Shun, I summon you!

You can now get your Spore Creatures as figurines, and however silly and however disappointing that game was, I feel a slight tug at my heart at the thought of getting a tiny Shun to guard my desktop.

I wonder what having a figurine done costs, generally? Wouldn't it be awesome to make the roleplaying characters one has played for a while? Or make them before starting, so they can be used as "tabletops" for those annoying situations where it matters if you stand to the right or the left of the shooter. If I was filthy rich, this is one of those ridiculous, environmental-destroying things I would do, I imagine.

I also read an interview with a scientist, who, shockingly, unveiled that scientists do not believe Spore to be very scientifically correct, while on the other hand horribly fundamental catholics have been known to protest against it (not to be confused with the impressive amount of intelligent fundamental catholics who don't believe a stupid, fluffy game to be insult enough to their religion to raise their voices). What surprised me, however, was how the interview revealed that EA actually had made claims before its realease with hopes that it would be a "tool among the scientific community". What? The lady scientist said that the prototypes that had been released earlier were much more likely to ever be used in a serious setting.

So like many, many others, I wonder; what the hell happened to this game? Halfway towards a groundbreaking, mindblowing game about evolution, about the very cornerstones of intelligent life, Maxis suddenly decided, screw this, let's make this based on five-year-olds, yet illogical and boring enough to make sure no five-year-olds ever play it. The question on everybody's lips is (or were, when they released it, I'm just slow) when did they turn into Microsoft?

Hint Hint

Calendaring was fun in its own way, but I'm also glad to be back to posting normally.

Hm, I'm just thinking... how do you hint something to someone who doesn't take hints? Doesn't life get pretty de-layered without hints? Say, for example that I would DM some story in which the characters have the free choice of choosing, say, A or B. If I blatantly make someone say "A is better" then hint-less people would choose A, nee? Or if I let two people blatantly say one each is better, it comes down to which person they like better. On the other hand, small things subterfuged into the story and into scenes here and there would guide hint-taking players to consider the choice carefully... so that they can discover the truth on their own, not having someone tell them how it comes together. How is this accomplished, really? Because I refuse to have people *say* all important information in a game. Then it feels like all it's about is talking to, alternatively mind-raping, the right person. I guess that works if it's ass-hat hard to talk and/or mind-rape people, but it's not. In a game, the main thing players tend to do is talk and mind-rape people as much as is playably possible. So... what do you guys think? You like having info told to you? Or how are you supposed to discover things?

I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here...

Oh, and also, I'm going to get rid of that banner because it's annoying the hell out of me that I suitably put it up with the first calendar post, but not taking it down with the last... Yes, I'm anal about it. It's just, ps is fucking with me and it's 4 o'clock in the morning. G'night.

Weekend summup =P

Well, I was down to K-stad this weekend, and it was nice. Been a long time since I roleplayed last. Though where we ended, it felt like I was caught between following the personality of my character and mess things up, or play nice. I've never been in that kind of situation before; I've always managed to find some viewpoint from which the character would want to do what he has to do, but not this time. Interesting.

Monday was a red calendar day, which I totally forgot, meaning I went to catch the bus at 1400 but realized there were none until 1700. Argh. So I went shopping and came back with A) the book The Game which will be incredibly interesting, I expect, and B) the game Bully which will be equally interesting but in a different way. Both bought from the perspective of psychology.

Now I'm going looking for silver rings, since my parents wanted to buy me something real and lasting for my birthday and no electronics count. How is it women's rings always look like cinderella would if transmuted into jewelry? Translation: I'm going to look for men's rings. Which are too big. I feel a slight ironic reference to something called story of my life. -_-'