So i'm only about 3 days into play Matrix Online, and I already know I won't play it past a month. The game isn't bad, don't get me wrong, and it's biggest pull is that it is an official continuation of the Matrix storyline, which is awesome in many ways. The problem with it is that it isn't as good as a lot of the other stuff out there.

The combat system is the biggest difference between MxO and other MMORPG's. It is innovative, it takes careful consideration of your actions and the potential actions of your opponents to be successful. It is also slow, clunky, and unintuitive. What should have been used to set MxO apart was an immersive storyline that makes you feel like your actions actually do make a difference, instead you get a generic storyline that just guides you through a story where your actions don't play a part in the greater plot.

MxO combines two of my least favorite aspects of MMO's: Grinding and Menus. The interface literally gets in the way of playing the game, and that's bad design. Monolith originally owned the game, before sony bought it, but that was 4 years ago and a lot of polish could have been heaped on this thing to make it worth playing.

To give you an idea of how bad it really is, I have started playing Puzzle Pirates as well, since MxO isn't holding my attention well enough. I think, that after this month is over, I will go back to WoW for a bit, since I at least know I like it.

It's been a day or two without a post, I've been busy building a website (ooohhh). Not an reason, just an excuse. Yesterday, I took the MMO plunge, but not in the way you would think.

I was looking through my old MMO's and trying to figure out which one to play to get rid of the shakes. Should I play World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Wars Galaxies? Should I go back in time even farther and play Everquest, or Ultima Online? Then something caught my eye...A game I had played in beta, and then repurchased for my wife when she was pregnant and on bed rest. The Matrix Online.

Now, for those who don't know, the Matrix Online is "one of those" mmorpg's. The ones that came out just shortly after World of Warcraft and were crushed in it's wake. There are probably some out there who didn't even know Matrix Online existed... but sadly, it did. I figure, it's been 4 years, it got bought out by sony, maybe it's better now? Well it is. I played it for a few hours last night, I will play some more tonight no doubt. It was fun, I met a charming fellow by the name of "MoThugz" who let me join his crew, he even gave me a yellow thug jacket to show my "gang colors".

I should probably check with the guild to see if anyone plays this, but I suspect I already know the answer.

Final thought: I brought this up with my wife last night, as we were getting close to falling asleep...it hit me that, in Resident Evil 2 (the game), there was the T-Virus, which turned people into zombies...ok...I get that. It also mutated animals (crocodiles, and spiders, maybe some others I have forgotten) making them larger and scarier. I get that. But on some other animals (dogs) it turned them into zombies like humans, and on other animals (ravens, or...I suspect, probably crows) it just made them bad ass so they flew through windows and pecked at you and shit. What is up with that? Why the differences between different animals?

My wife came up with the solution that "You are Dumb, Go to sleep". But I think there is something deeper at work here.

A friend/work acquaintance/boss of mine is looking at selling his frac set-up (or at least one of his frac set-ups) to make some room in his basement.

Head over to Muffwiggler's Blog for more info.

Today's geek affirmation comes in the form of setting up a drum kit on my laptop using the Rock Band Drum Controller for the XBox 360.
Here is Ash, throwing down some mad beats.

If you have Rock Band, and want to do the same thing, head over to andrewrudson.com to get step by step instructions and the drum kit software. Basically, as long as you have DirectX 9.0c installed, windows will automatically detect and install the drivers for your drums, so all you need is the software to start rocking out.
It lets you add you own .wav files as samples and assign them to whichever drum pad you want. It is a little limited with only 4 pads and 1 kick, but hopefully the software will be updated when the Rock Band 2 drum controller is available.
I will try to throw up a video tomorrow, I had one made, but it didn't turn out so well, so a picture is all you get for today.

i'm getting that old familiar itch...and if you have ever played WoW, you know exactly what I am talking about...unless you are still playing WoW and are constantly getting your itch scratched. I want to play again, but I am afraid.
Why did I give up playing WoW? It was starting to feel like a job, that's what I told myself...instead of feeling like I wanted to play, I was feeling like I had to play. It wasn't fun anymore. It's a game, so if it isn't fun then I should stop playing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The point is that I want to play it again...maybe it would even be fun. It's the sort of thing that I should traditionally pass by my wife (who will probably read this anyway, an occurance that will be followed by my mysterous disappearance from this world). So I will pass it by my wife, and then I will march down to my local EB, or Microplay, or Shack and pick up a 30 or 60 day game card, and away I go, hacking and slashing like there is no tomorrow (which indeed there may not be).

I do realize that I missed yesterday's geek affirmation, and so here it is now:

Yesterday I figured out a new way to create my combat encounters in D&D so that I can have all the information I need on one page, which excites me because it will streamline combat encounters and speed up gameplay.

I suppose I also need one for today, which could be my decision to go back to World of Warcrack, but I suppose I need to follow through on that decision first before it becomes a true affirmation. I guess that means I will be writing another post later when I figure out what the hell I have done today that constitutes geeky.

I have another geeky thing to add to my list for today. Today, I played accountant! I suppose technically i just did accounting, but everything in life is more fun if you pretend it's a game. My wife has her own business, and i like numbers, so I take care of the accounting for her, which is what I did tonight.

Wonderful way to spend an evening.

We were contemplating getting bicycle's today, and Redd's mom brought over some bike helmets incase we went through with it. Ash attached himself to one of them immediately, and has been wearing is since. I got some pictures of him playing with one of the cat's toys.
Here he is, examining the fish at the end of the cat toyHere he is, explaining (proudly) that he is playing with the cat toy.
I only kept this one because it looks like my son got attacked by a head crab. Even the finger curl on his left hand his perfect. This is what having kids is all about.

In other news, I played some Gears of War today. Being the poor ass gamer that I am, I don't usually check out the A-List titles until like a year or more after their release, and such is the case with Gears. I only recently finished Bioshock as well...i have no excuse for my actions.

I don't have an item to put in bold today, but I did do more work on my D&D campaign (which we will hopefully be playing this week, and I played Gears, so I suppose that counts for something....you know what? Fuck it. I'm putting this entire paragraph in bold.

First things First:

Yesterday, I played Munchkin (by Steve Jackson Games), I also watched the last Act of Dr. horrible and worked on more power cards for my Dungeons and Dragons Campaign.

Now that that is out of the way, UFC Fight Night Live Silva vs Irvin was on Spike TV last night, and it didn't disappoint. Silva was, if anything, even more dominating at 205 lbs. There wasn't much to the event beyond Silva's fight. I actually found myself ignoring the fights most of the time and thinking, "dis is the stupididest UFC event EVAR!" but after the Silva/Irvin fight I was all "OMG! BESTEST EVENT IN DA WERLD!" (For the record, my inner monologue is always spoken in lolcat.) That fight, and the one undercard fight they showed afterwards were both impressive knockouts and made the night worthwhile.

Everyone else in the world has already moved on, but I feel it is my responsibility to mention that today is your last chance to see Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog without paying for it. So for got sakes, just take the half hour or whatever out of your life to watch it. This isn't just about the content, this is about supporting a form of media that comes directly from the creator (in this case Joss Whedon) to the user (in this case, your mom). I will be buying the DVD when it comes out, for the extras as well as to support me medium.

Just got through watching XPlay run down the top games for each system from E3. I mostly agree with their choices, except that they didn't mention MAG, but I think they were only going off of games that showed actual live gameplay, and not bullshot's.

Left 4 Dead looks really good, and it's a game I didn't mention in my previous post. There are actually a shit-ton of great games coming out late 2008 and early 2009 that I will have to prioritize and figure out which ones I can lay down some green on. Left 4 Dead is at the top of the list, unless I can convince the wife to let me get a PS3, in which case I will probably crawl my way back to MGS4, and finally play Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, which I have wanted to play ever since I saw the commercials.

Today, I cleaned up my home office and made sure that it included a TV with a Playstation...you know...for extra productivity.

That's all folks. Remember, tomorrow is Act III of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and it's also Silva vs. Irwin on Spike TV. Gonna be a good day I think...yes...a good day.

This is important, this is more than important actually...it's something much more. This is Amazing. If you haven't heard about Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, it's something you really need to look into.

It's smart, it's funny, it's a musical, and most importantly of all, it has NPH himself. When you are at the site, make sure you check out the master plan, it's a letter from Joss Whedon explaining how Dr. Horrible came into existance, and what you can do to help.

Also, make sure you catch this before Midnight on Sunday July 20th, because then it goes away and you won't be able to see it for free.

Didn't do much exciting, worked on the D&D Campaign for next session a little, made some notes and printed off new power cards for my players. Which brings me to my daily geek affirmation:

Today, I printed off new cards to keep track of characters powers, replacing the old cards, which I am no longer fond of.

And that pretty much sums up my night. Just going to go play some pokemon before I go to bed.

Yesterday we kicked off the third session of our Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition home game. The combat was fierce, and almost deadly on more than one occasion. Obviously it stands to reason that my geek affirmation for yesterday is:

Yesterday, I played me some Dungeons and Dragons

It was fun, it always is. At some point in the night, the game got slightly derailed, and we began talking of old dungeons and dragons moments. I figured I would share a few (as i remember them).

Scenario 1: Epic Level Game; The party is hiking through the mountains towards a city rumored to be crawling with undead. There has been a recurring enemy in the form of a Lich that the party has faced but failed to defeat several times. While coming around a bend in the mountain trail, they come face to face with the lich. Neither them, nor the lich, had been expecting to find the other here. Everyone stops and stares, not sure what to do. One of my players, Derek, was playing a druid. He whispered to my other player, Rob, who was playing a class certainly, but not one I remember, and said "Psst...Rob...I have a plan, give me all your money..." Rob did as he was asked, and handed Derek almost 2000 gold pieces. Derek slowly and quietly put the money into his bag of holding, and then went back to staring at the Lich, having pocketed all of Rob's money.

That is probably my very favorite role-playing moment of all time. The only other one I will tell is the story of why my wife doesn't play Dungeons and Dragons with me any more.

Scenario: The party was low level, 1 or 2 maybe, and had been fighting some kobolds in caverns north of the city, where their paladin had died. They left without bringing his body back, and were asked to go back and retrieve it. On the way back, they found a halfling, surrounded by rotting zombie dogs. I should probably note at this point, that my wife was playing a halfling bard, who was less than good (alignment wise).
The party attacked the zombie dogs. All of the party, that is, except my wife, who weaved her way through the zombie dogs to get to the halfling. From behind, she bludgeoned him to death with a sock filled with gold coins. While the rest of the party fought zombie dogs, she cut the skin off his head with a broken piece of mirror, and then pried his skull open with a crowbar, so she could feast on his brains. She managed to eat his brains, undergoing many fortitude saving throws to combat her bodies urge to vomit.

Somewhere, she had gotten it into her head that by eating the halflings brains, she would get his powers...when I told her that was not the case, she was pretty upset, and since then she has never played dungeons and dragons with me.

in the wake of the E3 press conferences from the big three, i have some thoughts and opinions that i need to put down somewhere so that i can refer to them later when i lie about every having had them. I will do it in order

They announced a few games that I am excited about. Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2, and Fable 2. Yeah...we all knew they were coming out, but Fable and Gears will at least be out this year.
The dashboard overhaul i could take it or leave it. I read on Joystiq that you will be able to keep the blades if you really want to, which i think i do.
The avatars I am undecided on...i mean...i have a mii on the wii (that rhymes) which doesn't really do much for me, but the avatar on the 360 looks like it will be much more polished (naturally). What I am really interested in is getting something from achievements other than bragging rights. I am 26, I work from home, I have a 2 year old son, i obviously don't have friends to brag to.
FFXIII doesn't do much for me either, but I can see how it would do something for jrpg fans. Final Fantasy died for me somewhere around FF9. I may breakdown and get this one, simply because every once in a while i need something to grind that isn't bejeweled.

to my shame, i came into the event about 20 minutes after it started, so i missed a lot here. what i did see didn't blow me away. they announced a star wars game where i don't get to use the wiimote as a lightsaber, and a sword mini-game as part of wii sports resort that could have been 9000x cooler if they just made the swords glow.
seriously...i'm not hard to please, give me a sword, that glows, and let me swing it around. (and no more heroes doesn't count...it has to be a lightsaber, or make me think it's a lightsaber)
wii music had me super excited until i realized it didn't require skill.
i missed most of the game announcements, so...that's pretty much all i have to say about nintendo.

sony spent a long time showing me nothing particularily amazing. resistance looks good, but then, everything on the ps3 looks good. they announced god of war 3, which i am sure will be great, but they didn't even show any gameplay, just a shitty teaser trailer.
a few games i am interested in, and a small price drop on the 80gig model in september.
little big planet, fallout 3 again (microsoft showed it first), some DC universe online monstrosity, and then...MAG.
MAG...Massive Action Game. I finally, really and truly, absolutely, NEED a ps3. i need one...plain, simple. it is not a want. it is a need. I will be following the development of this game very closely.

that's it folks. if i had to place them in order of "OMGWTFBBQness", it would look like this
keep in mind, that's just based on their press conference event thingy's, and not an actual representation of my preference for either company.

with that out of the way, i can focus on my daily geek affirmation

Today, I printed out detailed Monster Stat Cards for all of my encounters in tomorrows D&D4e session (which I am running)

I guess the only other thing I want to share, is this epic, epic, fail.

it started very simply, i think.

i am a father, a husband, and a part-time geek. i used to be a full time geek, and though i can't recall what it was like, i have vague recollections of a time when i wasn't a father. gone are the days when i would line up to be the first to get the latest video game title. gone are the days when i would pull and all-nighter with fellow geeks, playing dungeons and dragons and magic the gathering. did you know, i once placed 2nd in a regional magic the gathering qualifier? of course you didn't. i am a dried up husk of a geek, no longer relevant to the world of gaming.

the geek-a-day project is my attempt to combat my failing as a geek, by posting one thing a day that i did that was geeky. in addition, since we all need somewhere to place our random musings other than twitter, i will use this space for my personal journal.

I will start with today.

today, i started a blog called "the geek-a-day project" to catalog my continuing life as a part-time geek.

i would say that constitutes as a good start.