“Turn Coat” is the latest book in Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series of supernatural detective fiction set in contemporary Chicago. As with all the previous works in the series, it was an excellent read, but it struck me as different, somehow; especially since I’ve been reading one of his earlier novels during the last few days.

If you’ve not read any of the previous novels, and you like a) detective stories, b) supernatural stories, or c) both, I recommend picking up the series from the start and giving it a go (especially before reading this somewhat spoiler-laced review). Hell, even if you don’t naturally read those kind of books, I’d still recommend picking them up. There’s something about them that speaks to you, even if you’re not into books about magic and demons.

Firstly, the tone was different. I’m not sure what it was about it, but it seemed to take quite some time for the first-person narrative to slip into the familiar strides of a Dresden novel. In many ways this was refreshing, but it did offer the opportunity to spotlight some other (not necessarily good) things about the story.

And I really hate to say this, but the events of “Turn Coat” annoyed me in a few ways. I won’t go so far as to say I’m disappointed in how the story panned out, because I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but there were some definite parts of the narrative that didn’t sit well with me.

Firstly, the moment the guy who eventually turned out to be the villain was introduced, I had pegged him as the villain. It wasn’t a case of “I think it’ll be him, let’s see…” It was a case of “Aha! That’s the guy! Let’s see what he’s up to!” He was too obvious a character, I think, to have been anything but a villain. Sure, Butcher mixes the narrative up by hinting its other people through the narrative — and I admit there was one “Oh man, he’s not going to throw THAT at us is he?” moment when I really got annoyed with Mr Butcher’s direction with the story (more on that in a moment) — but overall, I worked it out soon. In my opinion, too soon.

It’s possible that I’m simply getting better with detective stories. I have to admit, I’m thinking of having a dabble in the genre myself, thanks mostly to the influence of the Dresden novels, and the “Bones” and “Castle” TV series, so I’ve been swatting up on a fairly limited range of its contemporaries. But for me, it’s all about having suspicions and then having the hood removed from your eyes, and I never really felt I had a hood on in “Turn Coat”. It was too obvious.

Be that as it may, the turns of the story were well executed in this sense, and the pace was consistently ramped up all the way through to the end.

Speaking of the end: I’m very annoyed with the whole Luccio situation. It’s possible that I’m annoyed because I didn’t see it coming. Maybe I didn’t WANT to see the whole mind control thing coming. I mean, Butcher’s played the mind control card a fair few times now in the series — the whole novel introducing us to Molly, for a start, and then Mab’s blanking out of Dresden’s mind when she ensured he couldn’t use his fire magic — and while this certainly reinforces the danger of breaking that particular Law of Magic, I can’t help but feel cheated that the fun writing we had in “Small Favour” has so quickly been squashed by the whole “Luccio was mind controlled into getting close to you” situation. From a story perspective I admire Butcher planting the seeds in the previous novel, and then carrying them through to fruition, but I still can’t help feeling disgruntled about it.

I can draw a parallel when the narrative thread pertaining to Lasciel, the fallen angel in Dresden’s mind for several books, came to a very powerful and poignant ending in a previous story, albeit one that led to Dresden’s new “power of the month” — Soulfire. With her departure there was a very clear act of bravery and defiance and sacrifice, and her character arc was rounded off tightly and emotionally. Perhaps if we’d been treated to more of the Dresden/Luccio relationship then I wouldn’t feel so cheated by it turning out to be a trick of the mind (literally). In some ways I feel almost as if Butcher didn’t really have this in mind when he wrote the previous scenes at the end of “Small Favour”, and the idea came to him after it was published.

I can only hope that, in subsequent novels, the simmering feelings that Luccio has for Dresden will surface once more, because it was a fun relationship to play with, and some of Butcher’s best writing. Besides, Dresden’s luck with women is worse than my own, and it’d be nice to give him some happiness that wasn’t wrenched away by the end of the next novel.

The “oh he’s not going to throw that at us…is he?” moments I mentioned earlier were first when Molly mentions that someone has been playing with Luccio’s mind (At this point it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Luccio/Dresden relationship was going to come crashing down and it was only a case of to what degree); and then when Luccio mysteriously disappears from Dresden’s apartment. I know as a writer you are supposed to chase your main characters up trees and throw sticks at them but come on…

After finishing the book, I immediately felt the need to trawl the internet to find out what other people were saying. A lot of people are concerned about the new changes to Dresden’s brother, Thomas, but I’m not so worried. I felt it was time for the character to take a new direction, and Butcher quite skilfully worked it into the narrative. Its left deliciously ambiguous towards the end at how much/little of the Thomas we have come to know is still there — there are some offhand comments that he makes that don’t fit with his new hard-ass persona, and there are Dresden’s own musings that tigers can’t actually change their stripes, perhaps suggesting that he knows Thomas isn’t in great health, but he’s going to use that to his advantage. That’s a lovely setup and I’m intrigued to know what happens next.

So yeah, overall another excellent novel in the series. There’re a lot of important plot revelations about Dresden, some interesting titbits about his mother, various people get to learn more about his somewhat special relationship with Thomas, and there’s plenty of intrigue and stuff. I have to admit, if it wasn’t for the crap with Luccio, I’d probably have raved positive about it harder and possibly not even written this review. But sometimes a guy just has to rant.

“Turn Coat” : 9/10

A couple of weeks back, Spence was chuntering on about some application that he’d added on Facebook that he was having a laugh with. It’s called “Social Me” and the premise is very simple. You click through a series of photos of other Social Me users, and next to each photo there are a series of “Tags” which you choose one of to click on that you think best represents this person: examples include “Pretty”, “Sweet”, “Cool”, “Rediculous”, “Cheeky” and so on. Some are nice. Some are not. There’s also a form box that you can fill in for a custom tag if you prefer. As well as showing a picture, you can also upload More Pics, or write an About Me, so if creative people want to do a custom tag that’s not just based on your looks or one pic, then they can get a bit more info about you in order to do so. It’s quite a lot of fun, seeing what people can come up with.

You can filter people in a few ways. The first is simple: Male/Female/Both lets you pick which gender you’d like to look at. Since there is a “Flirt” button and an “I am interested in …” button, this opens up “dating” (lol) possibilities. The second is more by area: My Friends/Network/Country/Everyone. So if you want to scout out “hot British chicks” you could do, for example.

Now I like this kind of thing, and get easily addicted to them. I like paying people compliments, as well as calling people silly things. It’s a character flaw. So I’ve been playing with it quite a lot, and made a few new friends in the bargain, which is always nice.

However, I began to notice a bizarre trend. Underneath your picture on the main Social Me page, you can set a headline. I tend to use mine for quoting silly things, or making witty and ironic statements about myself with my typical self-deprecating wit. However, I noticed that a lot of girls were writing “Please, no more sexy or drunk or happy or nice tits or fuckable tags please”, and the irony of this just shouted at me. See, a lot of the girls that had set this kind of comment were either smiling at the camera (“Happy”), holding a bottle of booze (“Drunk”), in a bikini (“Sexy”), taking the shot straight down their cleavage (“Nice tits”), or in more elaborate states of undress (“Fuckable”), and it occurred to me: do they not THINK that the subject matter of their photo might be inspiring particular comments about them?! Most people aren’t going to read the About Me for each person. They’re gonna focus in on a huge pair of boobs in a lacy bra and say the first thing that comes into their head, protected by the safety and anonymity of the internet. Duh!

So I changed my headline to something along the following lines: “~If you have a problem with people saying you’re Hot or Sexy or Happy or Fuckable or whatever, think what it is about your photo that might lead someone to say that!~”

Fair enough, I thought. Consider it satire, if you will. And if I’m honest, I got a lot of people using the Send Note function to send me little notes about this. It inspired a fair amount of conversation between myself and various people I’d not met before. I was quite chuffed about the whole thing.

Until one person sent me the following note:

“I dont actualy have a problem with any of the above! wots your problem??”

Now I’m not generally an antagonistic person, but that riled me. Had she completely misunderstood the point I was trying to make? I felt I should at least reply to try and explain what I’d meant, just in case I’d come across as an ass. So I wrote the following reply:

“Good for you; I don’t either!

I just find it amusing when people with no About Me written moan on their headlines for Social Me-ers to stop tagging them as Happy or Hot when all their photo has is a them smiling or showing their breasts. What do they THINK people are gonna say?!

I’m just being satirical. I’m allowed. It’s part of my job ”

Bit of humour, I thought, would lighten up the mood. Politeness goes a long way. Figured that was self-explanatory enough… right?!

She replied again:

“you know wot i find amusin?? ppl like you!! take your full of small minded shity attitude somewhere else pleas now, iv laughted 4 long enuf”

I chuckled at this on several levels. First of all her spelling is fucking atrocious, and while online I know the rules of grammar, punctuation and spelling are relaxed – hell, I’m lazy when I type too – the amount of effort put into this was great! Now I know I should take my “full of small minded shity attitude” somewhere else. Full of small minded. What the hell?! Either way, it was another insult, and since I was in a conflictory mood, I decided to send her another reply, just to prove how much of a jerk I was, and how right she was. Etc etc:

“Obviously you didn’t get the joke. Never mind

And if I was small-minded I wouldn’t have been able to see the irony in your words:

At the end of the day, I wasn’t insulting anyone – except you obviously. I was simply pointing out that people expect too much creativity and imagination from the world at large. Okay, so YOU don’t have a problem with people calling you HOT etc etc. That’s fine. But I’ve seen a lot of people who DO moan. I was just pointing out that maybe it’s the way that they’ve presented themselves on the application that provokes such a response.

It’s interesting actually though. You’re the first person in two days who has actually whined and moaned about my comment. Lots of people seem to agree with me.

But nevermind eh! You go reassess your poorly-spelt insulting attitude, and I’ll go reassess the reasons why I’m even bothering to try and be polite. ”

As you can see, I DID try and be polite and congenial, but she did rub me up the wrong way so I figured I’d have a dig at her. She’s the ONLY person, still, to have made a negative comment about that quote. I’ve actually just put it back on, to see if it inspires any more commentary over the next few hours. Maybe I’ll be able to write an addendum to the blog.

Anyways, if you’re on Facebook, check Social Me out. It’s good for a laugh!

This last week was the final week of the academic year for most schools in this Midlands. As such, this means its time for six weeks of sun, relaxation, and drinking.

Or would do, if I didn’t live in Britain, where there’s rarely any sun, and I can’t really drink due to the painkillers I’m taking.

The folly of drinking with a bad back was exemplified yesterday. Went out for a meal with the Waterhouses down to the Ruby Cantonese, my favourite local Chinese restaurant. I knew it was the last day of term, and that they don’t have the chance to go out and enjoy themselves all that much as they’re both teachers, so I figured I’d make sure I didn’t take any painkillers during the evening so I could join them in a few beverages while we ate.

Good plan right?

Wrong!

See, while my back hadn’t actually been all that bad during the daytime, by the time I’d spent 15mins in the restaurant, it had started playing up. Didn’t bring any painkillers with me, thinking that the alcohol would numb the pain. Well, it did. But only as I downed three glasses of red wine in a row. Not my smartest move ever, especially as my alcohol tolerance is practically zero at the moment, but still…

Eventually – ie by the time we were walking home – the effects of the drink kicked in and pushed the pain to the background, but I must have looked like a right alcoholic in the Ruby, downing wine. ~_~; It’s the kind of thing a guy with pride and/or a reputation would think twice about. Fortunately I have neither.

So that’s how I started my summer holiday off. Full of food, drunk on red wine, and sprawled on the bed spasming in pain. My how fun my life is. I’d say “start as you mean to go on”, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea this year.

Still, my appointment with the spinal specialist is on Wednesday morning. Hopefully they can give me a better indication of what’s wrong.

~J

Is that how you spell 13th?! Anyone know? I was gonna be patronising about how we should all write out numbers in full more often but seriously, do they ever look right if you do?!

Ahem anyways, a short blog today to tell you about my day at Dormston High in Sedgeley.

Was very straightforward really. Got phoned the other day saying there was work available, and despite my bad back I leapt at the chance for some pennies as now the iPhone 3G has been announced, I know I’ll have to get one (faster downloads will be awesome for me, as the iPhone is mostly a mobile internet for me!) Went to bed earlyish last night, made sure not to take any of my painkillers (as they fuzz my head up), and slept pretty well.

Up at 6:40am this morning, had breakfast, shower, got dressed, out the door buy 7:45 —well within the timeframe needed to get me there via the power of MomTaxi. Got to school on time. VERY nice-looking place. Lovely reception area and nice lobby/courtyard. Really impressive to look at. Start to think positive.

Staff briefing is VERY brief, and then a woman approaches me and asks me who I am. I give her my name and supply agency, and she passes me on to the supply coordinator who informs me she has no idea why I’m here.

Ooookay. So she takes me to her office and explains that the guy who has been there recently has turned up for work today. I knew about him being there, but I’d been told he wasn’t available for that day so the agency had asked me to come instead. But now apparently they had both of us.

Couldn’t get anyone on the phone so I say my farewells, being not massively bothered about not having to work, and get on a bus heading for Dudley in an attempt to get home cheaply.

Ten minutes into the journey, I get a phonecall from the boss, explaining how wires have got crossed and the guy who had turned up at Dormston was actually supposed to be at Pedmore, and could I get there.

Well yeah, I could, but I was on a bus to Dudley and it was gonna take me a good while to do so. “Get off the bus and I’ll come pick you up,” says the boss. So I do. I’m standing on Wolverhampton St. next to Kwik-Fit. Wolverhampton St is the main road into Dudley from Sedgely way. Easy enough to find says Mother, who I inform of this.

But I still don’t manage to get to school until just after 9:30, 15mins before the end of first lesson. By the time I’ve got my timetable, got over to science, and apologise to the necessaries, its 5 minutes before period 2. Still, means I only had to teach four lessons today. 1 on chemistry, 1 on physics, and 2 music (and I didn’t really teach the last music lesson either — the normal teacher’s son ran the class, which was weird.)

Sounds like a reasonable day, apart from the somewhat shitty start. Remember what I said about the no-painkillers though? Well, turns out by 10:30am I was in considerable pain and had to risk head fuzziness so as to counter the shards of glass being thrust up and down my spinal column (that’s a metaphor people, don’t worry!) So as the day wore on, my head was just going more and more whooooo and by period 5 I’m not sure I was all that coherent. Good job I wasn’t really teaching the lesson.

And then I realised I’d forgotten to print out and take a timesheet with me, so I couldn’t even get that signed off. Popped into the office and sorted out my availability for next week and asked them to sort out the timesheet for me, bought myself a baguette from the French Deli to eat while I recuperate before the weakly shop, and I’m now sitting here half-tempted to go have a nap/try not to pass out.

That was my Friday 13th. How was yours?

I don’t watch television. Well known “fact”. It’s what I tell all the kids at school whenever they ask.

But as with many things about me, it’s a half-truth. Because in actual fact, I do watch television programmes. I just rarely watch them a) when they air; and b) on tv.

This week is always a fairly important week for me in terms of television. It’s the finale week for most American shows, which I normally download from t’internet and watch a day or so after they’ve aired.

Two shows that finished their seasons this week have kept me utterly hooked for the entire season, and last season to boot. While many will completely disagree with me over Smallville being compelling viewing, almost everyone I know who watches House loves it. As well as these two, I’m also watching season 4 of Battlestar Galactica, season 4 of Doctor Who and, sadly, season 2 of the BBC’s Robin Hood. Oh, and the anime Death Note as well.

Smallville

Smallville as a show has always fascinated me. In a good half of the episodes, the plots are so utterly preposterous and mashed together that I can’t help but wonder why I even bother. And then the overall story arch pulls me back. Season 7 saw some of the biggest changes to the Superman mythos. The introduction of Kara Kent — aka Supergirl — could have worked really well. And yet she was horribly underused. The stuff with Braniac and Bizarro, so promising at the start of the series, flopped quickly, and while James Marsters put on his usual brilliant performance as a not-quite-Spike-from-Buffy character, his material and shining moments were too few and far between.

When I heard that Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) was “leaving” the show for season 8, and that Kirsten Kreuk (Lana Lang) was also leaving, I had mixed feelings. I’m glad that Lana has left. The whole Lana/Clark love dynamic was stretched so so thin over the last couple of seasons, and there was nothing fresh to inject into it anymore. I think it is good that the writers have realised this, and written her out in a fairly poignant goodbye that saw some excellent acting by Kreuk — and a surprising amount of emotion from Tom Welling’s normally stoic Clark Kent. Lana was right: she has been holding Clark — and the writers — back for too long; and it was nice to see a touching moment with Lois and Clark near the end of the episode.

I hear that Rosenbaum will be back in a few episodes in season 8, which is almost a necessity considering how season 7 finishes. The Fortress of Solitude crashing down on both an enlightened Lex and an incapacitated Clark was a fairly dodgy special effect to be honest, but it was a good episode to end the creative inputs of Miller and Gough, the guys responsible for the last 7 seasons. All the storylines, the threads, are relatively nicely tied up now. And yes, you may be able to tell from my tone that I believe another season might be pushing it a bit. But likewise, there’s something irritatingly compelling about this bad-is-good show that will leave me unsatisfied.

I remember reading somewhere that Miller and Gough stated explicitly that Clark Kent would never fly while they were in charge. That lapsed a bit when CK became Kal’El back at the start of…was it season 6?… but I really hope that changes now. Far too many stories are based on the idea that Clark Kent can’t fly, thus drawing the episode out rather than quickening the pace, and some of the travelling sequences are now just getting tedious.

Over all, yes I am glad Smallville has been renewed for another season. Less Lex and no Lana should hopefully make for a fresh breath of life into the series, and god I hope there’s some better quality writing now that the mushy Clark/Lana stuff is out of the way. Sadly, the season 8 premiere will probably deal with the events of 7’s season finale all too quickly and then we’ll be back to normal. It’d be nice, just for once, for the season to start well and pick up pace, rather than slump in the middle. Here’s hoping!

House M.D.

House is probably one of my favourite shows, and favourite characters, of any show ever. He’s acerbic, he’s cynical, he’s manipulative, he’s devious, and he’s incredibly charismatic. All phrases that I hope someone ascribes to me some day. Season Four of the eponymous medical drama has been consistently excellent television, though I’m reliably informed that the medicine isn’t going to win any awards for its logic and consistency. Almost every episode has me either in stitches or crying, and this can only be a good thing.

While I admit I could just watch the series for Hugh Laurie alone, I’m happy to report that the quality of ladies on the show also influences my decisions. Lisa Edelstein as Cuddy is still an excellent casting choice (and looker) despite her reduced part in season 4 due to the sheer number of cast members. Likewise, Jennifer Morrison’s Dr. Cameron is still infinitely fanciable. Wish the addition of the very sexy Olivia Wilde as the quite-possibly-bisexual “Thirteen” I found myself actually distracted from the plot at various points, which I never expected in this show.

The two-part finale of s4, cut short like most programmes due to the Writers’ Guild strike a couple of months ago, was quite frankly one of the best episodes of any TV show I’ve watched in a long time. The only memorable comparisons are the emotional impact at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series 5, when Buffy dies; and the storytelling impact end of Tru Calling series 1, where we find out a lot about the nature of her abilities and the balance of power (and damn if I’m not still bitter at that show being cancelled partway into season 2!!)

I’m not going to spoil the events at the end of this one, because — unlike Smallville — I truly believe that everyone I know who actually reads this blog should watch House. Yes I know I’m horrendously biased, but chances are if you know me at all, you should be used to the type of person I am, the type of wit I like, and thus the type of entertainment you’ll find on House M.D.

Other Television

I’ll admit it. I don’t like Catherine Tate particularly. When I heard she was due to return as Donna Noble for season 4 of Doctor Who I was initially petrified. But I have to hand it to her: while the series has been a bit flat in places (I actually didn’t enjoy the Agatha Christie episode, sorry guys!), she has surprised me in terms of her acting ability. I’m really hoping the season is working up to something though, because while with the last three series there has been some link, some tie to hint towards the greater end, I will admit now that I don’t think I’ve noticed any such clue this season — unless it’s the bees thing! There, I’ve written it down. Hopefully I won’t try and retcon this in a later blog when something glaringly obvious has been revealed towards the end of the series. ~_~;;

Battlestar Galactica series 4 continue to go from strength to strength as far as I’m concerned. It’s a show that knows its concluding season, and this is great from a storytelling point of view. A few American reviewers have criticised the show for too much talking. To these I point them towards the nearest Deep Space 9 dvd collection to show them what a show that really does too much talking is like!! The dynamic between the characters is tight. The plots and storytelling are compelling. The acting is excellent across the board. And who know Alessandro Juliani had such a good singing voice! Well, decent anyways. Better than me! >_>

I’m not going to talk about Robin Hood. I was enjoying watching season 2 to a point, but then I heard that they killed off the one character that I watched the show for at the end of the season, and that kinda ruined everything for me so I haven’t watched it further. I’ll get round to it. Eventually.

And finally, Death Note. I don’t watch a huge amount of anime. For a reason: a lot of it is grounded in the same kind of styling and approach that I’m taking for my novel. Or rather, my novel is based loosely on anime sensibilities (I think it’ll make a good anime or live action/CGI film actually). And thus I don’t watch much because I think I’ll taint my ideas or try to alter them to fit what has already been proven to work. Death Note seems light years away from my story though, and I’ve been dying to see it, so I’m slowly working my way through it. I’m not very far, simply due to games and other tv and life, but I’m convinced that its one of the better anime series I’ve seen.

I’ll do a more indepth review on these series when they are finished. And yes, I know I promised a review of some books a few blogs back too. They’re on the cards!

~J

Yeah I know it’s late. I’ve been busy. Took me a while to decide on a topic for this blog, and then things kinda fell together based on recent experiences and decisions I’ve made. Sounds a bit profound really, but I doubt you’ll be thinking that at the end of the blog

For the last, well, couple of years really, I’ve tried to get into games that weren’t Final Fantasy XI: Online or World of Warcraft. I tried Guild Wars, but despite how lush it is to look at, it couldn’t hold my attention due to a shoddy (in my opinion) combat system. I tried Lord of the Rings: Online, but again, while it was very pretty (especially on decent machine) it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen in WoW — though I admit, emotes for /smoke and the player music system were kinda cool. Again, it couldn’t hold my attention.

I used to pour hours of my life into FFXI, and still do on WoW, but there is only so often you can complete the same daily quest or spend looking for a group for an instance/party. I used to spend my WoW time while waiting for instances exploring the world of Azeroth and Outland, flying or riding literally to every corner of the map to see what I could see, often risking drowning or an incredibly long and tedious journey back. Sometimes that peninsula at the bottom of the map held secret places full of creatures you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Other times it was a dead end where no one was expected to really go. Either way, there was always something to see.

Until, y’know, I ran out of things to see.

I’ve always liked game graphics. I’m an artist, and I’m really into character and architecture/landscape design for these kinds of things. I get annoyed when I read forum posts for WoW where people moan that there isn’t enough individuality, or this, that, or the other is just a recolour of some other model. Rather than focusing specifically on stats and epics and individuality, people should take a look around them at overall scope and design of the world their imaginary characters inhabit. Yeah, we all like to be individual. We like to look cool. And yes, sometimes Blizzard’s item set designers go for the supposedly “lazy” route and do recolour sets. So what!? You don’t HAVE to get those items you don’t like the look of. If you want it so that you’ve got the best equipment, then you’re doing it for the stats surely?

One thing that appeals to me about the Korean “grind-fest” MMOs is that, much like Guild Wars, your character class really dictates the outfits you wear. There is a very stylish approach to equipment — it’s pretty much all cosmetic — which is completely different to how WoW does it. Even in FFXI, there has been a real drive over the last 2 expansions to enable players to collect stylistically cohesive sets of equipment: starting with Artefact armour and Race-Specific-Equipment, and branching out to new sets for Assault, Conquest, whatever (I’m a bit out of touch these days). Getting one’s final piece of AF at lv.60 and being able to wear the full set was a gratifying experience, even if the set didn’t always suit your character model very well. Spence’s Elvaan warrior looked very, very daft, for example.

I’ve been looking at a lot of concept art for games such as Lineage II and Rappelz lately, and there are some very distinctive things about their style. Their character designs are obviously more Eastern in appearance, but there is a certain western sensibility about the outfits and architecture in places — slowly the cultural reservations over clothing are being broken down by Westernised notions that yes, sex sells.

I downloaded Rappelz and had a quick bash to see what it was like, and it was less the game and more certain aspects of animation and character design that struck me.

Namely, that the female characters are all remarkably well endowed.

This brings me on to the first of two observations related to this month’s hot new MMO: Age of Conan. It is receiving a lot of hype, especially by less mature people, about how it is the new WoW-beater and would improve on everything that WoW does. I’ll probably discuss this in a later blog as I discover more similarities between the two games, but today I’m focusing on characters and visuals.

I was messing around with the character creation options yesterday afternoon, and try as I might, I simply couldn’t create a female avatar who looked…well…normal? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really impressed with the customisation options in AoC, but if I’m going to create an Assassin character, I just have issues with said character having *huge* pendulous breasts. Sure from what I’ve seen on the other characters I have, said breasts are animated very well, and seem to move quite naturally — unlike the over-inflated balloons in games such as Dead or Alive or Rappelz (where individual breasts seem to be bigger than characters’ heads) but I’d expect more control. Yes, there *is* a Breast Slider as well as a Chest Slider. So you can have smaller breasts on a wide torso, or vice versa, but my point still stands. Compare these 3 extreme “defaulted” body types:

I’ve almost always painted fantasy women with large breasts, simply due to my perception that this is a convention of the genre — but it is a perception that I’ve spent much of the last year breaking out from. There’s at least one girl I’m very fond of who can prove to me that women can look sexy, enticing, and alluring without having two water melons bouncing around in their bras.

So yes, while I applaud Funcom for their customisation options in AoC (there really is a LOT you can do to individualise your avatar) I wish it broke the fantasy mould a little further. The characters truly are beautiful works of art (I’ll illustrate when I can), with fairly slick animations, but the female avatars do seem to adhere too much to the teenage boy syndrome of “bigger boobs are better” — no offense intended to people who don’t share my particular lack of enthusiasm about large breasts: I recognise that this is individual taste.

Compare these screenshots for a taste of what I mean:

So that’s my rant about boobs over.

I want to end up with some pictures of peaks of a different kind. Going back to things I like to do and see: I like landscapes and sweeping scenery, vistas in my games. This was one thing LotRo did very well. The landscapes were very pretty if your machine could handle it. AoC does extremely well too. The land that it paints is dark, dismal, with Pict and Vanir bodies dismembered and hung up on pikes, people hanging from rafter beams in forgotten city alleyways, ground splattered with blood.

But it also has views like these taken from the top of a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain the Vanir (Viking-types) have set up camp, hiding in trees and rude tents. As I went up the mountain the scenery changed and you could almost *feel* the air getting fresher and brighter. Pity about the cobwebs and spiders that lurked here. *shudder*

And then as I went even further up, the ground started icing over and I suddenly got to appreciate just how much effort had been put in as the textures blended together, the footstep sounds turned to that lovely crunching sound of walking on crisp snow, and the view turned out like this. Couldn’t help myself. Had to take a couple of screenshots.

I don’t know what the same view would look like on a lesser rig (and remember, mine isn’t anything hugely special!) though I imagine that there would be a fair amount of fogging at a lesser draw distance, but either way I was impressed with my view from this mountain.

Life in General

As for life, my back is getting better now. Not much twitching unless I’m teaching, when it does tend to get a bit strained. Doing this coming Friday at Pensnett which should be easy enough, though it IS the last day of the half term so I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much I don’t think. Then in the evening we’re off into Wolverhampton to see the new Indiana Jones movie, which I’m hoping will be excellent. Someone has suggested that we go in fancy dress as characters/archetypes from the movies. If only I had the money to accessorise!! Still, I shall go as some Marcus Brody-type bumbling academic and hope that it passes as fancy dress more than “don’t you wear that to work anyways?!” >_>

-Blog Ends-

(Henry VI 4.5.7)

I dislike Summer, in many ways. It brings with it buzzing insects that keep you awake at night, hours of heat that bog you down, a slew of awful “blockbuster” movies at the cinema, and general apathy in kids who would much rather be outside than sat in a classroom cramming for SATs or GCSEs.

This bears little relevance to today’s blog, but I just figured it was worth mentioning. I’m sat in the dining room and I’m sweltering rather than going to lie down in the dark upstairs and sweltering.

No today, as you may have gathered from the blog title, I wish to talk about battle. I’m not talking world conflict here, I’m of course talking about battle in computer games. Specifically, the nature of Player versus Player (PvP) combat in two games – World of Warcraft (WoW), and Age of Conan (AoC).

World of Warcraft has come under a lot of fire since Blizzard released the Burning Crusade (TBC) expansion pack. In some ways I don’t and can’t understand why. Lots and lots of people moan about how the endgame was better before, and that since then its just been dumbed down and diluted. I can’t comment. I didn’t do endgame stuff before TBC was released anyways. Though I have heard that, apart from Naxxramas, which was apparently of excellent quality, the 40-man raid stuff was in actual fact a bit wank. So I haven’t missed much in that sense.

PvP in WoW is a mixed bag. Basically it all comes down to the Arena system these days, and I freely admit the system – while great in terms of rewards for casual noobs like me – is actually not one I’m good at. Small-scale PvP like this just isn’t my forte. As I’ve been showing in CoD4 multiplayer, I simply don’t have the reactions for PvP. Hell, as a healer I barely have the reaction time for a 10-man Karazhan raid. So much to keep track of, so many buttons, so many abilities. I suppose that is the bane of the Priest in PvP/Raiding – lots of versatility but BOY do you have to think fast to use it.

No, my main focus on PvP in WoW has always been the battlegrounds. Larger scale, less punishing on the team if (when >_>) I fuck up. And, over the course of a few days/weeks, you can grind enough honour points to get some decent equipment. Or, at least, I could do if I hadn’t burned out on WoW PvP grinding for some shiny swords for my rogue that I’ve barely played since.

WoW PvP is often about gear and class combinations. Not a huge amount of skill involved from what I’ve seen. He with the bigger axe wins. But like I say, I’m not really qualified to talk about the pros and cons of the system. I just know that, when I started playing WoW in the first beta test way back when, I rolled on a PvP server and hated it as soon as I moved out of the relatively safe starter territories.

You see, I have no problem with killing other players. When I’m IN battlegrounds, I tend to enjoy them. Even if we’re losing. Because generally I get swept away in the flow and atmosphere, even though I’m not great at it.

What I don’t like is, as a lv.24 hunter questing in Ashenvale, some lv.38 Horde rogue waiting till I’m at 10% life fighting a spider and stabbing me till I die. Which doesn’t take long. At all. Ganking is, quite simply, annoying.

“That’s PvP though!” people cry on the forums. “It adds to the excitement!”

Does it? Killing someone ten levels lower, with half your hitpoints, is exciting?! No. It’s EASY. There’s no challenge to be had here. There’s no skill involved.

“It’s the nature of the game!”

No. It’s human nature. To be assholes, even in game. Sure I can appreciate that killing people who don’t have a chance to win might be vaguely therepeutic. But seriously, it’s all over so soon, what’s the point?

So this last weekend, I was playing Age of Conan. The open beta client had been patched up and was running pretty darned smooth. All characters lv.2 and above had an item in their inventory to make them lv.20 with decent equip. And all the servers were flagged as Free-For-All PvP.

What that basically meant is that, outside cities, everyone was fair game. You can kill friends, enemies, guild members, etc.

And thus the kill frenzy brought out the worst kind of people. People who grouped up and camped spawn points and instantly ganked everyone before the load screen had disappeared for the unlucky guy or gal who’d already been killed elsewhere. I spent a long while just Hiding and reading global chat, and people were finding it FUN just to camp these places for the free kills. There was no trying to justify it as testing the PvP system: one guy versus four isn’t gonna last long enough for them to be testing anything anyway. They were, quite simply, just out to cause grief and get as much senseless enjoyment of their own limited superiority as they can.

In battlegrounds in WoW, very few people camp the graveyards. This is because there’s a res timer and generally 3 or more people all respawn at once. In AoC, there was no such timer, so people were respawning solo. There was also no limited window of invulnerability at respawn, though it has been hinted that this may have been a bug in the end beta client. I hope it was, though it won’t make a huge difference to me.

I will be rolling on a PvE server, just as I ended up doing with WoW. I have no problem with PvP. I respect people who live for developing the skills to do it properly and do it well. I have problems with griefers and gankers and just general wankers with no code of honour or principles, out for cheap thrills and cheap kills. I haven’t read the Conan books. I don’t know if the warriors in his stories had any kind of code of honour, respect for fellow warriors etc. I don’t know if Conan himself would have taken advantage of a wounded enemy soldier and killed him. Maybe he would have done. It would certainly seem the sensible thing to do in a story.

But in a living world like those found in MMORPGs, I’ve always found a little courtesy goes a long way.

Sad thing then that a lot of the people posting on the AoC forums don’t seem to quite follow that philosophy. Phrases such as “Go back to WoW” or “roll PvE you carebear” are all too frequent it seems.

Firstly, while I admit that WoW is not a perfect game, I dislike the general attitude that anyone with an opinion about anything that is imperfect about AoC is automatically a spy or mole sent by Blizzard to cause dissent in the ranks.

Secondly I detest the term “carebear”. No, I don’t want to PvP all the time. Sometimes when I log into an MMO I want to do a couple of quests, pick up some XP, and go to bed. I don’t want to have to deal with the added stress of constantly looking over my shoulder to see if some Assassin is gonna sneak up behind me and kill me dead. Sure in some ways that’s more gritty and realistic. But I play to have fun. And I think a lot of hardcore FFA-PVP supporters forget that not everyone has fun being ganked 24/7 when they log into a game.

PvP has a place in my life, and I’m hoping that PvP in Conan will be good. After all, I DO enjoy playing as part of a team. But on my time, when I want to. If I have to do it all the time, even against my own guild, my own people, then I simply will find another game, and I think a huge amount of people were put off PvP in Conan simply because of this FFA-PVP “event”.

And in some ways, some disgruntled, cynical way, I’m probably happy for that. Let the FFA PVP jerks stay on their servers, and let some skilled PvPers onto the PvE server where they can PvP all the time if they want to. And they WILL want to at lv.80, I’m almost certain.

Will *they* be labelled as carebears? Or will they simply take the stand that playing with ganking assholes with no code of honour or morals isn’t REAL pvp. The forums seem to suggest the latter.

So there is hope for the AoC community yet!

~J

So it’s that time of week again where, because of my New Year’s Resolution, I am inclined to write a blog to keep you up to date with the fascinating playground that is my life. It was an excellent idea in theory, and yes, in most weeks of my life there is generally something exciting or existential to talk about that Friends, Romans or even Countrymen may be interested in.
But not really this week.

So instead I am going to release my inner geek and talk about computer games. After all, it’s what I spend most of my time doing when I’m not reading books, painting, writing my own book, or having career/relationship crises.

I have no issues with geeks/nerds. As far as I’m concerned, many of them are very cool. I’m one of the cool ones. Not one of the weird ones that believe themselves to be Lord Drakulownzor of Clan Urmom. Though now I’ve made that name up on the spot, I wonder if I shouldn’t use it in some game or other as some kind of ironic, post-modernist statement.

I digress.

I currently have a small stockpile of games next to the PC. Some of the boxes are closed, indicating they are not played as often as the open cases. Here is a list of open and closed boxes.

Closed Boxes

1) Lord of the Rings Online: I like LotRO in many ways. It is rather pretty, has a decent enough game system, and features the /smoke emote and a full on musical instrument system which earn it bonus geek points. I bought it way back at release, played it for a month or so, but never quite got into it. While I am a Tolkien fan, I’m not a fanboy, and I just didn’t quite find the game accessible enough, even though it took a lot from WoW. I installed it again recently to give it another go, but once again I just can’t quite take to it. The box will stay closed, and I’ll probably uninstall it soon.

2) American McGee’s Alice: I think I talked about this in a previous blog in one context, but I fancied giving the game ago as I never did finish it, or even get very far. Sadly it runs like crap on my PC, as it’s a pretty old game and requires much less sophisticated technology. I may blitz my way through it with some console commands at some point in time, just to see the plot through to the end, but until then, the box stays closed.

3) Gears of War: Not entirely sure *why* this box is even down here. I’ve finished the game, and have little interest in the multiplayer aspect. Will stick it on one of my Shelves o’ Games upstairs shortly.

4) Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: I got this cheap in a sale in GAME. I’ve not even opened the box yet. I may never play it, actually, now I have CoD4. Still, it cost me under a tenner. Box stays closed.

5) Crysis: I was really enthusiastic about Crysis after playing through the demo. Unfortunately the full game couldn’t quite hold my attention, and the copy protection on the disc almost screwed up my PC. The disc now won’t read, and I can’t quite be bothered to exchange it. I have a NoCD patch for the .exe, but just haven’t quite bothered to boot it up when I have so many better “open box” options next to me.

6) Dawn of War: I bought this in Macclesfield when I visited Tom & Rick. It’s a good game. Very pretty. Lots of strategy. Started playing through the Necron campaign, but I’ve never been very good at strat games, so haven’t really played it in a while. I’ll go back to it though, as I *do* love the Necrons.

7) Call of Duty 4: Ummm… the box is only closed ‘cos the multiplayer doesn’t need the disc in the drive. Not really played the single player much. In fact, I’ve only played it once.

Open Boxes

Some of these don’t actually have boxes. This should be more a “Games Wot I Is Playin’” section I guess. Deal with my eccentricities!

1) Call of Duty 4 (Multiplayer): Rick, bless his little cotton socks, demanded that I play CoD4, despite my general moanings about me being awful at FPS games (and most games, but shush!) to the extent that he sent me his spare copy. And yes, I suck at CoD4 multiplayer. Slowing working my work up the ranks, getting shot an awful lot, but generally enjoying it, though it can be frustrating at times as I’m not exactly Mr Twitch Reactions and sometimes I can’t tell friends from enemies >_< But it’s fairly deep for a multiplayer FPS game so I expect to get some use out of it.

2) Assassin’s Creed: Been looking forwards to this little gem since they released it on the XBOX360 and PS3. I must confess that Spence has had the game much less time than I have, and yet is considerably further on. I’ve just been exploring and collecting flags and assassinating random members of the public for shits and giggles. The pace is a tad slower than Prince of Persia, from which it takes a liberal dose of free-running inspiration, but it has a strong plot so far, and I’m looking forwards to where it ends up, even if it is a horrible system hog that I can’t do owt else on the PC while running it.

3) Age of Conan (Open Beta): Must admit, I know about as much about Robert E. Howard’s “Conan” books as the average movie-goer who has seen the Arnie film versions (which I am reliably informed are about as accurate to the books as “Gladiator” is to historical fact — repeater crossbows my ass! Anyways!) So when Spence informed me that there was going to be a Conan MMORPG, and what’s more that I *HAD* to get onto the Beta so he could come round my house and play it, I got interested. After all, Spence is a busy busy PhD man, and little in the world of MMOs gets his blood pumping anymore. So anyways, I did finally get into a beta of it, and I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far, despite the glaring bugs and slightly dodgy animation in places. Hopefully it’ll all be ironed out for release. I’ll likely buy it and give it a month, as it’s a considerable change of pace and tone from WoW, which is a good thing.

4) Another MMO beta: That is currently under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I’m not allowed to talk about it. ~_~;

5) World of Warcraft: Yes, I’m still playing it. With six characters at the level cap now, but with absolutely zero desire (well okay, maybe 5% desire) to level another one, I’m starting to run out of things to do these days. WoW’s pvp system has never really grabbed me, and I don’t do 25-man raiding anymore as it’s a huge time hog and it’s not even particularly fun. I play it for the fun stuff I do sometimes get to do with the guild, as well as just generally “socialising”, as much as any online interaction can earn that monicker.

So yeah. That’s my gaming life (and, arguably, foreseeable future) in a nutshell. The only change I am thinking of making to the Open Box list is Mario Kart for the Wii, which for some reason was sold out across our local shopping centre when I asked my sis to buy it for me (I gave her the money, don’t look at me like that!) the other day. Odd. Apart from that, I don’t *think* there’s anything I’m likely to want to spend my money on any time soon.

Le Geek, c’est Chic

~J

Most people know that I’m a sucker for good television. I have, for example, spent most of these last few days catching up on season 3 of “Battlestar Galactica” because I know Andy wants his DVDs back, and season 4 has just started on US TV. I watched maybe 8 episodes of season 3, and then the first 3 episodes of season 4, loving pretty much every minute of it, despite the somewhat emotional storylines.

Most people also know that I’m a sucker for bad television. Television that only appeals to a certain minority of individuals. Usually because it is quirky, has actors that I like in it, or some other strange combination of things.

One example was Gene Roddenberry’s “Andromeda” which still counts as one of my favourite shows of all time, through a combination of a) having Kevin Sorbo as the lead; b) having quite interesting storylines for at least the first 3 seasons; and c) just being quite cool in unexpected ways.

A second example is the BBC’s “Robin Hood”. While there were some cringe-worthy moments throughout the series — as there tends to be with anything the BBC produce really — I found the whole thing generally camp, entertaining fun, and I especially liked the new slants on old characters, and the general dynamic of the cast.

I’ve always liked the legend of Robin Hood. I guess it’s the archery thing. I’ve always seen Legolas in “Lord of the Rings” as kind of an elven Robin of Locksley, and I did — perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this — like the Kevin Costner film “Prince of Thieves”. Some things that film did very well. It’s a pity Costner and Mastrontonio had about as much chemistry as lead and water.

This chemistry is one of the things that the new Robin Hood does well. It helps that they have several episodes to work the relationship between Maid Marian and Robin over. It helps that Lucy Griffith and Jonas Armstrong have considerable onscreen chemistry. And it helps that the characters have more depth than a 2 hour movie could hope to portray.

It was this depth that Lucy Griffith was inclined to talk about in a recent interview I read. I thought it was interesting because, for some strange reason, I’d never really considered the nature of Robin and Marian’s relationship properly. In most of the versions you see of the tale, Robin gets the girl. You’ve only got two hours to play out the storyline after all. So the BBC’s version, which now runs to about 26 episodes over 2 seasons, has to make that relationship more complicated. This is what Griffith said, and I found her take on it not only very interesting from a story point of view, but from a personal perspective as well:

“…she’s essentially in love with somebody that she can’t have, as far as she can see. And I think that would make a lot of people cold, especially towards the person in question, because there’s kind of a bitterness related to that person, even though you’re really in love with them. So she’s kind of quite cold throughout the whole thing.”

That just makes me wonder, at the moment, all things considered. I do have this tendency to fall for the girls I can’t have, and while I don’t paint myself as some great tragic figure or romantic legend, I do wonder if eventually this will be how things play out for me…

Anyway, back to somewhat more positive things.

Firstly, draft two of the novel is complete and I’ve begun work on what I call the Continuity Crunch, where I’m buzzing through it and tidying up all the story mistakes and errors and weaving the plot threads more tightly. If I get the little details sorted — making sure bit characters have the right hair colour throughout, for example — then the third draft should literally be just tightening everything up and making it the best story I can make it.

Secondly, I managed to get into the Age of Conan beta, which I am quite looking forwards to. The client is a hefty 12 gig, which is taking a while to download, but it’s the first MMO after Warhammer: Age of Reckoning that I’ve been looking forwards to playing. Robert E. Howard’s world in the Conan novels is quite dark and gritty and bloody, and that’s definitely something I think will sell to angsty gamers.

And finally, “Doctor Who” is on tonight. Dunno if you like what Russell T. Davies has done with the reinvented “Who” this season, but I’ll watch anything with David Tennant in.

You’re now up to date ?

~J

…Maybe I’m Wise~#
-Fiyero, Wicked: The Musical

It has been a long week. It feels even longer than normal. I spent Tuesday to Friday at a new school which has seen me teaching English the whole time. Out of the 5 or so classes I’ve taught, only one shows any signs of intelligence or appeal to me as a teacher. The others are brutally arrogant in terms of attitude, and they are large classes too. I hate large classes. I managed 7 weeks at Pensnett simply because in awful classes, there generally weren’t many kids. At Wolverley I’m dealing with 30ish people in a class, and if 2/3 of them are misbehaving, how the hell does one make the lesson productive for the other 1/3? I don’t know the answer, and this either makes me a bad teacher, or there is a fault with the school. I’d like to err on the side of option two, but my own pessimism automatically ensures I assume a considerable amount of option one too.

Anyway, I have an offer of 12 more weeks at this school. I’m honestly not sure I could stand that. After four days of being a real English teacher, planning lessons for myself etc., and I honestly think I may be spot on when I say full-time teaching is not for me. Large classes, the workload, and the general “I have to care for the kids” attitude just doesn’t fit my idea of work/life balance anymore. I just want to do day-to-day, have a mercenary attitude, and do my best while I’m there. Either that or quit teaching and find something else to do. Or teach abroad, which is apparently both lucrative and less restrictive.

So this coming week, I’m back to Pensnett for Monday as I know the English department are having a moderation day. I’ll be taking over the same classes as before so that will be easy enough. Then four more days at Wolverley. I’ve already told the boss that I don’t think I’m the guy for a long-term post at the school, but I’m not sure that sunk in. Apparently the head of English has said good things about me. Hardly surprising. Without blowing my own trumpet too much, I know I’m a good English teacher. I’m just not so good at managing the behaviour of so many horrible students at once. And I’m poor at handling stress these days, so I need to avoid it as much as possible.

Speaking of the joys of illness, I’ve managed to screw up my back again. I think it was last February when I did something to it. The muscle that stretches round the small of the back, over the kidneys, twinges horribly, and it’s a pain if I try and stay in one position for too long. Lying down is the most comfortable for the longest period, but that’s obviously of little use if I want to get anything done. Fortunately the chair at my PC is good for the posture so I can sit down here for longer periods of time than I would in another chair, but I still have to get up and move about fairly regularly. Stretching helps, kinda. It hurts first, and then it helps.

So that’s not been the best of weeks from a work standpoint. Teaching with a bad back is horrendous by the way. Not quite as bad as trying to teach with a migraine, but pretty darned bad. What else have I got up to this week?

Well, I bought Assassin’s Creed for the PC. I’ve been looking forwards to this for a long time, and while I haven’t devoted too much time to it yet, I’ve been really enjoying it so far. The pace is quite leisurely and slow, but I have a feeling I’m being more cautious than necessary. I need to push the boundaries and see what I can get away with. For those of you who don’t know the game, you take on the role of Altair, a 13th Century assassin during the Crusades. Your job is to assassinate 9 key political and sociological figures in order to actually stop the Crusades from wiping out the East. It takes a leaf out of Prince of Persia’s books, allowing you to perform amazing feats of agility, as well as being able to free-run up most of the architecture in the game. Apparently the game plays very well on keyboard/mouse, but I do fancy trying it on a gamepad if I can find mine. The controls aren’t QUITE as intuitive on the keyboard as I had hoped and while they can be reconfigures, I think a gamepad would be better. We’ll see. So yes, AC is a beautiful game, with a sweeping soundtrack, and I’ll let you know my final impressions later on.

I also ran out of books in reserve this week. I’ve been left with Lukyanenko’s ‘The Night Watch’ which I’m working my way through, but I do like to have a couple of novels on the go if I can. So I went out and bought some more last night: Gregory Maguire’s ‘Wicked’ and its sequel ‘Son of A Witch’, both of which I’ve been interested in reading since Amanda told me that I’d like the musical based on the first book (which I do. It’s very very good!) I’m a big fan of alternate reality type books, or reinterpretation books, and have been ever since I encountered American McGee’s ‘Alice’ on the PC. While ‘Alice’ was, unsurprisingly enough, a reimagining of ‘Alice in Wonderland’/’Through the Looking Glass’, ‘Wicked’ is a reimagining of Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’, centring on the activities of the Wicked Witch of the West, and what made her wicked in the first place. Have only read the first fifty pages or so, so again comments and opinions on the book will come later.

Also, while on the subject of what I’m reading: if you’ve seen the film version of Night Watch/Day Watch, please read the books too. After the first half of Night Watch in paperback, everything makes considerably more sense, even if it is translated from Russian.

And finally, I finished the second draft of the novel a while ago, and have been doing some odd jobs on cleaning the text up into a presentable manuscript. There are a considerable number of continuity errors, and I’m now resigned to the fact that, for the second novel at least, I should actually write a plan/notes out rather than doing it from my head.

And that’s been my week.

~J