I just played Jax

So, I've been playing some League of Legends lately. I have been so immersed in writing my last book for so long that now that I've come up for air, I admit that I would probably be enamored with anything more entertaining than bubble-wrap. I typically play MMOs, though I have played RPGs (like the Torchlight and Diablo IPs) and RPGs (Starcraft, Warcraft, and all the way back to Dune.) I don't have almost any experience with MOBAs. I think I might have played DotA one time in its original form. 

I think the most essential part of playing League of Legends is to join the Low Elo community. They encourage a helpful, "stay classy" attitude that makes playing a pleasure. The solo queue is filled with people who will rage and blame and do anything but play well. When you login, simply join the "lowelo" (or "lowelo2") chat to look for people who aren't jerks. Just remember, it goes both ways. Don't blame other people when they die and try to be supportive. The game is more entertaining when everybody is laughing and enjoying themselves rather than swearing at each other and assigning blame.

I think my favorite format is the 3v3 Twisted Treeline map. It is non-stop action and entertainment. The 5v5 map is slow and a bit tedious. I really don't like that the "meta" (at this point I hate the word because everybody misuses it) where it has become a requirement to have a support character. Being a healer is boring in most games, and it is beyond my comprehension why Riot would encourage this mechanic.

I'm sure there are a few people out there who would immediate scream at me for how much they enjoy being the healer. I'm glad you enjoy it, but I think you are in the minority. I think that there is nothing heroic about being the healer. Sure, you make the team better and it is a team game, but you are the first one blamed when things go wrong and the last one to get credit when things go right. It's an awful position simply asking for blame assignment. This brings me back to the 3v3 games, which don't seem to have room for characters dedicated to full support. Maybe this will change, but I hope not. I probably will stop playing if it does.

Despite all of the things that Diablo III did wrong, this may be one of the things they did well. Nearly every character was capable of finishing the game on their own. Well, that's mostly true. With the proper gear they were able to finish the game. There was an issue where you relied on more sturdy characters to first put those items up for sale and you had to farm gold to buy it. That actually is a similar issue. People want to be self-sufficient, even in a team. Well, I shouldn't speak for the entire universe of gamers. I'll say that I like to be self-sufficient, even if I'm playing a squishy character.

If you have a spare hour to play a game, check out League of Legends. I think it is a lot of fun if you can find people to play with that aren't rude and obnoxious. I'm lucky to have a number of friends who play, but we've filled in empty slots from the Low Elo chat whenever we've needed more.

Before I sign off, I wanted to mention that my first book (Tritium Gambit) is still free on Amazon and iTunes, so get out there and pick it up if you haven't read it.

Initial reactions to League of Legends

I love the art style of League of Legends and the gameplay seems pretty good. I was pretty excited about this RTS, right up to the point that I tried to join a player verses AI game.

After 10 minutes of waiting for a game to start, there were finally enough people to make a match and then after everybody accepted, nothing happened. At all. After a few minutes, I closed the client, restarted it, and it immediately prompted me to rejoin the game that I "abandoned." Presented with no other choice, so I clicked the "rejoin" button. The computer still shows that screen 30 minutes later. Ah well. The tutorial games are educational and the game looks really good.

My oldest son has been playing the second tutorial mission repeatedly for a few hours now and he's been having a great time. As my machine is simply stuck waiting, I've had plenty of opportunity to watch him duke it out with the AI. I think his Starcraft II micromanagement skills are shining through.

There do appear to be somewhere close to a billion choices you have to make when it comes to picking mastery points, skills, items, etc. It makes the game appear to have a lot of depth. I am a little concerned that my son is too young to really understand the repercussions of each of the myriad of decisions he's making at lightning speed, but maybe that's just because I'm too old and too cautious.

If you are looking to play this game, I recommend it. It's free, which is a pretty good price, and despite the fact that it hasn't worked very well for me with cooperative play, I think the game has a lot of potential. I'll warn you now that the install time is fairly long. I have a 50 megabit connection and it still takes a pretty long time to install and patch. I have friends who play PvP, so I know the game works, even if I have yet to experience it. I'll give it another try once the client allows me to play again.

First book free on iTunes

I know, I know. I haven't talked enough gaming lately. I've been busy with writing.

If you haven't read my first book, Tritium Gambit, it is free on iTunes today: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/tritium-gambit/id578901362?mt=11

The second book is on Amazon and Smashwords and will be on iTunes and Barnes and Noble soon.

Thank you for downloading it.

Erik

My new book

I am pleased to announce that, after months of toil, I have released:

The Kindle edition of Mercury's Curse is available on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Mercurys-Curse-Max-Miranda-ebook/dp/B00A98FGZW

Eventually, I expect it will also be available on Barnes and Noble, iTunes, and Smashwords. I do not have an ETA. The paperback edition will be available in roughly a month on Amazon.com.

The most expensive game I've ever played (other than EQ)

I can't even recall how many EverQuest expansions I've purchased. I lost track somewhere around Omens of War, but I've paid full price for most of them and then when I four-boxed, I had to purchase new copies. Hands down, I've spend more money on EverQuest than any other game. With the years of monthly subscription and in-game purchases of XP potions, I'm going to guess conservatively at over $1000.

However, I have a new runner-up. As I mentioned recently, I purchased copies of Torchlight II for my two boys, but the router kept crashing. Since the router worked for every other game we've played (and between the three of us, we have play a fair number of games), I was upset.  I ensured the firmware was up-to-date and checked the settings, but the best I could do was get two players in a group for ten minutes before the router crashed. If I tried to join their game, it would crash instantly.

Since my boys really wanted to play together, and I was planning on playing with them once I finished my manuscript, I bought a replacement router--the same near top-of-the-line $180 router (an Apple Airport Extreme) I had previously. (Why the same brand? Because it had always worked flawlessly in the past and it had the nice feature where I could transfer settings effortlessly. Hindsight being what it is, I should have known I was making a mistake.) Well, that didn't fix the situation for my boys and they were unable to play the game over the Internet. I was empathetic, but also busy trying to finish revisions on my story, so I didn't have enough time to really dedicate myself to solving the problem.

So, this weekend rolls around and my manuscript is at the editor leaving me with far more time than I've had since August 1st when I buckled down to finish that novel. I have plenty of work to do around marketing and distribution for my book, but I wanted to take a little time off and play games with my kids. Determined to solve the networking issue without resorting to Tunngle, I pulled out old routers from the cabinet where all discarded and extra computer parts go, waiting for that glorious day that they can be reused.  I don't think any of those spare parts ever get reused, but this was their chance. Pushing aside SIMM chips, I started with a 90s-style single-purpose 10/100mb switch, figuring that it would at least allow local play. By the time, I walked upstairs, I realized the flaw in my plan: Of the three computers only two actually had ethernet ports--the other one was wi-fi only. 

Irritated, but not to be deterred, I dug further into my cabinet of discarded toys, only to come up with a cable bridge and two ethernet-only routers. I must have recycled or given away past wi-fi routers, or my wife has been slowly and clandestinely clearing out the cabinet like Tim Robbins. 

Already $240+tax into the game (one router and three copies), I decided to buy a new router. So, I put another $180+ dollars down. The three of us played flawlessly for over an hour before the Major League Gaming Starcraft II matches sucked in my older son. Not that I mind. I love watching MLG.

I'm not sure if there is a moral to this $420+tax story. Maybe, don't buy the same router you already own if it didn't work the first time. Or maybe, put a lock on your computer-parts cabinet. However, now we should be able to get in some good, quality family time beating up monsters in Torchlight II. It was fun, even on the normal difficulty setting to just march around and slaughter hordes of monsters. With the blood splatters turned off, it reminded me of the original Diablo more than Diablo III.

Networking woes of Torchlight II

My two sons have been playing Torchlight II (with the blood splats turned off) and are having a great time with the solo game. They've been begging to group up and play together, but the game's out-of-the-box multiplayer capabilities are useless. The first 4 times I tried to set them up for internet play our router crashed. I've never had that happen before with any other game, so I didn't realize what was happening initially.

Now, I'm going to have to dig out an old router and set up a lan game for them on the internal network that I can safely disable all the security on.

Despite the game's high entertainment value, I feel like the online play aspect was completely neglected. I believe the game uses UPnP exclusively for multiplayer without any other options for route traversal. I haven't researched the issue very long, but frankly, I expect modern games to work out of the box.

I give Torchlight II five stars for single player fun and zero stars for multiplayer. Once I have my book safely out the door, I plan to spend some quality time with my boys playing the game, but I really hope that we come up with a better multiplayer solution than hooking up to an old router.

An Agile Story

Applying a development methodology to storytelling

I write software. I have been a developer on games, databases, distributed queues, web browsers/servers, proxies, voice over ip clients/servers, VNC clients, and even a search engine. However, in my spare time, I write stories.

With both my books, I followed some of the principles of the Agile development process:

• Maintaining working a copy. From day one, I started with a one page summary of the story, and then, rather than start at chapter one and write to the end, I wrote sketches of each chapter all the way to the end. When I say "sketch", I don't mean that I pulled out Crayons. I wrote brief summaries for each chapter that summed up the action, the motivations, and the plot. Then each pass through the manuscript, I would flesh each of those sketches out more. At any point, you could read my story from start to finish and know what was going to happen. Were each of the half-dozen phases as dramatic, funny, or exciting as the final product? No. However, it was complete and told a story.
• Iterate. I chose short two week periods that I set goals for myself on what I would accomplish on the story. Early on, I designed the characters with their motives, yearnings, codes of conduct, and for major characters I established what dilema they would face. Each iteration, I fleshed out different aspects of the story and brought it closer to completion.
• Simplicity. Rather than focus on every possible detail of universe building, I waited to sketch out details until I needed them. I keep spreadsheets and documents with nothing but these universe building details, however I didn't write up anything that I didn't have to use for the current story. Not really the Tolkien way, I'll admit.
• Focus on the customer. With every chapter, I try to pay attention to the entertainment value of the story. Is it funny when it needs to be funny? Sad when it needs to be sad? Exciting? Engaging? I happen to be my first and most critical customer, so the story has to entertain me. I know that I can't please everybody, but I try to be consistent with my work so that people who found my first book entertaining will find my second equally enjoyable.
• Share with the customer. I selected beta readers and let them see the story in its form starting with the first draft that was rich enough to resemble the final product. This was around 45,000 words. The final product, after iterating through, is more than 70,000 words. This aspect of the process was probably not ideal. Stories take a long time to read and tales that resemble sketches lack the same entertainment value that a finished product will have. I'm not certain how I will address this in the future, but I see it as a weakness in my process.

I would say that, with the exception of utilizing beta readers too early in the process, I think that the process has been successful for me. I'm going to continue to refine how I write. I think the strength of starting with a working story and iterating over it to refine a finish product reduces the risk of making major mistakes that require rewriting the whole manuscript. I think the disadvantage is that you have to know when to call it done because you could spend your whole life polishing.