the game's the thing

[freckles_and_doubt]

I am forced to contemplate the horrible reality that I'm about to upgrade my computer for entirely frivolous reasons. The Evil Landlord played the new Dragon Age for fourteen hours straight yesterday, which meant I was entirely unable to play the old Dragon Age, my computer being a bit weeny even for games which are several years old. I had a moderately productive day as a result, but you have no idea how twitchy it made me to hear fights and explosions and tactical swearing resounding down the passage, and not be able to pursue my own enjoyment of same. Although, I have to admit, if I do upgrade (which I can afford, and have been promising myself) and install the game and my save files, this house will succumb to a thick pall of computer gaming over evenings and weekends, in which we'll probably entirely neglect to speak to each other, cook meals or feed the cats. So, not much change there, then.

(We are remembering to feed the cats, mostly because they have that "interpose self between person and screen" thing down pat, but a reasonably large proportion of the feeding seems to be for the benefit of the marauding neighbourhood tomcat, who has cunningly circumnavigated our sneakily closed cat-door and is now accessing the house through various bedrooms or, quite possibly, the walls. In addition to nicking food, he beats up our cats and, occasionally, sprays. I am now open to offers of dart-guns, cat-traps, hit-squads, small quantities of plastic explosive, or voodoo curses of the requisite nature).

Part of the moderate productivity was a new Microfiction. This volume's themes are all pictures, this one being the very odd one here. I think I may have been getting a bit stale with the one-word themes: this one has galvanised me to slightly odd creativity. Then again, it's a very odd picture.

Now I shall go and plant pansies. Mmmm, pansies. Totally the wrong time of year, but I love their little velvety faces. I also have to do something to console myself for the slightly blasted heath nature of the garden after the garden service had with it their wicked way - they've mown the lawn down to a sort of straggling stubble, circa Aragorn somewhere around Rivendell. Which will teach me to mow the darned thing more often, I suppose. A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot, but its demands are unceasing.

Comments

[rumint.livejournal.com]

Have you considered your existing computer may have enough horsepower for Warcraft?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Do you mean Warcraft the tactical game, at which I suck beyond the telling of it, or World of Warcraft, of which I am terrified? Either way it's not going to address my current need, which is to play Dragon Age, dammit!

[rumint.livejournal.com]

I meant World, which has the advantage of real people playing your other party members, far less strategising required ;) Plus when playing with bumpy, he does all the tactical plans better than I could.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I seem to have a major fear, probably compounded of self-consciousness and inadequacy as well as dislike of real-time gameplay, of online games. Your WoW prod is coming at the same time as Sven and Linda's ongoing attempt to make me play Lotro. I seem to be digging my feet in mulishly. To me, computer gaming is a very personal and interior pleasure, not a group thing at all. I am perfectly sure that if I played anything online at all it would probably convert me in about three minutes flat, but there's a large bump of reluctance to overcome.

[rumint.livejournal.com]

Totally understandable, I can appreciate the yen for solo gaming, as groups require schedule co-ordination, the last thing you want in your off-hours.

I've skipped Dragon Age 2, but I'm waiting for Skyrim, the sequel to Oblivion out late this year.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, so am I. Right, new parameter: new computer must be able to run Skyrim. Which means, DRM being what it is, we'll probably have to buy two copies. Oh, well.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

Imma kidnap you for an afternoon so you can come and play LOTRO at our house, how about that? We have earl grey tea.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Phooey, I had a whole response written to this, and LJ ate it. Oh, well. I shall reconstruct it from first principles. Probably the improved version.

In re your kind invitation with its seductive promises of Earl Grey, that would entail having a character. I'm currently at the stage of looking at the "create an account" screen and thinking, aargh, they want a username, what the hell am I going to call myself that is (a) not going to open me up to the righteous ridicule of LotR geeks the world over, and (b) not going to entail being Finduilas2895? And that's not even a character name. You may instantly divine that (a) I am overthinking this more than a tad, and (b) I have Issues.

I'll get there. Be patient. It's like trying to pet Ounce, I have to sneak up on it whistling gently and pretending I'm interested in the moons of Saturn.

[dicedcaret.livejournal.com]

Lol, loved the Ounce bit :)

Your account username is not visible in-game. It's just a login thing. It's after login and at the character creation step that you need to start agonising over character names. All the MMOs seem to work that way, since you can have multiple characters per account.

If you're not fluent in Sindarin then this will help immeasurably: http://elffetish.com/singen.html
It's quite a fun website to poke around even if you're not planning to play an elf in an MMO.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

What he said. Also, don't get your heart set on a character name before you've designed your character and are actually ready to hit the "Enter Middle-earth" button, as only then will you find out if the name you want is available or not.

Once you have a game account, you can check out the official forums if you like (I pop in there every so often, but it really is not necessary). The fansite to check out is called Laurelin Archives and is where diary entries and community announcements can be found.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Some say the hard drive is half-full. Some say the hard drive is half empty. A computer geek upgrades anyway.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

A computer geek upgrades as a response to gravity or on days ending in Y. I am not yet a computer geek in that sense, mostly because I haven't yet trained myself to believe that I can actually afford to do it. Working on it ;>.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Are you still running that ancient machine with a 2GB hard drive and one picogoblin of RAM? If so, quite apart from the game-playing convenience, you should probably upgrade on moral grounds alone :)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hey! don't diss Batgirl, she gets the job done. But, yes, she's a bit weeny. If not quite moral grounds, at least aesthetic ;>.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Spacecadet has a computer case that is red and sparkly. I bought a black case and red sparkly spray paint...

[dicedcaret.livejournal.com]

The surest way of achieving eternal damnation is to play WoW ;)

My missus, with the assistance of an animal charity, has just managed to catch the local feral tom who's been causing mayhem. It's possible he may return, but considerably calmer after being snipped. If he does return, we'll have to feed him outside somewhere, so he gets into a routine which doesn't involve house invasion and molestation of our beloved moggies.

You might be able to trap him using one of your cat boxes, then take him to Graham the Vet who will offer a discounted rate for snipping and injections. We've managed that with one feral we had, but trapping with a normal cat box very much depends on how approachable the target is, unless you can rig some sort of mechanism for shutting the door from a distance.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Phooey, I thought Graham the Vet had cat-traps he was happy to lend out? did I hallucinate someone telling me that, or was it a different vet? I would definitely pay to have ButchTom knackered, he's beginning to seriously annoy me. I zotted him with the hosepipe on Saturday, a nice direct hit with the highly directed jet nozzle, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference. He's very, very cagey and we're extremely unlikely to catch him without traps. Then again, the EL is into the construction of mad Heath Robinson devices, maybe we can do something with a pit trap, dynamite and a descending anvil...