I was a little frustrated the last time I played Banner of the Maid, the tactical RPG for the Switch (et al) about a fantasy retelling of the French Revolution. I hadn’t leveled my characters evenly and it became clear I was never going to be able to beat a certain fight as I had no opportunities to grind my poor performers to higher levels. The other issue that really killed my interest in the game was not being able to take screen shots. Not in the prologue, not in the cut scenes, not ever. The capture button, when pressed, displayed a little box on the screen saying that screen captures were disabled. ...

The first panel of this header comic was posted last week, and the third part will be posted next week. They were used in one of my old Daily Blogrolls :-) Darkfall was a huge game when I wrote the next three comics. It was developed by Aventurine in collaboration with the government of Greece; I believe that was the first time a state entity was involved in the creation of a MMO. Sometime later, the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (its actual name) would go on to drop 75 million dollars into 38 Studios’ unreleased MMO, Copernicus. ...

This is the last Blaugust Promptapalooza post for this year! It’s my first one, and I really feel badly that I missed all the previous ones. I loved some of the prompts, didn’t like some of the others, and there were some I just couldn’t think of anything to say. I learned a lot from reading others’ posts and met some new friends – yeah, I know that’s cliche, but even cliches can be true. ...

I’ve looked and looked and can’t find out where Microsoft ever officially said that you would be able to find your house in its world-spanning flight simulator, but it sure as heck looks like every other review of the game mentions that. First, I have always loved flight simulators. I think I bought every edition of the original Flight Simulator; I even tried that F2P version where you flew a bushwhacker in Hawai’i, though I never felt connected enough to actually pay for better planes or other expansions. I don’t think many other people did, either. ...

I thought and thought and thought about what I would want to use as the header image to this post. Communities… I was watching the game dev documentary on Netflix last night and when Richard Garriot’s segment came up, I remembered that glorious day so long ago when the Ultima Online community came together to assassinate his avatar, Lord British, on the day of that MMO’s opening. Community – can’t live with them and can’t… um, can’t get fooled again. ...

I’m still so pumped from Wednesday’s game night. I just want to play more Mahjong. Luckily, FFXIV is always there to help with that need. I’m still a novice, an absolute beginner, so I sat down at the beginner board and the game gave me some AI opponents to play with. I have played on the intermediate board; I didn’t win any more, but it was nice to chat with people, and they would offer help when asked. But I think for now it’s enough to just play against the AI and try to build up some skill. ...

Last night was a good night to be superheroing in DC Universe Online. It was a Thursday, the day all the weekly quests reset. And this week is double Aether week. That’s a very good thing. There are two currencies specific to the current episode, Wonderverse. Splintered Coins are used to buy normal gear, but a secondary currency, Empyrean Aether, is used (along with Splintered Coins) to buy Elite gear. ...

Wow. I’d hate to be in the shoes of UltrViolet of Endgame Viable, who has the unenviable task of asking the question: What are you looking forward to the most over the course of the next year? … because this year has been a dumpster fire. Not for gaming; the pandemic has been great for gaming, with people stuck inside all the time. But for everything else. I’m ready for 2020 to be over. 2021 could be even worse. Although some people I know have had Covid, none of them has died. Everyone in my family was either able to work from home or were an essential employee, so we were able to keep our jobs. Tropical Storm Isaias cost us hundreds of dollars of food, but we were okay. ...

I don’t even know if that title makes any sense. Anyway. A bunch of the prompts from the past week have dealt, in some way, with content creation. A lot of people have disagreed with my interpretation of that task as a method of drawing people to a website for the purpose of monetizing them in some way and getting your message and your content seen by those who’d enjoy seeing it. ...

We have been preparing for this night for a very long time. Tom has always had an intense interest in Mahjong, especially in the Japanese variant, Riichi Mahjong. He’s got books and books about it. Lots of apps. A vast collection of Vita and Super Famicom versions. Once while I was visiting him when he still lived in Ohio, he pulled out this beautiful, heavy, set, and we sat down and he taught me how to play. It’s just like the card game Rummy, he said, and it is… except that the Japanese, bless their hearts, decided that would be too easy, and so they added a bunch of win conditions you needed to also keep in mind if you wanted to build a winning hand. ...