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.

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.