This blog is so eclectic that what ever you subscribed to is probably only a fraction of my output, and the rest of it is of very little interest!

And now it’s happened again.  I am happily writing a scene, I know exactly what the next bit is (not the precise words- imagine having to write a presentation: you know the topic, you just need to find how to vocalise it).

THEN the lead character reveals with NO WARNING WHAT SO EVER that he almost had one of his closest friends committed to hospital under the Mental Health Act.

I literally had no idea!  I finished one paragraph, went to write the next and he said something completely different.  I had just enough time to stop myself writing and add a set up for the next 250 words correctly.

Mind you, this whole chapter has been hiding surprises from me.  I knew it existed- its a party, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about.  I just knew it needed to exist as a bridge between two major plot points.  A little later I realised I needed to introduce a new character to tie up the loose ends in what I suppose is the ‘C’ arc of the book, and I look at this as yet unwritten chapter, and find this guy fully formed with a appropriate back story, as if just waiting for me to find him.

Ok.  I may be getting a little wierd as I get older…

I don’t write from the beginning all the way through.  I know what ‘set pieces’ through out I want to write, as I know the general progress of the story.  If I have a good idea I will often start that bit before I forget it, especially if I’m stuck with the earlier story – often one part will inspire another part, and allows me to use tricks such as foreshadowing.

However, because it is so much longer the characters are obviously having to be more rounded.  It turns out that they seem to have a life of their own, no matter what I think.

My female lead has talked the male lead into asking her out to dinner.  I was as surprised as he was.

THAT WASN’T THE NEXT BIT. Now I have to write a whole restaurant scene because she thought he was going a bit too fast.

Thanks dear. I sometimes wonder whose narrative it is!

The problem appeared to be the way I was writing her speech – it’s the classic joke about how a man can say three words on the phone, because he saw his mate last week, but a woman will speak for an hour because she isn’t seeing her friend until this evening.  I felt she was speaking too much like a man.

Once I gave her a less clipped way of speaking; fuller sentences etc, what she said changed, and it became obvious the way she thought was different.

Later the male lead was got drunk by his best mate. I thought it was so he could work through the issues around the woman he loves. Turns out he told me something completely different- why he feels guilty about their other best mate’s death. I didn’t know!

Also I didn’t know how he had died – the official story (which I knew) isn’t the same as what actually happened.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m sane…

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

May your children not wake up too early!

And while you are finishing off the turkey/goose/duck/nut cutlet, spare a thought for those who have to work. Not just the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (the Taliban understandably not being so big on Christmas), but those who provide direct services to you, who still have to be there to provide public service.

I am speaking of the police, medical staff, firefighters, even social services, who are on call. A special mention to those Prison Officers I work with who are rota’d in to supervise the ‘guests’, rather than spending time with their families.

zombie cheesus chocolate bunny

zombie cheesus chocolate bunny

Based on an incident from the siege in Arnhem, and an attempt to write a multi player scenario for TW&T – not a game that normally lends its self to more than one player a side.

Bloody Berets

As he ages He will learn the ways of a woman’s mind, and will confidently say “Which do you like?” This is wrong, because Woman will say “Why can’t you ever make a decision. Why don’t you take an interest in what I look like?”

Then as he grows older, Man becomes wily, and He answers “What shoes/jacket/bag are you going to be wearing/taking.” And this is the right answer, because She thinks He is showing interest.

After some years Woman begins to suspect. And then the Man becomes wise, and when She asks “Should I wear this dress or that dress” Man knows to say “You’ve worn both of those so many times. I will buy you a new dress. And shoes. And jacket.” And he may be poorer, but at least he gets a few months peace and quiet this way.

When you go home tell them of us and say -
For your tomorrow we gave our today.

I have been playing your ‘First Life’ game for some years now and I wish to register dissatisfaction with some of the so-called features.

1) Lack of manual/in-game help/tool tips.
I realise that you boast an ‘extensive training mission’. What you fail to mention is that this will take approximately 1/3 of the promised 75 year content. Additionally there is little guidance even during this so-called “Schooling period”, and the training is mostly trying stuff out then having other characters telling you are doing it wrong. Even experienced players would welcome tool tips during actions – for instance when reaching for your third alcoholic drink a warning bubble saying “May impare your judgement of interaction with opposite sex” would be helpful.

2) Lack of Save/Load function. 
Given the lack of in-game hints the lack of a Save Game function would appear to be a major omission.  When attempting an action, the failure of which would have negative consequence, it would handy if we could return to a point just before so we can avoid the effects of making a poor choice with no guidance too many times.  This would particularly useful during the ‘Teenage Romance’ sub game, for which there is no documentation.  Frankly all the Romance sub-games are difficult and confusing, and prone to leaving you frustrated.  The Rom-Com training package glosses over much of the difficulties.

3) Effects of other players. 
I note the IPCC Yahoo group has found a bug within the global interaction algorithms.  Apparently this could cause the game world to end prematurely based purely on the actions of other players on different servers.  Even if this is fixable, it is apparent that servers in Africa and Asia are suffering DDOS attacks by resource usage elsewhere.

4) Random Character generation.
Not only does this make it near impossible to achieve some tasks against some players who ‘got lucky’ during the generation process, but that In-Game Credits are not accessible to all, leaving some downloads unavailable to most people- for instance “Sports Car” and “Big House” are two that spring to mind.

5) Non Linear Game play.
“Do boring/repetitive task or starve” doesn’t really count as open-ended.

6) Experience Points
Referenced frequently by the ‘Job’ sub-games, but there is no onscreen count to let you know how you are doing.  Though they appear to be influenced by various tasks/games, there is no indication at the rate of accrual, so you can’t tell whether the amount of XP is worth it.  Additionally some of these sub-games appear to over- or under- award XP: For instance “Art History” and “Engineering” in the ‘University Zone’ often cost the same number of credits, but rumour on the Fan forums is they award different XP.  Is this true?

6a)  Rumour on the ‘Buddah’ Yahoo group is that there is a kind of XP called Karma.  Is this true as it is not referenced in any of the training/instructions?  They claim this allows a second character to be started.

7) End Game routines
I am approximately half way through.  According to more experienced players game experience dramatically reduces during the later stages, with your character becoming slower and less responsive.  It has also been found that the graphics and sound settings deteriorate making it hard to follow the action.  Did you know the ‘Hair’ colour setting can change spontaneously to ‘Grey’ and in male characters even ‘Flesh’?  Additionally there are a number of bugs which can cause parts of the programme to just stop working altogether.

8.) Power-ups/Health Packs
While it is clear that some servers receive too many ‘Weapon packs’, there is a distinct lack of power-ups.  I have repeatedly smashed any number of boxes, crates and other containers, and have yet to receive even one extra power.  Additionally there are no health packs being generated.  Did you mean these only to be available from players who have taken the “Doctor” quest?

I understand that in any product this ambitious there will always be a number of problems.  Do you have any plans to produce a patch we could download?

Yours Sincerely