Real life multiplayer

Screenshot from Neverwinter Online

Everyone can probably guess that playing MMOs is not something that goes well with having a newborn in the house. Especially if said newborn is being breastfed exclusively.

However yesterday I thought I would try my luck anyway with the newly released Neverwinter Online. And in my naive optimism I thought, "hey maybe I can even do a dungeon and try that out". I mean I had just spent a couple of hours interacting with my daugther. Her diaper was new and clean plus she had fed for 35 minutes and were soundly a sleep in her moses basket.

Yay a bit of time for myself! And what better way to spend quality alone time than to group up with a bunch of strangers in an MMORPG?

Anyways lets not discuss my weird habbit of self inflicted punishment and instead return to my story.

I had probably played for about 10 minutes. Just long enough to sit in the queue for the instance, get the invite and kill the first 3 packs of monsters, when my daughter started crying.

My partner, who is awesome, got up checked her diaper, tried calming her down and to his credit did his very best to buy me enough time to finish the instance.

My daughter however wouldn't have any of it. Apparently my daughter like a platypus is capable of consuming her own weight in food on a daily basis and like her mother she gets very cranky when she's hungry. So she wants to eat often, but preferably when I have:
A. Just poured warm food onto a plate (wont be warm when I get to eat it HAH!).
B. Just laid down on the bed in hopes of a bit of sleep.
C. As was the case yesterday, just for once loaded a game that requires more than 1 hand.

Now I am not a bad player, in fact I like to think myself above average, I mean I raided in the 2. best guild on my server in TBC *flex virtual nerd muscles*, but even my level of skill can not handle feeding a squirming, displeased baby while doing a dungeon run. And this is where my partners pure awesomeness really shines.

"You handle the mouse I will deal with the number keys and awsd based on your commands" he said. So for the next 15 minutes I shouted "3" "e" "r" "double tab s" etc. while feeding my baby and stearing the point of view with my mouse.

Did I top the damage meter? No. Would it have worked in a hardcore raid instance? No.

But I got to finish my instance and half an hour of as good as uniterrupted gaming.
No loot dropped for my class though damned RNG!





The moral of my story? Well I guess if there has to be one it is that my real life has gone from being a single player experience with a lot of interesting side characters to full multiplayer mode with forced grouping. And frankly that is quite awesome even if somehow slightly frustrating. :)

How much will Google Glass Cost?

So yesterday Google released their new video to promote the Google Glass Product.

For those who hasn't been following the development and are asking What is Google Glass, it can been briefly described as a pair of glasses that you wear to ad a HUD to reality.

Google Glass will allow you to take pictures and record videos of everything you see as you see it. Pretty cool concept right?

My first thought though was. How much will you have to pay for Google Glass? From checking out the official site I found out that new technology certainly doesn't come cheap. There is no official price tag on Google Glass yet, however Google is having a sort of beta test for the product and unlike other beta tests this one does not come for free.
In order to become what they refer to as an Explorer you have to shell out $1500 plus taxes to preorder the Google Glass. You also have to be able to show up in San Francisco, New York of LA to pick up the glasses.

I am sure the Google Glass will be a super cool gadget to have, but I think I will wait until all the bugs and issues has been demolished and until the price tag is down to a more realistic level.

If you can not wait, then be quick and apply to be an explorer for Google Glass. Deadline is the 27th of February 2013.

Also check out the video below to get a feel for how Google Glass will work.

A gamers Christmas

Happy Christmas and 2013 for everyone out there.

I celebrated my Christmas in Denmark with my family, showing of the growing stomach and eating a lot of unhealthy food. (I try to eat as healthily as possible for the sake of my developing baby and as such it was a triple treat to go wild at the Christmas dinner.)

As is tradition in my family the evening of the 25th was spent playing boardgames and geeking out. This year I purchased the much acclaimed Pandemic for my cousin and as such it was the choice of the night.

The game is a coorperative challenge where you fight together as a team against an out of control epidemic of vira, bacteria and other nasty stuff that is spreading rapidly across the globe.

Each player gets a specific role such as the Medic, the Scientist, the Researcher etc. and each role has specific strenghts. As such the Medic is much better at curing infected cities, whereas the Scientist is better at developing cures to rid the world of the disease forever.

During the course of the game you need to make strategic decissions together with the rest of the group of players and depending on your choices you may or may not succeed in saving the world.

The game is relatively fast paced and quite easy to get into. In 4-5 hours we managed to learn the rules and get about 6 games in which is not bad for a relatively complex boardgame.

Furthermore it is a game that I expect even younger children of age 12+ will be able to enjoy both because it is relatively easy to understand the rules and also because of the coorperative nature of the game. The latter ensures that everyone are a winner (or a looser ;))

All in all Pandemic is a really enjoyable game and I would recommend it as part of the arsenal for any boardgame geek.

The games that define our age

I had a conversation today with a colleague who is 10 years my junior. We were discussing games and as the conversation progressed I started feeling increasingly old.

Many of the games I mentioned he had never played, let alone heard of. It got me thinking, what are the games that define my age?

Games like Mario and Zelda might have been around since my childhood, but they do not define my age as the many seequels have made them belong to several generations of gamers.

PacMan isn't a good example either as it, along with Space Invaders and Pong is such an iconic game that no gamer generation can really lay claim to it.

What then? Which games can I mention that I played as a budding gamer in the making that shaped me into the geek I am today?

With the risk of losing readers already I have to say that from my very early childhood the first game that comes to mind is the Commadore 64 Donald Ducks Playground. A Disney game created to inspire learning in children. This of cause was not why I played it, I just loved the mini games and building my Playground. I do remember continously getting run over by the train when trying to cross the tracks to get to my playground, but still I absolutely loved the game as a young child.

Another classic from my youth is Commander Keen, mention this to anyone younger than 25 and you will see their eyes glaze over with lack of comprehension, but the rest of us remember pogo sticks, weird snails and a pixelated guy with a yellow helmet.

But what really defines my video gaming age are games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein (which I played with my cousin taking turns of 5 minutes at a time, strictly meassured by my aunts egg clock), the original Settlers by Bluebyte before they were affiliated with Ubisoft and their incredibly annoying DRM and Warlords, Baldurs Gate and Diablo I.

These are the games that I can talk to my long time gamer friends that share not only my love for gaming, but also my age and nostalgia.

These are games that you pitch at younger gamers, urge them to try because you don't want them to miss out and then get met with objections about the graphics, the difficulty and other such ridiculous complaints.

Anyways, these are the games I look back at with fondness and that I believe shaped the type of gamer I am today. I know if I mention these games to anyone who has been around for as long as I have in the gaming world, they will nod knowingly and we will have hours of nostalgic topics to cover.

Which games define your age?

Musings on Geekiness

As a self proclaimed geek it is perhaps fitting that I quickly make it clear what geekiness is to me. If you are a geek yourself you will know that there are many levels and types of geeks and nerds and you wouldn't want to fall into the wrong definition of geek. Noone wants to be the bad kind of nerd, while there is a certain coolness factor to being the right type.

But hang on, I am getting ahead of myself.  Let's take a step back and look at what the definition of a geek is.

According to Wikipedia the word comes from the low german word geck which originally was used for freaks and crazy people.

The word geek also covers people obsessed with intellectual pursuits, people interested in technology, computing or media, people that lets themselves become consumed in a hobby, people who are socially akward.

As you can see "geek" has many meanings, most of them are still negative, however a movement has happened in recent time to allow us to wear the definition geek or nerd as a badge of honor. We are a part of an exclusive club, where noone outside really understands us or the hobby or interest that makes us the geeks we are.

Interestingly you can be a double, tripple or maybe even quadrouble geek depending on how many geeky subjects you are into and how much time you devote to each of them.

I myself am a gamer geek, comic book nerd, boardgame enthusiast and a bookworm.

When I was a child it was sometimes a hassle to have these interests. My parents and my cousins are geeky too so when I was with them I could act natural and be a full on geek. However at school and with my female friends it was tough sometimes, because they did not understand at all. I was never teased for being geeky, but I always felt a bit out of place.
Similarly when I went to highschool and university I never really felt like I belonged. I guess during those days I was a geek in the negative interpretation of the word.

Now, however I work in a geeky place with nerdy people and frankly I am probably one of the lesser geeks there. I love it, I feel at home, I am part of the club and I wear my badge with pride. For I am a nerdy geek! :)

Introduction of a Geek

I am Mistel and I am 29 years old a the time of writing this. I have been a geek since my dad brought home a Commedore 64 when I was just 4 years of age.

This blog will be me discussing all the geeky stuff I get up to. My main focus will be on Magic the Gathering, but there will be many other nerdy topics to talk about apart from the TCG.

Welcome to Mistels World of Geekiness.