The Ingrained Nature of Attacks of Opportunity

In an effort to speed up combat, I was contemplating changing how AoO's work for our campaign - basically removing them except for a few actions. I was hoping that it would help speed up combat both in not having to worry about whether a particular action invoked an AoO as well as in allowing people to move without counting out a snaking path to avoid getting hit. Tactically sound, yes, but not particularly exciting. I'm also not a big fan of AoO's since it doesn't seem like they add as much to the game as they detract from it; in essence, what's the point of having something if people always do what they can to get around it? It's not really contributing anything other than bogging down a combat round with pieces are moved about as if on a chess board.

Initially I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. A lot of things that invoke AoO's are never done in our group anyway. For instance, unarmed attacks invoke an AoO, but no one ever attacks unarmed except for monks - and their attacks don't invoke an AoO. I've never seen the people in the handful of groups I play in try to disarm, sunder, or bullrush, either. Whether those tactics are not considered worth the effort or people just aren't used to trying them, I can't say.

In any case, I decided in the end to leave AoO's as-is, since they are fairly ingrained into other subsystems of 3.5 (feats, skills, etc.) as well as combat elements like reach. They're not so integral that I couldn't just drop them entirely, but I'm trying to stick to the RAW as much as possible. What might be easier would be to go in the other direction - make every action other than an attack open to an AoO (I read that Iron Heroes does this). But that seems a little excessive.

For now I'm going to put the actions that cause an AoO on cheat sheets or reference cards for our group and hopefully that'll help speed things along.

Firefly and Serenity

Awhile back I gave my opinion about a sacred pillar of the geek community, China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to the book - I thought it sucked. So, what about another favorite of Nerdlandia - the Firefly franchise?

Months (years?) ago, when Firefly was on the air, I decided to check it out. Besides the fact it was sci-fi, it was written by Joss Whedon who we were all familiar with from Buffy and Angel. I ended up watching a few bits and pieces here and there but overall I was unimpressed. Like many, my overall impression was "Meh. It's like a western in space." I had a similiar reaction years ago when I saw the first Warcraft; my thought was "Meh. It's like Dune II, but fantasy."

Time went by, the show got cancelled, and forthwith from the geek community came many lamentations. I didn't really care much, since it wasn't a show that interested me. But as time went on, all I heard was praise for the show and exultations when the Firefly DVDs came out. I figured that maybe I misjudged the show and decided that some day I should check out the DVDs.

Fast forward a few months and a friend in one of our gaming groups organized an outing so we could all see Serenity, the Firefly movie. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic, but the buzz among people on-line (including a number of folks whose opinions I value) was that it was a great movie. My enthusiasm grew a bit, if only because I figured it should be somewhat entertaining.

So we saw Serenity. I liked it, but not overly so. I realized that I got a greater emotional charge out of Revenge of the Sith.

(For the people that just freaked, stay with me here...)

The more I thought about Serenity, however, the more I realized just what a good movie it was. It wasn't "epic" in the same way that, say, Sith or Return of the King were, but it was a very good movie. The thing that got me the most was that in thinking about it afterwards, I realized I could find fault with very little in the film. I had some minor quibbles, but overall the characters, story, and everything else were very solid. Now, had I been a fan of the series I'd have probably expected that. But I wasn't, so there you go. Now, granted, Sith was more emotionally exciting for me but that was primarily due to it being the prequel to a movie series that I was completely nuts over from ages 5-12 or so. Side-by-side, Serenity is definitely the better film (that's not a very high compliment, though, when you compare the dialog Whedon can write to what Lucas gives us; Serenity was at its best when the main characters were talking - any Star Wars movie is generally best when no characters are talking). I've seen both twice, but while I'm wondering whether to get Sith on DVD, I know we'll be getting Serenity when it comes out.

After seeing the movie we borrowed the Firefly DVDs from one of our friends. I realized after the first episode or two that I'd missed out; the geek masses were correct - Firefly was a great show and its demise was far too early. My wife and I are still watching the DVDs (we're only on the third disc at this point), but it's good, good stuff.

By the way, when I actually played Warcraft for the first time, my impression was: "Wow! It's like Dune II, but fantasy!"

Free Development Tools from Microsoft

In case you're interested (and aren't already aware), Microsoft recently released a number of free development tools as part of their rollout of .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005. Until November of 2006, you can download "express editions" of the latest version of Visual Basic, C#, SQL Server, and others from their website.

I'm not certain if "express = suck" as I haven't looked at all the tools in-depth. I have installed Visual C# Express Edition and it's actually pretty slick. I haven't found any limitations in it for developing Windows applications so far. I've switched the development of TableSmith version 5 from SharpDevelop - a free, open source tool - to VCSEE and haven't had any problems yet. SharpDevelop is quite an accomplishment but it's not without it's problems. The biggest factor in my switch, though, is that SharpDevelop doesn't support the .NET Framework 2.0 yet.

The "express editions" are billed as being for "hobbyists, novices, and student developers", none of which describe me. I suspect that's partly to dissaude "real" coders from using them so they'll shell out for the full Visual Studio. But for what I'm doing at home, VCSEE is more than enough. And since I prefer to use legimate software, the fact that it's a free download is great.

World of Wastecraft

Clever, huh? I changed the word "Warcraft" to "Wastecraft" to make a humorous observation! Comedy gold...

Anywho, I recently went through all my WoW characters and tallyed up the amount of time I've played each one. I have six, though two are simply AH mules so they don't contribute much to the total, and one of the others I pretty much gave up on months ago (a 29 Tauren Shaman; kind of cool, but I got bored of it). Now, even though I have three "active" characters, I generally only play one regularly these days, that being my 42 Human Rogue. My Human Paladin is 60 but since I have little interest in spending 30+ hours a week raiding instances I haven't really done much with him. I spend some time on my 58 Undead Warlock, but I find the paladin used to be and the rogue currently to be more fun. The main reason I still play the warlock is to get her to 60 anyway since she's so close.

Well, the total time I've spend on WoW for the past 9 months (I started playing in late January) is in excess of 35 days. That is, more than 840 hours. Broken out that amounts to over 3 hours a day, every day, since I started playing. I don't do anything for that long every day other than sleep (work, too, but usually not Saturday or Sunday).

That's far too much time to be devoting to a single activity that's purely for entertainment. I realize some people reading this may find it amusing that I'm complaining about spending a "mere" 3 hours a day playing since they're logging far more time than I am. Personally, I don't find it amusing - I find it sad. Because, really, at the end of the day all I have to show for my efforts is a bunch of numbers in a database somewhere in Anaheim.

If you're cool with spending copious amounts of time levelling your characters or working on your Tier 1 or Tier 2 sets or whatever it is you do, more power to you. Not that spending 30+ hours a week raiding with your guild isn't necessarily any more "productive" than watching TV, watching movies, playing other computer games, etc. But for me, I've traded off too much time where I'm actually accomplishing something tangible.

Does this mean I'm cancelling my account? It would probably be for the best, but I'm not ready to go cold turkey. The game is still fun, especially when you're grouped with friends (or if no one you know is on, people who aren't total douchebags). But I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep going with it. Especially once Oblivion is released...

Bustin'...um...a Move...like...Hobbit-style. Um...yo.

The Unicorns LA video made me want to have a bleach eye-wash, but I kind of like the LotR video from Lords of the Rhymes.

Um, yo.

On a related, negative note, WTF is up with Apple requiring you to install iTunes now if you want to install QuickTime? And then the asshats at Apple break one of the Cardinal Rules and put the goddamn QuickTime icon in your Quick Launch bar without asking you for permission. You never put something in someone's Quick Launch bar or the root of "Start" or on the desktop or in your bookmarks/favorites without asking first. Yeah, I'm looking at you, too, AOL (a new version of Winamp? Great! Now let me track down the goddamn artifacts you bastards scattered all over my PC). And Sierra - they used to be notorious for that. Look, if I want to install the goddamn Sierra Utilities I'll make the request - you don't do it for me! Of course, those things are mild compared to a company like Sony installing a damn rootkit on your PC!

I swear, Microsoft isn't going to be the one to push me off Windows onto Linux; it's going to be all these other corporations screwing around with my system because they assume I'm a moron, a criminal, or both.

Sorry for the rant...

Cool Sticky Notes Program

Find this recently: ATNotes. It's no longer being supported, but the program is very useful and a lack of continued development shouldn't keep you from using it. It's a "sticky notes" program, similar to Post-It notes but for your (Windows) desktop. It also has a little calendar as well as alarm capability and some other features. Overall, it's a pretty slick utility.

I am aware that 3M has an actual "Post-It" software program, but having used it for awhile I've found ATNotes to be better. I've also tried the various sticky note widgets for Konfabulator, but they all left me wanting.