The Day That The World Broke Down

Four! Four years! Ah ah ah.

Yeah, it has been that long. New record I suppose. And a lot has happened(but hey, it’s been four years) since I wrote some stuff up here and decided to post something. So, not expecting anyone to read this.

But yeah, some things that are on my mind, LARP, Home, Sickness, D&D & music(obviously).
I’ll touch those in the order I want, but music will be at the bottom(as always) and feel free to turn them tunes up while you read the rest.

Oh, and this one will be a read more thingy, just so my frontpage isn’t YUUGE 😉
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Chronically being on the Wrong Side of the Thrift Shop

Today I am going to rant/try to get you to get on a game.
Last week I discovered this beautiful gem called Chronicles of Elyria. A game that has progressive research, deep immersion and permadeath.
The game drops you in an unknown world playing human like Mann, or rather, their souls. Like Ark this game is persistent(as in, your character doesn’t vanish upon logging out, it will actually be taken over by an AI(you can give tasks to it) until you log in) and as such you’ll need things like food, water, shelter and the gods know what more.
Your character will age and eventually die. You are more physically capable when you are young then when you are old, but old age comes with wisdom and as such you are better at the mental stuff of life. You also want to get a family going, which helps you in your next life(s), with finance, resources and getting back to life. Didn’t I mention that? If you die you have to do this spirit walking, the younger you are, the longer the time you have, and family gives you a reason to live and thus extend that meter a bit. So yeah, that’s the game in a very tiny nutshell, you can read more about it here, and even more about it here.
And I am extremely excited about it.
Not so much because of what I named(and really, it does no justice), but more so because I thought of a game like this way back when I first heard of The Sims 2(yes, that game). The game was described as new, progressive and able to live lives from a broad view. That was somewhere in 2003-4. The Sims 2 badly dissapointed me(though, was still enjoyable) because of the things I had dreamed up about that game.

What had I dreamt up? Well, in my mind you could go anywhere you wanted and you could discover things, even new technology. Now, from there(really liking this concept in my head) I expanded upon it when I heard bits and pieces about Spore(it was announced in 2005), namely the parts of being able to piece things together and make new technology happen and progress from the Stone Age all the way up to modern times. I dreamt that there would be this big MMO where players would be free to do what they wanted, and started in(or around) the Stone Age. Progression was up to them. Literally. You wanted bronze swords? Go find, mine and process Tin and Copper and figure out the right mixture to get Bronze, then fiddle with that until you’d get a Bronze Sword. All the while you’d need to survive as well, and others would most likely be jealous of you, etc. Point was, progress could be hard to do. (oh, and all the things would be player created, via a similar interface spore had, some shapes you put together to make item X, which you can use to assemble item Y, and so on and so forth. No pre-made shit from the devs)
Chronicles of Elyria does not do this exactly, however, it DOES keep research in, with which you progress. And it does let you make a Dynasty over your lives(your soul travels to a new vessel when the old one decides to break down permanently). And the best part? No levels, EVERYTHING is skillbased, like it should. A new skilled player can still poke an experienced lesser skilled player full of holes, very much unlike most other MMO’s where a lvl 90 laughs so hard at the level 50 trying to hit him.

 

It’s a very ambitious project, which is already 8 years in the making(albeit with a very small team most of that time), but it has already reached it’s goal. And for my sanity’s sake I hope they succeed in bringing this beast to surface and rock the world. I want my dream to be truly realized by some smart-ass dev and loose myself properly in that game and build myself from stone age to modern age and beyond. And SoulBound Studios(creators of Chronicles of Elyria) has added to that dream; I now want to build a family alongside that progress as well, myself reincarnating every so often to view the progress to new eyes and add to it.
And only for that I wish to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

 

Musica Maestro!

First of we start a bit dolente(sad that is 😉 )with Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch. I really must warn you here, this thing get’s to me, but is so powerful.

Second of is a popsong from yesteryear, Thrift Shop by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Third off is Bliss by Muse

The Goldeneyed Nexus that Danced The Night Away with a Firestarter

Another blog. I hear you think; OH MY WORD?! So Soon?! LIES! LIES I TELLS YA!
But no, it is a blog. not a lie(although there may or may not be a lie hidden in this here text somewhere.

So, LARP. (Always a nice subject to start of with)
I have recently decided to cut down on LARP a bit, I lost a bit of my enthusiasm for it.
That combined with a few other things lead to me not going to the coming KoD. Of course, seeing the universe loves me the way it does, it turned out (and pretty much right after the decision being made) that this may be the last KoD.
After a lot of thought after that(and rechecking a few things) I still won’t go, albeit more of the other things rather then wanting to. As for spoilers; I will reveal a thing or two in my next blog(seeing the event still has to take place, and saying a few of those things will be spoiling some of the fun of my readers who still go there).

As for D&D(or rather Tabletop RPG as I should call them); A few new developments.
First off is that the story of Harak and his minions companions is taking off, with us suddenly having to arrange things we haven’t had the need before. Which is really a nice change, and a challenge(for a slightly Excel nerd as I am developing into(thanks all those lists I make at work)).
This resulted in a nice semi-automated book-gobbler. A bit of background on this: In the world we play there are libraries, those have books(duh) which are autogenerated by the DM which gives us a few things to learn asides our level progression. He(and we) found that it was really neat. The only problem with the lists is that they are neatly delivered as a text block, where we like a neat spreadsheet with the data(and some of it at that) nicely sorted and filterable.
That is where the book-gobbler comes in, it converts the text blocks into excel rows with the information we want. If anyone is interested I could do a small explanation on how it works and such.

Beside Harak in D&D 4th Edition I am soon starting with 2 other characters:
Druss, an Aasimar Cleric in the Pathfinder setting.
Goric I Goronthal, (he’s back!) a Dwarven Wizard in the D&D 5th Edition.

Druss(I forgot his lastname) will be a new challenge for me as I have never played a cleric(I am disregarding that one stint, that character is dead to me) and never played Pathfinder(although I do have some experience in D&D 3.5). So I am nervously excited for this one. It will also be a mostly unknown party for me(well, I know the folks, but I have never played Tabletop RPGs with them) save for 1. We will be twin brothers that set out into the world for reason X, so here goes!

Goric is back after being stalled in a new form.
This time he will be a more Urban Dwarf(DM approved subvariant of dwarf, which sacrifices some wisdom for some intelligence(and slightly breaks with tradition)) which gets a +1 to Intelligence and Wisdom instead of a +2 to Wisdom.
The world this time will be the World Capital City of Nexus, a city of the size that baffles the mind, pretty much a country of it’s own. With all it’s associated problems. And that is pretty much all I know of that, so far(the DM is still writing)

And now, music!
I picked some nice music(if I say so myself) for you all to listen to:
Dance the Night Away – The Mavericks

Goldeneye – Tina Turner

Firestarter – Torre Florim

The Nexus – Amaranthe

The island where I can’t sleep without that girl I met before

I think I did me a new record. Well over 1,5 years.
Oh well, congratulations to anyone that stuck around for this long. No really, I mean it.

I don’t really know why I don’t update this much, must be something about me I suppose, that or just not a lot to write about(or simple forgetfulness).

Anyways, let’s finish up some things I talked about earlier.
First off, Booyah. My character there(Tahn) is long dead. He never made the next event, but then, I suppose that is what happens when you piss off some high and mighty boss like person.
What happened is that Tahn was ‘summoned'(involuntarily) to the father of some runt the group he supposedly led killed. Turned out he was an Emperor of sorts, oops. So far nothing wrong. He was ‘tasked’ with killing a guy Tahn already heavily disliked, so far still nothing too bad.
By doing this he would ‘join’ his party and gain some powers, didn’t want that but eh. The kicker comes when he was forced to kneel. Duerghars DO NOT KNEEL unless out of respect, and he was forced by the Emperor’s Mistress, bad move.
So, I did what every sensible Duerghar would do, I asked for an audience with the person I was supposed to kill, letting him know I was tasked to do so.
It ended up as Parkinglot Plot(Also see: Khaladani), which is to say very epic. The next day I was singled out, the attackers where after me I think, the chanting of my name might have given it away. I believe I forgot to mention that one of the rewards was being made the Supreme General of the Emperor’s forces.
And so died Tahn of House Porfier, seventh son of Reof, Seventh son of Eler, Son of Ovyr, Son of Dair, Son of Tol. He even got to say goodbye to his wife, whom he remembered by now. His last words being ‘Goodbye my Love, my wife’

Second off: KoD.
My character there, now named Amund Geber, still lives, miraculously, and is focusing more and more on magic research. Not much to say on that department.(mostly cause of spoilers about things 😉 )

Third: Games!
So recently Fallout 4 was released, and I’ll let my steam hours talk for me:
Fallout 4
Don’t think I have to go on about how awesome this game is and what it let’s you do with wandering around a post-apocalyptic world building settlements and choosing your own look, now with the option of playing a voiced female protagonist!

Beside that I still play a game of Battlefield 4 every now and then, and some Ark: Survival Evolved. Both of which are very enjoyable

Und now, musica Meastro!
Isla Bonita – Twilight Guardians, nice metal cover:

I can’t sleep without you – Golden Earring, nice raw voice;

I never met a girl like you before – Edwyn Collins, classic:

Pumpin’ Irony – Blues Saraceno, for when you feel like being a Bad Ass:

The Wanderer – Dion, totally not chosen because it is the title track of Fallout 4, no siree!

Feeling a bit Voodoo

So, not really much to talk about.
Life goes on, and so do I. Whether I want it or not.

Mainly wrote this little thing for the music, cause I have 2 beauts I don’t want to withold from y’all!

 

First one is by some folks featured in a post 2 down from this one. Street Corner Symphony.
This time with a little bit less a capella, and a touch of studio, the result is a song I am a sucker for, no excuses.
Here is Voodoo!

 

The second one is Muse, an old favourite band of mine. Had forgotten about them, but like with all good things, it keeps coming back.
I picked out their cover from Nina Simone’s Feeling Good:

As a special mention, I would like to put forward Michael Bublé’s version as well.

Furthermore, just some music:
Something always picking me up, Erutan – You’re not alone:

And lastly a German song, I don’t get half of it, but I just like the song, the bits I do get and the general feeling of it:
Adel Tawil – Lieder