Year: 2010 (page 14 of 73)

On NaNo & Scrivener

October 27, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Courtesy Scrivener

So National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo to you Web-savvy types – is right around the corner. I know a few of my fellow pensmiths will be participating in the event, and I’m more than happy to offer my support, encouragement and advice. But I, for one, won’t be participating.

The simple reason for this is my current novel isn’t done yet.

However, since November is a big month for writing and the tools writers use, the time will not pass me by idly. Scrievener has released the beta for the Windows version of their lauded writing software, and I’ll be testing it out. I want to see what it can do, how it makes the job of a novelist (in my case) easier. In addition to providing feedback to the Scrivener team on whichever feature I’m focused on, I hopefully will give writers some idea of what the software can do for them. Some of the posts will deal with a particular feature of Scrivener while others will simply discuss how it’s been useful to me in my editing, outlining or querying process.

My goal, other than helping the development team out and supporting my fellow writers, is to have a completed draft and solid query ready for December.

My current draft, while decent, still needs work. The beginning isn’t quite what it could be. It needs to grab attention and set mood & theme right away. It does a better job now than it did but it could still improve. Other scenes in the novel need to be streamlined, expanded or completely rewritten in a couple cases. But the first order of business will be to get it organized and laid out, and that’s where Scrivener will come in.

Provided I can get it running, of course. And it doesn’t melt my processor or something.

Into the Nentir Vale: Part 3

October 26, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Logo courtesy Wizards of the Coast

The Nentir Vale is a campaign setting provided to new players of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. It’s present in the Red Box and most of the starting materials. For a party almost all completely new to D&D and a DM re-familiarizing himself with the latest edition, it’s a great place to start a campaign. This will be an ongoing recollection of what happens to the party as they make their way through the Nentir Vale. Enjoy.

Previously: A dwarf “fortress”, the town of Fallcrest and a sparkly cleric.

I seem to have misplaced the quotes I scribbled down from our last session. Which means this recap will likely be somewhat dull. – DM

They called it Kobold Hall, or Kobold Keep. Some of the more disgruntled denizens of Fallcrest called it Kobold Hole. It was a known nexus of activity for the reptilian raiders, but no individual or group had stepped forward to deal with the threat. Until now.

The band of sellswords from Fallcrest made their way into the old ruin. At the base of what was once a guard tower, they found a trapdoor with rusty hinges. Tugging on the ring revealed stairs leading underground. At the base of the long stair was a dank room dominated by a pit of sludge and patrolled by kobolds. The guards bore spears and slings, while Andrasian hefted his Lifedrinker Battleaxe, Lyria drew her daggers, Melanie began casting spells and Krillorien hewed into the kobolds with longsword and holy words.

Beyond the sludge pit was an ancient tomb converted into a shrine for the kobolds’ twisted rituals. Krillorien bristled at the sight of such graven imagery as the party moved into the room. However, more than reptilians occupied it. The suits of armor situated in alcoves along the walls spat darts on anyone large enough to trigger the connected pressure plates. Lyria, being small and light, breezed over the plates on her way to deliver a series of stabbings to her foes. After the kobolds had fallen, they found the shrine in the corner was to Tiamat, the dire dragon goddess of greed and envy.

The next tomb had been converted into a kobold playground. A large stone, covered in sludge, hung from the ceiling on the end of a long rope. Small animal skulls were arranged on the coffins in the room. The object of the game, it seemed, was to smash the skulls on the coffin – or those of any intruders. Avoiding the stone as it swung through the room was problematic for most of the party, as Lyria’s size again gave her an advantage. However, Andrasian and Krillorien immediately took it upon themselves to spoil the game by severing the rope. Melanie’s spells took care of the players as they made for the doors at the far end of the room. Lyria ran up and across a wall to reach one of the platforms from which the players had cast their ball, only to find a fearsome guard drake waiting for her. The fight that followed was pitched, but in the end the party survived.

Awaiting in the adjoining chamber was a wyrmpriest of Tiamat and his cohort. As the sellswords rushed into the room, a giant boulder crashed out of the side of the room and began rolling towards them. A slightly depressed portion of the floor by an inner chamber kept the boulder rolling around, making positioning difficult. The wyrmpriest was a bit too eager to exercise his ability to breathe ice, and Melanie proved herself a superior spellcaster. For her effort, she found a staff of the war mage on the kobold’s corpse. But the question as to why the kobold’s ability involved cold breath was a somewhat disconcerting one…

Next: Who’s in charge of these kobolds, anyway?

All locations, NPCs, spells and equipment copyright Wizards of the Coast unless otherwise noted.

The Hunter in Cataclysm: Survival

October 25, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Courtesy Blizzard

I didn’t have the good fortune to make it into the beta for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm but with the release of the latest Patch, I can now make some educated guesses as to how the different talents of my primary class, the Hunter, are going to fall together. I plan on using my secondary specialization to try out the other talents and offer some thoughts, as I’ve been playing the class and struggling to play it well since Burning Crusade, especially since I met my wife.

So here’s the first in a series of guides to the Hunter talent trees. There may be a video once I’ve covered all three. Even if I don’t have the swank accent of TotalBiscuit. I’m also going to take it in turns to talk about the new abilities coming, in order: Cobra Shot, Aspect of the Fox and Camouflage.

Spoiler

The Survival Tree

Explosive Shot is the ‘signature ability’ of this tree. With most of our damage over time (dot) effects being Nature-based, a little Fire changes things up even if it’s only a 2-second dot effect. The further you go down the tree, the more benefit you’ll see from using this shot whenever it’s off cooldown and you have the focus to fire it. Into the Wilderness increases your Agility, the statistic you’ll want the most of as you move down the tree. Not only does it translate into ranged attack power, it also increases crit chance and dodge, which is handy for both PvE and PvP. Finally, Essence of the Viper increases all of the Hunter’s elemental damage. That’s Nature, Fire, Shadow, etc. So the more Mastery you have, the more danage your Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow will do. Can you say Reforging? I thought you could.

Let’s get into the talents.

Hunter vs. Wild

Carrying over from pre-patch days, this is a straight boost to Stamina. A good place for the first three points in a PvP build. For raiding, you may be better suited putting those points in…

Pathing

Gone are the days of needing to switch your tracking to match whatever unfortunate mob you’re filling with tiny shards of metal, be they arrows or bullets. Pathing replaces that micromanagment talent with a no-nonsense increase of ranged haste. Since Steady Shot now has a straight cast time of 1.5 seconds, I believe this has our regular attacks woven into our rotations more frequently rather than reducing that cast time. I’ll test more to confirm this. Anyway, a PvE build would do well to fill this one out. PvP may benefit from this as well, but you may want to circle back to this after grabbing some other talents.

Improved Serpent Sting

Basically, when you hit a mob with Serpent Sting it’ll do instant damage on top of its dot effect. Keep in mind that this doesn’t apply to Chimera Shot over on the Marksmanship tree, only to the initial application of Serpent Sting. Chimera Shot refreshes the dot only. Now, Multi-Shot is another story but I’m getting ahead of myself. Either way, grab this talent.

Survival Tactics

While you’re not going to be fooling most real players with Feign Death, mobs are another story. Reducing trap resistance is handy and being able to Disengage more often means more clever ways to get yourself out of a fix. To me, this is more of a solo PvE or PvP talent. Farming or grinding mobs is easier with crowd control they can’t resist, and locking a player in place with an Ice Trap (see Entrapment) can make a big difference in arena situations. I say pick this up if you’re levelling or heading into the arena, pairing it with…

Entrapment

Turning what is normally an annoyance, either a slowing of movement or a lot of little poison effects, into a root is essential for arenas. The more crowd control you can subject your opponents to, the better. With crowd control making a comeback in Cataclysm, this may also become necessary for raiding if you want to spec your Hunter as something beyond a pew-pew-pewing DPS class. I’d say this is pretty much a must-have for top-level PvP, and a ‘maybe’ for raiding.

Trap Mastery

This, on the other hand, is good for all builds. Your ice-based traps last longer, your fire traps and Black Arrow do more damage and Snake Trap produces more snakes. Instill Indiana Jones’ biggest fear on folks with this. This is one of those talents that provides a good immediate benefit and gets even better with talent synergy further down the tree.

Point of No Escape

Keeping with the theme of crowd control’s comeback, this little talent increases the chance of critical strikes on targets affected by our Ice or Freezing Traps. Again, this hasn’t come up as much in the pre-expansion content, due in part to Wrath’s raids being so focused on area-of-effect pulls instead of complex ones requiring crowd control, but looking to the future a raiding Survival Hunter is going to want this talent.

Thrill of the Hunt

This talent helps with our focus management. Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow having a chance to replenish 40% of their focus costs to me can be very helpful in a fight. More focus means you’re using something other than auto shot or Steady Shot more often which means more damage. Good for any build.

Counterattack

If you’re unfortunate enough to get into melee, this can save you. When it activates, hit it and then Disengage. It’s highly situational, though. With Trap Launcher you can CC an opponent before they close to melee range in arenas, and if you’re quick enough you won’t have to trade blows with an angry Death Knight. We’re just not a melee class. For PvP specs, you may again want to circle back to this after you fill out the other, more universal talents.

Lock and Load

This may be my favorite old talent in Survival. I can’t recall if it included Arcane Shot pre-patch, because Arcane Shot used up too much mana. However, with the advent of Focus and situations in which your pet may be marginalized, weaving Arcane Shot into the old Explosive-Steady-Explosive dance when Lock and Load procs may increase your damage without clipping Explosive Shot’s dot effect. Pick it up and save some points for T.N.T. to get the most out of it.

Resourcefulness

Must-have for all Survival builds. Even if you don’t use traps that often, reducing Black Arrow’s cooldown means more elemental damage, more Lock and Load procs with T.N.T. and higher overall DPS.

Mirrored Blades

Deterrence is our “OH CRAP!” button, and Mirrored Blades just makes it better. Not only are you essentially immune to damage, but you can reflect spells back at your attacker. Definitely a PvP talent especially for arenas. You’ll need the points elsewhere for PvE builds because, frankly, if you’re getting hit with spells often enough that you need to hit Deterrence, somebody’s doing something wrong.

T.N.T.

“I’m DY-NO-MITE!” Crank up the AC/DC and do tons more damage. With this talent, you don’t need to drop a trap for Lock and Load to proc. It’s not the guaranteed proc of the Freezing and Ice traps, but it happens often enough to boost your DPS. And in PvP situations it increases the tools at your disposal to put out more than enough hurt to put down the warrior frothing at the mouth to put an axe in your face.

Toxicology

I’m not a statistician, so I don’t know the numbers as to how often our dots deal critical damage. When it happens, it’s good if they hurt more. Still, there are other talents requiring our attention, and with the other talents on this level you may find yourself only putting one point in here as you progress down the tree. If you’re speccing for PvP, this is a good time to pick up Counterattack instead. PvP is more about burst damage than damage over time, after all.

Wyvern Sting

An additional method of crowd control not bound to a trap. This will probably see more use in Cataclysm’s raids than it does in Wrath’s, and for PvP putting a healer to sleep can really mess up the other team’s day. Not to mention it unlocks Black Arrow. Get it.

Noxious Stings

Makes your Serpent Sting more damaging and Wyvern Sting more annoying. It almost makes Wyvern into a miniature Unstable Affliction, which Affliction Warlocks can tell you piss people off to no end. Definitely worth its points.

Hunting Party

Reduced in cost to 1 talent point, this now gives a raid-wide buff to attack speed as well as giving you even more Agility. Are you really going to pass up that big a bargain? No? Didn’t think so.

Sniper Training

In most raid situations, you’re likely to be standing in one place. Some fights do have you moving around, which I’ll talk about more when I discuss Aspect of the Fox. But doing more damage when your Kill Shot crits and more overall with Steady & Cobra Shot is definitely a benefit to the party in PvE situations. When it comes to PvP, though, this talent is a bit more questionable. Points normally reserved for here could go in Mirrored Blades, Toxicology or even up in Pathing or Point of No Escape if you haven’t gotten them already. In battlegrounds you may find yourself occasionally standing still, but in arenas if you stand still too long you end up dead.

Serpent Spread

My favorite new talent. I call it the Oprah talent. “You get a Serpent Sting! YOU get a Serpent Sting! EVERY BODY GETS A SERPENT STING!!”

Note that with Improved Serpent Sting, your Multi-Shot will now be doing its damage, Serpent Sting’s improved damage and also applies the dot effect. TO EVERYTHING IT HITS. You shouldn’t need a math degree to see this translates into big numbers. I’d say this is a must-have for PvE builds. Battleground builds may also benefit from this especially when the other faction rushes your control point. Finally, arena builds aiming for the 5v5 bracket can use this well when the other team comes out of the gate, but this counts on them staying close enough for Multi-Shot to hit everybody. I’ve yet to test it in that situation, but I’ll keep you posted.

Black Arrow

The pinnacle of Survival. Without this shot, quite frankly, half of these talents aren’t worth taking. It applies shadow damage, enhanced by Essence of the Viper and other talents, as well as giving a change for Lock and Load to proc. Worth both the talent point and its focus cost.

So, those are the Survival talents in a nutshell and based on my personal experience and opinions. Now for some speculation!

Cobra Shot

With the same casting time as Steady Shot but applying Nature damage and increasing Serpent Sting duration, Cobra Shot looks to be an interesting alternative to our old standby. I imagine this shot will crop up more in Beast Mastery and Survival rotations than Marksmanship. Beast Masters won’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting and can reserve their focus for Kill Command. Marksmen will be using Steady Shot as Chimera Shot will do more damage than Cobra and fill the “refresh the Sting” role. Survivalists, with their increased elemental damage, will want Serpent Sting to last on their targets as much as possible.

Next: Marksmanship and Aspect of the Fox.

Three Stars

October 24, 2010 / / 0 Comments

As part of VACATION HELL over at Terribleminds, I submitted a little horror story called “Three Stars”. Now that it’s posted there, I can post it here as well. Enjoy!

Courtesy Creative Loafing

She walked through the halls with his picture in her hand. She stopped the hotel’s staff and other guests alike. She struggled to keep her tone of voice even, despite the desperation of the last 24 hours that had pushed her to this point. Every person she stopped was asked the same question.

“Excuse me, have you seen my husband?”

They’d look at her, then at his picture, then shake their heads. Some of them uttered apologies and others just shrugged and told her “no hablo inglés”. She was getting that a lot. It didn’t surprise her, given they’d chosen to honeymoon in Mexico, but it was making her search more frustrating.

They didn’t find a lot of options. Despite both having jobs, being young and in entry-level positions meant that there wasn’t a lot of money to spare after bills and debt payments were satisfied. Still, both of them craved not only a honeymoon but one abroad. The meager savings they had put airfares and decent hotels both out of reach, leaving them with anything within driving distance. Adding in their truncated timetable due to a lack of vacation days, and that left Tiajuana.

“Excuse me, have you seen my husband?”

“No hablo inglés, señora.”

A cockroach chased its mate into a crack in the baseboard. The wallpaper was stained with water damage to varying degrees all around her. How this hotel had managed a 3-star rating in its reviews on Google, she’d never know. Maybe some of the employees here were savvy enough to bump up the hotel’s ratings and draw in more lodgers, but surely tourists like herself had been smart enough to point out things like the large rat in the emergency stairwell.

She thought she saw another rodent as she entered the lobby. The dark shape scurried behind an endtable, a solid wooden set piece that was slammed against the wall by the bellboy. She jumped at the sudden movement, and the bellboy looked up at her. There was no sympathy in his eyes, only a cold dispassion for his menial task. She backed away from him and forced herself to turn to the front desk.

“Have the police called?”

“No, Mrs. Frazier, they have not.” The desk clerk leaned on his meaty hand, sweat glistening on his skin. “I suspect the spring breakers and the soccer hooligans are keeping them busy.”

“Please, my husband’s been missing for an entire day. Surely someone out there’s seen him.”

“If they had I would have been called, and I would have called you right away. Just like I told you two hours ago, señora.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep bothering you. I’m just worried about him.”

“I know. I understand. So do all the guests who’ve come to me asking if you’re feeling okay. Nobody’s really complained yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Please, go back to your room.”

She nodded, thanking the desk clerk and tipping him. She walked back to her room feeling defeated. Then again, what had she hoped to accomplish? Was she really so certain someone would just recognize him out of the blue? She shook her head. She needed rest.

She found the door to her room already ajar. The housekeeping cart was outside. She pushed the door open to find the maid going through her husband’s wallet.

“Hey!”

As she moved into the room, she registered that the young Hispanic woman was holding onto a very specific card as she dropped the wallet.

“Mrs. Frazier!”

“What right do you have to go through my husbands things?” Frazier grabbed the woman by the wrist and glared at her, and then glanced at the card. It was his blood donor card, which had his blood type listed in bold letters. Frazier looked back at the frightened housekeeper.

She was about to demand an explanation when she felt something sharp jab her in the neck. She struggled to turn behind her to look, only catching a glimpse of cold, dispassionate eyes before everything went dark.

When she woke up, she was aware of being cold and of her side hurting like crazy. She moved her arm towards the pain and felt tiny round objects sliding around under her skin. Her fingertips touched her side, but instead of smooth flesh they found rough stitches. She moved her head to try and look down, and whimpered in disbelief.

She was naked, face-down, in a bathtub full of ice. The stitching was over a long incision on her side towards her back. Three knots stood out among the stitches, like tiny black stars against her white skin. Numbly, she tried to climb out of the bathtub only to collapse. She struggled to get a grip on the counter and hauled herself over the sink, where she promptly threw up. Gasping for air afterward, phlegm and spittle dripping from her face, she turned her eyes to the white piece of paper on the counter.

“Your kidney has been removed. Seek medical attention.”

She reached for the paper, but instead of picking it up it slid away from her towards the floor. It turned over in the air and she found her husband smiling back at her.

Sobbing, she picked it up. After a moment, she grabbed a towel from the rack. Wrapping it around herself she stumbled out of the bathroom and into the hallway. There was a water fountain by the door to the back stairs. She took a drink then shambled into the emergency stairway. The rat watched her with beady red eyes.

She came out on the first floor. She held the towel tight to her body as she stopped the first man she saw. His back was to her.

“Excuse me…”

He turned. Her eyes went wide. The picture fell from her numb fingers. The clerk at the desk heard her scream.

Further Thoughts on Zwartboek

October 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Courtesy Fu Works

My wife did an excellent job reviewing Black Book yesterday. I can’t say I disagree with anything she said. The film (called Zwartboek in its native Dutch) didn’t work quite as well as it could have on a variety of levels. Danielle touched on a couple and I’d like to expand on them, mostly because I think a movie that comes close to working and doesn’t is far more interesting than one that either works on all sides or fails completely.

So, why doesn’t Black Book work?

As a World War 2 Movie

Neither Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan have anything to worry about here. While Black Book is aiming more for espionage than full-on warfare, the atmosphere of hope in the face of despair is better captured in Schindler’s List. There’s also some elements of Black Book that try to tackle how human nature, true human nature, is revealed in armed conflict. Saving Private Ryan does that better. This isn’t to say that Black Book is bad or inept in handling these things, they’re just not handled as well as they are in the other two films.

As an Ass-Kickin’ Jew Revenge Flick

Quite a few movies have come out recently featuring Jewish protagonists putting their kosher boots up the asses of those despicable Nazis. Munich, Defiance, Inglorious Basterds even You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, though that dealt less with Nazis and more with rednecks and terrorists. Anyway, I haven’t seen Munich and Defiance is similar to Black Book in that it’s a moody piece centered around a little-known aspect of the war. We all know about Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad and Hiroshima – the struggle for Belarus isn’t as famous. Neither is the liberation of Holland, for that matter. However, the best one of these so far remains Inglorious Basterds. As both a realization of the ultimate retribution of God’s chosen against the Third Reich and a sprawling espionage epic, Tarantino handles his story and actors adroitly while Verhoeven keeps his focus squarely on Carice van Houten getting her clothes off as often as possible. Which leads me into my last topic.

As a Verhoeven Film

On the whole, I like Paul Verhoeven’s work. More often than not, the success of his films are directly proportional to the amount of tongue he has in the subject matter’s cheek. Starship Troopers, for example, takes the piss out of militarism and the sort of ultra-nationalist sentiment towards loyalty that’d make either the Nazis or the Tea Party blush. Total Recall plays with the notion of identity and memory, keeping that element from Philip K. Dick’s work if nothing else. RoboCop easily pokes holes in privatization, our obsession with the media and the nature of corporate greed while delivering some pretty powerful storytelling. But Black Book plays everything straight. While I respect Verhoeven for not making light of the plight or challenges of the resistance in Holland in the twilight of the war, it’s also missing some of the elements that make quite a few of Verhoeven’s films such a delight to watch. Black Book is what happens when Verhoeven is, in essence, too serious. He has gone entirely the other way before, though, if Showgirls is anything to go by.

In the end, I did enjoy Black Book but everything it does has been done before and better elsewhere. It’s not bad, at all, but it’s definitely not the best.

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