The One Where I Run Out Of Ideas

While I'm sitting here with my laptop, watching Slither (starring Nathan Fillion from Firefly no less) and I thought that I would be kind, and give you all something to read. But then I found I had writers' block. I want to write, but I don't have anything to write about. Well, I have one thing. So, they decided to call one of the characters on Slither Grant Grant. Really? Grant... Grant? You can't see me, but I'm shaking my head in disappointment.

And that's me all out of ideas.

So, E3 hmm? I watched the Microsoft and Ubisoft presentations on YouTube (To be brutally honest, I only watched the Ubisoft show because Toby Turner was co-hosting) and this year of upcoming games looks quite interesting. I think the new game to watch in my opinion would be Watch_Dogs from Ubisoft Montreal. A sandbox game, where you have the ability to hack into any electronic device, which you can use to your advantage, and by doing so, literally use the city as a weapon (I recommend watching the video, it does a lot better job than I just did of explaining, but I'm just going to blame that on the writers' block)

The other game that really interests me right now is Assassin's Creed 3, now set in Colonial America, spanning 30 years between 1753-1783. New game mechanics, such as Naval battles, and not just that, but also navigating ships through storms, while avoiding unfortunate swells (Makes for difficult sailing). Even though I think that this will be brilliant fun, what I really want to do is use the bow and arrows, while hanging out of a tree. But of course, that's just me. Anyway, I'm looking forward to October 31st this year. You won't see me trick or treating this year.

That's all I got. Considering I didn't know what I was going to write, I think I did quite well, don't you?

Anyway, I'll start thinking about my next post right... after Slither finishes.

See y'all next time! (That's my American typing, pretty good, right?)

Oli

At The End Of All Things

Ok, ignoring the grossly over-dramatic Lord Of The Rings reference for my title, it is the end of an Era (oh yes, with a capital "E"). I am going to be moving away from friends for a while, and I'm terrible at Goodbyes, so I thought instead of stumbling my way through, I should write something infinitely better than anything I would say IRL (I already have a movie reference, so I know I'm doing better!).

I know this isn't what we at Nation do, apart from the title it's not Nerdy at all, but I felt I had to write about what's important to me. It would be easier to write a status on Facebook, but that's not how I roll. I don't think I'd be able to fit everything in anyway (hmm, I believe that's what she said).

Anyway, to my friends, (and of course, my sister) even though I don't spend as much time with you as I probably should, you should all know that I will miss you. It was brilliant hanging out with you, and drinking with you, not so much the part where you made me dress-up, but still... I wouldn't change it for anything, unless you'd be willing to delete some of those photos... no? Nevermind, I had to ask.

I hope you know that you're all bad influences on me, I hardly ever went to clubs before I lived here. But apart from the inordinate amounts of money I spent, it was always good times, so thank you all for making me drink. It's not often that I meet so many people that are as brilliant as all of you are, which is obviously why we were all put into Awesome-Block, as if that were a question.

I've made a promise to Bryan that I will see you all again sometime, so it's not my fault if I just show up at some point.

So, I'll end this post with a cliché.

As I said, I don't like goodbyes, so this will be a See You Later. (See? All that cliché-y goodness. Was it worth it? I don't think so)

Oli

Staying On Topic Part 1 (Dungeons and Dragons)

Welcome to Staying on Topic. This is a new idea I'm going to try for my blog posts, where I attempt to talk about the same topic throughout the entire post. It's actually quite hard for me, so we'll see how I do and I'll try to have a new topic every few days. It may or may not work out...

So, if you've been reading our posts from the beginning, you'll know that we play Dungeons and Dragons. I, of course, take full credit for introducing Cam to the game a couple of years ago, but I've been playing for the better part of a decade now, and I like to think of myself as a 3e/3.5e player, but I have dabbled in 4e as well. I think in those eight years, I have experience playing almost every 3.5e PHB classes, even some from supplements (Gotta love the Dwarven Samurai!).

I listen to Podcasts and watch YouTube videos of people playing DnD, and I spend about an hour every other day trying to write Campaigns, designing characters and sketching villages. I consider DnD to be a brilliant way to spend a day, but I don't know whether 5e will be good or not. Obviously, I want it to be, and just as I gave 4e a chance, I'm sure as hell going to try 5e, because I'm an optimist at heart.

Sadly, I haven't played as much as I'd like recently, but I'm prepared! Like I said, I have started writing, and it's not looking so bad at the moment. My campaign so far involves Pirates and a market town. There are some other elements I'd like to incorporate into the world, but I haven't written any of it yet...

I'll keep this one short, simply because these four paragraphs have taken me a whole day. Staying On Topic is a challenge, but the next one will be much better. It'll be a while before my next On Topic post though.

Feel free to Comment, Follow and Share us with your friends.

Stay tuned for more Off-Topic goodness soon.

Oli

You Don't Have To Be A Nerd To Play Minecraft

It's been a while since my last post, so instead of going outside and enjoying Sol I figured I should write about what I've actually done over the past few days.

Sometime in the past week, I decided that I was going to design a new world for Dungeons and Dragons complete with sketches of the towns and cities. I got distracted by a TV show I used to watch as a kid, Avatar: The Last Airbender. I thought that if I could adapt this idea to DnD somehow it would be kind of cool to play... It's a little more difficult than that though, partly because everyone would want to be the Avatar, but I don't think getting rid of the Avatar altogether wouldn't fix the problem either. Then, of course, there's the elemental manipulation problem... And the six-legged, flying Bison...

So yeah, that's what I've been trying to do.

I have also noticed a spike in Minecraft activity in my friends list. It mostly seems to be girls who play it though, either that or guys just don't want to tell anyone about it. It seems that you don't have to be a Nerd to play Minecraft anymore. But I have seen people openly against the game, and I think I understand why. Its probably because of the graphics of the game are intentionally... blocky. But what I don't understand is why that should matter. Anyone who plays any game should be playing games because they have good stories or the gameplay is good. Ok, Minecraft doesn't have a lot of story, but it's fun to play, and I for one would much rather play Minecraft than most games out at the moment.

I'll keep this post short, and I'll try to post again soon.

As always, Comment on this post, tell us what you think, and Share us with your friends, we always appreciate new readers.

Oli

Lord of The Strings- Igor Presnyakov

I wanted to show you what a Guitar God looks like. Turns out He's Russian. And infinitely better than I could hope to be. I came across one of his songs that I just had to hear, the Skyrim Theme. This wasn't the first time I saw his videos though, he also does covers of many, many songs, from Maroon 5 to Lady Gaga... But, don't worry, they're good. If you like guitar you'll definitely want to watch this brilliant guitarist.

Honestly, first time I saw him, I had to stop watching because, and this is a true quote, "No ...He's too good... Just no". I understand if you prefer Sungha Jung to Igor for some reason, but in my opinion, no-one can match Igor for skill, or the sheer amount of video hats (seriously, watch his videos, and you'll see that he has a different hat in almost every one).

If you haven't played, or seen Skyrim, first of all, where have you been for the past 6 months, and secondly, Igor has an answer for that as well, in the form of a Super Mario guitar cover. Because a true Guitar God is diverse in his musical teachings.

So, if you have an interest in Guitars, or you just like to listen to music every now an then, try watching a few of his videos, he has an album out on iTunes, and a load of covers on YouTube all ready and waiting just for you.

Happy Nerding!

Oli

Team Fortress 2 Celebrity Match

As you could probably guess, I am not into many sports. The last time I watched a football match it was the World Cup, unless you count playing FIFA [whatever number they're up to now]. So when I saw a celebrity match of Team Fortress 2 being commentated much like a game of sports, I just couldn't resist watching.

I already knew before I started watching that Notch (creator of Minecraft) and the guys from Yogscast (a YouTube channel for gameplay videos and brilliant commentary), Simon and Lewis, were playing so I was looking forward to half an hour of gameplay, seeing the skills of the people I watch play games daily. As the video started playing, I saw that it wasn't just these celebrities playing, Freddie Wong (YouTube channel: Freddiew) and many other gamers of note were playing.

I remember when I was younger, there used to be a whole TV channel, just devoted to competitive games, I think they canned it though, anyway, it was showing matches from Unreal Tournament, and other FPS games, live, and they were talking to the teams between games, and I loved that. It opened up a whole new world of "competitive sports". This was something to aim for, instead of football, you could find a team of gamers, train them, and enter tournaments all over the world. I'd like to do that, I'm not nearly good enough, and when I originally wanted to do this I was too young.

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, because I can see this evolving into something not even close to my original point. Here's the first video of the game, introducing the players, and the first match. As always, comment on our blog, doesn't have to be this post, and share us with your friends.

Happy Nerding!

Oli

Adventures in Minecraft 360

It's been a long time since I last posted, so I wanted to write about the most recent game I found on XBLA.

Minecraft!

I have been looking forward to this, ever since Tobuscus started making Minecraft gameplay videos (His first video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVAcd-ffIMg) where he has adventures in WorldBuscus. Anyway, that's how I started learning about the game, and it's a good way to waste an hour or two. And also a good distraction from writing this post.

So, I just started playing Minecraft, this being my first time actually playing, and I want it recorded for future generations so they can learn from my many, many... many mistakes. Seriously, at one point I left my house and I fell onto Creeper (I fell down the ladder to my house) and his friend caught me by surprise, killing me, and destroying my poor house in the process.

Let me walk you through my unfortunate first few hours of the game.

So I started on Peaceful, because I wanted to get a feel for the game. And it was good, for a while. But, it turns out, that I picked the only mountain in the game which was nowhere near a single block of coal or iron. And. as I found out in a very unfortunate accident, very close to a pool of lava. Seems I wasn't ready for peaceful...

Sometime later, after mastering the controls, and my urges to swim in lava, I had built another House on the highest point of the map, it was intended to be my own version of Mount Olympus, I even brought water and tilled earth to grow my own crops up there. I was, and still am proud of my creation. From there, I could see most of the Surface-World and the lights of the random torches I placed across the world.

It was going well. So I got bored...

I decided that moving up to easy would be a good idea to help keep my interest. You have to take your time on things like this. I started a new World, and built a new house before nightfall, (complete with windows!) still unable to find coal once again, probably because I was cooking some windows, instead using cacti as a barrier vs. Creepers and hid in my dark and lonely wooden hut. What fun that was, but we've all done it, right? The cacti were effective though, at times they were even keeping me away from the house. And for the first few days I felt kind of safe. This is where I decided to move houses, and I built one above ground, so that I needed a ladder to reach it. That's where it started to go wrong. I should have stayed with my friendly neighbourhood cacti friends, because this is when I fell from the ladder and met my new Creeper friend...

For any beginners out there, I have three basic Rules that I hope will help keep you alive longer. Just a shame I forget about them...

Rule One: Check your surroundings before you open the door. I cannot stress this enough. It may be that I'm just unlucky, but it seems that everytime I leave the safety of my house, there is always a Creeper, or a skeleton just hanging out by the cacti, waiting for me. Granted, it did get better once I made torches, but still, I think the game is out to get me.

Rule Two: Never underestimate the power of shutting the door behind you. I won't go into that, just trust me.

And finally, Rule Three: Make sure it's definitely Day Time before leaving the house. No amount of torches or cacti defenders will help if a Creeper decides he doesn't like your face.

If you ever thought before that you wanted to see what all the fuss was about with Minecraft, the Xbox version is great, but as development started months ago, Notch (the creator) and Mojang (the developers) haven't been able to keep the Xbox version the same as the current PC version, so there are some differences. I do recommend this game for Xbox though, as there will be updates soon, and even though it isn't fully up to date yet, I've still wasted most of my last few days playing Minecraft. There's always something to do, and it can keep even the most easily distracted occupied for days at a time.

Happy Gaming!
Oli