Chunking Rotations Addendum

Two more observations about my button layouts in Final Fantasy XIV One other layout I use which is specific to the Bard (and the other two physical ranged DPS jobs, the Machinist and the Dancer) has to do with a set of abilities that are named after parts of the body: Head Graze, Leg Graze, […]

Chunking Rotations and Pivoting Thumbs

Using interaction design to customize my gaming experience Amongst players of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) there is a ritual, bordering on being an obsession, of selecting which keys and buttons will invoke your character’s various abilities during gameplay. I would like to use the lens of interaction design to suggest an approach […]

Time skip

Remember at the end of season 3 of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, when it jumped forward “One year later” and then we spent the next half a season learning about what had happened during the skipped time? Yeah so this blog is doing that now. It’s been five-and-a-half years since my last entry, and unsurprisingly, […]

Awesome used bookstores are awesome

Scored a bunch of Darkover books at the inestimable Twice Sold Tales in Capitol Hill, one of my favorite used bookshops from when I lived in Seattle. (In the years since I left they have relocated to, I kid you not, directly across the street from my old apartment. That would’ve been so dangerous during grad school.) […]

Turning to the dark side

Since Mouser acquired sanies lupinus the all-natural way, it only seemed proper to do the same when I decided to take him down the blood-sucking path instead. So he got cured of his lycanthropy just in time for the new moon* and went roaming the dark dark countryside of The Rift. With a bit of luck (and some […]

Master of my own lycanthropy

Also fun: picking up Skyshards in wolfie form.

The Gygax

So a while back we were running vet Wayrest Sewers with our guildies and discussing our roles and the archetypes we each used to guide us in playing our individual characters. After making led to the above funny discovery, the following discussion occurred: And The Gygax was born, to be applied when a group in a game that typically uses the Tank-DPS-Healer […]

Abecean Sea serpents are frickin’ awesome

Most. Awesome. Quest.EVER. Ok ok, maybe I’m indulging in a wee bit of hyperbole, but still: this was a really fun—and quite unexpected!—quest in AD. Good job, designers!

The Pale Senche is dead

Ahab had his whale, Hemingway his rhino; in Greenshade we have a Great White Lion.

The Bloody Sun (1964 original)

Right off the bat, from the very first pages, there’s a noticeable jump in the writing style and improvement to the quality of the storytelling. MZB’s choice to use the second person point-of-view in the prologue is striking and drew me in immediately; then, just when it might have become too much, become too arch and awkward […]