I've been wanting to do this post or a week now, but work and procrastination has continually obstructed any attempt. That's ok, I'm doing it now so that makes it all better, I hope. Unfortunately this short story is going to be of the dreadfully common sci fi genre. I'm pretty sure every teenager went through that phase where they wrote a 214 000 word scifi/fantasy novelette. Fortunately for me, the floppy I used to store the story on became corrupted as did my dream of ever becoming a writer (well apart from the fact that my father seemed to think that "writer" and "homosexual" shared the same definition in the dictionary).
On the plus side though, I have learnt a thing or two since high school even though I haven't written anything but laboratory reports and technically inclined essays since. And that little nifty tool is to write about emotional responses instead of just a linear course of actions by two dimensional characters. And so without any further adieu, allow me to introduce you to the gman's first online short story...
Final Results
death, retreat, kill them all, gushing..blood, severed...heads, Victory
..and then a commanding voice as if shouted across galaxies: THAT WILL DO
He opened his eyes slowly. It was as if sandbags were weighing them down. His dream was still real in his head and playing across his mind haphazardly like a film reel with coffee stains blurring out every second frame. 8 hours... He couldn't remember all of it, nobody in their right sane mind could. But he definitely remembered the recurring themes throughout.
The deaths... billions of living beings slaughtered by his order. You can't empathise with that, and you cannot mourn for millions... sooner or later they all become a statistic and the only death you can empathise with is the death of your own compassion.
The retreats...Sometimes you had no choice but to flee. Strategically it sometimes made the best sense, but try convincing your comrades that. Every retreat he partook he had to fight the rising tsunami of hopelessness and humiliation that became pandemic across the ranks. It was infectious and the general had no immunity to the plague.
"Kill them all," a phrase uttered so callously by himself so many times. When it wasn't him but the enemy doing the retreating he would scheme to turn the retreat into a rout. Masochism would turn to sadism as he avenged his own emotions and projected them on others. Viciously his heart aligned with his mind, for it always made good sense to hunt down the enemy when they are out of position and often times out of hope. Always, his men an extension of himself, echoed his insatiable bloodlust.
And the gushing blood... he was no stranger to the battlefield. Sometimes it wasn't even red; without oxygen blood is blue and when there is no red blood cells left flowing in your blood then it doesn't even take a color. You still know what it is, though, the lifeforce leaking out of the body.
Severed heads kept cropping up time and time again. Why tribal and warrior cultures seemed to take pride in putting heads on sticks, he did not know. But it enraged him and helped turn those millions of casualties on both sides into something... justifiable.
And finally the words victory and defeat were engraved inside his skull. Nobody ever had uttered those words. It was either his advisors informing him the "opposition had been killed with no survivors" or "we have captured the enemy general" or something along those lines. And every now and then, he slipped up and would pay for his strategical and tactical errors and would find a blade at his throat or a projectile weapon aimed at his heart and in a flash he was somewhere else commanding his men again in a new battle.
He had forgotten how many times he had died. In some ways he woke up being numb to the concept. He was afraid of death now though. Once upon a time he wasn't. He was a young zealot like the men he commanded in his dreams, it was sweet and fitting to die for your people. But now... it just scared him... just. scared. him.
He shut it out of his mind, with the rest of his dream and anchored himself back in reality; his eyes trying to convince him of what his mind could not. His surroundings were sterile, metallic and emotionally neutral. It didn't help, but then his eyes suddenly met those of his tormentor. The man responsible for the lucid dreams.
He lost himself in those ancient sapphire eyes and felt waves of admiration and pride gush over him in torrents. He was lost at sea.
"Congratulations"
The commanding compliment felt like a punch to the head. It didn't hurt though, it just put his emotions into a coma while his brain caught up.
"Your training is complete, Executor"
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Monday, 7 November 2011
Monday, 31 October 2011
Stronghold 3 -Not fun for me nor fun for thee...
So Jess, did you really think that last post was a declaration of me making socially-relavent-to-15-year old girls's posts?
BAHAHA
Nope that post was just Chuck Testa.
But I digress. the point is that I decided to write about what I know, and what I know is a small niche of RTS games. Last week I was silly enough to waste 50 dollars of my pitifully easily earnt cash on a game by the name of Stronghold 3. I was hoping it would be as good as it's ancient ancestor "Stronghold".
I was wrong... But to be fair it had high expectations to live up to.
The original stronghold was the first of it's kind. A medieval castlebuilding game with economic, military and aesthetic aspects of it. In free build mode you could run your castle like a medieval game of the sims, keeping peasants happy, or sad, building a nice big castle or a crappy castle with walls in awkward places. Absolute freedom. In economic missions you utilised the best tools medieval lords had at their disposal to ascertain a strong economy; food (by far the most effective; nothing motivates peasants like food) , religion, booze, torturing devices, dancing bears, highly variable tax rates and a rapidly expanding ghetto far away from the castle in a swamp because you didn't have enough room to fit all the peasants houses in the inner bailey.
And in the military missions you got to play with the most horrific yet fantastic killing machines they had at the time. Ballistae, catapults, trebuchets, crossbows, killing pits, mangonels, dogs of war and my personal favourite: burning oil. There were two delivery methods for burning oil; getting engineers to pour it from atop the ramparts or using archers with flaming arrows to light up pitch ditches. I preferred the pitch ditches.
The best aspect of Stronghold though was the story. Unfortunately computer games have a nasty habit of using monkeys with typewriters to write their plot arcs.Stronghold seems to have used regular humans on typewriters for their story. It's a classic tale of taking revenge in the midst of civil war. You play a medieval lord whose father died defending the king when he was kidnapped in a nasty cocktail of foreign invasion mixed with local treachery. The new regent to the throne is none other than the knight who killed your old man. You start with a hunting band of archers but by the end of the game command a whole army as the peasants you free from the lords you kill, mistake your thirst for bloody vengeance as an honorable quest to liberate the land and return it to the rightful divine rule of the king.
The story is rather empowering and is free from some of the other nastier tropes that plague modern games.
Stronghold 3's story was disapointing from the start. In all fairness though it was because my expectations were high. All the trailers were narrated by the "Wolf", the knight whose revenge you sought in the original stronghold and end up killing. I was willing to forego the implausibility of Wolfie surviving a sword in his stomach and a 50 ft fall off his keep under the pretension that I would be playing as the Wolf in his quest for vengeance in a glorious new segment in this saga of vendetta.
Sadly, you play that same character you did before but now he is playing the part of a typical goody two shoes. I wish the writers got their facts right. Anyone who knows their history knows that knights were not so holy and righteous and there certainly isn't anything chivalrous about rape (which was a universal activity in war amongst all soldiers).
Knights and lords had the added benefit of being able to legally rape women in peacetime too. If you don't believe me then go look up "droit de seigneur".
So apparently Wolfie has a new army and is terrorising the country again. How he managed to rise up from the grave and summon an army when he is universally disliked by his own countrymen and lost his treasury when he "died", I do not know.
On a positive note though, the story is definitely an improvement on "Stronghold 2" which had 2 bit graphics for cutscenes and characters so one dimensional that the 2 bit graphics described their personality frighteningly well.
Furthermore they did get the economic gameplay right. It has just the right amount of complexity and depth, nothing more. The military gameplay is stupid though; since when could men-at-arms kill archers on 20m towers with a thrown spear? And apparently archers can do similar gravity defying tricks. Of course it makes sense that archers could hit men on the walls, but some towers were too high to hit. Hence why they were built in the first place; so the defender could take pot shots at the attackers who couldn't hit them save with siege equipment.
The missions aren't too bad. They require time and patience. If you do not have any patience then don't bother playing them because you may find yourself vexed at losing missions for stupid reasons (eg gravity defying arrows). But if you can happily sit down and analyse and plan then this game is for you. Because rest assured, where there is a will and a brain there is definitely a way. And seeing your enemies fly off the walls with fragments of crenelations like shrapnel from your catapults?... well... that should be reward enough for your efforts.
BAHAHA
Nope that post was just Chuck Testa.
But I digress. the point is that I decided to write about what I know, and what I know is a small niche of RTS games. Last week I was silly enough to waste 50 dollars of my pitifully easily earnt cash on a game by the name of Stronghold 3. I was hoping it would be as good as it's ancient ancestor "Stronghold".
I was wrong... But to be fair it had high expectations to live up to.
The original stronghold was the first of it's kind. A medieval castlebuilding game with economic, military and aesthetic aspects of it. In free build mode you could run your castle like a medieval game of the sims, keeping peasants happy, or sad, building a nice big castle or a crappy castle with walls in awkward places. Absolute freedom. In economic missions you utilised the best tools medieval lords had at their disposal to ascertain a strong economy; food (by far the most effective; nothing motivates peasants like food) , religion, booze, torturing devices, dancing bears, highly variable tax rates and a rapidly expanding ghetto far away from the castle in a swamp because you didn't have enough room to fit all the peasants houses in the inner bailey.
And in the military missions you got to play with the most horrific yet fantastic killing machines they had at the time. Ballistae, catapults, trebuchets, crossbows, killing pits, mangonels, dogs of war and my personal favourite: burning oil. There were two delivery methods for burning oil; getting engineers to pour it from atop the ramparts or using archers with flaming arrows to light up pitch ditches. I preferred the pitch ditches.
 |
| Boiling oil was not nearly as popular though, as boiling water, hot sand and whatever else you had lying around... I'm not joking, this is actually what they did in those times. |
The best aspect of Stronghold though was the story. Unfortunately computer games have a nasty habit of using monkeys with typewriters to write their plot arcs.Stronghold seems to have used regular humans on typewriters for their story. It's a classic tale of taking revenge in the midst of civil war. You play a medieval lord whose father died defending the king when he was kidnapped in a nasty cocktail of foreign invasion mixed with local treachery. The new regent to the throne is none other than the knight who killed your old man. You start with a hunting band of archers but by the end of the game command a whole army as the peasants you free from the lords you kill, mistake your thirst for bloody vengeance as an honorable quest to liberate the land and return it to the rightful divine rule of the king.
The story is rather empowering and is free from some of the other nastier tropes that plague modern games.
Stronghold 3's story was disapointing from the start. In all fairness though it was because my expectations were high. All the trailers were narrated by the "Wolf", the knight whose revenge you sought in the original stronghold and end up killing. I was willing to forego the implausibility of Wolfie surviving a sword in his stomach and a 50 ft fall off his keep under the pretension that I would be playing as the Wolf in his quest for vengeance in a glorious new segment in this saga of vendetta.
Sadly, you play that same character you did before but now he is playing the part of a typical goody two shoes. I wish the writers got their facts right. Anyone who knows their history knows that knights were not so holy and righteous and there certainly isn't anything chivalrous about rape (which was a universal activity in war amongst all soldiers).
Knights and lords had the added benefit of being able to legally rape women in peacetime too. If you don't believe me then go look up "droit de seigneur".
So apparently Wolfie has a new army and is terrorising the country again. How he managed to rise up from the grave and summon an army when he is universally disliked by his own countrymen and lost his treasury when he "died", I do not know.
On a positive note though, the story is definitely an improvement on "Stronghold 2" which had 2 bit graphics for cutscenes and characters so one dimensional that the 2 bit graphics described their personality frighteningly well.
Furthermore they did get the economic gameplay right. It has just the right amount of complexity and depth, nothing more. The military gameplay is stupid though; since when could men-at-arms kill archers on 20m towers with a thrown spear? And apparently archers can do similar gravity defying tricks. Of course it makes sense that archers could hit men on the walls, but some towers were too high to hit. Hence why they were built in the first place; so the defender could take pot shots at the attackers who couldn't hit them save with siege equipment.
The missions aren't too bad. They require time and patience. If you do not have any patience then don't bother playing them because you may find yourself vexed at losing missions for stupid reasons (eg gravity defying arrows). But if you can happily sit down and analyse and plan then this game is for you. Because rest assured, where there is a will and a brain there is definitely a way. And seeing your enemies fly off the walls with fragments of crenelations like shrapnel from your catapults?... well... that should be reward enough for your efforts.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Yet Another Off-Topic Post
A universal trait in humans, or at least the sane ones is that everyone subconsciously or consciously attempts to achieve social homeostasis. Everyone wants to be in a tribe where they fit in.
That tribe may be your party hard friends that you go out clubbing with every Friday night, or your wow-friends, or your co-workers, peers or maybe just your family.
There is usually some prejudice involved in these tribes though as they subscribe to similar beliefs and ideals. Which is why I never tell girls in real life I play computer games and also why in job interviews I pretend that I do professional wrestling, rock climbing, sky diving etc
The hardest time I have ever had trying to convince my superiors and co workers that I was truly a member of their "tribe" was when I worked in construction. I would have had an easier time fitting in if I just had a lobotomy.
So when I woke up today, a bright and sunny Sunday, at 4pm to a raucous of folks who don't share my interest of pwning noobs, my natural reaction was to roll over and try to get some more naptime in before dinner.
My ex was also there which is completely irrelevant to this post because she might be reading this.
When I finally decided to get up I had a brief conversation with a WOW fan who tried to hook me up to EVE. I steered the conversation to the promotion of esports in general. To everyone else, it looked like we were nerding it up, all smiles and cheer but in reality I was swallowing an immense welling of bitterness, rage and disgust.
As a competitive gamer, one of our "tribal" prejudices is that "casual gamers r fgs lol". I cannot fathom why anyone would get entertained by killing pigs in the forest when you can methodically destroy an army utilising every little teaching of Sun Tzu using only your hands to ensure that every command is crisp and perfectly executed like a machine. And against a human opponent who is trying the exact same thing against you.
I am of course neglecting the other competitive gamers out there; the first person shooters. I bear no grudge against them, I could never do what they do. But at least they have that drive for perfection. I respect that.
In my competitive game of choice though I face a new problem. I am a rank number one gold scrub and I don't want to play for fear of losing my rank. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's just a game right?
The irony is that, if I was losing a ton of games I would play more. But alas I have status to defend.
Another interesting thing is I had a falling out last week with an sc2 friend. Her macro was terrible. She wasn't making enough workers in our games and when her response to me pointing it out was apathy. I couldn't talk to her on skype after that. I dc'd and logged out of sc2. I was so angry. Not building workers is a cardinal sin in sc2. You go to hell for not building workers.
But worse was my anger at myself for taking 2 weeks of playing with her to realize that I was carrying her. Carrying her like a baby. But I was too focused on my own play to realize she consistently took 10 minutes to get a measly 30 scv's.
We haven't played with each other since but I did make up with her. 8 hour skype conversations can do that to a man. Hell, boobs and a good facebook profile can do that to a man.
That tribe may be your party hard friends that you go out clubbing with every Friday night, or your wow-friends, or your co-workers, peers or maybe just your family.
There is usually some prejudice involved in these tribes though as they subscribe to similar beliefs and ideals. Which is why I never tell girls in real life I play computer games and also why in job interviews I pretend that I do professional wrestling, rock climbing, sky diving etc
The hardest time I have ever had trying to convince my superiors and co workers that I was truly a member of their "tribe" was when I worked in construction. I would have had an easier time fitting in if I just had a lobotomy.
So when I woke up today, a bright and sunny Sunday, at 4pm to a raucous of folks who don't share my interest of pwning noobs, my natural reaction was to roll over and try to get some more naptime in before dinner.
My ex was also there which is completely irrelevant to this post because she might be reading this.
When I finally decided to get up I had a brief conversation with a WOW fan who tried to hook me up to EVE. I steered the conversation to the promotion of esports in general. To everyone else, it looked like we were nerding it up, all smiles and cheer but in reality I was swallowing an immense welling of bitterness, rage and disgust.
As a competitive gamer, one of our "tribal" prejudices is that "casual gamers r fgs lol". I cannot fathom why anyone would get entertained by killing pigs in the forest when you can methodically destroy an army utilising every little teaching of Sun Tzu using only your hands to ensure that every command is crisp and perfectly executed like a machine. And against a human opponent who is trying the exact same thing against you.
I am of course neglecting the other competitive gamers out there; the first person shooters. I bear no grudge against them, I could never do what they do. But at least they have that drive for perfection. I respect that.
In my competitive game of choice though I face a new problem. I am a rank number one gold scrub and I don't want to play for fear of losing my rank. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's just a game right?
The irony is that, if I was losing a ton of games I would play more. But alas I have status to defend.
Another interesting thing is I had a falling out last week with an sc2 friend. Her macro was terrible. She wasn't making enough workers in our games and when her response to me pointing it out was apathy. I couldn't talk to her on skype after that. I dc'd and logged out of sc2. I was so angry. Not building workers is a cardinal sin in sc2. You go to hell for not building workers.
But worse was my anger at myself for taking 2 weeks of playing with her to realize that I was carrying her. Carrying her like a baby. But I was too focused on my own play to realize she consistently took 10 minutes to get a measly 30 scv's.
We haven't played with each other since but I did make up with her. 8 hour skype conversations can do that to a man. Hell, boobs and a good facebook profile can do that to a man.
Monday, 8 August 2011
This post is off-topic because I am lazy and apathetic.
Just like the other 99% of the human race I guess.
Actually I will give one insightful comment on political affairs: "All you rioters in London need to calm the fuck down". There I said it. I'm all for ochlochratic uprisings but not when it's just an excuse to go looting. Go play play an mmorpg if you want to go looting.
Speaking of games, heres the games I have been playing of late:
Civilization 5. A highly entertaining game for me, if a little bit time consuming. My only complaint is that after turn 1000 on the biggest map size on marathon speed, it gets a bit laggy on my computer. I recently one a game as ghandhi via diplomatic victory, rather fitting really. Nevermind the ~300 cities I razed to the ground to make room for my infinite city sprawl cities that fed the economy I needed to bribe the city states to vote for me.
Empire Total War - which I would rate higher than civ5 just simply because of the epic infantry and artillery battles you can have. Unfortunately it lags out on desktop after a while too. I recently almost won a game as Russia but then just before I invaded the Mahratta confederacy unleashed its Indian computer hax and my game kept freezing at the exact same turn I my armies were poised to descend from the recently conquered persian provinces. I just needed one more territory to win.
Incidentally Russa is a bear if you can industrialise it. I had as many universities as fingers pumping out that tech and couldnt spend all my money if I tried. Rebellion was a constant problem though, so I had to have a revolution. Rather tragic really, I much preferred the Tsarist Russian flag over the republic version.
And of course Starcraft 2. My favourite game. Only thing that makes me sad is the fact that I'm still a puny gold scrub after all this time. I swear the ladder is evolving. Every time I get better, in macro, micro or strategy, all the other goldies get better too. It makes me sad. If only more casual gamers played sc2, then they could fill up bronze, silver and gold leagues and I could actually get promoted.
Still, it's an epic game. The ultimate battle of wits and mental faculty... and fast hands (ironically the same skills necessary to keep one's girlfriend happy).
Finally, on the entertainment indulgement list is a tv series. Last week, in between sleeping, eating and pretending to do stuff I finally gave the Game of Thrones a shot. I enjoyed it. If you have seen it then I heartily encourage you to play the game of thrones rpg too. Here's the link:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6579356/game-of-thrones-rpg
Actually I will give one insightful comment on political affairs: "All you rioters in London need to calm the fuck down". There I said it. I'm all for ochlochratic uprisings but not when it's just an excuse to go looting. Go play play an mmorpg if you want to go looting.
Speaking of games, heres the games I have been playing of late:
Civilization 5. A highly entertaining game for me, if a little bit time consuming. My only complaint is that after turn 1000 on the biggest map size on marathon speed, it gets a bit laggy on my computer. I recently one a game as ghandhi via diplomatic victory, rather fitting really. Nevermind the ~300 cities I razed to the ground to make room for my infinite city sprawl cities that fed the economy I needed to bribe the city states to vote for me.
 |
| Gotta love "dipomacy". |
Empire Total War - which I would rate higher than civ5 just simply because of the epic infantry and artillery battles you can have. Unfortunately it lags out on desktop after a while too. I recently almost won a game as Russia but then just before I invaded the Mahratta confederacy unleashed its Indian computer hax and my game kept freezing at the exact same turn I my armies were poised to descend from the recently conquered persian provinces. I just needed one more territory to win.
Incidentally Russa is a bear if you can industrialise it. I had as many universities as fingers pumping out that tech and couldnt spend all my money if I tried. Rebellion was a constant problem though, so I had to have a revolution. Rather tragic really, I much preferred the Tsarist Russian flag over the republic version.
And of course Starcraft 2. My favourite game. Only thing that makes me sad is the fact that I'm still a puny gold scrub after all this time. I swear the ladder is evolving. Every time I get better, in macro, micro or strategy, all the other goldies get better too. It makes me sad. If only more casual gamers played sc2, then they could fill up bronze, silver and gold leagues and I could actually get promoted.
Still, it's an epic game. The ultimate battle of wits and mental faculty... and fast hands (ironically the same skills necessary to keep one's girlfriend happy).
Finally, on the entertainment indulgement list is a tv series. Last week, in between sleeping, eating and pretending to do stuff I finally gave the Game of Thrones a shot. I enjoyed it. If you have seen it then I heartily encourage you to play the game of thrones rpg too. Here's the link:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6579356/game-of-thrones-rpg
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