Gladiator's Spellblade + Gladiator's End Game

34,200 honor later, the glowing dagger and glowing off-hand book are now mine.

Another Turning Point (of Sorrow)

Few games have seen a development cycle as long and ridiculous as Chronicles of Sorrow. I'm kidding of course - Lord of the Rings Online (amazingly great game that I highly recommend) was in development for over a decade, Duke Nukem Forever was getting gaming mag cover stories over ten years ago and is still yet to come out, and of course there's Spore - Will Wright's vaporware masterpiece. And obviously I'm kidding, as all of those are 'real' games, and Chronicles of Sorrow is merely a hobbyist's fantasy of mine.

It started as a massive project involving most of the people who lived in the once-great-now-baron Van Buren Village. There were weakly meetings (maybe two of them total?) talking about style, characters, overall story, etc - but nothing ever really came of them. Then Tech, Keith, and I started writing an 8-bit soundtrack for an RPG that never was - the soundtrack of Chronicles of Sorrow. This project actually produced quality content, with full on overworld, town, ship, and several dungeon themes written and recorded (in the 3-note at a time NES style).

After all of that cooled off CoS began the cycle of failed game design experiments as detailed in this entry. And now it's turned a corner once again. This time it's truly for the best! I'm set on the idea of creating a MUD, and had been (since the writing of the 3/17 entry) working towards this goal via a website-based, subscription fee loaded "fill in the blanks" web application. It featured a world editor, in depth class/skill/spell controls, a quest system, a rudimentary system for communicating and interacting with NPCs, and so on. The only problem? A completely restrictive development environment.

Let's say I wanted to create a locked door that you needed to find a key for in order to get past. Using this web-software this would be impossible, as doors were something not built into the 'template' so to speak. Now I'm no master coder by any means, but i understand Java to a certain extent and have a fair grasp of object oriented programing. Basically, if I needed a locked door, I could figure out how to modify the MUD's code in order to make one. This 'fill in the blanks' site allowed users zero control on the fundamental code that ran the game mechanics.

As easy as it would've been to just continue making more rooms, more areas, more monsters, more NPCs, more spells, more levels, etc - they would've all been trapped inside of this restrictive environment with no hope of ever transcending the mold of a 'cookie-cutter' MUD. So I began searching for other options. There are basically two ways to start building a MUD - from scratch in a code editor, or using a 'codebase' (jargon for an open source uncompiled game engine the user can shape into an original design, and then build a game on top of). I straight up don't have the programming chops or networking knowhow necessary to build a internet based RPG from scratch. That would be ridiculous.

So I started browsing the different MUD codebases out there, looking for one that would be fairly easy to jump into. And boy oh boy, did I ever find that codebase! It's called CoffeeMud, and it will be the engine that runs Chronicles of Sorrow. What makes this codebase so much more appealing than just about every one I came across is the fact that it was written in Java - a language I'm already familiar with, and a language famous for its cross-platform compatibility. I was able to get the apache-based server up and running with my Mac booted in Windows and running DOS (and I hope to repeat the feat Mac-side using OS X's Unix foundation). This means that after a little editing I was able to actually connect to my own computer - acting as the MUD server - and interact with the first few rooms that I can added to the main codebase.

It was truly a wondrous site - one that I'll be sure to post a picture of once I find my way back home - to see the old "Chronicles of Sorrow" welcome screen pop up in a PuTTY telnet session KNOWING that that information was being delivered from my very own computer acting like a web server. This means that I'll be able to host the game (as it's an online game that requires a running web server to operate) on my own machine while I develop the game world, and one day it should all be easily transferable to a large scale MUD hosting site like mudmagic or the likes.

Most MUDs that are coming out today are merely interactive fan fictions, usually taking place inside of IPs like Star Wars, Kingdom Hearts, DBZ, X-Men, etc. It's really quite pathetic and quite sad. Hopefully the all original world and story-dependant progression of CoS will help to set it apart from this seemingly 'ultimate-nerd' sub culture. There are still great, original MUDs like Medievia floating around out there - and I hope to (some day) see Chronicles of Sorrow added to the list of original text-based adventure games worth playing (now that it's 20 or 30 years after the genre is outdated and irrelevant).

Bandit Camp

Every year or so I feel this burning desire to escape from the boundaries of civilization and plunge headfirst into the great wilderness of the Great Smokey Mountains. I was able to satisfy this desire over this past weekend, as me and my always lovely ladyfriend Amber perpetrated the back country of Tennessee for a 5 day camping extravaganza! We arrived late Thursday night to a rather cold Gatlinburg, and by the time we had driven into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and found our way to the end of the road past Elkmont and the decrepit remains of the once great Appalachian Club, it was roughly 2AM (technically Friday at this point).

Now the hike from the car to our secret, illegal backwoods campsite isn't necessarily the most intense and long hike in the world. It is about a 45 minute hike up the side of a mountain, and with a framed backpack with all sort of other bags and gear tied to it strapped to your body and a big cooler stuffed to the brim with food, that 45 minute hike can become a grueling lugfest. It's an incredibly steep path that is always winding up the mountainside - and once it levels out it's time to plummet down off the trail, into the untamed smokies, until you reach the river valley bellow. And that is where you will find bandit camp.

Plenty of rocks for smashing lumber (no hatchet required), a nice clear space for the tent, and a fire pit that has been slowly getting deeper and deeper over the years of use are but a few of the rugged convinces of this magical place. You're just up a little incline from the rushing river which provides us with drinking water (via a hand pump purifier), a place to wash ourselves and our dishes, a place to cool our beverages, and a constant stream of white noise to relax us at night, and mask the sounds of our activities during the day. It's a little slice of mountain paradise.

Days were spent on the trails, exploring the various mountains surrounding bandit camp. As this was my 5th or 6th visit to the spot I didn't really tred any new ground, but this was Amber's first camping experience - I wanted to show her everything I already knew was wonderful in the mountains. The 'fairy tale' trail past the babbling waterfalls and ivy covered grounds, Avent Cabin and it's tattered blood red curtains, the ruins of the Appellation Club cabins, the rock quarry valley by the horse ranch, the rolling meadows of Cade's Cove caught in afternoon sunlight... it felt great returning to all the places that made me fall in love with the Smokey Mountains years ago.

And it was over all too soon. Now I look ahead to another camping adventure hopefully at the end of April. The original Smokey Mountain Bandits (me, Mike Z, and Corkey McGarvin) are planning to infiltrate some new area, as the wild calls once again to the challengers!

P.S. - Amber was amazing, held up better than most girls I know could have, and by the end was better at starting a fire than I was.

Vengeful Gladiator's Dreadweave Hood

After weeks of grinding arena in World of Warcraft, I have finally acquired the season 3 headpiece.



The wings pop out sporadically.

Chronicles of Game Design (Sorrow)

I tend to drift from one obsession to another, many times not fully finishing the job. Making video games has been a hobby of mine since I was a kid. It started with little space invader like shooters and point-and-click adventures (a la Myst) , then in middle school I graduated to first person shooter modding - doing a total conversion of Bungie's Mac-only masterpiece Marathon Infinity. But what I've really been wanting to make my whole life it seams, in one form or another, is an RPG. I tooled around in RPGMaker 2K3 for a while, trying to make my own 8-bit looking RPG by modifying graphic tiles from other NES games. I had two fully animated characters, a complete overworld, a handful of dungeons, and even a few scripted scenario events.

It just didn't look good enough. In order to complete it I would've needed a team of artists and programmers to make it a reality. I'm simply not good enough of a 2D or pixel artist to make an entire RPG, end of story. So I took a step back and started working on an 'interactive fiction' (or text adventure') version of Chronicles of Sorrow (the RPG storyline that Tech and I developed). I built Simon Tril's house, and a little bit of the town he was from using the Inform 7 IF language/editor. Again, I was unsatisfied by the results, as this system was really built for non-violent puzzle based adventure games, and I knew I wanted serious goblin crushing in the game. So once again, I abandoned Chronicles of Sorrow.

That's when I got my hands on a 3D game engine, and set about building a 3D RPG from scratch. One zone map and a single 3D house later I realized the programming would be too difficult, and the overall results would again, look too poor to be worth while (even from an indie game standpoint). So I put my ambitions to rest again, and kept wasting more time playing FFXI and the like. But now, a new chapter is about to be written in the CoS's struggle to exist. I've begun scripting a MUD version of the CoS world. MUD stands for "multi user dungeon," and they were amongst the first online games to ever exist. It's basically a text adventure that multiple people can join in on, battle and level up in, and explore together.

The true beauty of a MUD is what an engaging and enriching single player experience they can be too. Yes, I'll have to pay a small fee to have it hosted on a server - but it'll be a fully expandable sprawling text-based RPG with PvE and PvP combat! Players from all over the world will be able to connect to the MUD, and access their character from anywhere there's internet access. Since all the player info is stored server-side, it will be playable even in a web browser across all platforms! This time I think I've finally found a fit for my aspirations of making Chronicles of Sorrow. It'll take a while before it's in a playable form, but i'll be sure to let you know when that day comes (if it ever does). Until then enjoy this ASCII logo I whipped up!



P.S. - If you want to try out a MUD for yourself follow these easy steps!
1) Download a MUD client - I recommend Atlantis for the Mac and SimpleMU for Windows
2) Set up a connection to the server eternalfantasy.org (IP: 66.150.225.61) and set the port to 3333
3) Make a character and start killing asps!

This is a MUD based upon every Final Fantasy game, I play it a lot in the background - it's pretty well written, and having been live for over 11 years now, it's pretty balanced as well.

Vana'diel Time

Sitting in this tiny house while cars grind dirty slush into the ground outside my drafty windows, I'm usually gravitated towards the exploration of virtual environments. My TV and computer monitor are like small windows into places much more lush and exciting than the gray drizzle of post-winter post-industrial Dayton. Specifically that of FFXI recently, but my MMO focus tends to shift with the seasons.

While trying to find out when a certain drop for a certain quest for a certain piece of armor that only my race/gender combo could wear, I came across this handy website that keeps track of all the different game-time related events and timers. I also found this:


The Vana'diel Clock. It tracks the moon phases, elemental days, and even airship arrival times for all the major cities. Does this blur the line between fantasy and reality a little too much? I don't think so - having this on my desk at work would sure take the edge off not being able to play... like a slow drip of a minuscule amount of heroine... heh, perhaps I'm not the best judge. I'll be sure to post some photos of the blizzard as soon as I dump the card.

Summoner

After a few trying days of Vanna'diel weather hunting, I've successfully unlocked the Summoner job in FFXI! Behold!



A dream come true!