Goin’ to BotCon!!

A friend and fellow Transformer geek’s wife scored some SCHWEET airfare deals, so for $30 roundtrip to LA, I’m going to BotCon. It’s THE convention for transfans. As a plus, I may be able to meet some WoW guildies that I’ve played with for about 4 years, but have never met. Good times.

Every year BotCon has figure exclusives. These are usually just slight retoolings (different head, different weapons, color schemes) of existing figures. I’ve seen the ones offered. Meh. Not going to go for the deluxe boxed theme set, but if I can pick up the regular exclusives,  I might think about it.

Really, though, I’m not looking for anything in particular. I’m more about the experience–first time in LA. But cool lewts would be neat too. Also gonna look for some different beers to take back.

The Upcoming Addiction

I’m a longtime fan of Champions, the pen and paper RPG. It’s just so customizable, yet balanced. The limits are only constrained by your imagination…well, and your math skills. So when I see Cryptic Studios is releasing Champions Online–stoked is a mere understatement. I enjoyed City of Heroes, and it looks to be a better version. Not too surprising since many of the CoH devs are working on it.

NOOOOOOOB Moments: Redridge Night Fever

So now you know how my father-in-law Joe got to Redridge…one keypress of W at a time. Oh, I’m sure there were some A’s and D’s involved but you get what I’m saying.

I happen to pass by his monitors to find that at level 8 (now) somehow he’s made it to the area over by where Redridge becomes the Burning Steppes. He sees a group of four people and shambles over there to say hi, mainly because he’s learning about all these chat channels, and wants to participate. He’s not having much luck though, because:  a) He’s actually using the Say command where he talks “out loud” in the immediate area and not in a zone-wide channel, and  b) They’re Horde.

So here he is, a level 8 and judging from the Hordes’ gear, they’re PvPers, mid-60s to level 70 (max at the time). They can wipe him with a punch, even the priest or warlock. Meanwhile, Joe’s here just inching forward, left, right randomly, and trying to talk to them. They fan around him and…just watch him. For like 5 minutes. They emote, they dance. I tell him the dance emote command and he dances with them. They laugh, pat him and then ride off, waving farewell.

Joe figures out how to turn around and heads back to Elwynn Forest where he gets killed by a level 6 or so murloc, because he’s still trying to chat with people.

Good times.

NOOOOOOOB Moments: Joe’s Got Moves

When talking about how Joe played WoW, the way he moved around must be mentioned. I blame myself.

Most games use either the directional keys on the keyboard (up, down, left, right arrows over by the keypad) or the A W D F keys, and WoW is no exception. You hold down that key and you go in that direction; you can also set it to autorun and steer with the mouse.

I come in from work, and hear deliberate pecking on the keyboard. Joe’s never been a real big typer so I thought he was doing his usual hunt and peck, chatting with someone. But no, he was going to a quest, running down the road since Goldshire had left him no challenges and was nearly there. Apparently both my wife and I forgot to mention the ‘holding down the key to keep moving’ part. He was hitting the W key to go forward. One. Step. At. A. Time.

He was almost to Redridge…when he encountered the Horde for the first time.

NOOOOOOOB Moments: You’ve Got Mail

At 5th level, Joe decided to see what crafting in WoW was all about.

For those not in the know, it’s a very simple process. You get the materials, or mats, in the right quantity, and you make an item which gives you a skillup, advancing your craftsman level by 1. You start off with certain items off the bat, then go pay a trainer to learn more and then learn higher levels of craftsmanship. The mats and their amounts change, but the process remains the same. It requires patience in gathering the materials, or a lot of ingame money to buy the mats off the Auction House, or AH.

We set him up with Blacksmithing and Mining, and looking for the nodes of ore that are scattered around the countryside was great fun for him, as he had figured out that you could go do the quests and look for all the nodes at the same time.

My wife and I both had alts that had mining and as a result had extra ore or metal bars that Joe could use for advancing his blacksmithing. So we sent the mats to Joe’s character via the ingame mail system. Later that day I asked him (over the phone, neither of us were there) if he had gotten the stuff we’d sent him earlier that morning. He said no. Hmmm…it should’ve reached him by now. “Are you sure, Joe?” Click, click, click, click.”Nope, nothing in my bags. I do see an envelope next to my little map though.”

I then explained that you actually had to go get the stuff from the mailbox. “What does a mailbox look like?” I explained that it is usually right next to an inn–there’s one in Goldshire–and it’s a short, rectangular box, and the cursor changes to an envelope when you mouse over it. “Okay, I’m questing now, but I’ll go look for it after that.”

That evening, I asked again about the mats. Somewhat shamefacedly, he admitted that he couldn’t find the mailbox. He found the inn, found the mailbox but that the icon wasn’t there, and he couldn’t get his mail. I told him that he had to be in close range to actually get the mail but you just right-click and it opens up. “Nope, it’s not doing that; I don’t even see the icon. I’m right here at it, right-clicking.”

I went over to where he was playing, and looked at the screen. “Joe, that’s a lightpost.”

NOOOOOOOB Moments!!

noob: (n) an online slang term for a newcomer, or someone with little knowledge of a given activity or topic. Sometimes considered disparaging. See newbie.

noob moment: (phrase) see below.

While I’m specifically talking here about online games, having a noob moment happens to us all be it ingame or in real life (IRL). It’s when an otherwise intelligent and rational person does something really dumb, so much so that you the observer just scratch your head and think, WTF? Like when you look all over the house for the pen that’s in your hand, or can’t find the Christmas presents for your parents…you know, the ones you put in the car the night before so you wouldn’t forget to bring them.

Going back to Joe’s interaction with WoW:

One thing that was kind of cool, kind of creepy was the way that on both accounts Joe made characters that looked like him. He’s not a vain man, so I know it wasn’t deliberate. For the longest time, we both kept those characters in our list for that server.

His first character was a human paladin. With his grey hammer and his mail, he laid waste to the wolves, kobolds and Defias around Northshire Abbey; four legs or two, red or green, nothing was safe from his righteous wrath. When green items dropped, he was so excited, and would equip them, regardless of the armor type.

I asked him how it was going, and he replied that it was all right but it was getting harder to kill things. Looking at his motley assemblage of cloth, mail, and leather, and his grey hammer still equipped, I asked, “Joe, what are you doing with the quest rewards? Why aren’t you using those?”

He replied, “What are quests?”

He was 4th level.

He

Something about Joe

Now, I love my father-in-law. Kind of a gruff but affable man–like a teddy bear with fangs. He has a keen sense of observation–so much so that in his mind, he’s already said what he means to say and is waiting for you. Unfortunately, you’re still waiting for him to actually say it. There’s an awkward pause b/c all this time he’s thinking of the next topic after next, and doesn’t understand why you’ve not replied.

A few years back, Joe came to stay with us, recuperating from a hospital stay and we put him up in our bed; the couch just wouldn’t work, nor the blowup bed. He needed constant monitoring while he was asleep, so my wife–dutiful daughter that she is–moved her gaming PC out to the dining room so she could monitor him from there. So she would go out and farm raid supplies for our guild, and watch him.

Joe could only sleep for a few hours at a time, so inevitably he would come to sit next to her while she was gaming and watch. He would ask questions, make comments. You WoW players know where this is headed. Pretty soon, he made characters on both of our accounts so one of us could play with him. He got better, healthwise, so that he didn’t need constant monitoring, but didn’t need to move; WoW was a perfect distraction. Eventuallly, he moved on to other things like getting out for fresh air and reading books, watching movies. But while he played WoW, he gave us some comedy gold. The next few blogs I’ll be making will be about Joe’s reaction and interaction with the game.

Who should watch the Watchmen

I watched it, though I confess I didn’t expect much from it. I figured it would have nice graphics (it did), and hoped that it would be a faithful adaption (it was, I believe), but I wasn’t very rabid about it. Still, I did expect it to be an adult audience experience. Which leads me to this recounting…

We went to the IMAX in Tulsa, OK last weekend; it wasn’t a true IMAX experience but the 35mm film shown in the theatre. Still worth it to go; we’ll definitely be hitting it for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen! Anyway, we’re all getting settled into our seats, when we notice in the row behind/above us (amphitheatre seating, don’tcha know), some doofus with his five kids, the average age of which is 8, certainly no more than ten years old. Jeebus.

The kids were well-behaved, although maybe shell-shocked may be a more apt descriptor. I’m torn, however: On the one hand, I’m laughing hysterically on the inside, snide giggling at the questions this dumbass will surely be getting on the ride home about…ahem, shall we say the more mature elements of the film, and I’m not just talking about the sexual elements. On the other, I’m shaking my head at the utter stupidity of this moron. I just can’t get a bead on why he would take such young children to this movie. Did he see the previews and think, oooh superhero movie! Good movie for kids!? Pretty damn clear he didn’t read the series or trade book…or did he and think, my kids need to be exposed to this. i need to have them ask me questions about frontal nudity, about incredibly violent acts, about sex. I’ll take them to a movie and see what stirs their imagination.

I do think that parents should have those discussions; these things are in the world, and hiding them from that is not the way to go. I’m just not sure having such young children watch The Watchmen is the proper way to do it. And I’ll lay odds that idiot didn’t put as much thought into this as I have pondering the reasoning for his actions.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

No, we’ve not forgotten about the comic. We’ve just been pwned by real life. There was the ice storm in January, for one; you’d think we’d have recovered from that by now. The roads are clear, we have continuous power and other utilities. The trees and the branches are just going to take a looooong time to fully clean up. We’re honestly not equipped for this, as an area.

Greg and I were thinking alike these past few weeks, as we both decided to get the crud that’s been floating around. I think he got a stronger touch of it than I did. I just felt miserable; like the flu, but without any aches and pains, thankfully.

I think we’ll be bringing in an inker and colorist as well; me being colorblind really puts me out of consideration for the latter.

An ordinary, average guy

The iPhone being my latest obsession, I’m constantly finding new things to do with it. Or at least have the option to do with it.

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve already set up a sync’d calendar for free using Google Sync. I was able to get all of my wife’s contacts and calendar from her Blackberry, and her picts, so she’s happy. I can bank with it, though I mainly just use it to check balance. I have the iPhone app for NPR. Greg’s wife turned me on to Zenbe, which is a syncable listing app, so my wife and I can make lists then we both have them. Haven’t looked much into Stanze, the book reading app, or Kindle, but I’m sure I will once I go on a trip. I watch Woot! The Apple Remote app lets me control my iTunes music server. I have a Flashlight, a Mahjongg game and even a StPatty’s Day app for our annual Pub Crawl downtown (as well as a drinking game app, heh heh). Pandora is fun. I do NOT-and do not plan to-do Facebook.

Regular stuff, I know, and that’s my point. It lets me do all these simple things and yet it’s fun. Now if I could just play the AH from my iPhone…