A Fragment of Sky

Strangeness

2007-11-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

Its funny:

I'm sitting at work and checking my email, I can write pages in reply. Explicit, to the point, explanatory. I can resolve problems, attack or defend a position, and I can do so with eloquence. Just off the top of my head, without planning it out beforehand or even creating an outline. Remember in school writing class they would always tell you to do an 'outline'. Pfft. One of the habits that fortunately didn't stick.

I can go into my online gaming bubble and type and type and type until my fingers ache. Explaining. Musing. Theorizing.

I can even type random words into white text-entry boxes and have them come out something like a poem.

And yet?

I feel like everything is part of a whole. I type my nonsense into the "Roleplaying" thread and it just seems...incomplete.

There's still a novel inside me, clawing its way out.

I can feel it.

Actually not bad.

2007-11-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Talisman Online - looks hopelessly disappointing from the website, doesn't it? Add the fact that your character shakes a bit when you move, and you're stuck in a top-down view that can't be changed beyond a certain point, with point/click movement ONLY, and you have a recipe for frustration.

Yet still, it manages to be a hopelessly addicting game with a lot of potential.
This is in limited/open test at the moment, but as it is a free game, its probably something I'll be messing with in my "off-time" (IE, between major MMO releases).

Got myself a tiger mount ;)

More to come...eventually ;P

The Latest Distraction

2007-11-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought I might come and give an update of the goings on. Not that its anything unexpected. Recently, the BETA test for Tabula Rasa ended and now we are in "early start" (Launch is tommorow! ><). I think this game is pretty revolutionary, as far as the MMORPG genre goes - developers are having to try new things as the old things have become pretty stale. An MMOFPS such as this is very refreshing. Whether or not you can kill something is determined by your ability to skillfully control your character, not solely on your equipment, your level, and your dice rolls. Skills are chosen based on what path you choose on the tree, and then again by what you choose to spend points in. Stat points are distributable. The result? You customize who you are pretty completely. Granted, there are some class restrictions, but you don't feel locked in a box as you do with so many recent MMORPGs (LOTRO comes to mind.).

So, as you can imagine, this has been taking up an inordinate amount of my time. I have completed a few of my side projects, though ;) And now I'm here doing an update to the often neglected shadowfade site ;P

These are some screen-cuts from the pre-order beta, I'll have more interesting stuff after I play a bit more I'm sure ;)

Anzha, playing with camera angles in front of the Waypoint.

Burn Fight Kill!

Posing? I guess ><

Sooo ... that's where I'll be. I'm playing on the US-EAST server (umm, Pegasus? Or something? hehe. There's only one, I know it starts with a P...) if anyone would care to join me ;P I like this game in that I feel like I can accomplish something even if I've only got an hour to play. Skilled players are rewarded. I solo'd a level 15 boss at level 11 (took me 20 minutes, but heh). The days of LFG may very well be over....

More to come ;P

Another Day, Another Dollar

2007-09-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I posted anything meaningful ;P A few pictures from whatever online game I'm playing, or a few copypasted joke bulletins acquired from ....wherever. And then for a while, a slow loss of interest came over me. And so many of my friends have asked, "Where are you?". I'm still in the same place. My computer chair hasn't moved more than a few inches in any particular direction ;)

So anyway, I will summarize the goings-on ;P

Currently Playing : Fiesta Open Beta (yes, Fiesta again). Its a free game that is fairly well put together and still somewhat fun by yourself. In fact, its got some great anti-social features (IE, a special title earned for NOT speaking to anyone, the ability to "turn off the world" - all player shops, and player characters (and their spam) VANISHES, allowing you to roam through a lag free world with only the NPCs in it ;) Brilliant addition. Its amazing how many things you notice, that you never noticed before, when the world is turned off. Like a shark swinging back and forth from a pole, for example :

I play on Apoline (less crowded) though if I'd known about the antisocial feature, I guess I could have played on Teva. Ah well :P http://www.outspark.com

Also Currently Playing : Syrnia ( http://www.syrnia.com ).
This is a text-based browser game that is typically best to play while multitasking; everything in Syrnia takes a while to do, but you can do all the usual RPG like things - mine ore, go fishing, make stuff, fight stuff, etc. I wasn't that interested in first, but it grew on me ;P And I have a wonderful clan, Zetsumei. Stay tuned for updates on the Zetsumei website (in production, as it were.) Our forums are located here : http://zetsu.shadowfade.com

When I'm not playing? : I'm sleeping. Seriously. Or reading. I'm rereading Robert R. McCammon's "Swan Song" for the 50th or so time; simply a fascinating book about human nature, told in a very artful, clever, and saddening way - post nuclear America. My "at work" book that I leave here : Re-reading C.S. Friedman's "This Alien Shore," which is probably one of my all time favorite pieces of science fiction. Its just brilliant, I can't even begin to summarize. Read it. Now. Go.
Movies? Just re-watched "The Fountain" again (and again, and again). Not going to start talking about it here, though, or I wont stop ;P

What else? : Well, Katherine & Scott's wedding at the end of October is the only real big social thing I have planned in the forseen future ;P But who knows, some people have a knack for dragging me out of doors, so we'll see. Its less miserable outside so perhaps now you will have more luck ;P

This has been a 5 minute recap of "What I've Been doing." Stay tuned for next time when I begin to examine "What I think about ____________". :) More to come.

Shim

In With the New

2007-09-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

The flowers died. But I suppose, that was to be expected. It really wasn't "me." Besides, my Myspace page is so happy and bubbly that there's really no need to put that sort of illusion on my entire internet presence, now is there? :P

And once again I've wiped the slate clean. Starting with a nice, fresh blank page upon which whatever words are in my brain tend to appear. Hopefully it wont degrade into silliness again ( as it usually does XD). Time will tell, I suppose.

Off for now to dream up something meaningful. Stay tuned.

Shadowfade : The Return

2007-09-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

Behold the test post. And yes, Shadowfade is back.

Warning, unstable page! Still in the process of doing many things, yes yes, and many things may not function. Proceed at your own risk, as it were.

A Fragment of Sky

...stepped through,
the eye of the storm.

behold the world
with a view,

clutching my
fragment of sky...