do that after all; ramble. Usually to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the same room as me when thoughts bounce into my head, occasionally to the dog if that's not the case. I noticed a while back I was essentially blogging without the typing component, vlogging without bothering to put up a camera first. So the idea to simply make the bridge and sit down to make these ramblings more coherent and archived isn't an earth shattering one - indeed, to most of you fine folks on this site it's probably the most natural one.

That's where we get back to writers block.

A large chunk of what I consider writers block isn't merely the inability to get the ball rolling, all of your ideas bundled up behind the looming cliff face of 'what do I say first?', but also the terrible fear of judgement once it's been said. After all, my dog isn't a particularly harsh critic and even if I'm spewing out the most atrocious bile it tends to be content to sit and listen with only the token scratch behind the ears as payment. Furthermore it certainly isn't permanent. Gods, did that concept ever give me pause. Words spoken into the air can be quickly forgotten and hold no weight in the face of the future. Once those words are committed to something that persists and indeed can be viewed and - god forbid - remembered by other people?! Well, it demands a level of quality that I simply didn't have any faith in myself to maintain.

I'll try and go easy on the ass kissing here, but many other individuals maintain blogs with a startling level of devotion and detail that can be truly scary to a person starting out. Sites like the Escapist have turned the process of putting your thoughts out into the world into a thing of business even. Now, I have no illusions (I'm willing to share) of myself ever achieving work by merely telling the world what's going through my head, but just the existence of people who can compounds that demand of quality mentioned above. It's as if the world has shown us what it can produce and is asking for some kind of equal level of work in repayment.

Honestly, my only defense in the face of such is to try my very best to not give a damn. Those of you who have struggled through these few paragraphs should realise by now I have no training in proper structuring. It's a flaw I'm aware of. Some people out there can pull off nothing more than stream of consciousness and make it damn entertaining at the same time. I am not one of those individuals. I originally had ideas for reviews, thoughts, philosophy, not politics (never politics, that tends to be too explosive for me) that I wanted to bring into the light and see what the world thought of me. I still intend to try those things, but I must note first that it'll be a matter of learning. I hope to write for the rest of my life even if it's not in the format of novel or anything that will ever be profitable. To give that some merit I'm going to use this blog to train myself into being a better writer.

Anyone who is brave enough to keep an eye on me as I progress I whole heartily welcome. Though I wont be amazed if that group consists of, now and forever more, largely my dog.