snakemeister

Name: snakemeister
Joined On: Jun 20, 2006
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Age: 28
Occupation: IT Support
Location: Falkirk, Scotland
Currently: Offline
Last seen: 5/20/08

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11/29/06

Eighteenth

Our meeting with the Solicitor went quite well yesterday evening. We have the paper work signed, and the ball is all set to start rolling on the Potected Trust Deed in the next few days. We probably won't know until after the New Year if it'll go through, but the solicitor seemed to be quite confident that it would.

On a lighter note - I'd like to know how the freaking 'Star Wars Kid' beat Kylie Minogue in the recent 'Most Downloaded Videos' poll. See below, and explain to me why you'd rather watch some fat kid deluding himself that he has something approaching hand-eye coordination.

Posted by snakemeister @ 7:14 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

11/28/06

Seventeenth

I have a lot on my mind just now - we have an appointment with our solicitor this evening, and I'm trying not to think about it by blogging, so be kind when you read this.

I've been trying to think of something worthy, meaningful and (hopefully) thought-provoking to say about my recent obsession with Medieval Total War 2 (MTW2 from now on) but to be honest, I think I've been coming up dry. Well, the lack of thought-provoking text has never stopped me putting pen to paper before now, and it's not about to stop me now.

I've never considered myself to have an addictive or obsessive personality; it's rare for me to feel the compulsion to do something, go somewhere, eat something, so my recent compulsion to sit for hours at a time in front of MTW2 surprised and worried me. Don't get me wrong, I have of course stayed up in to the wee small hours playing games; I once took part in a 24-hour 'Playstation-athon'; but only where the game has gripped me in some way and I've desperately wanted to stay up with it, or where I've stayed up with a group of friends through the night, like when my cousin and I played through the first Halo on co-op in a single evening.

This time was different. Now, I love the Total War series. I still go back and play Shogun Total War frequently, and it has forever warped my mental landscape so that, where my girlfriend will see beautiful sweeping vistas with serene hillocks and dark, mysterious woods, I will see raised terrain perfect for archers, wide open spaces for manoeuvring cavalry, and wooded areas perfect for hiding elite skirmishers. I'll blink, relax, and see the beauty that normal people see, then chill out and appreciate it for what it is, but still, the tactical and strategic possibilities are still there, hovering behind my eyes somewhere.

I'm getting off-topic again. Sorry about that. The Grand Campaign in MTW2 took me the best part of two weeks to complete, which includes two Saturdays where I was able to play, undisturbed, for around 5/6 hours, and I did enjoy it for the most part. As with any project that takes a long time to complete, my interest started to wane sometime after the end of the first week. I realise a fortnight is not a 'long' time by any stretch of the imagination, but if you've played any of the Total War games, you'll be able to comprehend exactly how much effort goes into extended campaigns against multiple enemies, and the amount of mental juggling involved in planning them. At least for me, I thrive on the strategic map, crafting multiple, 'combined arms' forces and building a network of spies, assassins and a web of Machiavellian-like alliances. I'm happy only when I'm having to plot how to ship troops and resources to two and three different campaign armies, while laying the foundations for the support structures I'll need in ten or fifteen turns' time. I'm hardly useless on the battle map, but my grasp of tactics is nowhere near as complete as my grasp of the strategic side of things.

Damn. I digress once more. I'll try to stay on-topic this time.

Towards the end, I was compelled forwards, pushing through the latter stages of the campaign with a cavalier disregard for the intricately balanced network of cities and castles I had begun with. I was no longer concerned with winning, but only with finishing - does that make sense to you?
I think I mentioned before that I complained to my girlfriend that I didn't want to play MTW on more than one occasion, but I knew that if I didn't, I'd simply spend the rest of the night thinking about it, seeing the map screens behind my eyelids every time I blinked.

In the end, of course, I won, by which I mean I finished. I felt a sense of relief, satisfaction that my work was done, but little else. Although I do love the game, and I will no doubt go back and start playing it again in time, it wasn't really my love of the game that pulled me on at the end, which made me sad.

Damn it, I'd hoped that I'd come to some sort of concise point through the simple act of writing, but it appears I have failed. Never mind, it's hardly the end of the world.

Posted by snakemeister @ 8:49 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

11/22/06

Sixteenth

It is done. I am victorious.

For the first time in centuries, the Known World is united in peace. The Timurid and Mongol Hordes have been defeated, their vagrant armies scattered on the wind; I have deposed the Pope, and replaced him with a puppet more amenable to my cause; the Northern and Western coasts of Africa have been pacified; the barbarous, bloodthirsty Aztecs have been slaughtered and their golden cities plundered and sacked. The proud Native American tribes have been subjugated, and the New World lies open, ripe for conquest.

Last night was the first night in over a week that my dreams returned to 'normal', and I didn't dream about Medieval Total War 2. Last night I claimed that I would stay off of the PC for a week, and rely on my iBook for checking mail, etc. At least it'll give me a chance to actually get some more groundwork down for me oft-delayed novel.

Posted by snakemeister @ 5:40 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

11/21/06

Fifteenth

Getting close now, so close that I can taste victory in the air. My flexi time is suffering badly due to my need to get home early and finish what I've started.

I spoke to my girlfriend on the phone earlier as she was leaving for work, and I mentioned that I would be glad to get my evening back to myself. She thought I was talking about getting a break from her and immediately went in a sulk. I quickly had to to explain to her that I was just talking about Medieval, and that I was looking forward to finishing it, not because I was looking to forward to actually having completed it, but simply that I wouldn't have to play it any more.
I am very fortunate in that she understands this facet of my personality, and didn't just call me a nutter and hang up.

I realise my last post was perhaps not as coherent as it could or should have been. That's partly because I'm out of practice, and partly because I've never had any real training in how to write articles or essays, so I'm not really sure how to break down an argument and approach it logically, then present it in a coherent, planned out fashion, so I seem to just ramble on in a succesion of disjointed thoughts and opinions.

That being said, in either my next post, or the one after, I'm going to try and get down some thoughts about this particular addiction/obession, if it's just me, or if anyone else has actually 'suffered' from it.

Posted by snakemeister @ 8:02 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

11/20/06

Fourteenth

Bored at work. Tired from watching the first two episodes of Lost on Sky One last night (just aired here in the UK). I will admit that the opening sequence tickled my fancy for a few moments before the WTF hit me. Still, we sat and watched both episodes, discussing at each ad break wether or not to continue.

Without really vocalising it, we seem to have agreed that we've gone too far now to turn back, that the point of no return has truly come and gone. I may be wrong, and my girlfriend will simply refuse to watch it next week and get feedback from me, but I think the concept of her never clapping eyes on Sayyid again might be too much for her to bear.

Time will tell.

Still, Lost is not what I wanted to talk about, I mention it because it's the cause of my tiredness today, so the blame for any mistakes, cock-ups or inane ramblings can be laid squarely at the door of J.J. Abrams et al. Also, not being able to tear myself away from something ties into my main topic.

I've been playing Medieval 2: Total War a lot recently. I think I took a break from it last Thursday evening, but apart from that, I've played every day or night since it came out. It's good, not perfect, but it's still damned good. There are complaints, of course - The Pope wields far too much power (historically accurate I know), excommunicating you should you attack other factions to make early-game expansions, yet seems ignorant of other factions doing the same to you.
While excommunication may not sound like such a bad idea, not only does this anger your populace, making them unruly, dissatisfied and less prone to paying taxes, it leaves your opponents free to attack you as and when they wish. Diplomacy seems to be next to useless, the only way to actually accomplish anything with it is by offering money or map information to other factions as gifts, even attempting to set up trade rights (surely a mutually beneficial arrangement) can be enough to cause a faction to stop speaking to you altogether. The AI still seems to occasionally suffer from the passive AI bug, where it will line an army up in front of you in battle, and leave it standing still while your missile troops massacre them, one unit at a time. While this does make for an easy win, particularly as the English (more on that shortly), it does leave a bad taste in the mouth.

I'm not going to go on about how much I've conquered, or how advanced my faction is in the game, I could, indeed I have had to edit such comments out, instead I'll try to use the game to illustrate a point of sorts. Try to stay with me.
When you start a gamge of MTW2, there are only a few factions unlocked, you pick one, then choose to play a 'short' campaign (usually conquer 15 provinces and eliminate 1 or 2 specified factions) or a 'long' campaign (eliminate everyone and conquer everything). Once you finish a short campaign, you unlock the extra factions, but you also get to continue on. When I started, I chose the English and went for a Short Campaign, which I completed the next evening. I knew this would unlock other factions, but chose to push on with my current campaign, rather than choose a different faction. Only a few days later did I actually discover that one of the unlocked factions are the Scots. I find myself, a Scot, playing a game as an English king, on control of most of the known world, I can continue and 'win' in a day or two, or I can go back, start over as the Scots, and give up yet another fortnight of gameplay.

I've chosen to continue. I've invested to much time and effort in this campaign to go back now. My victory, when it comes, will be a little less enjoyable, will taste a little more bitter, than I expected it to be.
It's symptomatic of my own personality; I tend to be quite closed off and quiet. I don't have a large circle of friends, and I've always been a bit of a loner. I don't spend my time active in a lot of online communities, and I don't chat to people I hardly know. I keep my opinions to my self, but I frequently find myself judging other people, and thinking I know best. I'm smart and kind enough to keep my mouth shut about those opinions and judgements though, so the only person it's hurt until now is myself.
It may not seem like much of a 'hurt', picking the wrong faction in a computer game, but I know that at some stage, I'm going to have to go back and conquer the world all over again, this time as the Scots, or I won't be happy. The annoying thing is that I won't really enjoy it as much; it'll be work. All because I didn't take time out to read over some of the guides and tips at totalwar.org, because I didn't think I needed them.

A bitter pill to swallow indeed.

Posted by snakemeister @ 10:07 am EDT | Permalink | 0 Comments

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