Things You Don't Care About

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Part 6

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 12:00:00 -0600

A short program note; this entry marks a transition from my previous Minecraft world to the one I'm currently using, which I switched to after the 13 January update. There were two main reasons for this switch. First, I wanted to have access to the new blocks in the 13 January update closer to my starting point, which would have been difficult since they only appear in new chunks.

Second, and more importantly, the terrain generator was greatly improved in the 13 January update, and the landscapes in this new world are far more interesting than those I saw in the original world I used for the Amelia Primrose logs. So the landscapes you'll be seeing as the new world is explored are much more impressive, and give a much more interesting are for building, than the old world had. Hopefully, you'll agree that this was a worthwhile reason to start over.

3 May 319

As I write this, we are fleeing north from Fort Upton with what possessions and supplies we could carry after the carnage of a terror-filled night. While I must admit that fear clouds much of my memory of the last few days, I will try to recount the events that led to our sudden flight as best I can.

I remember it beginning two nights ago with the sound of an explosion at the north gate; a creeper attack, the start of something we did not see coming. There was little damage to the causeway or the gate itself, but the portcullis had been shattered by the blast, the heavy oak timbers splintered by the creeper. What we didn't know was that this was just the beginning; throughout that night, all manner of creatures mobbed the walls and tried to push their way in. Duncan and the other men fought bravely to hold them off at the north gate, and the walls managed to weather the worst of it. By the next morning, though, the entire village had been frightened to death, and most of the men were tired from helping to defend the walls. The worst had been the spiders, which had managed to climb the walls and swarm what we had thought was a safe redoubt.

All of us were mystified by what could have caused the sudden increase in aggressiveness on the part of the monsters; it was almost as if something was directing them, which was a frightening thought. Everyone assumed that the necromantic cabals which fled to Oestria were wiped out during the Great Crusade, but there were always rumors that one or two of the black magicians had slipped through the grasp of the Crusaders. If one of them was here...well, at this point, there is little it could add to our misery, but a frightening thought nonetheless.

At one point, in the middle of the day, several men fled the small mineshaft where we had been collecting iron, pursued by several creepers. Such a brazen attack, in the sunlight, sent a panic through the village. Though eventually they were dispatched, thanks to the hard work of Mr. Tyler and a patrol of men, they managed to do damage to both the mine hut and any remaining sense of safety that the village walls conferred.

It did not take long for a new round of fighting over what to do to take hold. Much of it was simple panic -- arguing for nonsensical courses of action just because they felt like they had nothing else to offer. Fleeing the village seemed ridiculous at that point, since it still seemed like our best hope, but many people began gathering up their possessions and preparing to leave. Duncan tried to get them to see reason, but after the last night many people were too scared to think straight.

I'm afraid I must take a break now, as it is time to move again; we must cross as much distance as possible during the day, to avoid pursuit; I will write more when I can.

4 May 319

We have made camp again, in a clearing in the forests here. Last night was largely quiet; three zombies stumbled into our camp just before dawn, as we were getting ready to move on again, but they were quickly dispatched. During the day, there have been no signs of pursuit, for which I am thankful. The question is beginning to circulate about how far we will actually end up going; we cannot continue traveling forever, after all. So far, the consensus seems to be that we need to put more distance between Fort Upton and wherever we decide to try and make a go of it again, and we need to find a more defensible position -- a hill or a mountain seems like a better redoubt than the island we had before.

To return to the tale of how we arrived in this situation however, it was that second night where things took their final turn for the worst. As night fell, again we heard the sounds of the monsters at our gates. A makeshift barricade had been built to block the shattered north gate and the west gate was shut, but no one knew how long that would hold if the creepers returned.

That was when a hail of flaming arrows lit up the night, sailing over the walls and setting a number of the buildings in town alight. We'd never seen this kind of sophisticated attack from them before, and no one expected anything like it; before we knew it, fires had been lit at the guesthouse, bathing the town in an eerie glow.

As the fire spread, the Teasdales and their guests grabbed what they could of their possessions and fled into the streets. It did not take long for fire to completely engulf the building's wooden interior; I tried to organize a bucket brigade, but the by the time we were ready, the flames consumed nearly everything inside.

Things did not improve as Duncan and Mr. Tyler tried to get everyone into the fort; quickly, they realized the fort was not safe either. Somehow, zombies had been able to get inside -- there was little time to investigate how, but the best guess was through the lower levels of the keep -- and we found that we had no place of safety.

Outside the fort, the fire continued to spread among the houses we'd only recently built, and everyone began to gather in the courtyard of the fort, dragging their few possessions. Mr. Tyler led many of the other men around, gathering what they could from the buildings quickly succumbing to fire.

It was not long after they returned that there was a series of explosions at the west gate, and we heard the shouts of the guards posted there. We were faced with the prospect of being overwhelmed, as skeletons and other creatures swarmed the gate.

With the gates destroyed, and the fort overrun, we were backed into a corner. Staying was impossible, with our defenses in the shambles they were now; luckily, there were few among us who were badly wounded, making an escape to the north possible. Before we could be trapped, we made a run for the causeway, with Duncan and Mr. Tyler leading the way. It was terrifying -- by this time, the monsters were swarming the walls, coming through the now-shattered west gate, and as we struggled to dismantle the barricade to the causeway, we fought to keep them away. Even I picked up a sword and joined the fight, batting away the clawing arms of zombies.

Just when it seemed we would be overwhelmed, the barricade came down and we hurried over the causeway, fleeing into the hills north of the town. When we stopped to catch our breath, with little sign of pursuit, we could see the flames of the burning village behind us, over the walls.

We've continued north, hoping to find a suitable place to build a new shelter, or some sign of civilization. Other than a few scattered encounters with monsters, it doesn't appear we are being pursued; whatever was sending those monsters after us before has either lost track of us or simply doesn't care. Our food is starting to run out though, so soon we may be forced to stop and start building a camp to hunt from anyway. Duncan remains nervous about staying in one place for too long, but everyone is growing tired, especially the women and children, though like myself, many of the women have kept quiet about any complaints, knowing the men are worrying about enough already. Hopefully, we will find somewhere to stay soon, protected from the elements and the creatures surrounding us.

London and the Weight of History

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 17:40:00 -0600

I just got back from a week in London yesterday after spending a week with my old officemate Alex and his wife. Aside from my trips to FanFest, this is really the first place I've been to outside the States, and I had a great time -- London is an amazing city, and I really hope I can return there sometime in the future.

When I was planning this trip, I honestly expected that the culture shock I'd experience in London would be far less than in Reykjavik; after all, at least in London the street signs are in English. In retrospect, I think both of them are roughly on par, and if there's a city that felt more alien to me it was definitely London. Reykjavik is still a small city (not much bigger than Champaign-Urbana) and by and large most people there speak English -- and probably because it's a second language, it tends to be spoken slower and a little more enunciated than you might get from a native speaker. Yes, all the street signs are in Icelandic, but you don't really have to know what they mean. Most of Reykjavik seems like relatively recent construction as well.

In contrast, there are few cities anything like London in the United States. I have never been to New York, but I have been to Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Phoenix, St. Louis -- but none of them is really like London. We have big cities, for sure, and we have older cities, but there is nothing that even really approaches what London is and what it represents in terms of world history.

I had this realization several times while I was over there, but two occasions stick out in my mind. The first was when I was out at dinner with someone I know from FanFest, a native Brit, and he asked me how much travelling I'd done. I explained that this was really only the second place I'd been to outside the US, but that I'd traveled around the States pretty extensively. I was listing places I'd been and when I got to Boston, he asked me why I liked the city so much.

Now, Boston is an amazing city, and I never get tired of going back there. And, in terms of how it feels, it probably comes closest to London of any US city. There are streets and buildings in Boston that are still largely the same as how they were almost 400 years ago, along with the graves of many of our founders and the sites of many of the most important events in American history. I'm telling all of this to my friend and after about two minutes I suddenly realize how utterly silly I'm sounding to him.

400 years? In London, that's an eyeblink. On Thursday, I went to Borough Market, a street market that is known to have been in existence for at least twice that long, and in all likelihood actually stretches back to the Roman occupation of Britain 1800 years ago. Westminster Abbey has been standing for over a millennium, and within its walls are the graves of some of the most important people not just of English history, but of world history -- Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, Queen Elizabeth, and Geoffrey Chaucer, just to name a few, stretching back nearly a thousand years. Within that church, every British monarch since the Norman Conquest has been crowned, and I've stood in the same place now. The British Museum contains some of the most important archaeological treasures in the world -- pieces of the Parthenon, the Mausoleum at Helicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, and the Sphinx, the Rosetta Stone, original writings from some of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment...

I am not sure if most Americans can really understand what that means -- there's really nothing here that can compare. Everything that dates back that far here has been largely wiped out, and certainly nothing here has been continuously inhabited that long. Cahokia, a thriving Mississippian city, larger than London in the 1200s, is today just a bunch of oddly shaped hills. Even in Mexico, I'm not sure how much remains of the ancient Aztecs in Mexico City; in London, many of the buildings that were there that long ago are still standing, still in use today. Even buildings like that in Boston have only been around maybe a third or fourth as long at most. The Smithsonian is amazing, but it doesn't even come close to the British Museum, despite the fact that it is probably larger in its entirety.

The other instance where I was struck by how different Britain really is was in Westminster Abbey when our tour guide was telling us about the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Of course, in the United States, we have the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, so the concept wasn't exactly alien to me, but in Britain, at least to me, it seemed to have so much more...prominence in the national mindset. In the United States, it is really only something you hear about or are aware of on Veterans' Day or Memorial Day. In Westminster Abbey, though, it sits in the middle of the floor, right in front of the Great West Door. Of all the graves in the Abbey, however, it is the only one that no one -- including the monarchs of Great Britain -- is allowed to walk on. During state funerals and royal weddings, everyone walks around it, which, at least to me, makes it seem like it has a much greater place in culture than does our own monument.

That wasn't what really struck me though, it was the fact that these kinds of traditions -- some dating back hundreds upon hundreds of years -- were almost commonplace in London. While many of them seem rather quaint, and most seem tied to the monarchy, which has its own obvious downsides, I still have this feeling like we don't have anything to really compare. The United States is both a modern nation and an almost inherently disjoint one -- we've only been around for a little more than 200 years, and almost no one here in the US can trace their ancestry back more than a few generations before they leave our shores. Part of me can't help but long for a tie to the past like that, that sense of continuity.

This weight of history also shapes modern London too, though in ways that I am much more familiar with. The layout of the city seems very much like Boston to me, only more so -- it's clear that the streets of the city were not designed for cars, or even really "designed" for anything, but more laid out in a haphazard fashion as it struggled to accommodate the geography and the way things happened to already be built. For a Midwesterner, from a place where the roads are in an easy to follow grid with no terrain really at all, London strikes me as a complete mess to get around in for a driver. Roads twist and turn all over the place, change names regularly, and narrow to little more than the width of a small truck at times. Even the Tube, rather than being the sort of hub-and-spoke design I've seen with the T in Boston or the Metro in DC, is a squiggly mess of spaghetti, at least when you first see it. Like the roads, the Tube's design, I suspect, is a legacy of its history, where it was just sort of added to as they went along.

However, after spending several days walking around, I definitely began to feel like I knew the general layout of the city, at least in the area I was traveling around in the most, which was generally just Westminster and a few other surrounding boroughs. And, like Boston, I definitely enjoyed the experience of just walking around the city, seeing the layout and the mix of architecture as I went. That's something I don't really get in Champaign or even Chicago really, where most of the construction is pretty recent (even in Old Chicago). As much of a mess as the roads seemed, it wasn't that hard to figure out where I was going with the help of a London road atlas (oh, how I missed having GPS and Google Navigation, though), especially after I'd walked around a few days. I got a rather nice sense of satisfaction on Friday when I got stopped on the street and gave someone directions to Westminster Abbey (though it wasn't really that far away).

I was also struck by the international nature of London as well; while I know part of it is that I was spending a lot of time around tourist spots, I think even while I was walking around London I heard more French, German, Italian, Arabic, and a half dozen other languages I couldn't recognize than I heard English. Even in the biggest US cities I've been to, I still hear mostly American English. Yes, some of that is because you're only 3-4 hours away from countries where a dozen other languages are spoken, and in the US that's not the case, but still...it's a unique experience you don't get here in the States (though I've had a sort of similar experience on a much smaller scale at FanFest, where you have people from all over the world convening in one small space).

Overall, London was probably the most amazing single trip I've ever taken, and I feel really grateful that I had the opportunity to go there. It definitely makes me want to not just go back and see what I missed, but to travel a lot more outside the US in general. If you want to see the pictures I took while I was in London, you can find them here.

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Part 5

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:48:13 -0600

9 March 319

The next stage of the causeway is nearly finished; already the dirt causeway, while slightly unstable, is allowing Mr. Tyler's hunting parties to roam much further into the mainland. Without the necessity of fording the water, they can carry make much more with each expedition as well. Our larder is becoming well-stocked and everyone is eating well, despite the fact that there are more of us than there have ever been before.

Some of the other women and I spent much of the last few days preparing the garden for planting, once we can find enough seeds. The soil here seems good and fertile, and a harvest of vegetables and grains would certainly be welcome, as we seem to have picked most of the best plants from the surrounding countryside already. The fact that much of the northern land is desert has not helped matters.

With the help of Duncan, we dug a number of irrigation channels and filled them with water, which will hopefully help whatever we plant along. All that remains now is to actually collect enough seeds to make a go of things. Mr. Tyler has promised to keep an eye out for anything he thinks we might be able to use.

Duncan and I spent some time talking on the roof of the fort last night. Perhaps the most flattering thing about these chats for me is that he is genuinely interested in what I think about the direction of our tiny outpost. Despite the kindness and even respect I feel from the other men of the Dunsany Star, I do not think most of them -- especially Mr. Tyler -- see me as an equal. Duncan seems comfortable using me as a sounding board, though, and I cannot help but feel a bit of pride when something we discuss comes up in larger discussions of the what to do next.

12 March 319

With the causeway serviceable and the paving underway, attention has turned towards making our conditions here a bit more livable. Aside from Mr. Fellows, who has quartered in his smithy, most of the residents of the island still live in the tiny space of the fort. While it is at least safe, it is also quite cramped, and tensions can sometimes flare when there are this many of us kept so close together.

Our next project, then, is to build some small homes, especially for the families here on the island. Though there is not much space to build, along with everything else we must be concerned with, there is space enough for a number of small homes, each sufficient for one family to live in relative comfort -- certainly better than crammed into the fort with dozens of others! The first such home will be for Mr. Cavendish and his wife, and progress has been swift. Clearing the hill on the island has given us plenty of stone to work with, which should provide a sturdy defense against any incursions by the monsters that surround us at night.

The Weatherbys, as well as another colonist couple, the Shackletons, have also begun work on their own dwellings, across the road from Mr. Fellows' smithy, right up next to the fort. Progress is not going quite as fast on those, but within a week they should all be able to move out of the fort and into proper homes. With more people moving out of the fort, construction of the wall around the island will also need to be stepped up; Duncan and Mr. Fellows have already begun planning how to extend it out from the fort in such a fashion to provide us the most living space without compromising our safety.

20 March 319

The last few days have been a flurry of activity, with the completion of the Cavendish, Weatherby, and Shackleton homes; it was quite the event for the women of the camp, who did most of the work to help them out of the fort and into their new homes. With the help of Mr. Shackleton, who is a carpenter, we built the three families each some simple furniture, including beds, and I and a number of the other women spent two days sewing and stuffing mattresses for them. When we finally helped the families into their new homes, I could see that they were all greatly relieved to be out of the cramped quarters of the fort. The housewarming activities gave all of us here on the island a nice distraction from the everyday toil that makes up our daily lives.

24 March 319

Now that the island is shaping up to be a bustling little village instead of simply an isolate fort, it is beginning to feel more like home than ever. This only adds to the distress I feel each night, however, when we can see all manner of creatures lurking at the edges of the settlement. Each day, however, progress continues on the walls around the village, which will hopefully end that threat once and for all.

The walls now secure most of the southern and eastern shoreline, extending towards the beach where we still keep our signal fire lit and around our garden, which is now planted with some wild grains Mr. Tyler helped us gather.

27 March 319

With the walls continuing their progress around the island and more buildings outside the fort planned for construction, Duncan has decided it is safe enough to begin bringing more of the colonists from their camp to the island. Mr. Tyler has already begun preparing an expedition to bring as many more of them as possible here in one go. He thinks he may be able to bring all of them here in one trip, but I am concerned that the fort would be rather cramped accommodating more than fifty people! Still, considering the conditions it seems that they face, I hate to leave them out there in the cold. Duncan assures me that the work of extending the walls will go much faster with more hands, though, and I cannot disagree; once the wall is up, we can begin building more homes to give everyone a bit more space.

Building the gates for the walls has been quite a task. Most of the wall was finished in day, but the actual gate mechanism, which has been the task of Duncan and Mr. Fellows for the most part, has been more difficult. Mr. Shackleton has fashioned a sturdy portcullis from thick oak timbers, but Mr. Fellows has been having trouble constructing a proper chain to haul its weight up and down. For now, a temporary solution has been worked out by using spider-silk ropes to lash the gate up; should the situation warrant, we can cut the ropes and the gate will fall into place, blocking the gate.

30 March 319

Mr. Tyler and a half dozen other men left for the colonist camp today, while the rest of us continued to work on the walls and buildings of the camp. One of the colonists, Mr. Teasdale, and his wife suggested that a guesthouse would be an excellent next construction here, as it would provide more living space in a smaller area than houses could fit. Evidently his brother runs a similar business in Westabbey, and he was familiar with the layout and method of construction, having helped his brother with it.

He even suggested that it could even have baths, which I must admit seem rather decadent at the moment. Bathing in the waters of the bay here is a bit uncomfortable at times, and privacy is quite nonexistent! A warm bath in water not filled with all manner of fishes would be a welcome change. Duncan agreed to his suggestion, though he pointed out that the guesthouse would not be much of a business for now, as we do not exactly have much in the way of money. Mr. Teasdale assured us that it would simply be more housing for now, and Duncan assured him that if the situation changed he would be more than welcome to run it as a business. With that decided, he and some others have already begun laying the foundation, so that it will be ready as soon as possible after Mr. Tyler's return.

2 April 319

It seems as if the Teasdales' guesthouse has captured the attention of the camp, and for the past few days, most of the work around camp has been geared towards helping them get the work started. A great deal of lumber has been collected for the construction, while others have been building laying in the walls. By yesterday, most of the floor had been laid in, and today, the floor had been largely finished and the walls were beginning to be built up. At this pace, it may be finished in just a few weeks.

7 April 319

Mr. Tyler's party has returned, bringing with him the rest of the colonists from their camp, along with a great deal of supplies from their shipwreck. Most of the new arrivals look to be in decent health, and Mr. Tyler told Duncan that they had held out quite well, building a palisade around some makeshift houses and tents they were using for shelter. I was happy to hear that they had been able to avoid the worst of this land's many terrors, but it also sounds like they were beginning to run low on food and other vital supplies, so it is probably for the best that Mr. Tyler brought them back when he did.

For now, most of them have taken residence in those same makeshift tents in the courtyard of the fort or elsewhere on the island, inside what exists of the walls. Many of the men who arrived with Mr. Tyler have already begun to help with the guesthouse and other construction projects, while most of the women and children are taking a well-deserved rest.

Duncan and I have not had much time together lately -- both of us have been so busy lately. When we aren't busy, we are both so tired from the events of the day that it is hard for either of us to have a conversation without one of us falling asleep! With the guesthouse and walls coming along nicely, hopefully we'll soon have more time to spend together, but already I can tell he is worried about what we will all do once mere survival is no longer the one goal everyone is focused on.

17 April 319

With the extra help of the new arrivals, the guesthouse has been finished and the village walls are nearing completion finally. Mrs. Teasdale gave me a short tour of the guesthouse today and I could not help but be impressed.

Compared to the small homes that were built for the other families so far, the guesthouse is considerably larger and better appointed, with wood in place of cobblestone for the floors and much larger windows. She showed me the baths, which are already a hot topic of conversation around the village; everyone is looking forward to the opportunity for a hot bath for the first time in many months.

Right across the hall from the baths is the kitchen; Mrs. Teasdale proudly displayed the larder, which should be able to hold much more food than we can fit in the makeshift storage in the fort. I am sure that Mr. Tyler's hunting parties will be able to keep it nicely stocked if they continue to be as successful as they have been.

On the second floor of the guesthouse, the central area of the floor is dominated by a large fireplace and sitting room, with a pair of large tables; I suspect it will become a popular place for people to take meals.

The second floor also has five guest rooms, which have already been parceled out to colonist families. While not large, they provide a bed and plenty of comfort compared to the cramped quarters of the fort. I admit to being a bit jealous, as I would like to have a bit more privacy than I have right now, but I understand why Duncan decided it would be best for families to take them.

Above the second floor is the attic, which, while a bit cramped and not divided into rooms, Mrs. Teasdale plans to put beds in as well, just to provide more living space. I suspect when they are finished they will be similar to the quarters in the fort, which would at least be an upgrade for those colonists still sleeping in tents.

The whole experience made me a bit homesick; it was the first place, here on the island, hundreds of miles away from home, where it almost feels like it could almost be in Knightsport. I could not help but long for a slice of mother's apple pie or a night spent in front of the fireplace catching up with friends. Someday, I hope to have such things again, and perhaps share them with Duncan -- but for now, it seems so far off, I cannot help but feel a bit of despair.

23 April 319

Everyone has pulled together over the last week and finished the walls and the north gate; Duncan and Mr. Fellows have still not been able to work out a usable mechanism to manipulate the portcullis, so the north gate remains lashed up like the west gate, but it has given us a great deal more security than we enjoyed before. Plans are already being made for the last few houses we'll be able to fit inside the walls, and by the summer, we will need to think about where to expand to for new construction.

Again, it feels like the spectre of "what comes next" is drawing closer and closer. Soon, we will be able to begin thinking more than a few days ahead -- and I fear the divisiveness that existed among the survivors of the Dunsany Star in those early days after our shipwreck, many months ago, will return. I have told Duncan that I think we should find some way of making contact with home, or at the very least the Oestrian colonies, and he agrees, though making a boat to sail safely hundreds of miles would be a major undertaking -- and there's no assurance that it would succeed. As cramped as things are, there are only a little over sixty of us, and a third of those are women and children.

I know Duncan is thinking of these things, and I trust his judgement, but I cannot help but worry for the future. All the while, we still need to remember that there are hostile creatures lurking right outside the gates who will try to kill every one of us if they get the chance. Still, nights like these, when we can celebrate our accomplishments, and when I feel Duncan's arms around me as we look over the quiet village from the top of the fort, I can take some comfort that whatever happens we will not be confronting alone.

The Fort Upton Minecraft Server

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:31:11 -0600

So I've been working at this a while for now and I'm realizing that there's a little something missing from the experience -- I really want to be able to find stuff other people have built, and do a bit more with it. So, I've been toying with the idea of getting a Minecraft multiplayer server and putting the world up there for other people to work on.

Before I plunk down 30 bucks a month for a hosted server, though, I wanted to test it out and get the hang of it, so I set up a server on my Linux box here at home just to get the hang of server configuration. It was pretty easy to get up and running, and get the new world in place. The Minecraft community has been very good at providing tools to simplify running a server and performing regular maintenance. In a couple of hours today I've managed to get the basic server, plus a few mods and some backup and mapping scripts all set up and ready to go. It even seems to run okay on my machine, though my max user population so far has been a whopping three.

However, with this up and running, it seems good enough for a small user base and it really costs me nothing, so I'm going to test it out and see how this goes. I'd like to get other people involved in the server, but I need to set up some guidelines first. I don't want to see the world turned into something that doesn't make much sense from a story point of view. Once I write those up, though, I'll be happy to let some people jump in and start adding their own stuff to the server (though on a limited basis at the moment, due to system constraints).

Just for reference, the server is currently set up with the default server plus the Hey0 Mod. Users who just wander in off the street are restricted and can't build anything, but you should be able to wander around and check things out at least. If you want to be added as a builder, get in touch with me by sending me email or leaving a comment on the blog (make sure you tell me your Minecraft username) and I'll take care of it. I'll be putting a webpage up soon to list the guidelines and the IP (which may change on the whim of Comcast for now). If you'd like to try it out before I get that up, let me know and I'll try to get it to you before then.

I still have some more updates to write up and post, and I'll get to that this week.

Edit: I've added a (very basic) HTML page about the server at http://www.wraithwerks.net/minecraft. Let me know if you have any questions, or things you think should be added.

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Part 4

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:15:26 -0600

8 February 319

With the fort finished, the next step is to begin clearing the rest of the island so that we can cultivate some of the land and build homes. With thirty or so people here now, many are forced to sleep on the floors of the keep, or in tents pitched inside the courtyard. Mr. Grayson also wants to build a proper forge and workshop for Mr. Fellows, and a causeway to keep our parties from having to wade through the ford to the north.

I went out to bring food to the men quarrying stone today and was rewarded with a spectacular view of the fort in the distance. It will be difficult work; I can already tell that many of the men who arrived in last night's ordeal are not fond of being set to breaking stone all day. However, Mr. Grayson makes sure no one is overworked; he is proving to be a fine leader, and we are lucky to have him. And yet, talking to him, he seems to think Captain Upton would have done a better job. Myself, I cannot imagine how -- in a few months we have gone from a collection of tents on the beach to a sturdy fort, with few lost in a hostile land.

10 February 319

Mr. Fellows and a few other men finished the small workshop in the fort today and put a fence around the small animal pen, and already captured one of the wild pigs that roams the island. Some of the men have gone to find more, so that we can have a pig roast to celebrate the final completion of the fort. Mr. Tyler has taken the lead of our hunting parties and patrols, and seems much more comfortable in that role; his squabbles with Mr. Grayson seem to have ended entirely, and I can tell his chest swells with a bit of pride every time one of the new arrivals thanks him for helping them get here.

I find myself growing restless, and I would like to try venturing out with the next group to travel to the colonist camp, if only to see more than our small island and its environs. Mr. Grayson has told me quite plainly that it is not safe though, and he will not allow me to put myself in danger, especially since I am the closest thing we have to a doctor at the moment. I can't disagree with his logic, but it does chafe a bit.

13 February 319

As I write this, we are preparing to sit down to a dinner of roast pork and wild vegetables, a luxurious dinner that is a rare occurrence here on the island. Mr. Grayson has christened the fort in honor of the Dunsany Star's lost captain, Captain Upton. Though I did not know the captain well, if Mr. Grayson's character and opinion is anything to go by, he was certainly deserving of the honor.

Since the last group of colonists arrived, there have been few sightings any of the undead or other monsters that plagued us before; I suspect the fact that we can't be reached has crept into even their diminished capability for thought. the respite has been welcome, but neither Mr. Grayson nor Mr. Tyler seem to think this will last.

15 February 319

Mr. Grayson took me to the beach today to teach me how to fish. Though we only caught one fish, some sort of bass I believe, it was a relaxing few hours and I enjoyed spending the time with him. We talked a great deal about the future of our tiny outpost, and about the future of ourselves personally; he confessed that he is quite smitten with me, and that he would very much like to spend more time with me personally, when the pace of activity here allows.

I must confess that I was not sure what to say; part of me wonders if it is only because I am one of the few unmarried women here on the island that Mr. Grayson has turned his attentions to me. I cannot help but be flattered though, and I must admit that I am impressed by his character. I suspect even my mother, as much as she looks down upon sailors, would be impressed by him. In the end, I told him that I would need some time to think on the matter, and he promised to respect my decision.

18 February 319

Today, the men began work to wall in the cave which was the source of many of the monsters which plagued us in those early days; I was on hand in case there was any trouble and my medical expertise became necessary. We were able to wall in much of it during the morning, before a giant spider scuttled from the depths of the cave and attacked one of the men. Luckily, Mr. Tyler and Mr. Parsons dispatched it quickly. Once the cave is capped, Mr. Grayson says we will build a small shelter on top of it, and use that to dig down later and explore the cave system for more iron and other metal ores, which were fine ourselves growing short of.

Speaking of Mr. Grayson, I have agreed to his request to court me. Despite the fact that he was clearly exhausted from the day's toil when I spoke to him, I could see a bit of a smile cross his face and told me to call him Duncan from now on. Sadly, we had little time to talk further, considering his exhaustion and my own duties helping to cook the evening meal, but we have promised to make some time for each other in the coming days if at all possible.

22 February 319

We've finished most of the work to level the island now, and work has begun in earnest on three different projects. Mr. Fellows is leading a group to build a small smithy for him to work in just outside the fort, letting others use the workshop in the fort for building furniture and other projects. Another group of men is working on laying roads from the fort to where we will be constructing the causeway over the ford, and yet another is building the small but sturdy shack we will be putting over the entrance to the cave.

The shack over the cave is being constructed largely of stone, by several massive panes of glass have been fired from the sand of the beach to make a number of large glass windows, thick enough to hold strong against the zombies' inept attacks. Once a stairwell or ladder is built to go down into the cave, this will keep any undead that get up into the shack from lasting more than a day, and we'll be able to see any creepers that get in with fair warning.

Progress on the shack and the road has gone fairly quickly; leveling the island involved quarrying a great deal of stone, especially where the hill once stood, so it was not hard to find suitable stones to fill them. The smithy goes a bit slower, but that is mostly because it has been deemed a lower priority, so that we can begin work on the causeway and bring the rest of the colonists back to the island, where they will be safer. Mr. Tyler is preparing to lead another group of men back to the colonists' camp and bring more of them back here already, since it has been nearly two weeks since we last sent word to them.

Privacy is in short supply, with as closely packed as we are here at the fort; Duncan and I have had little time to talk together, with him busy during the day and everyone clustered together in the evenings. Our courtship, so far, has consisted of a few shared meals and short talks about what we did before we came to the island. Evidently, before he joined the crew of the Dunsany Star, he was an engineer's apprentice with army, which explains his skill at designing fortifications, I suppose. He is also much better read than I would have expected from a sailor; few others here, I suspect, have read the works of Argus or Roland of St. Yves. While I still find myself surprised at his interest in me at times, I find myself growing more and more comfortable simply spending time with him.

28 February 319

I spent much of today helping Mr. Fellows get situated in his new smithy, which Duncan and a few of the other men put the finishing touches on today, laying down wooden planks for the roof. The workspace is more than adequate for his needs, and according to him the forge in the new building should be able to burn much hotter than the small ovens we had in the fort. This will give us stronger iron to make tools from, which will hopefully speed up the work to build more houses, lay the causeway to the mainland, and eventually extend the walls of the fort out to encompass the whole island, giving us plenty of safe and sheltered land to construct our growing village on.

Duncan has set aside a small plot of land for me and some of the other women to begin cultivating vegetables and some of the grains the colonists brought seeds for. It is a bit of a mess at the moment, overgrown and gnarled with brambles, but with some work I think it will be quite suitable, at least for supplementing the animals, both hunted and kept, and gathered wild plants that make up most of our current diet.

5 March 319

Now that the smithy is up and running, most of the work has shifted towards the causeway to the mainland. Though the ford is mostly rather shallow already, the first stage of the work has been using sand to build up a base to build on. Once that is there, the men will begin packing dirt on top of the sand, and finally put down the layer of cobblestone that will actually make up the causeway.

After spending several days clearing out the land were we plan to have our small garden, a number of the men helped us make a crude fence around it to keep out the animals, which would otherwise trample and eat our work. Duncan has also taken two small teams of men to begin extending the walls of the fort; progress on these walls is slow, but for now the intent seems to be getting the foundations in, so that we can begin planning where to place houses and other buildings within the walls.

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Part 3

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:00:00 -0600

8 January 319

I write this tonight from the second floor of the keep, under the stars but fully ensconced within its walls. All nine of us are sleeping within the keep for the first time tonight, thanks to the safety it now provides. Mr. Yancy, who is able to hobble a bit now using a makeshift cane, is sleeping without the comfort of his crude bed, but as the undead and creepers become more and more bold, it is better to be here than in the cabin.

Tomorrow, Mr. Tyler and two of the other men are heading north on what they have told Mr. Grayson will only be a three day journey to scout out the territory. The good progress we have made on the keep has made this a much less concerning development than it would have been a few weeks ago, and to be quite honest it would do us good to know more about what was around us. It would be rather silly if civilization lay less than a day's travel away and we simply hadn't found it. It seems an unlikely possibility, considering Mr. Grayson's estimate of our location from the stars and sun, but it would not be unheard of for there to be Oestrian colonists who have struck out on their own, far afield from the ports of Undine and Sailor's Rest. If nothing else, Mr. Tyler is an able hunter, and should be able to bring back enough meat for a hearty celebratory dinner.

9 January 319

It appears that we abandoned the hill just in time; last night, Mr. Fellows, who had been on watch from the tops of the unfinished keep, spotted a creeper atop the hill. After inspecting the hill in the morning, we could see where the creatures has managed to finally pull down the embankment along the hill, giving them a clear path to the top. We have been remiss about building the hill back up every morning, and it appears that laziness has cost us the cabin as a safe place. Though hardly a critical problem now that we have the keep, it has made up more careful.

Mr. Tyler has put off his departure for a day, having finished collecting supplies and packing too late after helping to shore up the embankments around the keep (in order to prevent the creatures from repeating their trick). He has assured us all that he will be leaving at first light, however.

11 January 319

Our work continues even with fewer people, though several of the men spent much of the morning hunting for tonight's dinner. Work on the walls of the fort, which will surround the courtyard and keep, has begun. Mr. Grayson plans to make them almost ten feet thick, though it will take a considerable while to build them up, I suspect. I have helped as much as I can, mostly laying mortar between the heavy stones that the men are using the build the outer shell of the wall; inside, we will use the earth that we have been gathering as we work to level the land around the fort, including the hill atop which the cabin sits.

12 January 319

We awoke with a start early this morning to a loud explosion, as one of the creepers atop the hill attacked one of the tents which still stand atop it. It destroyed the side of the hill and the tent, which is now torn to shreds. Thankfully, nothing else was hurt -- and there was no one in the tent or the cabin, which appears to have also been slightly damaged by the blast.

The biggest concern is that the hilltop now comes dangerously close to the tops of the fort's walls; Mr. Fellows worries that they may be able to jump onto the wall from the hill, or at the very least, skeletons could shoot down onto it. We had already planned to take down the hill, in order to make the land outside the fort level and suitable for cultivation, but it appears we may need to do that sooner rather than later.

Mr. Tyler should return tomorrow; with he and his men added back to our number, hopefully we can finish the first part of the wall soon and then begin to clear the hill.

13 January 319

Mr. Tyler did not return today; I admit to being concerned, but Mr. Grayson tells me not to worry. Expecting a tight timetable when Mr. Tyler is wandering unknown territory populated by all manner of hostile creatures does seem somewhat unreasonable, I suppose, but it is that very aspect of his trip that makes any delay cause me worry.

15 January 319

Another long day working on the walls of the fort was momentarily broken up today by the return of Mr. Tyler -- and though his news is not as good as I might have hoped, it was far better than I expected. Not only did he return safely, he brought with him two men and two women, colonists who had been aboard the ship we spotted before the new year!

It seems that Mr. Tyler found their ship wrecked upon the beach two days journey up the coast, surrounded by the same sort of makeshift tents and shelters we constructed in our early days here. Their ship had been battered by a storm similar to ours, but it having been a larger vessel it did not sustain quite as much damage and managed to limp to the shore, where they ran aground to keep the ship from sinking. They managed to rescue most of their supplies, and it seems that so far they have managed to remain unmolested by the undead and other monsters.

Mr. Thomas Weatherby and Mr. Charles Cavendish and their wives accompanied Mr. Tyler back to our camp with some of their supplies -- metal and leatherworking tools, as well as food and other consumables. Mr. Francis and Mr. Parsons, who had gone with Mr. Tyler from our camp, chose to stay behind at the shipwreck camp for now to help them organize caravans to our island, which Mr. Tyler convinced the leader of the shipwreck camp, Captain Nichols, would be a more defensible location.

I am not sure what brought Mr. Tyler around to see our island as preferable to more exploration, but it is nice to see that he is being reasonable about it. According to Mr. Weatherby, there are 54 colonists back at the shipwreck camp. For myself, the most encouraging word was that many of them were women and children; I admit that it has been an odd experience not seeing another woman for nearly three months now! It is a tribute to Mr. Grayson's leadership that I have been treated so well in this camp for so long.

17 January 319

Mr. Tyler and Mr. Weatherby left this morning for the shipwreck camp to reassure the rest of the colonists that our intentions are as we claim, and to help lead more of them this way. Mr. Cavendish has stayed behind to help with our construction and keep watch over his wife and Mrs. Weatherby, both of whom remain a bit skittish about being with the men here. I suspect that they think me some sort of harlot to seem so comfortable among them, but despite my reassurances that I have been treated very well. Still, they look at me funny when I assist with the tasks around the fort; though they have no problem helping dress and cook wild pig and cattle, I do not think they find mortarwork or digging to be very ladylike. For me, the last seven weeks have convinced me that there is little room for such luxury here, at least for now.

We have finished much of wall around the keep, and most of the foundations are in for the wall around the courtyard; much work remains in filling the stone shell with earth and constructing the battlement, but soon we should have a fortified courtyard that should provide shelter for more of the colonists.

19 January 319

Today we began to fill in the walls of the fort with earth. While much of the wall remains unfinished, constructing the battlement will give us a little more space and make it easier to keep an eye out on the surrounding land.

20 January 319

Much concern among the other women tonight, as the unfinished fort has been invaded by the undead; skeletons and zombies walk about the courtyard, though they still cannot get into the keep, thankfully. Even so, I must admit to being a bit unsettled despite the fact that I trust the keep's walls and should be used to the groans of the zombies outside by now. I look forward to the day when those things will be driven from the island completely.

21 January 319

Mr. Tyler returned today with a dozen more colonists, all of them men and boys. Mr. Fellows and Mr. Cavendish have been hard at work making tools the past few days, to get ready for the influx of new people. With nearly double the number of people to work on the fort now, we should make much better progress.

22 January 319

While work continues on the fort, much work has been put into excavating away at the hill as well. Unfortunately, this has created some small caves under the hill where monsters seem to conglomerate during the night, and hide in the mornings.

While this has created a problem for the men working to clear the land, Mr. Grayson and the others have become quite adept at getting rid of the creepers, which remain the most dangerous of the creatures. Furthermore, they have been able to unearth a fair bit of iron ore within the mountain, considerably more than I would expect from the local geology. Mr. Fellows plans to use it to construct better tools for the men, but there is still too little to replace them all, so stone tools -- albeit better and better ones all the time -- still remain the rule of the day.

2 February 319

We have made a great deal of progress on the fort over the last two weeks, finishing off the third floor of the keep and much of the outer wall, complete with a portcullis, which should keep the monsters out and make more room for our growing population to live temporarily, as the keep was getting rather cramped with as many people as we have now. There have been few new arrivals from the colonist camp since my last entry, but contact is kept by Mr. Tyler and others as they travel back and forth. The trip is getting more dangerous, but from what gather the colonists are doing what they can to fortify their small village as well, so hopefully they will hold out as well as we did before the fort was serviceable.

Mr. Fellows is making plans to build a small workshop in the courtyard of the fort soon, along with a small pen for animals, which will let us move a lot of the equipment being used for construction and excavation out of the first level of the keep, making room for a small common area and kitchen. The prospect of sitting down for a proper meal again, instead of devouring chunks of roast pork like animals, is a comforting one, but for now, there is naught but a few tents in the courtyard to provide additional shelter.

4 February 319

With the fort basically finished now, things are getting much more calm -- almost normal, if one can call it that. At night we can simply close the portcullis if necessary, and a few men walk the battlements to keep an eye on the creatures outside. The slope of the berm the fort sits on is sufficient to keep most of the creatures from even getting close enough to the walls to pose a danger, but I doubt even a creeper explosion could break through the walls of the fort. I can even stroll through the courtyard, or visit with Mr. Grayson on the battlements in the evenings or early mornings without fearing for my life -- something I have not been able to do since we crashed upon this island, more than two months ago.

This morning, I woke up before sunrise and joined Mr. Grayson on the battlements, where I was treated to the sight of the moon setting over the top of the now-finished keep of the fort. It was quite a sight, and hard to believe that just a few months ago I was watching the same moon set over the steeples and towers of Knightsport.

7 February 319

A handful of new arrivals from the colonist village arrived today with Mr. Parsons, but only by the skin of their teeth. The alarm went up early this morning, as the two men on watch spotted Mr. Parsons and the rest of his group coming across the water to the north, pursued by a large swarm of monsters. Mr. Grayson and several of the men grabbed axes and picks and ran to meet them, helping to haul their gear off the rafts we have been using to cross the water. Much of it had to be left behind as the monsters drew closer, however, and they made a dash for the safety of the fort.

I joined the rest of the men on the battlement and helped to shut the portcullis as they ran though, keeping the horde of undead from following them into the safety of the fort. Though a good deal of their supplies had been lost, thankfully no one had been hurt, and we stood watch until morning, when much of the waiting horde clawing at the walls burst into flames in a spectacular and rather grisly display.

When we were sure that we were safe from the marauding hordes outside, Mr. Parsons told us they had made slower progress than expected on their way to the fort, and had been caught out when the sun went down. Knowing they were close, they tried to make it to the ford in time, but fell short, and when night fell they were surrounded by the creeping horde. Thankfully, they are not nearly as quick across the water, even compared to the slow raft.

For now, Mr. Grayson thinks we should limit the travel between our island and the colonist village, just to be safe. While that seems prudent, I suppose, I know the colonists are not in as secure a position as we, and it seems wrong to leave them where they are without such safety as we have.

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Part 2

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:41:31 -0600

5 December 318

We have spent most of today chopping down trees from around the hill our cabin sits on so that we can make more picks and shovels. Tomorrow we will begin grading the hill we sit on; Mr. Grayson and Mr. Fellows think this is the first step in making us safer. By leveling the land around the hill, and making the hill steeper, it should be much more difficult for spiders, these "creepers" as Mr. Grayson calls the green creatures, and whatever else is out there to get up to our cabin.

I have been trying to help, but it is backbreaking physical labor and I can't keep up with the men here. They try not let it show, but I can tell they get frustrated when I drop my end of one of the heavy logs, or simply can't keep up with the digging. But we all need to pitch in, and I can't simply sit by and let them work while I do nothing.

9 December 318

There's been no sign of the creatures from the other night since we started working on the hill, for which I have been very grateful. I have taken to collecting eggs from the wild chickens on the island, dressing and cooking the wild boars Mr. Tyler has been hunting, and other more domestic duties, since it seems that our situation might not be as precarious as we feared. We've finished with the makeshift fortifications Mr. Grayson and Mr. Fellows came up with, which will hopefully protect us while we try to figure out our next move.

It is the most primitive of fortifications, but it is steep enough that it would be extremely difficult for a man or beast to climb atop it without using the shallower staircase that we built into the front of the hill. Walls around it should keep them from climbing it, and at night we plan to block it off with an earthen barrier. With the food and water here we should be able to last quite a while should we be besieged again.

10 December 318

It appears that we finished our work just in time; last night, the creatures came again, though not in great number; this time, I know I spotted at least one skeletal archer among their number.

While most appeared to stay further away from the hill, Mr. Grayson told me this morning that last night they found one of the walking dead clawing at the side of our hill, trying to climb up the steep embankment. Thankfully, it was unable to gain purchase, and Mr. Fellows was able to stand on the terrace above it and lop off its head with a single blow from one of our makeshift axes, sending the putrid mass of rotting flesh tumbling to the ground.

If the accounts of the Great Crusade are correct, then the undead have never been particularly innovative, and their vulnerability to the cleansing light of the sun puts them at a great disadvantage to us. Nor do these spiders or creepers seem any more intelligent, which means they are not likely to be able to build ladders or other tools to try and climb our hill. The biggest danger would seem to be the skeletons that are clearly the dead from some long-forgotten battlefield, who can still make use of weapons they once used in life. They should only be a danger at night.

12 December 318

This morning I woke up early, even before the sun had come up, and from outside the cabin I could hear a great clattering, like a pile of metal and wood being rolled a long a stone road, punctuated by the occasional low groan. Mr. Grayson and Mr. Yancy stood near the edge of the hill, and as I emerged from the cabin, I saw them crouching low, looking down towards the base of the hill. As I approached, Mr. Grayson made a motion to me to crouch low as they did, and when I got close I could see why.

Below us, a half dozen skeletons and zombies clawed at the side of the hill, trying to get to our cabin. I barely poked my head up to look when an arrow sailed over my head and embedded itself in the wall of the cabin, and Mr. Yancy pulled me down to the ground just in time to avoid another. I cursed myself for my stupidity, but on a second later we were all startled by the ungodly screams of the creatures, as the morning sun rose above the horizon. Bathed in its light, they all caught flame, and for several minutes we were forced to listen as they were burned to cinders.

It was a frightening sight; despite my relief at seeing the monsters who had our small hill under siege burn, watching a flaming skeleton claw its way up the hill, or hearing the unearthly groans of pain from the zombies as their flesh was literally seared off their bones was quite more than I could take. I retreated back to the cabin while the two men sat watch to make sure none of the creatures escaped. As I did, there was a powerful explosion that shook the very ground I stood on, and sent me tumbling. Behind me, I could hear Mr. Yancy shout in alarm.

I looked back to see Mr. Grayson pulling the other man up the side of the hill; he had apparently slipped and fallen to the lower terrace. He looked bloodied and burnt, and his left leg seemed twisted and limp. I ran to help as the other men emerged from their tents as well, awoken by the explosion.

As I helped Mr. Grayson lay Mr. Yancy upon the ground carefully, I looked to the side of the hill to see what had happened. A great crater had formed in the ground at the side of the hill, many feet deep. Dirt and rock had been thrown several feet in every direction, much of it spattered against the side of the hill. As we tended to Mr. Yancy's wounds, Mr. Grayson asked him what had happened. Though in great pain, he managed to tell us that he had fallen next to the edge of the hill, only to find himself looking straight at one of the green creepers. The next thing he knew, the creature had exploded, like a living bomb, causing the devastation we saw next to the hill.

Mr. Grayson left me to tend to Mr. Yancy while he went to confer with the others; clearly, this was a new cause for concern. If these creatures could cause such damage -- like the works of a master wizard or alchemist -- then our simple hilltop cabin would not likely be enough to keep us safe, not for the long term.

15 December 318

Tempers are beginning to flare among the men here at the camp. While we have not been attacked again since Mr. Yancy's unfortunate incident, we can still see the creatures walking about outside every night. Mr. Tyler and three of the other men seem to want to try moving elsewhere, perhaps to the north, where we might be able to find a more defensible position, while Mr. Grayson has convinced the others that we should try and build some sort of stronger fortification here on this island.

Myself, I am torn; I feel like we are trapped here, but the thought of trying to journey northward in the hope of finding something better seems much like a pipe dream at this point. I do not like the prospect of being stuck at night in the middle of unknown territory with swarms of undead all around us, nothing more than a campfire and some crude stone weapons keeping them at bay. On the other hand, building a real fortification will be difficult with as few people as we have, when each night we must retreat to the safety of the hill and hope that our work for the last day is not destroyed.

We cannot go anywhere until Mr. Yancy has recovered though, and his recovery may take quite some time. His left leg was badly broken in the explosion, and while his burns were not as bad as I thought at first, they could become much worse if I am not careful. I have been using the last bits of sailcloth, washed carefully in boiling water, to bandage them, but I fear if another man suffers similar injuries I may not be able to attend to them as well.

18 December 318

Mr. Grayson appears to have won over most of the other men, especially as we have fallen under siege again. While the morning light keeps us safe from the zombies and skeletons that surround the hill in the night hours, the creepers still surround us in the morning, and there is at least one or two explosions every night, usually not far from the base of the hill. I am not sure if it is a random accident, or if they are intentionally trying to undermine our makeshift fortifications. The men spend the better part of the morning trying to fend them off so that we can begin working on the next step of our construction.

Some of the craters we fill in, simply to make the ground less treacherous and reduce places for the monsters to hide, but the number continues to increase, and spending time on building a new, better shelter seems like a better use of our limited time.

Mr. Yancy continues to mend, but with his broken leg it will be several weeks before he can do much more than watch as the other men work. Today he began trying to fashion arrows from the flint we have found around the island, with feathers from the wild chickens we have been eating. Perhaps with a few bows and some arrows, the creepers will not be such a danger, as the men can attack them from a distance rather than risking the terrifying explosions up close. I am surprised that there have been no further victims like Mr. Yancy, but the men seem to have figured out how to bait the creepers into either blowing themselves up, or to attack and then run off before the creepers realize the extent of their wounds.

20 December 318

Mr. Grayson and the other men have managed to clear and level the land to the south of the hill, where they plan to build a small fort, where we will hopefully be much safer. Quarrying the stone will likely be the most difficult part, but Mr. Fellows has come up with an ingenious method of breaking into the rock that makes up much of the island, and will hopefully provide the stone we need to build walls and other defenses.

Mr. Fellows has figured out how to lure the creepers onto the rocky parts of the island, and then by baiting them into exploding, it shakes loose much more stone than we could break by hand with the stone picks we've built. This has allowed us to begin collecting stone constructing the foundations of what will become our new fort. We have only just started, and the work is quite dangerous, but already, the new task seems to have given the men a renewed sense of purpose, and even Mr. Tyler seems to think this is our best choice for now.

26 December 318

Our hope of rescue was briefly kindled today by the sight of a sail upon the horizon, nearly a month now since we were shipwrecked here. We quickly ran to stoke the signal fire we have kept burning on the beachfront, but as the ship grew closer, we could see it was listing very badly to the starboard side, and it continued to sail north. Mr. Grayson could not see the ship's insignia well enough to identify its origin, but hopefully they will make it to the Oestrian colonies and send back someone to find us.

The work on the fort continues to move along at a good pace, but the sighting of the ship seems to have made Mr. Tyler and the men who sided with him more interested in trying to journey northward again. If they leave, it will be nearly impossible for us to finish the fort; so much of our day seems to be spent on simply finding food, fending off the spiders and creepers that haunt the hillsides in the morning, and chopping wood for our fires, that we would be overwhelmed.

28 December 318

Mr. Grayson and Mr. Tyler had a shouting match today over our course of action. Mr. Tyler is insisting that he be allowed to scout northwards to see if he can find any other sign of civilization, and Mr. Grayson is unable to convince him otherwise. I am becoming more and more frightened that Mr. Tyler will leave, whether or not he can get agreement from Mr. Grayson. I can tell Mr. Grayson and the others are trying to get as much done on the fort as they can before things reach the breaking point.

On that front, at least, there is a promising amount of progress. The foundations for the fort have been finished and we have begun to work on the walls of the keep, though they are not nearly high enough to provide protection at night yet. During the night, we still creep back to the top of the hill and wait out the monsters that surround us.

3 January 319

Two days ago was the new year, but there were no celebrations here; we were too busy working, trying to finish building the base of our fort. Mr. Tyler has been growing more and more agitated, but today, we put the final stones in place for the walls of the keep and laid in the beams for the second floor, making a sturdy ceiling over our heads. It might not be much; certainly, it is not a castle like I would see back home, but it is much better than our current situation.

The inside is bare, but it has much more space than our cabin does now, even just with a first floor, and its stone walls should provide far more safety than our simple hill does now. The cabin feels increasingly unsafe, as we watch the creepers, spiders, and undead swarm around the base of the hill every night, and the cold stone walls of the keep are far more welcoming.

The completion of the fort seems to have calmed the nerves of Mr. Tyler as well; he still insists that we try looking to the north in hopes of rescue, but he seems content to merely grumble instead of engaging in shouting matches with Mr. Grayson. Mr. Grayson, for his part, seems to have compromised somewhat, telling Mr. Tyler that an expedition northwards is possible once we are fully settled.

The Log Of Amelia Primrose: Part 1

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:13:12 -0600

As a programming note, I've started off this Let's Play with Peaceful difficulty turned on, so that I can get some time to set up in a way that fits the story without getting mobbed by monsters (especially after the latest update -- ack). Once I get to a certain point, it will be switched back to Normal.

27 November 318

I am still alive! After the last four days it is hard to believe, but somehow I survived, and with my journal intact even. I only hope that others from the ship were so lucky.

Not long after my last entry, a furious storm swept up the Dunsany Star, seemingly from out of nowhere. For three days, the crew fought bravely to keep her afloat, but despite the best efforts of Captain Upton and his men, the wind and raging seas took its toll. I spent most of the storm below decks, being tossed about like a bug in a schoolboy's cigar box, much of it in a constant state of nausea. Then, there was a crack of thunder and screams from above, barely heard over the raging wind and rain. Dr. Polton and I rushed abovedecks to find that lightning had struck the ship's mainmast, shattering the already stressed wood; fires flickered in the rigging and giant slivers of wood had embedded themselves around the deck and in several of the crew.

As the captain desperately tried to keep the ship afloat, Dr. Polton and I attended to the wounded, but on a deck pitching and rolling as badly as the Star was, there was little we could do. For what seemed like hours, we struggled to take some of the men down into the bowels of the ship, but on one of our trips up, a piece of debris must have hit Dr. Polton, and he collapsed with bloody wound on his head.

At the same time, there was a great crunching sound, and it felt as if the whole ship had been lifted fifty feet in the air and then dropped upon a rock. Lines snapped and the ship heaved on its side, pitching at least two men overboard. I saw the captain rush below as the rest of the crew struggled to keep the ship afloat, but it did not take long to realize whatever had happened had done some sort of irreparable damage. Another wave crashed against us and I swear I saw the boat buckle and twist, like it was made of paper. Huge deckplanks popped loose and flew overboard, and it felt as if the world were shaking itself apart around me.

I do not remember much after that, only that I awoke, here on this island, with bits of debris around me; one of which was my trunk, sealed tight against the elements! I could not believe the luck, and it is the only reason I am able to continue my writing here. The weather seemed to have cleared and the beach here is warm. I write this entry in the hope that someday, I will be able to show it to my grandchildren, or at the very least, to let some future explorer know that there was a survivor of the Dunsany Star.

28 November 318

I spent the last night in a small shelter I constructed from some planks and sail scraps I have found along the beach, and made a small fire to keep away the chill. The fire kept away the animals, but it did bring some welcome company; the ship's first mate, Duncan Grayson, who I did not spend much time with aboard ship, saw the fire and joined me.

The two of us took some time to take a look around the island we are on today; it isn't much, but there are a few more islands scattered to the south and west and another more substantial one to the north. Mr. Grayson says the hill on our island looks like a good place to build something a bit more permanent than my makeshift tent. Using some tools made from the debris, he and I have set to work felling trees to build a sturdier shelter.

30 November 318

I woke up early this morning, and saw the sun rising from over the island from the tent on the beach. The cabin is making progress, mostly due to Mr. Grayson's hard work. Today, two other members of the ship's crew found us, and they have been helping him clear the hill. I suspect that it will not be long before there are no trees left on this island!

We have been dining on a diet of the wild pigs that are found here on the island, which I have done my best to try and cook properly, but I must admit it would be nice to find more than a few wild onions or mushrooms to have with it. First things first, though; a shelter is a bit more important than trying to cultivate the land here.

Mr. Grayson and the two other crewmen, Mr. Yancy and Mr. Fellows, plan to light a larger signal fire on the beach tonight to hopefully draw in some of the other crew -- or perhaps a passing ship, though Mr. Grayson says he thinks we are at least a week's sail southwest of the Oestrian coast -- territory which is still barely explored, and where many ships have disappeared in the last few years. Once we can construct some basic navigation tools, we should be able to get a better idea of where we are. Until then, we will have to make do as best we can.

2 December 318

The cabin on the hill has been finished, and another four crewmen have found us, thanks to the signal fire. Many of them have told us of hearing strange noises at night in the forests nearby, and even found arrows embedded in the ground or in trees the next morning. I cannot help but wonder what the natives here are like; there are not many of us, and without the advantage of modern weaponry, we are rather vulnerable. Mr. Grayson assures me that we should be safe for now, especially as our small band grows, but still I worry.

A small cluster of tents has grown up around the cabin, makeshift shelters for the other men here. The cabin is small, with barely enough room for two people and our collected supplies. I helped Mr. Fellows, who was evidently a blacksmith before he became a sailor, build a small oven in the cabin, which has been a wonderful addition. Not only has the task of cooking meals been simplified, but it warms the cabin at night, and it will let us use the clay I have found around the island to make bricks for building other shelters, fireplaces, and other constructions where wood is not appropriate.

I have also managed to fashion a bed in the cabin for myself using collected sails and straw. Perhaps it is a bit indulgent, but a bit of luxury here, far from home, is a welcome comfort. I have told Mr. Grayson that all members of the crew should take turns for who gets to use the bed, but he insisted that I use it and stay in the cabin. Especially after the tales from the newest members of our group, he says, we cannot be too careful.

3 December 318

Two more men showed up today, bringing our community to an even ten; I must admit feeling a bit out of place among nine men, but so far they have acted courteously towards me and seem to appreciate that I do not mind getting my hands dirty helping them with construction and butchering animals that our hunting parties have caught. While it is not what I am accustomed to, I cannot help but feel like I have little choice, considering the circumstances.

We found a cave on the north side of the island today with a deep shaft inside; how far down it goes I am not sure, but it must be at least a hundred feet. Mr. Grayson took me to see it, as I have a bit of geological knowledge, but I am afraid I could not glean much from it, aside from seeing a coal deposit near the top we may be able to use as fuel for the oven.

However, as we turned to leave, we were stopped in our tracks by an inhuman growl echoing up from the shaft. I have never heard such a terrible noise; like a man moaning in pain mixed with the growl of an angry dog waiting to pounce. The four of us in the cave froze in our tracks, and the same noise echoed out again. Carefully, we crept out of the cave and made our way back to the camp, but Mr. Grayson has ordered two of the men to keep watch over the entrance from a small tent. If there is something within that cave, hopefully we will have enough warning to take shelter.

4 December 318

In the early hours of this morning, I was awoke by a bloodcurdling scream and shouting as Mr. Grayson and the other men burst through the door of the cabin, telling me to get away from the windows. I heard a loud hissing noise, so piercing I felt like it was making my teeth rattle, and I saw a strange, black leg -- like that of an insect -- clawing against the window of the cabin.

Mr. Grayson and Mr. Tyler, one of the men who had been at the cave tent, grabbed some of our tools from the supply chests and smashed whatever had been poking through the window viciously, eliciting another, higher-pitched hiss. I dared to poke my head up, to see what was there, to see a giant spider, with eight glowing, glistening eyes, trying to pull itself inside the cabin, and behind it, some sort of green monster with a barely human face -- a twisted version of a goblin or orc, perhaps. It had no arms, though, and seemed to snap at the tools as the men fought them off.

Eventually, they must have figured there was easier prey, and retreated after many wounds from shovels, picks, and axes. We all stayed in the cabin for at least an hour afterwards, out of fear they would return, while Mr. Tyler told us what had happened.

He had been asleep while Mr. Irwin, the other man at the tent, had been on watch, and had awoke to shouts and Mr. Irwin shaking him awake, babbling about monsters emerging from the cave and others swimming across the channel to the north. As he was regaining his bearings, Mr. Tyler said one of the giant spiders came up behind Mr. Irwin and grabbed him in its giant mandibles, dragging him off the edge of the hill. Mr. Tyler had grabbed one of the makeshift weapons at their camp and momentarily thought to go after him, before he saw all manner of creatures emerging from the cave. He ran back to warn us just in time, as our main camp was overrun with spiders, those green monsters, and worse -- the undead.

It seems the Inquisition was not as successful as it had thought, because he quite clearly described shambling zombies and rickety skeletons, clambering over the rocks and dirt of the hillside to come after him. If he is right -- that the cave, and presumably the island to our north, is infested with these creatures -- then we are in a great deal of trouble indeed. With only nine of us left, I do not know how we can hold out against hordes of these creatures. I only hope that Mr. Grayson can come up with a plan to protect us, or we shall soon join their number.

The Log of Amelia Primrose: Prologue

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:19:42 -0600

Recently, I have become addicted to the indie darling Minecraft after being inundated with chatter about the game for about 2-3 months now. Though the game is only in alpha testing now, the fundamental gameplay is extremely solid and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sandbox games and isn't bothered by the rather primitive graphics.

In an effort to guide my gameplay into something a little more productive in terms of writing (and at the encouragement of a few friends), I've decided to do a "Let's Play" from the point of view of a woman shipwrecked after a storm, forced to face the wilds of the new island she finds herself on, and to build a new colony and explore the territory. For that reason, I'll be trying to stick as closely to "realistic" looking construction, and avoiding the more game-y constructions many Minecrafters develop, like automatic monster killers, torchlit tree farms, and things of that nature. At the moment, I don't have any plans to use any mods other than texture packs, which I may experiment with a little. Setting-wise, I am taking inspiration from the setting for the game Arcanum, which I highly recommend playing if you've never done so.

If you're unfamiliar with Minecraft, the best way I've heard it explained is that it is "Legos with zombies"; you collect materials to make new tools and construct buildings, and the world you play in is populated both with animals like sheep, cows, and pigs, but at night, or in dark places underground, you are likely to be beset by monsters like zombies, giant spiders, and the exploding creepers. The game is still under development, and new features are being added all the time.

This prologue begins the story and sets up the events which follow; there won't be a whole lot of actual "playing" quite yet, but that should begin soon (I'm debating whether to wait for the Halloween update to begin the actual game part).

27 October 318

The captain of the Dunsany Star has agreed to take me aboard for his trip to the Oestrian colonies in return for almost all my savings, but finally the trip across the ocean is within my reach. I'm looking forward to continuing my studies of the Oestrian tribes first hand; the library at the University is extensive, but one can only learn so much from books.

Captain Upton has warned me that the sea is no place for a lady, but I have promised to pull my weight and assist the ship's surgeon, Dr. Polton, as best I can. The doctor seems a reasonable sort, and he seemed most impressed by my letters and knowledge of modern medicine, for which I will need to thank Professor Barton when I eventually return. I have also volunteered to help with other shipboard duties as best I can, though there seems little call for cooking or other domestic duties here.

While I admit I know little about seagoing vessels, the Star seems study enough, and the captain assures me his crew is capable. Despite their rough demeanor, which I understand is not unusual for seamen, Captain Upton and his officers seem able to keep them in line and hopefully we will make good time to Oestria.

31 October 318

Four days out of Knightsport and the weather remains good, for which I am eternally grateful. So far, I have had little trouble with seasickness after the first day (where my troubles brought no end of amusement to the ship's crew). I did not realize at first how tight the quarters really would be aboard ship; the captain has been nice enough to allow me a berth with the ship's officers, but even in that segregated space I cannot help but feel a bit uncomfortable, sharing a small room with three men. Still, they have been gentlemen, and allowed me a bit of privacy, which seems a luxury few others aboard enjoy.

I must say that I have never realized how very isolating a trip at sea really is; on land, there is always a farmstead or fishing village or at least some kind of new terrain to entertain the eye. At sea, there is nothing of the sort, and ever since the lighthouse of Knightsport harbor passed below the horizon, I have seen no other sign of civilization. The occasional sighting of a breaching whale or a school of fish dancing beneath the waves has given me great delight, to know that it is not quite as empty as it seems, but I wonder how sailors can stand this for so many months out of the year.

2 November 318

There was an accident on the ship today; one of the crew was working in the rigging and fell, tumbling to the deck. Dr. Polton and I tried to save him, but there was little we could do. The man's head had hit the ground and nearly cracked open like an egg. I have never seen so much blood. Examining diagrams and even the few dissections I helped Professor Barton with did not prepare me for the sight.

What has disturbed me the most though is the attitudes of the crew. It was not long after we put the man to rest at sea when the crew continued carrying on as if nothing had happened. The captain tells me that this is the necessity of the sea, that death is not uncommon, especially on long voyages such as ours. If everything stopped for such events, the ship would be in even more danger than it already was. While I appreciate the gravity of our situation, it seems uncivilized to be cracking jokes and telling stories of...well, such things as they do so soon after a fellow seaman has been laid to rest. The captain seems to be bemused by the fact that I am so surprised.

6 November 318

The weather has taken a turn for the worse, as has my seasickness. Captain Upton assures me that the ship and his crew have seen worse. Truth be told, I would not be so much bothered by the wind and the rain if I was back home in Cantersbridge, but here the wind does not just howl at the walls and doorways, but pitches the ship to and fro. I have been soaked to the bone more than once by a spray from the waves, and there are few places to dry off.

8 November 318

The storm seems to have lifted for now, though the skies remain ominous in the distance. The captain has ordered a change of course, one which is taking us away from the storm front, but will likely add several days to our trip. This has brought mixed reactions from the crew, and I find myself of two minds as well. Still, the crew seems to trust the captain's judgement, and I have no reason to doubt him.

16 November 318

The weather continues to hold, and I admit I am beginning to have trouble filling my days as time goes on. I have been trying to get the captain to teach me more about the practical matters that need to be taken care of aboard ship, but he is busy man and seems to find my questions more annoying than anything else. I do not think he takes them seriously, either because I am a woman, or because I am an academic.

In reality, I am growing more and more concerned that I am unprepared for the life that awaits me in the colonies. The last three weeks have shown me a great deal I did not know, or even what would occur to me. City life is very different from here at sea, and from what I have heard from the ship's officers, from life in the colonies.

23 November 318

The weather is beginning to turn. The rain has just started, but the wind has been picking up for several hours now. I've come back below decks for the time being, and it is getting difficult to write as the sea pitches the boat. Hopefully this will only be temporary; we are still at least three weeks away from Oestria.

LTTP: Alpha Protocol

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:19:00 -0600

So, this is a few months late now, but I really wanted to talk about Alpha Protocol, since it was one of the games I was most looking forward to this year and because it's the latest product from Obsidian Entertainment. If you don't know who Obsidian is, many of the founders of that company are former people from Black Isle Studios, which made Fallout, Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment. Obsidian previously made the flawed gem Knights of the Old Republic 2 and will be releasing Fallout: New Vegas later this month.

My interest had been piqued in the game last fall after I'd watched a talk Chris Avellone, the lead designer, had given at Frameworks in Australia last year, so I had preordered the game in anticipation of it coming out last May. Unfortunately, when the game was released, it wouldn't run on my computer, despite spending two weeks going back and forth with tech support. It wasn't until I installed Windows 7 and a new patch finally came out for the game a couple weeks ago that I was actually able to play the game.

With four months between the release date and actually playing the game, it was hard not to be spoiled a little by forum discussions and reviews, especially since I was really interested in the game. Reviews of the game were lukewarm at best, but there was enough praise of the parts I was concerned about -- the storytelling -- that I was still looking forward to playing the game. Now that I've played it, the game's storytelling is as superb as I could have hoped, but unfortunately it is wrapped in some very frustrating gameplay. Here's my rundown of the good and bad:

The Good

Alpha Protocol's greatest strength is the sheer number of ways the story can play out based on the choices the player makes in the missions and in the conversations with the other characters. I played this game side by side with my friend Deirdre, and in general we tend to make similar choices in most RPGs, so I expected our playthroughs to be pretty much the same. However, we started diverging early in our second mission hub, and the way the game played out got further and further apart as we went on. The missions we did were all very similar, but how they played out and what was involved were often very different based on our choices. Compared to Mass Effect 2, which I think was overall a far superior game, Alpha Protocol does a far better job at portraying a dynamic storyline within certain constraints. The framing device, with most of the game being told in flashback, was also used to good effect, putting your actions in a larger context.
As might be expected, the writing in the game is also pretty good, though I think it still falls short of the high bar set by Mass Effect 2 this spring. While the characters for the most part hold up, and some are simply superb (Steven Heck will be sticking in my mind for some time to come, for sure), none of them really got a chance to shine like almost every one of your companions did in Mass Effect 2. To some extent, I'm sure the fact that Alpha Protocol is a very single-character focused game causes this, but it's hard not to compare the two games. The plot is not all that original, but it is presented and executed well.
I really liked the dossier system that the game had for finding out more information about the various characters and factions. It could have been slightly better in presentation (it was hard to find out which dossiers had been recently updated with new information, for instance) but peeling back the layers of the various actors within the game was a lot of fun and really felt like actual spy work.
For similar reasons, I liked that there were a fair number of missions that were simply conversation trees where you met with informants or confronted opponents. The reputation system in the game, which is driven in large part through these conversations, is a lot of fun to play with as well, and the effects it has on the story are rather pronounced, as I mentioned above. Very superior to both the systems in Dragon Age (which was extremely easy to game with gifts) and the system in Mass Effect 2 (which was a binary not loyal/loyal).

The Bad

I really do not like boss fights; they were the worst part of Dawn of War 2 for me (I still never beat that stupid Avatar mission in the campaign) and in a game like Alpha Protocol where, for the most part, it is trying to stay vaguely realistic, it is extremely jarring. It's especially frustrating because while much of the game can be played in a stealth-heavy fashion, almost none of the boss fights can be played in that way. However, while they are only somewhat annoying (and at least tend to be rather infrequent) in the main part of the game, the endgame of Alpha Protocol features no less than 4 separate boss fights. While some are harder than others depending on choices you made earlier in the game, this does mean that a lot of the endgame bogs down to dying a lot and retrying over and over. This destroys the pacing and really makes you feel like a chump, the superspy that keeps dying to showers of grenades, barrages of rockets, and a hail of bullets. That's not fun; compare to Mass Effect 2, where none of the boss fights were particularly difficult compared to most of the normal fights, and they were very few and far between -- and the endgame had challenges and new gameplay that was not a sudden ramp up in difficulty, just something to shake things up. It feels like someone wanted to make Alpha Protocol's endgame feel intense, but couldn't come up with any way to do it other than piling hard fight after hard fight.
Aside from being mostly worthless during the majority of the boss fights, stealth is also kind of primitive; most of the stealth abilities seem very gamey, basically boiling down an almost magical invisibility at times. Deirdre, who has played Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid, also said that the stealth options seemed very primitive; I haven't played those, so I don't feel like I can really speak to it much, but they didn't feel especially organic or well-presented to me.
One of the biggest problems with Alpha Protocol is that it is very clearly a console port, and suffers from that in almost every way. The minigame for hacking is the biggest example of here; it involves moving two character blocks through a shifting field of characters to match the strings. One string is moved with WASD and the other is moved with the mouse, whereas on the console both are moved with joysticks and locked with trigger buttons. Unfortunately, in the computer version, the mouse controlled string is extremely sluggish, making completing the puzzle in the alloted time extremely difficult sometimes, especially when you are still sort of figuring it out. I suspect using the sniper rifles scattered through out the game (and almost required in one of the endgame boss fights) is another case here -- it seemed really hard to control them with the mouse, even though I don't usually have similar problems with other games. There's also a very small number of hotkeys -- you have to change out abilities/items in a menu to use them instead of simply having individual hotkeys for your most-used abilities, which was annoying at times.

The Ugly

Like Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol uses a conversation system where you pick an attitude or the gist of a statement and your character delivers the lines, rather than you picking exactly what your character says. It's big difference is that the choice is timed, which increases the urgency and keeps the pace going. While I can see why they made this choice, I'm not sure I like it myself. There are several places where making a certain choice in a conversation makes Thorton do something really unexpected -- Deirdre mentioned picking a conversation choice that led to her shooting someone she had no intention of shooting, which seems like it takes things a bit far.
The tutorial section gets you familiar with the mechanics of the various aspects of the game, but because your skills are so weak at the beginning of the game, many of the things I picked up during the course of the game -- waiting until my reticle shrank to make sure I got a good shot off, for instance -- were really hard to get the hang of, especially on the weapons course, where I was trying to run through and get good shots off. I am very wary of mixing RPG mechanics and shooting in games -- I couldn't even make it through the first part of Deus Ex because of that, and it was an annoyance in the first Mass Effect too -- but despite a lot of the griping I saw on forums after the game came out, I really didn't think it was that bad once I got further into the game. It was a little hard to grasp in the tutorial though, and that's something that could definitely have been improved.
Buying equipment was a tad bit silly in the game; while I understand the game balance reasons for it, pistols that cost $150,000 that aren't made from solid gold clash a bit with the rest of the game's tone. I wish they had done this a bit differently, perhaps putting more emphasis on making connections with dealers and making money less of an issue.
Perhaps because of it's slightly more realistic setting, Alpha Protocol didn't really have any real jawdropping moments like in Mass Effect or Dragon Age; few of the set pieces really stand out, aside from those which were coupled with the incredibly frustrating boss fights. It's harder to do with a more reality-based game than those two, for sure, but Bond and Bourne movies, which Alpha Protocol clearly takes a lot from, certainly have their fair share of amazing action scenes, and Alpha Protocol doesn't really manage to bring that across. It could be a creative choice, but I think frenetic and exciting set pieces would have been a lot better than gamey boss fights for maintaining the spy-movie feel.

Despite its many problems though, Alpha Protocol is definitely worth a look -- perhaps not at the $50 price point, but once it goes on sale for $20 or so, I'd recommend it to any fan of RPGs. It's really disappointing that it doesn't appear Obsidian will be getting the chance to make a sequel, because I feel like it's a case where the same sort of transition provided by the Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 development could really turn Alpha Protocol into a very solid game. Unfortunately, as it stands, Alpha Protocol is a mediocre game, despite being packed with many really well-done elements. This is only compounded by the fact that as an RPG it came out within six months of two superb efforts by Bioware, about the only company that can challenge the Black Isle legacy for quality RPGs. The contrast between Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2 is pretty stark in terms of polish, even though it's clear they were not designed with the same intent (despite both being third person shooters for the most part).

I would love to see Bioware take a lot of the innovations that Alpha Protocol has, like the more complex reputation system and divergent storyline, and use them in Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age 2, and I am really looking forward to Fallout: New Vegas to see what Obsidian can do with a fairly solid preexisting engine, a setting they are intimately familiar with, and the time to really put out a quality product. I admit that I have yet to preorder New Vegas though, mostly because of the technical issues that kept me from playing Alpha Protocol for four months, and the fact that it was the first of two bad preorder experiences I had this year (the other being the half-baked Stardock effort, Elemental).

In response to "Those Infamous Comments"

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:33:00 -0600

Yesterday, Deirdre pointed me to this article by Dan Amrich, a former games journalist that does PR for Activision now, about Bobby Kotick (CEO of Activision) and his infamous, oft-cited quotes on the game business that have made him a bit of a pariah to many gamers. Dan tries to make the point that most of the comments Kotick is pilloried for were taken out of context and that Kotick isn't the evil, RoboCop-style corporate executive he's made out to be.

This has also popped up for me recently because I have declined to join the Starcraft 2 bandwagon, despite the encouragement of my brother and a number of my friends, partly because I really don't want to support Activision these days, and Kotick is a large part of that. While he tries to make the point that Kotick was taken out of context and that what he was saying wasn't as bad as it is made out to be, I'm going to have to disagree and say that the context really doesn't help it all that much.

Let's just take a look at them again and I'll show you what I mean. I encourage everyone to go read Amrich's original article so you get the full context; I'm going to try to summarize it here, but just to make sure you get both sides of the argument you should read the full context.

"Take all the fun out of making video games."

The first quote Amrich goes over is this one:

Jeetil Patel, Deutsche Bank Securities - Analyst
"What do you think the retailers' willingness these days is to hold inventory on the video game side? Are they building positions today or are they still very reluctant and very careful of how they are buying?"

Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard, Inc.
"I don't think it is specific to video games. I think that if you look at how much volatility there is in the economy and, dependent upon your view about macroeconomic picture and I think we have a real culture of thrift. And I think the goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought in to Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."

Dan tries to point out that this is all about the financial side of the video game business. "Taking the fun out of making video games" was a joke that fell flat and what Kotick really means in this quote is that he wants people to treat the video game business as just that -- a business. That's all well and good, and I agree -- it is a business.

The problem is that the video game industry is not anything like the "packaged goods" business. Video games are not soft drinks or toothpaste. The product they are probably most similar to is movies, as describe in the article at Squaremans, "They Know It Doesn't Work". And, unfortunately, it seems like Kotick is driving video game production to the same place where movies are now (but more on that later).

The second paragraph is really what makes me crazy though. I understand the idea of saving for a rainy day, and sticking to budgets, and remembering that there are always going to be bad times and you need to make sure you are ready for them. That's all well and good, and I can't blame him for that. However, "keeping people focused on the deep depression" and cultivating a culture of skepticism, pessimism, and fear sounds like a good way to make everyone of your employees, especially at the low level, constantly worried that they will lose their job and be cut from the company. From Kotick's point of view, I can see what he thinks -- they'll produce their best work because they're afraid if they don't, they'll get canned.

The problem is, that is a shortsighted strategy (which is the problem I have with Kotick in general). That doesn't make people want to do good work for you -- it makes people want to work just good enough to not get fired, and as soon as a better opportunity comes along, for a company they want to work for, you lose them.

If Kotick wants to keep good talent in the future, he needs to realize that you can't lead by creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt within your own employees, especially in an industry driven by creative talent -- at least not for very long. You certainly can't lead by trying to screw over the people working for you who create the best-selling games of all time. Whether or not the allegations by ex-Infinity Ward employees are true, one thing is clear -- Kotick lost the talent that created games with billions of dollars in sales for Activision. If the allegations of the ex-Infinity Ward employees are true, he actively drove them out of the company by creating a hostile environment; however, even if Activision's claims are true, and West and Zampella were actively trying to break their contract and wiggle away from Activision, Kotick still failed to be a good leader, in convincing them that Activision was the best place for them to be.

"You know, if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."

The following quote is from an Activision earnings call:

Tony Gikas:
"[...] And a second question, if you don't mind, just your comfort level regarding pricing of some of your new games that have some expensive controllers and any feedback that you had from retail as we move through the holidays. Thanks, guys."

Mike Griffith:
"[...] On the pricing, we've had for all of our launch titles in the back half of this year, some of which contain peripherals, as you point out, very strong retailer acceptance and support for all parts of our plan, including our merchandising plans, our marketing programs, and our price points."

Bobby Kotick:
"And Tony, you know if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further."

Amrich points out that from the audio, Kotick is clearly making a joke and laughing at himself -- and goes so far as to admit that it's probably not a very good joke in a recession when people are trying to save money. Okay, fair enough. It's a joke, and a bad joke, and everyone does that from time to time.

Here's the problem though; not only does it portray an insensitivity to the penny-pinching consumer, and make him seem like he's completely out-of-touch, it's an example of a guy who just doesn't seem to understand why people think he's horrible for the industry. If it was a one-off joke that went sour, okay. But the problem is that it fits a pattern of behavior where it makes it seem like he's trying to wring every last cent out of consumers with the least cost to himself; this quote came at a time when Modern Warfare 2 was going to be coming out $10 more expensive than the vast majority of other AAA titles (on PC anyway) and even worse if you were in the UK, while dramatically reducing the functionality of the product.

As a CEO, a significant portion of your job responsibility is effective communication -- you are the face of your company for many people. I have to imagine that reinforcing a bad perception is probably not a very good idea -- and I have to wonder if anyone can actually tell Kotick that he might want to be a little more careful with his language in the future.

Bobby Kotick only wants exploitable franchises

This is the quote that bothers me the most:

Jeetil Patel - Deutsche Bank

"[...] Why are you de-emphasizing some of the kind of lesser known brands and focusing on the bigger franchises out there? Is it industry that is causing that or do you think it is more strategy on your part that seems to be [winning] big? I kind of want to understand the dynamics there."

Robert A. Kotick

"With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us. It's something that we have been very disciplined about and so while there are lots of promises for a lot of these products that we had in the portfolio, I think generally our strategy has been to focus, especially given the increase in development expenditures on the products that have those attributes and characteristics that we know if we release today, we'll be working on 10 years from now. And that has been -- you know, narrow and deep has been essential to our strategy of how you expand operating margins. The difficulty in establishing new franchises or unproven franchises as we have seen over the last 20 years, that is one of the great challenges of the business and I think that you have a less than accepting and tolerant retail environment.

Amrich's response seems to be that "exploit" in this context doesn't mean what people think. Yes, that's probably very true. That's not the problem I have with this quote though. What Kotick is basically saying is that he only wants to spend money on developing "sure things," and then developing them as much as possible.

This takes us back to something I said about the first quote. Video games are not packaged goods. Video games are a creative enterprise where a "franchise" will only get you so far if the game is crap. Once again, I'm going to point back to that Squaremans article: each game eventually has to stand on its own and at the end of the day you can't just say "only make the games that will be blockbuster successes." Eventually, people will get tired -- they will not keep buying every Guitar Hero game that comes out. When the series started, it was a new and inspired idea, and a great party game -- the problem is that if you just keep churning out new games that offer nothing new but more songs, eventually people will decide they have enough songs and just stop buying them. You can already see this trend with Guitar Hero sales.

If Kotick gets his way, he seems to only want Activision to produce games that can be cranked out every year like clockwork. In the short run, I'm sure this will be great for Activision -- Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and other games of that ilk can crank out billions of dollars in sales before they sputter out. Not only does this disappoint me as a consumer though -- I really love seeing games that do new and interesting stuff, like Portal -- in the long run, this is going to hurt Activision. New franchises aren't going to come out of thin air, and your old ones will eventually grow stale, especially when you crank them out every year and seem to chase away the talent that gave you them in the first place. What will Activision do when Guitar Hero and Call of Duty eventually burn out, or get superseded by a product made by a company with a more innovation-friendly development process? It can coast a long time on WoW income, I suppose, but eventually, someday, that will come to an end too.

I suspect Kotick's answer would be that he'll simply buy a studio making another game he can exploit as a profitable franchise -- but after the whole debacle at Infinity Ward, how many studios are going to see Activision's umbrella as a good place to take shelter? Blizzard, I suspect, has been lucky enough to retain a lot of autonomy simply because WoW is such a cash cow -- but when the creators of the #1 selling game of all time can get the shaft, they still have to be a little nervous. I would be, anyway.

I don't want to see the video game industry turn into the parody of the film industry you see in a lot of 80s movies, with "Rocky 17" in the theatres. Unfortunately, with people like Kotick at the helm, it seems like that is likely what we'll end up with -- endless strings of sequels of declining quality. Thankfully, unlike the film industry, the video game industry is not limited by the number of theatres -- bad games can't chase good games out of the market, especially as digital distribution becomes more and more prevalent. That means that it's less likely people will continue to buy sequels just from inertia -- which is a good thing for the industry, but bad for companies that think they can survive by simply milking franchises to death.

So, to bring this all back to Amrich's assertion, that Bobby Kotick is only seen as the bad guy because his quotes have been taken out of context, I have to respectfully disagree. It's not a few verbal gaffs that make people think Kotick is a bad guy, it's his whole style of management and what it means for the hobby as a whole. I can't disagree that he's been great for Activision's bottom line, at least for now, but if he continues down the road he's on, I think our hobby -- and Activision with it -- will suffer.

Inception

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:59:25 -0600

Let's start this off by saying what Inception is not. It is not an M. Night Shyamalan-style movie with "a twist." If you go in expecting this, and then come out wondering what the big deal was, I think you missed the point -- you are basically told the form of the plot in the first half hour of the movie. Inception is not trying to shock you with the cheap thrill of a twist, it's telling a compelling story with amazing visuals and an intelligent, unique premise, with some awesome action scenes weaved in there to boot. Inception is not going to blow your mind like say, Primer, but you aren't likely to forget it half an hour after you leave the theater either.

The basic plot of the movie is relatively straightforward. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, the leader of a team of "dream thieves" that infiltrate the dreams of targets to steal their innermost secrets from their subconscious -- this is "extraction." A Japanese businessman, played by Ken Watanabe, hires him to crack into the mind of a competitor, played by Cillian Murphy, and plant the idea in his mind to break up his father's company -- this is "inception" and it is supposedly impossible, according to Cobb's right hand man Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The bulk of the movie takes place in dreamspace of one sort or another, where reality is what you make of it. The way this works gives you some amazing visuals (like the city folding in on itself you can see in the trailers), but the way the "outer world" affects the dreamspace is also really well done, translating reality (like getting dunked in a bathtub) into a fantasy (the building you're in getting destroyed in a flood). Most visually inspired scenes are created through this effect; it reminded me a lot of The Matrix in terms of visual spectacle (and considering the premise, perhaps that's not surprising).

In order to plant the idea in the target's mind, without his subconscious rejecting it as someone else's idea, Cobb's team must drill down deep enough to obscure the genesis of the idea. In essence, they must create a triple-layered dream -- a dream within a dream within a dream. This is what creates some of the best visuals of the movie and allows, as my friend Mike at 1000 Monkeys describes, a Return of the Jedi-style intercutting of action scenes, only each scene is on a different level of the dream and therefore slowed down -- dreamtime is a twentieth as fast as real time, and the effect is compounded -- so what takes only ten seconds in the outer world is over three minutes in the next layer, and so on.

Stitched into this fairly straightforward heist plot is a more personal story for Cobb, whose dead wife haunts his dreams and complicates the whole process. Again, if you're looking for a twist here, you are looking in the wrong place -- but the drama of Cobb's struggle with his own demons is compelling, and is tightly interwoven with the rest of the movie.

Inception is a movie that really fires on all cylinders for me. DiCaprio leads an excellent cast of actors, including Nolan veterans Watanabe, Murphy, and Michael Caine, who appears in a small part. It's hard for me to believe I dismissed DiCaprio after he did Titanic; he may be one of the best actors working these days. And if, as rumor has it, Inception was a sort of audition for Joseph Gordon-Levitt to be the Riddler in the next Nolanverse Batman movie, he certainly nails it. After seeing him in Brick and (500) Days of Summer I'm hardly surprised, but his Arthur in this movie is a smart, skilled second to Cobb, and his action scenes are great to watch. Ellen Page, who plays the newest member of the team and is sort of DiCaprio's protege, is sort of the audience stand-in, being the person that gets the "rules" of dreaming explained to her, and does a good job of showing the growing awareness of the new experience without being simply Ms. Exposition. Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao, who I don't think I've seen in anything else and round out Cobb's crew, don't get a huge amount to do, but do well with what they get. Even the bit actors in this movie were good -- a very un-Major League Tom Berenger plays Murphy's "uncle" and one of my favorite character actors, Pete Postlethwaite, plays Murphy's dying father.

The writing is smart and never seems to drag, even when the characters need to give the necessary exposition; Mike complains that the dialogue seemed repetitive, and I never really got that sense. The character do remind each other of the urgency of the situation at times, but it didn't seem like it was out of place (and helped to reinforce the urgency of the situation to the audience too, obviously). I thought Nolan did a good job of showing the concepts the characters were talking about through various visual cues, which made it easy to follow what was going on pretty much all the time.

Hans Zimmer's soundtrack also deserves special mention. I've always really liked his soundtracks, even though they aren't as distinctive as say, Vangelis' Blade Runner score; he definitely has a more generic style that isn't likely to blow your mind even if you really like it. However, what he did in Inception is pretty cool, and you can read about it in this article; he's basically taken the main theme from music the "thieves" use to warn each other that they are running out of time and slowed it down to use as the theme for his soundtrack, and it works great. The music really helps to drive the action and keep it flowing during the climax of the movie. You can sample it at this website, if you want to get a taste of it.

Is Inception going to change the way you think about movies and blow your mind? No, it's not. Is it a great movie? Yes, and it's well worth seeing on the big screen for its visuals, unless you happen to have a 60-inch TV to watch it on when it comes out in Blu-Ray. I suspect it will end up being the best movie I see this year; it was definitely better than Iron Man 2, and the only other movie I'm super-psyched about seeing in a theater this year is Tron: Legacy, which, while it looks like it will be a lot of fun, will have a hard time topping this.

My Grandfather

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:29:44 -0600

Grandpa Hilberg was always "old" to me -- he must have been in his mid to late fifties in my earliest memories of him, going to see Cubs games with him and my dad. I remember his apartment on Ashland Avenue; its smell, and how it was filled with his model trains. I remember the creaky wooden stairs in his building and their red stained wood. I can't remember much else though, almost thirty years later.

He moved to Montana when I wasn't much older; I won't pretend to know why exactly, but after that I saw him less, when he would come to visit or on the rare occasion of a family gathering. I would talk to him on the phone, I always intended to go visit him sometime once I started working but somehow it never worked out; the idea of going to see him without my dad always seemed awkward, and how many people in their 20s want to go hang out with their grandparents? I always thought there would be time later anyway -- the mortality of Grandpa Hilberg never really set in for me.

When my mom's dad died on Christmas 2003, I seemed to make it through almost unfazed. Maybe it was because I had just changed my name and his funeral would be the first time I would meet my mom's family as I am now, and selfishly I was more worried about their reactions to that than grieving over his death. I hadn't spent as much time with Grandpa Schroedter either, since he lived further away. For some reason, I feel like he had reach his time -- he had done what he set out to do and now he was done, and maybe felt a bit at a loss with what he was supposed to do now.

Grandpa Hilberg was different; there was always something childlike about him to me. He seemed to have few regrets about his life and despite the fact that I don't think he ever really had a comfortable or successful career, he never seemed bitter or upset by that. It seemed like every time I talked to him, whether in person or on the phone, he had some story to tell about his friends or his family, and nearly every single one ended with his laugh. I don't think I ever heard him to tell a story with a sad ending.

For someone like me, who has felt world-weary and cynical since I was in my teens, there's something fascinating about a person like Grandpa Hilberg who could maintain that kind of point of view and outlook on the world for so long. I never really thought about his mortality, I guess, because it felt like he would never really go -- how can someone like that die? I figured when you see death coming that has to be the ultimate downer -- when the end is near how can you maintain that kind of outlook?

Yesterday, my dad called me as I was leaving lunch and told me that Grandpa Hilberg had died that morning. He'd been in the hospital, and I knew he was sick, but still, I never thought he would actually die -- it just didn't even strike me a possibility. I don't think it really settled in until last night, but for the first time, I think, I'm actually feeling a strong sense of grief over someone's passing in a way I've never felt it before. Maybe it's the fact that I'm getting older, and my parents are getting older too; for the first time I am really thinking about what it will be like when they die and realizing what that will mean.

I'm filled with regrets now, about my grandfather. I always told him I'd come visit, but I never did. He wrote me after the first time I went to Iceland, including an article he'd read on the place, and I don't think I ever wrote back. I talked to him on the phone, sure, but now...I was his oldest grandchild, and I think he was trying to reach out to me, and I wasn't there. I was always going to see or talk to him later, and now there's never going to be a later.

That is always going to haunt me I think, especially when I look at how his kids turned out -- seven boys and girls who managed to turn out to be pretty great people, one of whom I'm happy to call my dad. Whatever he and my grandmother did to raise them, they seem to have done it pretty well, and they managed to pass those lessons on to their kids, because I don't think I could have asked for a better dad than I am lucky enough to have. After all he's been through -- with me and my brothers, with my mom and everything else life has thrown at him, he's always been there for me. And when I think of that, I wonder if that's how my dad feels about his dad, and I wish I understood that more. I can't help but feel a bit of guilt that I am never going to have kids of my own so that I can pass those lessons on too -- and part of me wonders if I could have, even if it weren't no physically impossible. I can't imagine it was easy for him or for my parents to raise their kids as well as they did.

So, this weekend, I guess, I say goodbye to Grandpa Hilberg, and sorry for putting off what is now never going to happen. I hope that he passed peacefully and as without regret as he seemed, and I hope he knew how much he meant to those of us he leaves behind.

Iron Man 2

Tue, 11 May 2010 20:09:56 -0600

Last weekend kicked off the big summer movie season I guess, with Iron Man 2 premiering; after how much I enjoyed the last one, I was pretty excited to see what they did with the sequel. I took the afternoon off on Friday and went to see it at a matinee, which was mostly empty (a situation I'm told changed quickly by Saturday).

The movie picks up six months after the last movie, with the US government trying to get a handle on the Iron Man issue. Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a competing arms manufacturer, is doing his part to try and bring Stark down (and develop something to compare with Iron Man), and Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) is plotting his revenge, as Stark's father destroyed Vanko's father during the cold war. Meanwhile, SHIELD is still trying to deal with Stark and the emerging Avenger Initiative as well; Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury has a bigger part, as well as Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson.

The big difference between this movie and the original is that while the first Iron Man was more of a character piece, with Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark going through an introspective journey for the first two (or maybe three, depending on how to divide it) acts, Iron Man 2 is, by and large, a more conventional action movie, which is somewhat of a disappointment after three much more interesting superhero movies of the last two years (the original Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen). While there's definitely some good character moments for Robert Downey Jr. in the movie, there's not nearly as much development, and that makes the resolution at the end seem a bit empty to me. While the dialogue is, for the most part, very good, I think the script is just missing the character scenes that made the first one so good -- Downey's strength is that kind of acting, and if you don't give him that, you're wasting him to some extent. I think the improv style of the first one probably made it a lot stronger.

I certainly can't fault the acting; all of the principals are top notch, and even with as many characters are crammed into the movie, it did not feel like they'd been wedged in for no reason. They have a natural presence in the movie, but they also don't get a lot of time to shine. Aside from Downey, Sam Rockwell does an amazing job portraying Hammer; you can tell that Hammer desperately wants to be Tony Stark, but can't quite pull it off. Rockwell gets just the right amount of empty swagger to his step.

Rourke also manages to pull of "bruiser Russian physicist," which I'm surprised as anyone actually works. His opening scenes are very reminiscent of Stark in the cave in the first movie (which I'm sure was intentional) and his opening confrontation with Stark (and the monologue he gives) drips with menace. Later, however, he managed to portray just the right kind of "focused gearhead" kind of personality coming through his gruff exterior.

The other supporting characters work very well (including director Favreau, whose Happy Hogan gets a bigger part in this movie, but not annoyingly so), but none of them quite measure up to the level of the three principals. Considering that they may be three of the best actors working today though, that's hardly a slight. Don Cheadle does an excellent job filling in for Terrence Howard as Rhodey/War Machine, although I think Howard may have had slightly better chemistry with Downey in the first movie. This could just be a symptom of the movie's action focus rather than character focus though -- there's no good scenes where we get to see the two of them just kicking back together like the scene in the first Iron Man on the plane. Scarlett Johansson does a fine job as Black Widow, but only really gets two scenes to show her stuff. She's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not sure that any other reasonably competent actress couldn't have pulled off the role.

The action scenes were pretty good, though I don't think any of them really knocked my socks off; I think part of the problem was that there was just less investment in them than there was in the first movie, where there was a much stronger personal stake in each of them. The first confrontation between Vanko and Stark was probably the best, and the finale, while showy and pretty cool to watch, just didn't have the same weight to it.

On a minor note, the soundtrack for Iron Man seems to basically be AC/DC's greatest hits, and I was kind of disappointed that the score, which I actually liked in the first one, seemed to be missing. I was waiting for the Iron Man theme to start up a few times and I never really heard it (maybe I just missed it though).

Overall, Iron Man 2 is definitely worth seeing; however, be prepared to be at least a little disappointed if you're expecting the same kind of character-focused piece that we had the first time around. It's not a bad movie to be sure, however, and you'll probably enjoy it just for Downey, Rockwell, and Rourke's performances. Hopefully, though, Iron Man 3 will be a return to the first movie's strengths.

Getting more Eves in Eve Online

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:24:54 -0600

CrazyKinux's latest Eve Blog Banter is on a topic of some interest to me, as one of the relatively small percentage of Eve players that happens to be female. Admittedly, I'm not necessarily the typical female player of Eve (or the typical female in general, as anyone who knows me well or reads this blog regularly is already aware of), but I would like to think I'm not completely bizarre in my Eve tastes -- I seem to get along well with the other ladies of Eve I meet at FanFest, anyway. So, as an armchair game designer and someone that would like to see Eve broaden its appeal to women, I've decided to take a crack at that this week.

This topic is a difficult one for me. I've thought about it in regard to gaming in general, and generally I'm of the opinion that far too many people at least in the game-playing community, if not the game-making community, think that women will only be attracted to games which are stereotypically "girly." Things like the Sims, Barbie games, or Bella Sera. It's not a very helpful angle from which to come at the question of "how can an existing game increase its appeal to female gamers?" Maybe Eve Online would get more female players if it was focused around who can dress their avatar up prettier, but that wouldn't really be anything like the current game.

Mostly, though, I think that's a load of crap. Yes, there's some things that women like more than guys and vice versa, but I think a large part of why women don't like certain games has little to do with the gameplay or the number of pink horses in them -- it has to do with how these games are made and marketed, and I think that's partly because of the fact that game development is still such a male-dominated field.

In my experience, one of the ways games can expand their appeal among women gamers is by focusing on "soft" game design issues -- specifically, increasing the strength of story and social elements in gaming, two things that Eve has a good head start on, but still has problems with.

Making the Emotional Connection

Why is storyline important? Because it adds emotional depth to your reasons for playing the game. This is something that I think all gamers appreciate on some level, but with women I think it can be a major draw to the game. I have a friend who does not really enjoy playing a lot of "hardcore" games for the most part, but who loves to watch her husband play pretty much every kind of game out there and go through the narrative of the game. The games outside the casual model that she enjoys playing tend to be those with interesting stories (especially adventure games) and those she can play cooperatively with her husband (like Civilization, for instance).

Eve already has a story which, when it comes to games, is fairly decent (and I think getting better most of the time). However, currently the storyline is rather detached from what the players actually do -- characters can't really interact with the storyline in very many ways, and generally just have to sit back and watch things unfold. Then the question becomes, what do I get from playing the game as opposed to watching the game? If CCP wants to attract people (including women) into playing the game with the story, they need to make that story part of your experience as a player.

The old AURORA events were one way this sort of connection could be made, but I don't think something like that is necessarily needed. The recent appearance of Ishukone and Mordu's Legion ships in Intaki, for instance, is one way to show this, although optimally, you want it to allow active participation, not just passive. Making the economy fluctuate in regions based on storyline activity, incorporating current events into missions...making the world feel more alive and increasing the verisimilitude, basically. I think this is a good thing for games in general (as I'm sure anyone who's read my articles on storyline and metaplot before is aware), but I think it's definitely something that women tend to find more interesting than the visceral thrill of blowing someone up. They want the emotional context that the story can provide, in order to pull them through the gameplay they might not enjoy at first glance.

The Booby Trap

However, Eve's specific storyline does have its weaknesses when it comes to women. Those of you who have read my review of The Empyrean Age can already guess where I'm going -- and to be fair, this is hardly a problem that Eve alone falls victim to. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of strong female characters in the Eve storyline. Newsflash, gentlemen. Most women do not want to play tarted-up sexpots that need a big, strong man to save them all the time. What does Eve have?

Jamyl Sarum, gets half a page devoted to her in the novel talking about how sexy she is and then at the end her suppressed "real" self begs for help from Falek Grange, a man she is hinted at having a sexual relationship with in the past. Her "strong" self is evidently an alternate personality or some sort of possession.
Haatakan Oiritsuu, CEO of the largest Caldari megacorporation, gives up her position to Tibus Heth without a fight and can't seem to find bodyguards who are loyal enough to protect her. Since then, she's been co-opted by the same man that forced her out of her position (which, to be fair, could be an improvement).
Karin Midular throws a tantrum in a government meeting and nearly gets raped by (yet another) poorly-chosen bodyguard, only to be saved by Shakor.
Mila Gariushi (aka Kinachi Hepimeki) runs off after her brother is killed and lets the man that stands for everything her brother hated push Ishukone (and the State) around with nary a peep, despite being his heir apparent.

Add to that a Gallente pilot who evidently will sleep with a subordinate at the drop of a hat and another woman who sticks with the captain of her ship despite the fact that he's an abusive asshole that blows all their money on ale and whores, and there's not a lot of female characters who come off very appealing in that novel. Unfortunately, since then, there haven't been a lot of well-developed female characters who've emerged either, which is somewhat disappointing (though Catiz Tash-Murkon has potential). I don't write this to beat up on Tony Gonzales again -- however, women want to play games where they can feel empowered too, and making the Eve universe seem like one that is hostile to women is not helpful.

I am not saying that you can't have strippers or prostitutes or sex or whatever in Eve -- for the most part, we're all adults here and we can handle adult subjects. But for once, I would like to see a female character get the upper hand in a big way and behave like a strong woman. Recently, I finished watching the Rome TV series. That's a show that takes place in a time where women were legally subordinate to men in almost every way, which was rife with nudity and sex, and yet I still thought that nearly all the main female characters were strong, well-developed people who did not exist simply as things for the men to have sex with or collapse into tears whenever things didn't go their way. They had as much of a role in the events that unfolded as the male characters, even if they did it in different ways. That's the sort of thing that will open up the appeal to women.

Expanding the Social Sphere

This is something that Eve already does well, I think, but maybe doesn't promote as much as it could. I think women gamers tend to be more attracted to "social games," where the game is as much about interacting with other people, often in a cooperative way, as anything else. A lot of the marketing for Eve in the past has focused on the shiny ships, big fleet battles, and its wide-open, often cutthroat nature; for sure, these are things that are definitely strengths of the game, but not necessarily the most appealing to women. However, one of Eve's other big strengths can be the extent to which it encourages cooperative effort; CCP has highlighted this somewhat with their "Butterfly Effect" ad, and it's part of this Goonswarm recruitment poster too, but I'm still not sure it really gets played up as much as it could be.

Incarna may help with this, but it's not going to be the secret key to opening the floodgates to women. Adding some dress-up minigames and social spaces is not going to keep female players, although it may be a good way to get them to dip their toes in the water. In order to retain those gamers they are going to need something more than what they can get from free games or games geared towards that kind of thing more specifically (like Second Life, for instance). Retaining those players will require making those social spaces meaningful within the context of the rest of the game -- something I'm not sure is possible with any sort of game mechanic, but which will only happen if Incarna is seen by the majority of the player base as a valued addition to the game rather than something tacked on or seen a separate game in and of itself.

I also think that Eve's marketing needs to promote stories of cooperative, constructive social play in Eve over the kinds of stories that seem to make Eve's big press -- the GHSC heist, the EIB scandal, and the collapse of BoB and GoonSwarm, for instance. While there's no doubt that those are possibilities that are unique to Eve's single-server universe and they are extremely impressive (and interesting) in their own right, women seem to be much more drawn to constructive, rather than destructive, social events. Things like the ongoing mission of Eve University or the Providence effort (prior to its recent collapse) might be good examples of that. Certainly, to some extent, CCP can't do anything about what outside news organizations choose to cover, but they can at least try to counterbalance it.

The Learning Cliff and Fumbling in the Dark

I think by now everyone has probably seen the Eve "learning cliff" graph. Certainly, Eve has suffered in the past by perhaps not being the most accessible game out there, but they've recently made big strides in revamping the tutorials -- if you haven't seen CCP Eris' presentation from FanFest 2009 about that, it's worth seeing. However, I think Eve is still very intimidating for new players to just be dropped into -- and CCP knows this, which is why when I see them at various gaming conventions they are always trying to get people to start playing with a friend. This is an impediment for getting new players of all stripes, but especially women.

A lot of the material I've read on game design indicates that men and women tend to want different ways to learn new tasks -- men tend to like fumbling around in the dark, so to speak, until they figure them out by doing. Women (including me) tend to like reading the manual, getting coached through things, and then doing them. Eve has come a long way from where it was, but it is still, to some extent, a game where you learn by fumbling around in the dark. The new tutorials and the Evelopedia have done a great job providing documentation for new characters, but the high-level game of Eve is far different from the high-level game of other MMOs. I have never seen the kind of basically scientific research used to determine the boundaries of game mechanics and out-of-the-box thinking for other games that I have seen with Eve; the example that sticks in my mind is the Goonswarm grid manipulation guide.

To some extent, this is never going to really be presented in an easy to learn form (at least, until it is already in wide use). That's something I don't think is likely to change with Eve, especially as CCP often goes back and revises game mechanics fairly often. Personally, I actually see that as a good thing, but this is going to be an impediment as long as things like that exist. Promoting corporations like Eve University is probably the best antidote to this sort of problem, but then CCP gets in the trap of showing favoritism to one alliance. That's a trap they are understandably wary of falling into.

Note that I'm not saying women can't figure this stuff out too -- but I think they tend to be a little more intimidated than the guys, especially when you take into account the culture of the player base, which brings me to my next point....

This Place Smells Like A Locker Room

Possibly, at the highest level, the biggest obstacle to getting more women to play Eve is simply that there aren't that many women playing Eve right now, and the culture is a bit on the intimidating side. When you join a Ventrilo server and three guys tell you "pics or stfu," you kinda just want to reach through the internet and punch them in the face, not hop through seventy jumps to blow up the opposing alliance with them. To be fair, a lot of the women I've known in Eve can give as good as they get, but I think that's because we're a self-selected group. I work with a bunch of guys at work and am used to the same sort of attitude (though to be fair, the folks in CAIN have never treated me -- or any of the other women in the corp -- with any less respect than the guys, for which I'm thankful).

It can get tiresome to deal with that kind of crap if you have to put up with it on a regular basis though, and after dealing with guys making dick jokes and remarking on co-eds' boobs all day, I have to say I think I'd rather not deal with it when I'm in my off hours. That sort of attitude can be hard to avoid sometimes, especially if you deal with the bigger alliances. One of the reasons I was happy in a smaller corporation or alliance was because there was a much friendlier (and less anonymous) atmosphere. Guys seem less likely to let out their inner dumbass when they are more familiar with the person whose tits they are demanding to see. :)

However, this is something that's not really anything CCP can control -- aside from doing what they can to encourage women to play in other ways, so that we aren't such a curiosity. That's something the players are going to have to do if they want to see more women in the game -- which, honestly, I'm not sure a lot of them do. I think that by and large, most of them would be happier if more women played, but they don't really have any interest in doing anything to actively promote more women players in Eve.

Does It Really Matter?

In the end though, so what? So Eve's player base is 95% male. Is that actually a problem? In the grand scheme of things, I have to admit it's probably not. Until CCP has 50 million subscribers, there's probably going to be plenty more guys out there to pull into the game that are more likely to enjoy it and stick with it. It's not like "men 18-34" is a small demographic. They can probably survive just fine appealing to that market.

On the other hand, for a woman who does like Eve, it matters a great deal to me. It does get a little lonely out there being the one woman in 20 players. I'm not going to quit Eve because of it, or throw myself a pity party, but it'd sure be nice to go to FanFest and not have it be a total sausage fest. :)

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure, after reading some of the other blogs on this topic, I have to admit that I originally picked Caldari for Svetlana because Civire appeared to have the best hair. However, that is not what kept me in the game for 5 years, nor what inspired me to write so much on Caldari society and history. Cheap tricks to appeal to girls might get them in the door, but it won't keep them here.

Highlights of the Banter so far (according to me):

The Girls Who Fly Spaceships
Space Boobies Are Bad, Mmmkay?
New Eden Doesn't Need To Change For Eve -- Adam Needs To Get Over Himself
Eve Online and Women (sorta)
Think Outside the Spaceship
Don't Change Eve For Me
Where Are The Laydeez of Eve?
Where Are All The Wenches?
Evequality: The Rise of the Female Gamer
Women? IN MY SPACESHIP? Is She From Mars As Well?
The Female of the Species
Eve and the X by X Genetic Succession Unit
Sociability V
What Women Want In Eve
Getting In Touch With Our Feminine Side
It's a Woman's World (They Just Don't Know It Yet)
Women In Eve -- Can It Be Done?
You'd Rather Be Playing The Sims, Right?
Women In Eve
EVE: WTB Girls?
All About Eve
Hell Hath No Fury
The Ladies of New Eden: An Analysis Of How Men Are Not From Mars, and Women Are Not From Venus
The Ladies of New Eden
Eve vs Women
Gender Inclusiveness in CCP's Eve Online