Cutting the Connection

Over the last few months, I have made several trips into a connectivity dead zone. My fancy touch screen, always on, data connected cell phone becomes a dead weight with no purpose other than a few phantom moments of connectivity. Once it starts chirping the sound of battery death, it ends up sucking up electrons on a vehicle console or on a counter doing the same.

Something about taking the phone, along with its constant chirping, and retiring it to a shelf where it cannot bother me is very satisfying. For two days, I barely checked email, never bothered with social networks, and it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I don’t need to be connected. I do admit to wanting to tap into the internet for research on occasion. Not being able to do a Google search was frustrating at first. Somehow, I still made decisions and moved forward without collective knowledge.

My first entry into cutting connections was cable/satellite TV. I purged my subscription over 9 months ago. My TV only now receives over the air channels along with a Netflix subscription. Mostly I use it for background noise within an urban house. It drowns out the other sounds like traffic. Nine months have passed and beyond the original few doubts, I see little difference in my life. I read a lot more. Muse with music in the background but have felt nearly no effect. I’ve never been one to get fixated on a fictional show to the point that I had to see it.

Going back to the basics would eliminate Hangout gaming, which I really enjoy. While I couldn’t jump into ad-hoc games at the moment, planning a few games per month would be easy enough — just plan to use higher connectivity sites when needed. Moving to a connection is very similar to travelling to the tabletop where the game was being played. Not much different than years past, just a different medium.

One of the original rules of Convergence discussed by Kevin and I was the lack of distractions. Many of our thoughts have diverged, but the lack of interruption is one we still share. Deviations come with connectivity — they are not usually additive.

I’m leaning toward occasional connection rather than being constantly connected. It may not happen. Simpler and sane speak louder than the current crushing annoyance of connections.

One thing is for sure, if I start raising chickens — I’m not tweeting the rooster.

Drinking Quest 3 – Nectar of the Gods

I love Drinking Quest. Its a light RPG based card game focused around having a few cocktails. Like many small game publishers, the fine folks over at Drinking Quest decided to launch a crowd-sourced campaign on Indiegogo to fund the final chapter of the DQ trilogy.

The final chapter of the DQ trilogy keeps the core game mechanics and is a stand-alone edition of the game. Each version shares a story line but can be played independently. It also will feature some improvements to the game. Quality improvements are a consistent feature with the publisher.

DQ3 is going to feature stout new boxes for the games. Additionally, they have hired a colorist so they can offer the new release in color! The black and white drawings were cool but I cannot wait to see how the art jumps out in color. Plus they are retaining the improved card quality from the first release to the new printings offered when DQ2 launched.

Here are 30 reasons in 3 minutes to consider backing the project in Jason’s own words:

Where I Sit

After waffling a bit on what level of backing for campaign, I settled on the perk of all 3 games + Insult + Poem. While I already own two copies of DQ1 and 1 copy of DQ2, the improved boxes will aid in hauling the games to various locales. I don’t game much at home so transport is key. I almost went for the t-shirt but could only wear it a few times per year. I’m not hipster enough to rock Chuglox on a regular basis. Just too damn old to pull it off.

What I could have done…

Sure, I could have opted for the drunken Bachelor Party via Skype. Trying to tell my new mail order bride that I ordered her just to play a game undoubtedly would not end well. Can you do an RMA in the mail order bride business? I’m dubious. Not to mention that I already wrangled Jason into playing with Erik Tenkar and I via Google+ hangout. I am confident I could make that happen again.

Tattoo Time was just off the table. I have no need for my name to appear on another man’s body for any reason. Honestly, that perk is creepy. I picture dark cells in a strange prison that features booze on the commissary options. Admittedly, I’m an ass backward citizen of the United States so perhaps our more forward thinking brethren to the north rock self esteem at the tattoo people level.

Let’s Party is crazily expensive. Playing with Jason in person would be a hell of a lot of fun. Playing with him via G+ was awesome and the stories were great. [Upside, he never hugged me. In fact, I cannot recall him groping the camera. (take note Bachelor Partiers).] Instead, I invoked the power of networking. Surreptitiously, my grand plan is to have a convention fund his travel/attendance, and then I volunteer to help him when I happen to show up for said convention. Minimal out of pocket cost. Benefit to Jason. Benefit to the convention. The math just works out in my favor.

Last Word

Why are you still reading? Did you already back the campaign and return for more in depth analysis? I invoke my special ability: Chug, friend, chug.

5 Days Left to Win a Dyson Logo’s Map

The entries are flowing in over on the official contest page for the Grand Original Map Contest. Yet, you should make Tenkar, Dyson, and I work hard. To make us suffer labor, you need to provide more cool stuff to read. Stock a dungeon. Make up a devious new creature or trap. Show off a cool environment within a dungeon or town. Force us to make difficult decisions by showcasing your imagination.

The official runes are on the entry post at Tenkar’s Tavern. Still plenty of time to win one of the awesome hand-drawn works of art. For your viewing pleasure, here is the 4th small map that somehow failed to be included in the contest post.

Count Michaels Ruins

Welcome back to Modern Times Hasbro

As everyone has undoubtedly heard, the folks at OneBookShelf screwed up today. The super secret project of PDF’s being uploaded from Wizards of Coast was inadvertently flagged as being available to Featured Reviewers. Once the emails started pouring into their inboxes, people immediately began to speculate.

What does it mean?

Obviously, the accountants under the WoTC domain finally figured out that there’s a huge demand for out of print products. Duh. And the lawyers were assured that profits overtake piracy. Duh. Big companies don’t make big decisions quickly nor do they do so without pondering the bottom line.

Surely, they jest?

Well People Them with Monsters grabbed a screen shot of what was obviously a work in progress from dndclassics.com. I could link to the site but its a blank page. Not unexpected since OBS began the back pedal once they figured out they were leaching information.

From the screen shots and the various mentions, it appears to include a volume of works covering stuff from prior editions through modern incarnations. Products that were not previously available were uploaded and stuff that had been previously been available via OneBookShelf appear to be headed toward being once again available. Does it mean that OBS will return products to customers who already owned them before the rights were rescinded? No idea. One would hope so but I seriously doubt it. Big companies are all about the bottom line but they are working with a far smaller company.

How long has this been in the works?

Well before November 1st, 2012. That is the date that OBS registered dndclassics.com. Strangely, they may not have had much faith in the project since they only registered it for a couple of years. The registration details have since been set to private. I looked at the domain the information when it was leaked.

Lessons to Learn

You should not test major stuff on sites live on the Internet. You should validate the process with fake data to ensure that your process is correct. So, yeah, OBS, you screwed the pooch.

I doubt it will matter. If the project was key to Hasbro’s strategy, the dollar signs are still there. I doubt they will back out now. Doing so would require an endless series of meetings with a lot of PowerPoint slides. Even internally, they probably cannot stomach that.

City Name Generator Update

Yesterday, I was informed that I’d broken the entries for Wales within the City Name Generator. While I restored the data for Wales, the vast majority of them can be found under England. A mere 130 entries from the original generator data set is not that interesting. Hat tip to James L. for letting me know.

While I was fixing that, I imported a few new countries:

Kenya
Laos
Lebanon
Libya
Lithuania
Madagascar
Malaysia
Mali
Mozambique
Panama
Papau (New Guinea)
Philippines
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia

The database now contains slightly over 2 million names.

Grand Original Map Contest is Live

The time for dropping hints is over. The contest has officially launched over at Tenkar’s Tavern. Erik has kindly offered to host the contest and act as a judge along with Master Mapper Dyson, and yours truly.

You can snag all of the maps on this Google Drive folder or from the contest post. While the original maps are the prizes in the contest, anyone can utilize the images under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA license — do what you will as long as its non-commercial.

For those who wish to view the rules in a non-blog setting, you can get snag the Google document.

Now get to creating. I’m going to get to slacking until I have to read all the great entries. All entries must be posted by Feb. 16th.

Contest Map Preview

This morning, I received the 5 digital images of the original Dyson Logos maps up for grabs in the impending contest. Four of the original hand-drawn maps will be given away — the digital variants will be used during the contest.

I did a bit of manipulation on the images to clean out edge artifacts and add sharpness using Matt Jackson’s new tutorial. The released images have been reduced by 50%. Once I’m happy with the originals, I will release the full resolution images. The final images will likely feature a Creative Commons license to maximize their usefulness to the community.

As noted previously, Dyson, Erik Tenkar, and myself will be judging the contest, which will run approximately a month. Full contest details should be available early next week. The map names are direct copies of Dyson’s naming scheme but likely have no bearing on what will end within the delves.

Enjoy the preview.

Dwarven Fortress

Torvek’s Tower

Rose River

Count Michaels Ruins

Troll Chasm