Alright, Dark Souls out of the way.
This past week has been a holiday called Wintereenmas, created by Tim Buckley in his web-comic Ctr-Alt-Del. If you are reading my blog for any reason, you should also be reading this web-comic. It is hilarious. The short version is that Wintereenmas is a holiday dedicated to gamers, and is a week dedicated to playing video games. Normally, people participating in the holiday choose a difficult goal and aim to achieve it by the end of the week (the web-comic characters attempt to beat Hard mode in Demon's Souls one year). This year, because of a shifted exam schedule, I was unable to fully participate in the holiday. A fair amount of D&D did get played during this week, as well as planning for my own campaign. I will be uploading videos of all future gaming sessions of my campaign, so anyone actually reading my blog should find those entertaining, at the least.
Sunday 29 January 2012
Saturday 28 January 2012
Dark Souls Continuation
My last entry was a broad description of how difficult Dark Souls is. That said, one of my roommates beat the first play through yesterday. He had some difficult fights, but he pulled through and killed the last boss. Because I'm playing the game as well, I made sure to not be around for the fight, as I didn't want to ruin the ending.
Seeing as he only bought the game last week, beating it this quickly would appear to be a great accomplishment. The fact that he has basically lived on the couch and played for hours on end diminishes this feat. Regardless, he has moved on to playing the game in the second play through. This is supposedly more difficult, but it only proves to have one challenge. Because he keeps all his equipment and stats, he still kills most enemies in one hit. The only increase in difficulty is that most enemies now have the ability to eat through 90% of his health in one or two hits.
This post has been in draft form for a while, and the initial train of thought is gone.
All in all, Dark Souls is a great game to challenge advanced gamers, a game to keep away from the easily frustrated and beginners, and an improvement on its predecessor, Demon's Souls.
Seeing as he only bought the game last week, beating it this quickly would appear to be a great accomplishment. The fact that he has basically lived on the couch and played for hours on end diminishes this feat. Regardless, he has moved on to playing the game in the second play through. This is supposedly more difficult, but it only proves to have one challenge. Because he keeps all his equipment and stats, he still kills most enemies in one hit. The only increase in difficulty is that most enemies now have the ability to eat through 90% of his health in one or two hits.
This post has been in draft form for a while, and the initial train of thought is gone.
All in all, Dark Souls is a great game to challenge advanced gamers, a game to keep away from the easily frustrated and beginners, and an improvement on its predecessor, Demon's Souls.
Sunday 8 January 2012
Matters Other than Tea
I have only really been talking about tea up to this point, so I'm going to post about something equally awesome; Video games.
The current game being played in my house is Dark Souls (DaS)
Dark Souls Official Website
For those who didn't click the link, the site's URL is "prepare to die" dot com. That couldn't be truer for this game. The game begins, and you literally have nothing. Okay, you have a broken sword hilt as a weapon, but that's it. Not to give any details away from the game, but you die quickly. And often. Like, all the time.
Anyway, defeating enemies in this game rewards you with "souls". These souls are the monetary system for the game. Unfortunately, giving you money for every enemy would apparently be to easy for DaS. Souls function as what you use to buy items from the handful of shopkeepers hidden throughout the game, your expenses for repairing and upgrading your equipment, and, most importantly, the cost to increase your stats and level. Every single point you put into a stat costs a certain amount of souls, and this costs quickly becomes very large for just a single point. The other difficult part of the game is that when you die (which can happen at pretty much anytime), you lose all the souls you had, plus all "humanities" you've acquired, which are another form of rare but important item you find. Once dead, you have one chance to find your body and recover the souls and humanities you lost. If you die before reaching your body, those souls are lost. You had 20,000 souls because you were working towards getting a new level, but died against the enemy there? And he killed you again? Sorry, sucks to be you, start at zero souls.
The game also takes place in two states of being. You are either Undead (Which is the game's version of being alive) or Hollow (Dead, in spirit form). You probably spend a large amount of time being Hollow, but if you do spend a humanity to become "alive" again, you get another perk for not being Hollow. You can summon other players to help you in your game, both NPC and PC, and they can make your life monumentally easier. Also, your resistance to damage goes up. Being alive is great! Right? That would make the game too easy. So DaS throws another thing at you. As long as you're alive and in an area that you haven't beat the boss in, other PLAYERS can invade your game as evil spirits. Like someone who has varied strategies, good equipment, and a boiling anger that develops from playing the game. Their sole purpose for invading your game? Killing you and stealing your souls. These evil phantoms are immune to all game enemies and environment hazards, and can wait to attack you until you are already fighting a giant rat/black knight/room full of archers/etc. If you kill the invading phantom, they get sent back into their own game. No drawbacks. The only downside to invading people's games is that a certain item lets you report invaders to an in-game group of hunters to eventually attack the invader.
Between the ridiculous cost for levels, the massive drawbacks of dying, the constant threat of an area turning into a PvP manhunt, and the massive power that your enemies wield, Dark Souls is not a game for casual players, starting players, or anyone who doesn't ever want to throw their controller at their TV. But Dark Souls goes back to an older time in video games. The game doesn't hand you shiny new items and levels for simply playing. You earn everything in this game, and when you get enough souls for a level, or repel an invading phantom, or beat that boss who can kill you with one glancing hit, you feel awesome. Not many games now can give that feeling of accomplishment. All this said, Dark Souls is actually easier than it's predecessor, Demon's Souls. I won't get into that game, mouthful of a title that it is.
The current game being played in my house is Dark Souls (DaS)
Dark Souls Official Website
For those who didn't click the link, the site's URL is "prepare to die" dot com. That couldn't be truer for this game. The game begins, and you literally have nothing. Okay, you have a broken sword hilt as a weapon, but that's it. Not to give any details away from the game, but you die quickly. And often. Like, all the time.
Anyway, defeating enemies in this game rewards you with "souls". These souls are the monetary system for the game. Unfortunately, giving you money for every enemy would apparently be to easy for DaS. Souls function as what you use to buy items from the handful of shopkeepers hidden throughout the game, your expenses for repairing and upgrading your equipment, and, most importantly, the cost to increase your stats and level. Every single point you put into a stat costs a certain amount of souls, and this costs quickly becomes very large for just a single point. The other difficult part of the game is that when you die (which can happen at pretty much anytime), you lose all the souls you had, plus all "humanities" you've acquired, which are another form of rare but important item you find. Once dead, you have one chance to find your body and recover the souls and humanities you lost. If you die before reaching your body, those souls are lost. You had 20,000 souls because you were working towards getting a new level, but died against the enemy there? And he killed you again? Sorry, sucks to be you, start at zero souls.
The game also takes place in two states of being. You are either Undead (Which is the game's version of being alive) or Hollow (Dead, in spirit form). You probably spend a large amount of time being Hollow, but if you do spend a humanity to become "alive" again, you get another perk for not being Hollow. You can summon other players to help you in your game, both NPC and PC, and they can make your life monumentally easier. Also, your resistance to damage goes up. Being alive is great! Right? That would make the game too easy. So DaS throws another thing at you. As long as you're alive and in an area that you haven't beat the boss in, other PLAYERS can invade your game as evil spirits. Like someone who has varied strategies, good equipment, and a boiling anger that develops from playing the game. Their sole purpose for invading your game? Killing you and stealing your souls. These evil phantoms are immune to all game enemies and environment hazards, and can wait to attack you until you are already fighting a giant rat/black knight/room full of archers/etc. If you kill the invading phantom, they get sent back into their own game. No drawbacks. The only downside to invading people's games is that a certain item lets you report invaders to an in-game group of hunters to eventually attack the invader.
Between the ridiculous cost for levels, the massive drawbacks of dying, the constant threat of an area turning into a PvP manhunt, and the massive power that your enemies wield, Dark Souls is not a game for casual players, starting players, or anyone who doesn't ever want to throw their controller at their TV. But Dark Souls goes back to an older time in video games. The game doesn't hand you shiny new items and levels for simply playing. You earn everything in this game, and when you get enough souls for a level, or repel an invading phantom, or beat that boss who can kill you with one glancing hit, you feel awesome. Not many games now can give that feeling of accomplishment. All this said, Dark Souls is actually easier than it's predecessor, Demon's Souls. I won't get into that game, mouthful of a title that it is.
Dealing with Maté
One of the other presents I received for the holidays this year was a bombilla set and a large amount of Yerba Maté. For those who are unaware, Yerba Maté is an African drink, made from an herb found locally there. It is very powdery and is available for fairly cheap in a lot of places. It also comes in a wide variety of flavours.
The traditional way to make Yerba Maté is quite a complicated process, but the short version is to add the tea to a gourd (called a Maté), place a special straining spoon (called a bombilla) in the gourd, add a little bit of cold water to clump the tea, then under-boiling water to make the tea. Sounds simple enough, right?
My first attempt at making this tea was not very successful. I tried to make the cold version of the tea, but ended up adding the water too quickly. This ended with more than a little bit of the tea to make its way up the straw. Because I didn't want to waste the tea, I ended up simply placing the straw inside of a tea bag and then into the cup. This worked to keep the leaves out of the straw, but is definitely not the right way to do it. More research on the process will probably help.
The little research I have done on Yerba Maté has revealed a little of the culture behind the drink. Drinking Yerba Maté is apparently a common social component of a gathering. The person who is making the tea makes the first cup, and drinks it quickly. Yerba Maté is not a sipping drink. After finishing their first cup, they make the tea again, using the same leaves, cup, and straw. They hand this to the next person, who quickly drinks it, and so on until everyone has had some. Seems to me like the person making the tea becomes very busy for the duration of whatever event is happening.
Mishaps aside, once I wasn't spitting out pieces of tea, it was a very nice drink. The bag I received is a mint blend, and tasted very refreshing as a cold drink. The hot version will be tried at a later date. It had a distinct mint taste, but also has the caffeine taste that coffee has, albeit a lot less intense. Overall, a nice tea, with a process that will take some mastering.
The traditional way to make Yerba Maté is quite a complicated process, but the short version is to add the tea to a gourd (called a Maté), place a special straining spoon (called a bombilla) in the gourd, add a little bit of cold water to clump the tea, then under-boiling water to make the tea. Sounds simple enough, right?
My first attempt at making this tea was not very successful. I tried to make the cold version of the tea, but ended up adding the water too quickly. This ended with more than a little bit of the tea to make its way up the straw. Because I didn't want to waste the tea, I ended up simply placing the straw inside of a tea bag and then into the cup. This worked to keep the leaves out of the straw, but is definitely not the right way to do it. More research on the process will probably help.
The little research I have done on Yerba Maté has revealed a little of the culture behind the drink. Drinking Yerba Maté is apparently a common social component of a gathering. The person who is making the tea makes the first cup, and drinks it quickly. Yerba Maté is not a sipping drink. After finishing their first cup, they make the tea again, using the same leaves, cup, and straw. They hand this to the next person, who quickly drinks it, and so on until everyone has had some. Seems to me like the person making the tea becomes very busy for the duration of whatever event is happening.
Mishaps aside, once I wasn't spitting out pieces of tea, it was a very nice drink. The bag I received is a mint blend, and tasted very refreshing as a cold drink. The hot version will be tried at a later date. It had a distinct mint taste, but also has the caffeine taste that coffee has, albeit a lot less intense. Overall, a nice tea, with a process that will take some mastering.
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