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. :)

Baldur's gate enhanced edition

Baldur's Gate was originally released in November 1998 and I can't even begin to count how many hours I spent playing it back then. It was the beginning of my love affair with party based RPGs. I played through Baldur's Gate 2, Icewindale, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights and Wizardry 8 and I loved them all.

But for some reason the computer industry moved away from these games and started spewing out first person, single character computer games and they never looked back. Until now. Today the 28th of November 2012 Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is being released and I am like a kid in a candy store.

The game is a remake of the original computer game, but complete with new characters, a new adventure and over 400 improvements to the base game. One of those is a much needed upgrade to the multiplayer system.

Furthermore a lot of bugs has been fixed from the original version and more importantly to some is maybe the fact that the additions to gameplay that were introduced in Baldur's Gate 2 has been included in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced edition. This includes the new subraces and classes.

For me though, the most interesting aspect of this relaunch is that the developers has decided to release Baldur's Gate: Enhanced edition for iPad and Android tablets and users will be able to play multiplayer with people across all platforms. It is a very smart move that should ensure an influx of players once the tablet versions are out.

I have of course Pre-ordered my copy and I will return when I have had some time to play it through. My current advice though is to just go ahead and buy it, you can't go wrong with Baldur's Gate!