Hey all,
Chinese New Year is around the corner.
It is one of those rare times in the year where work grinds to a halt in Singapore, and the festive mood takes over the Chinese majority. Same for us gamers. We will be taking a break for the next week, but might squeeze in a Saturday meet-up session just before Reunion Dinner on Sunday.
And honestly, we might even be able to meet up during the late night of the first day of Chinese New Year, as the modern Chinese nowadays tend to celebrate more on the first weekend of the Chinese New Year instead, with no work the next day (Sunday) to dampen their buoyant mood. (Read: they get to gamble/drink until the wee hours of the morning, and get to sleep like a pig the next day.)
This break will allow me to take a step back and read up more on Shadowrun: 4th Edition, and maybe even do up a campaign for a test-run.
Sometimes, I long for a proper roleplaying game with the right balance of combat/RP (not knocking the rest of the genre), and this might be it. We will never know until we try it, but at least there is a glimmer of hope in the Valley of Glitch Deaths.
The combat looks brutal and fast, and we will have to put more effort into the other aspects of the game, for we will not want a 1-hr mission, with the sheepish DM going," That's all for today folks. Thanks for making it all the way down to Simei for the fifty-five minute session." He adds," Go take your midnight cab now, as its already 2am."
I am looking forward to making a fun and action-packed campaign. There is much to figure out in the game though, and the DM preparation is more open-ended and tougher in a sense. As said, I will read up more thoroughly on the manual and work on it accordingly. No biggie I suppose.
To go forward, sometimes we have to take a step back. New fangled games just lose its roots while appealing to the new generation. Take a look at Fallout 3. FPS? Yes. Roleplaying? Umm, not so much. A whole legacy diminished, catered to new blood. They had to be realistic and look beyond the "isometric-view" dinosaur gamers, to get a bigger share of the pie. Yes, but please do not tell me that this is a follow up to Fallout 1 and 2.
Nuff' said. Let's take a trip back Old-school, y'all.
*turns on the Dinosaur-mobile, circa 1999-2003, cries a bit*
Ultima Online. SWG. Those were the two games which gave me a bit of the feel of a player-centric game. Player-run economies, quests etc... But those days are dead. Almost.
Now, its all WoW this and WoW that. A huge population of players slaving to the coolest employer around- Blizzard Entertainment.
They crow,"I downed this boss, 24 man raids, epic fails, leetsauce, weaksauce, threat, warlocks, warriors blah blah.." The players get happy when they see new WoW clones try but fail miserably as WoW had already bottlecapped the market, making it so hard to just survive in this already small pond. They are playing the best MMO in the world. Or more accurately, the only MMO in the world at this rate that it is going.
Colored loot, super-easy XP leading to less of a grind, so that one can meet his friend at level 60 in like two weeks. Guild Wars anyone? At least I did not need to pay monthly for GW.
Just to let you know, I am not bashing WoW. I know that it is one hell of an addictive game and is a complete MMO experience for most. Blizzard is one of the best game-makers around, and their track record is second to none. Diablo 2, for the record, ruined my life. :)
But all in all, WoW is just a game, nothing more. Interaction and role-playing? Players shaping up the world with their own hands? A girl in a lup-sup bar giving superficial love?
*crickets chirping*
Anyway, is that even important anymore? I wonder.
But as said, there is still hope. A new hope. When all is gone and the lights goes off, darkness falls.
Darkfall. ----> Feb 25th, 2009. Mark that date down in your calendar.
More about that in my next post.
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