Shom svi’ sochya Leonard Nimoy.

“Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… human.”

It is you who decides where you go. You make your own fate.

 

Luck favor those who are prepared.

What is fate other than luck?

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think that you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,
Its almost certain that you won’t.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the one who thinks he can.
-Walter D. Wintle

I attribute the learning about the earlier saying from Gunnvor.  I stumbled upon her blog a couple months ago before she made most of her past posts private for her own reasons.   So you can not see the past posts that often quoted the above saying.

Much of any martial art is about the mental game.  Yes, I know that sounds cliche but it is true.  Why do you think that most modern day armed services break down their recruits so that they can mold them into soldiers/warriors?

If you think you are beaten, you are.  When one believes that they will loose they will.  It is a perfect self fulfilling prophecy.  If a person believes that it is preordained that they will not prevail then they will most likely not perform at their top level.  Why?  Because it is preordained.

This saying is all about believing in yourself.  If you do not believe in yourself who will?  If you do not think you will prevail who will?

I am trying to go down that path again in bettering myself. More stuff about music in the future!  Why because music can influence and make you move!

Is it a change in conviction or is it finding it again?

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think that you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,
Its almost certain that you won’t.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the one who thinks he can.
-Walter D. Wintle

I posted this as a comment in another’s blog today. I haven’t posted here in a while for various reasons. The biggest reason is that as of late most of the games I have been playing were not feeling like games. It didn’t matter if it was a MMO or a single player. I felt my enjoyment was a bit empty. My enjoyment felt materialistic based in a material world. I was inspired to start a blog due to an upcoming game. When that inspiration was no longer there I felt at odds posting here.

In the last two months I have been attending the practices of my local group in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I felt compelled to return after a long hiatus. I stopped for all the wrong reasons. I mentioned about getting active again to my wife. It was at her prodding I started to come back even though I can not fight due to shoulder issues.

I am getting much more back than I would have thought. It has been fun working limitedly with new fighters on basics. I have been diving into projects just because I can. It is amazingly fun. I feel much more enjoyment and fulfillment in what I do now than I ever get with gaming be it raiding or role play in nature. There I may now get a trinket that is a bunch of 0s and 1s. MMORPG have moved away from Koster’s view, reward is getting better at a game, to simple loot based reward. I think that developers think that the only way to retain/increase players (read revenue) is to turn the games into Skinner boxes. It is my thought that is what ails the MMORPG industry in that people are tending to flit from game to game. Each game they think they’ll get enjoyment final. But come to find out it is a Skinner box and move on to the next great thing. Which sadly for them will be another Skinner box. There was an interesting story on technology and Skinner on NPR today [Online Marketers Take Note Of Brains Wired For Rewards
](http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/24/204621796/ONLINE-REWARDS)

What I get in reward, from my SCA activity as of late, is oddly and amazingly both concrete and ephemeral at the same time. More on the saying at the top will be coming later.

Vanguard Saga of Heroes Character Select Music…

I need to thank Massively for a foray down in music in gaming.  I have to agree that EQII is one of my favorite character creation music..

but I TOTALLY forgot about VSOH character creation music… This clip almost wants me to reinstall the game!  This song is amazing!

But a nod to to the game I am waiting for w/ bated breath.. WildStar.

Jeff Kurtenacker also did the theme for PotBS which holds a special place in my MMO experiences heart.

Ahhhh

I Hear the wind rustling the newly formed oak leaves. A neighbor’s child crying in delight as he plays. My wife is humming a tune as she takes pictures of newly sprouting hostas. I am posting this from my phone as I patiently wait for the grill to cook the first corn on the cob for the season. Life is good.

That something something..

Well I had the pleasure of playing in Neverwinter Online and recently on a whim took a gander at Defiance. I have read online many a naysayer about Defiance. But, after last week watching the pilot episode I figure it just may be interesting to look into the game.

Both Neverwinter and Defiance are really missing that something something at times when it comes to gameplay. Neverwinter I just cannot place what bothers me so much about the gameplay. Defiance, it is glaring obvious. I have played FPS games before and since this a 3rd person shooter it feels odd at times. When you think you have a bead on a MOB around a corner you don’t due to the physics of the third person and parallax. Plus, the inventory system is less than desired. This seems to be the common issue w/ console ports on PCs. However, in terms of being fun to play I would say Neverwinter and Defiance are about even.

So the burning questions is which would prefer to play now? Oddly, I would say Defiance. The reason? The story is much better. That is pretty sad when it comes to game that uses the IP of Dungeon and Dragons does not have as strong a story. So my weekend working on the home was broken up w/ some time in Defiance.

Music in Gaming

I am sorry for writing this later than I had promised. First I would like to give a hat tip to Syl due to listening to her on her podcast Battle Bards.

If you have read some of my other posts you will have come to an understanding that I have a love of music. I would argue that it is a love all forms of art be it prose, music, or graphic. I used to be a fairly good at drawing in charcoal and pastels when I was younger. The only reason was due to repetition and practice. It was most definitely not due to talent. However, I have never had a musical bone in my body. I have tried several instruments much to the chagrin to my mother when I was younger. However, I took after my father who was an audiophile of sorts. So I just learned to have a love for music.

Music in gaming in my opinion is very much like music in movies. Music in movies can is either diagetic and non-diagetic. Now I am going to bust out what I learned in my film appreciation class. More often than not it is non-diagetic; it is over the standard dialog and audio. A good example of diegetic would be like Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Music can add to an audience’s emotions. How many car chases have you seen that did not have some kind of non-diagetic music going? I have yet to see a movie that has. I feel that it even has the ability to not only add to the audience’s emotions it can evoke an emotion as well. Billy Boyd singing The Edge of Night in Return of the King is a perfect example for me. It is tempered by the diagetic sound of Denethor crushing the chicken bones. The diagetic sound of the crushing bones is a nice foreshadow of the outcome. Plus, it is a symbol of Denethor’s action which will cause needless deaths. You can just feel the futility of the charge almost an modern day homage to the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Music in gaming can have similar impact on players’ experiences. Early gaming music had more difficulty evoking or adding to players emotions. This was due to the nature of the music being limited to midi style music. But I bet that many people my age would immediately recognize the following themes:

That may not have evoked a response back when it came out. But I bet many my age would immediately recognize it if they hear it today and thus evoking an emotional response. Mine would be of gamer rage. I sucked terribly at Super Mario Brothers.

The first MMO that I absolutely loved for the music in was Everquest II. Nektropos Castle’s music added so much to the experience of the dungeon crawl. I always called it the Scooby Doo castle. That and Stormhold my Scooby Doo dungeon. I loved and hated Nektropos; loved the ambiance, hated the bugs.

The embedded preview for Stormhold seems busted so here is a link.

Most notably the the Echoes of Faydwer expansion. That expansion’s music was epic in terms of getting the player in the mindset of the continent of Faydwer. I loved the Kelethin/Greater Faydark music.

To me a music for a MMO should give the underlying tone of the zone that the player is in. It can evoke a Sense of Wonderment, Sense of Exploration, and a Sense of Urgency. (Sorry had to use link outs instead of embedding. The embedding in Youtube for most of those was not working).

Manic April Part 2

As I said the other day I went to see the Milk Carton Kids.  We saw them at The Ark which is the same venue we saw Frank Fairfield.  It is a perfect small venue I would hazard about maybe 200 people maximum.  If you are ever in the Ann Arbor area I would highly recommend going there.  The tickets are always affordable they have ranged from as low as 15 dollars to 40 dollars for a big name like Cowboy Junkies.  Often the general admission tickets we get are literally two feet from the artists.

Now on to The Milk Carton Kids.  They are an up coming modern folk duo.  They both play acoustical guitars and sing in harmony.  How I used to always describe them was one part Simon and Garfunkle, and one part Everly Brothers.  Their harmonies are amazing and Ken Pattengale ‘s is amazing on the guitar as well.  Their passion for music, much like Frank Fairfield, is one of the many reasons I love their music.   Their love of music even goes as far as they allow people to down load their first two albums for completely free off of their website.  Now how cool is that?  So how did I find out about them?  Well the same friend who has a blog on cooking posted a link of them playing in a NPR’s Tiny Desk concert.

It was a bit ago when she posted it.  But I think she summed it up perfectly with “Absolutely beautiful.”  I was enthralled with their work immediately.  They have only been together since 2011 and they already have three albums out.  Their latest just came out the other month.  The other two are free to download.  Did I mention that already?

The concert at The Ark was the first I saw them live.  It will not be the last.  It simply was the best concert I have ever been to in my life.  I have never enjoyed a concert as nearly as much what they put out.  It goes up there w/ the Violent Femmes concert I went to.  Which I might add was amazing as well.. Men At Work, Smithereens and the Violent Femmes in one concert.  I now have to reassess how I describe their style now.  They are not only a combination of Simon and Garfunkle and The Everly Brothers. They are a combination of Simon and Garfunkle, The Everly Brothers and The Smothers Brothers.  I have never laughed so hard in a concert in my life.  They had a banter between songs that to quote Claptrap from Borderlands 2 “was absolutely highlarious”.  You get a bit of the banter in the NPR clip from above.  However, it does not do them justice.  The lyrics of their songs go from melancholy to happiness.  One of the sadder songs is the song that got Joey to want to work with Ken.  It is written from a dogs perspective as he writes down his memories as he dies due to being run over.

If they are the future of modern folk then the folk genre is in good hands.

Lastly… this a rather long one but worth listening to all the way through..

I would like to add that the opening act Aoife O’Donovan was rather good as well.

Lastly… if Ken or Joey you ever happen to read this your sound man knew his shit!  The guy had you guys spot on!  He is an amazing sound man.

Manic Monday! Make it a Manic April! Part 1

Yesterday I went to the best concert I have been to in a rather long time.  The Milk Carton Kids are an absolutely amazing group live.  Yes, I know I was all gaga about the Great Big Sea concert I went to a couple of weeks ago.  Plus, Frank Fairfield the other week was amazing as well.

First, Frank Fairfield is a bluesgrass artist from California.  He is a true throwback to earlier music styles of the pre-war era (as in prior to WWI).  He takes sheet music from that time and interprets it.  He has a very unique style with the banjo and his fiddling is amazing.  The man is a veritable fount of information of pre-war south western music. He is also an exceedingly humble musician as well. I first saw him at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival this year.  I was utterly amazed by his love of the music.  It just exudes from him as he plays away with a hoot here and a holler there.  It seems he plays each song with the same abandon and a complete ardor for the music. His emotions comes through in his music so he may seem a bit more rough than other old time musicians.  The funny thing he does not consider the music he plays old time music or Appalachian music.  He calls it urban music.  His reasoning is that all of his music comes from sheet music.  All of the sheet music was done in the big cities like New York and the like.  I had a quiet self chuckle because I had a vision of an anachronistic Eminem.

His love of music is not only for bluesgrass he is a collector of old vinyl.  One of the albums he released was a rerelease of old music from his personal 70rpm collection.  There is music on it from all over the globe from Japan to even Africa.  He has 2 solo albums of his own that are out a self titled one and Out On The Open West.  I was lucky enough to recently get a self released album he did number 120 of 500.  He made the CD to look like an old 45 vinyl record.  The recording was a bit rough since it was most likely a personal studio (ala his apartment in LA).

I will be talking about the Milk Carton Kids tomorrow.  These will be a nice segue into some thoughts on music in the gaming industry.

Here are some other tracks by him before I leave.

Two versions of an old standard Hesitating Blues (AKA Hesitation Blues)

Lastly… out on the street AFTER a performance.. the man loves his music.

Revisiting SWTOR and solo and group play thoughts.

I have jumped back into SWTOR because it is free to play now.  I am now feeling more comfortable playing in it since I have been away from GW2 for at least 3 months now.  The dodge mechanism in GW2 made it next to impossible to play SWTOR when it first went F2P for me.  I kept on trying to dodge much to my chagrin my smuggler just laughed at me.

There are several things about the game that I still much love.  The stylized graphics I actually like them.  Champions Online was the first game that I felt had stylized graphics that I liked.  SWTOR was the second.  I like several of the lightsaber animations and several of the force animations as well.  The story aspect of the game is a love or hate thing for most players.  The people who hated it felt that the game was a theme park game on rails.  You would be hard pressed to argue against that thought.  However, the ones (like me) that actually liked the story looked past the theme park ride and just enjoyed the story that Bioware was telling.  Lastly, I really liked the idea of having a companion for soloing.  That was one of my biggest issues with Star Wars Galaxies is that it was more Creature Wars Galaxies when I first played.  The idea of having a companion you could summon to solo or flesh out a group that was short a person a great idea.

However, the companions caused a problem in the game.  They made the game much more soloable.  But, they also made groups much more ephemeral.  That is one of my only issues with way MMOs have been going lately. Don’t get me wrong I really don’t want to go back to the EQ days where my shaman was the red headed step child in getting a group.  Any group missions on planets were literally a onetime deal with players.  Hardly ever did I join a group for a mission to have it last beyond that one mission.  Yes, there are flashpoints for grouping but the leveling up portions of a player on the planets were limited.  Plus, the flashpoints were a grind fest to me.  EQII was more group based early on then they moved to the spectrum of WoW for soloing.  There are still dungeons that are contested that players can go into.  I like that. Places like that build community.  Dungeons build community.  I made several friends in EQ in Karnor’s Castle and in Highpass.  One of my favorite dungeons in EQII was Stormhold.  I loved to teach new players how to tank there.

Solo verse grouping it is a hard balance.  Most games these days seem to balance it by separating them.  Solo equaling outdoors while grouping equaling dungeons.  I miss grouping in the outdoors like I did EQ and earlier EQII.  However, I also would love to crawl a dungeon on my lonesome.  I would like to see games tackle this in a more innovative way.  A simple way off the top of my head would be scaling of MOBs.  The more people in a group the more “heroic”.  Each additional person in the group increases the XP the MOB gives out. Plus, the additional people also puts the MOB on another loot table for loot and coin.  This way groups and solo players could co exist in the same zone.  The only downside I could see with this is that people would most likely tend to solo still.  I don’t know if the additional XP and loot would be motivation enough to group.