My World of Warcraft account was hacked last night or yesterday. Not sure which. Just about everyone I know who plays the game has had their account hacked. You can run Antivirus software, change your password every month, use an authenticator, whatever you like but when it comes right down to it; if you can't handle being hacked, don't play WoW.
It will happen. Sooner or later, it. will. happen.
I embraced this long ago. So when it happened. I was cool. I had been playing SC2 for the last month anyway. I wasn't neck deep in any major objectives. Not playing till my account is restored is a completely viable option for me.
The hackers were cute though. Left my 3 high level toons with their tabards on. My main had a bouquet of roses in hand from the valentines day event. They also dropped me from my guild. Nice. Thanks, I'm sure that helped you get more gold somehow.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Your Welcome
This right here is so wonderful.
Big version here: http://inkwellideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rpgchart1.gif
Big version here: http://inkwellideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rpgchart1.gif
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Quadrants and Regions
The galaxy has four Quadrants.
They are Aurek, Besh, Cresh, and Dorn.
The galaxy has three Regions.
They are The Core, The Expanse, and the Fringe.
The Twelve major players in the galaxy have dominance in one sector. Some are listed here. (Others are secrets).
The United Earth Directorate (The UED) holds power in the the Aurek Expanse.
The Tolkeen Alliance holds power in the Besh Expanse.
The Protoss control the Dorn Core.
The Zerg ravage the Dorn Expanse.
They are Aurek, Besh, Cresh, and Dorn.
The galaxy has three Regions.
They are The Core, The Expanse, and the Fringe.
The Twelve major players in the galaxy have dominance in one sector. Some are listed here. (Others are secrets).
The United Earth Directorate (The UED) holds power in the the Aurek Expanse.
The Tolkeen Alliance holds power in the Besh Expanse.
The Protoss control the Dorn Core.
The Zerg ravage the Dorn Expanse.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Random Space Encounter
Because sandbox games really kinda rely on random encounters, I figure there needs to be one for space travel. So here it is...
Roll 1d100
01-50 = No Encounter
51-52 = Pirate Ambush
53-54 = Mynock Swarm
55-56 = Starship Crossjump
57-58 = Cosmic Rays
59-60 = Gravity Storm
61-62 = Solar Flare
63-64 = Jammer Leechs
65-66 = Meteor Swarm
67-68 = Sluk Bed
69-70 = Mortiss Colony
71-72 = Asteroid Spider
73-74 = Murderoid
75-76 = Astereater
77-78 = Mercurial Slime
79-80 = Q'nidar Pack
81-82 = Blazozoid
83 = Wormhole
84 = Silatic
85 = Witchlight Marauder (space)
86 = Zwarth (spirit warrior)
87 = Clockwork horror
88 = Gonn
89 = Focoid
90 = Rogue Moon
91 = Gravislayer
92 = Constellate
93 = Gammaroid
94 = Rogue Star
95 = Great Dreamer
96 = Esthetic
97 = Monitor
98 = Moon Dragon
99 = Sun Dragon
100 = Stellar Dragon
A few are pretty obvious and I can detail later, but a few are kinda vague an unfamiliar.
- A Mynock Swarm is a swarm of mynocks, and will almost certainly end in an infestation on the ship, slowing jump speeds dynamically.
- A starship crossjump is the rare event when two ships jump path intersects. It causes both ships to drop into normal space more or less face to face. I'll make a random table for the nature of the ship.
- Cosmic Rays is a fancy way of saying "lots and lots of radiation". The radiation is high enough it can overwhelm the ships shields causing damage to the ship or the crew or both.
- Gravity Storm is a area of space where gravity is...unstable. It causes ships to drop into normal space and plotting a jump out is +2 to whatever the difficulty normally is. It can also cause damage to the ship as gravity changes erratically.
- Jammer Leechs are magical space barnacles. They damage the ship and generally suck. When this result occurs, the ship arrives on target, but into an invisible spore cloud. Within month the infestation takes hold and the ship begins to take damage.
- Sluk is space seaweed. It is nearly invisible in open space and can mire a starship.
- Mortiss is a form of magical space coral. It can, in time, turn a ship into an asteroid of hard clay.
- Rogue Star is a star thrown from the galactic center at tremendous speed. Getting close to one will cause a ship to come out of jump space and potentially damaging the ship.
Roll 1d100
01-50 = No Encounter
51-52 = Pirate Ambush
53-54 = Mynock Swarm
55-56 = Starship Crossjump
57-58 = Cosmic Rays
59-60 = Gravity Storm
61-62 = Solar Flare
63-64 = Jammer Leechs
65-66 = Meteor Swarm
67-68 = Sluk Bed
69-70 = Mortiss Colony
71-72 = Asteroid Spider
73-74 = Murderoid
75-76 = Astereater
77-78 = Mercurial Slime
79-80 = Q'nidar Pack
81-82 = Blazozoid
83 = Wormhole
84 = Silatic
85 = Witchlight Marauder (space)
86 = Zwarth (spirit warrior)
87 = Clockwork horror
88 = Gonn
89 = Focoid
90 = Rogue Moon
91 = Gravislayer
92 = Constellate
93 = Gammaroid
94 = Rogue Star
95 = Great Dreamer
96 = Esthetic
97 = Monitor
98 = Moon Dragon
99 = Sun Dragon
100 = Stellar Dragon
A few are pretty obvious and I can detail later, but a few are kinda vague an unfamiliar.
- A Mynock Swarm is a swarm of mynocks, and will almost certainly end in an infestation on the ship, slowing jump speeds dynamically.
- A starship crossjump is the rare event when two ships jump path intersects. It causes both ships to drop into normal space more or less face to face. I'll make a random table for the nature of the ship.
- Cosmic Rays is a fancy way of saying "lots and lots of radiation". The radiation is high enough it can overwhelm the ships shields causing damage to the ship or the crew or both.
- Gravity Storm is a area of space where gravity is...unstable. It causes ships to drop into normal space and plotting a jump out is +2 to whatever the difficulty normally is. It can also cause damage to the ship as gravity changes erratically.
- Jammer Leechs are magical space barnacles. They damage the ship and generally suck. When this result occurs, the ship arrives on target, but into an invisible spore cloud. Within month the infestation takes hold and the ship begins to take damage.
- Sluk is space seaweed. It is nearly invisible in open space and can mire a starship.
- Mortiss is a form of magical space coral. It can, in time, turn a ship into an asteroid of hard clay.
- Rogue Star is a star thrown from the galactic center at tremendous speed. Getting close to one will cause a ship to come out of jump space and potentially damaging the ship.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Space Travel
Objects in space move constantly, and very quickly. The Earth, for example, orbits the sun at about 19 miles per second. The Sun spins through the Milky Way at about 155 miles per second, and the Milky Way moves within it's local group at about 186 miles per second. When nothing (nothing!) in space is standing still and any given planet will be hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of miles from where it was a few seconds ago, it is very hard to travel a course.
So we don't.
Space travel is instantaneous by use a a Jumpdrive. You get information from a computer, plot a likely path, the FTL drive spins up, and in a flash of light you are there. Usually.
Things can go wrong of course. Depending on how far you are trying to travel, things can go wrong very easily. Distance is a factor, but it is not the most important factor. There are all sorts of hellish things in space. Massive black holes, supernova, neutron stars, quasars, white holes, asteroids, dark matter asteroids, rogue stars, the list goes on. All those things have to be avoided. Since space is changing constantly...this is a random roll. For Savage Worlds, roll a d6, add that to 4 and you have the difficulty.
You make a Knowledge (Computer) check for the roll. If you beat the difficulty, super, you arrive at the destination a few (less than 5) minutes later. If you miss the difficulty, you have a mishap. See the table below.
There you are. Space travel. It is very fast, but there is a chance it will send you to Hell.
So we don't.
Space travel is instantaneous by use a a Jumpdrive. You get information from a computer, plot a likely path, the FTL drive spins up, and in a flash of light you are there. Usually.
Things can go wrong of course. Depending on how far you are trying to travel, things can go wrong very easily. Distance is a factor, but it is not the most important factor. There are all sorts of hellish things in space. Massive black holes, supernova, neutron stars, quasars, white holes, asteroids, dark matter asteroids, rogue stars, the list goes on. All those things have to be avoided. Since space is changing constantly...this is a random roll. For Savage Worlds, roll a d6, add that to 4 and you have the difficulty.
You make a Knowledge (Computer) check for the roll. If you beat the difficulty, super, you arrive at the destination a few (less than 5) minutes later. If you miss the difficulty, you have a mishap. See the table below.
There you are. Space travel. It is very fast, but there is a chance it will send you to Hell.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
The simple solution
In all the spare time I have I've come up with how I want to deal with "mapping" space. Mainly I don't want to. I think I might work up something at some point but it will be little more than a series of circles with names and lines connecting them. Maybe putting a pretty picture behind it, but in all reality, it won't be used "in game".
The main reason is because using space maps in an RPG is two things.
1. not fun
2. waste of time.
Seriously, when will you use it? nobody should take the time to plot a course. It is boring and serves the game in no way. The trip takes as long as the GM says it takes. How long is that? who cares? It's as long as it needs to take. no more, no less.
What I really want to focus on is a planets catalog. Kinda like the planet collection book from old West End Games Star Wars, but in brief. Nothing more than a collection of names and some interesting facts about it. Giving the players a reason to go there more than a route.
The main reason is because using space maps in an RPG is two things.
1. not fun
2. waste of time.
Seriously, when will you use it? nobody should take the time to plot a course. It is boring and serves the game in no way. The trip takes as long as the GM says it takes. How long is that? who cares? It's as long as it needs to take. no more, no less.
What I really want to focus on is a planets catalog. Kinda like the planet collection book from old West End Games Star Wars, but in brief. Nothing more than a collection of names and some interesting facts about it. Giving the players a reason to go there more than a route.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
A sea of...well something besides stars
Waah!
So a few weeks after I started trying to sandbox the sci-fi setting I'm about ready to walk away from the whole damn thing. Space is f-ing huge and mapping it is just insane. Seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY, insane.
Most space maps come in one of two flavors. The first is the hex map of dots. They are purely for utility and generally kinda ugly. The other flavor is more artistic, usually a pretty galactic background with worlds, trade routes, or faction borders imposed upon it.
The first is functional, but inaccurate, the second is just pretty.
I really have no patience or use for either. I tried to make a sector with FM8...it worked sorta and I could cobble something functional out of it, but for the game table it's not real useful. I'm not going to print every map or bring a lap top with FM8 loaded and say "Go crazy guys" to my players. For one, the work involved in doing that is right at ridiculous. for two, the players would be overwhelmed with even a shred of what that involves.
So I need a solution that does not involve a lifetime of work and does not completely overwhelm my players. How the hell did I handle space travel in d6 back before the age of computer mapping software?
Oh that's right...this table in the core WEG book
It's a simple, and somewhat silly, little thing. Just lists the most notable planets from the star wars universe and list how long it takes to get from one to the other. Simple and somewhat elegant really. Maybe too much for a more massive setting with a few hundred worlds. Still, it worked.
So how I can adapt this to a sandbox and keep things moving along without a chart that lists several hundred worlds? Not sure yet, but I think it might be a more viable option that an actual galactic map. Even if it comes to a massive chart of planets, it would be easier.
So a few weeks after I started trying to sandbox the sci-fi setting I'm about ready to walk away from the whole damn thing. Space is f-ing huge and mapping it is just insane. Seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY, insane.
Most space maps come in one of two flavors. The first is the hex map of dots. They are purely for utility and generally kinda ugly. The other flavor is more artistic, usually a pretty galactic background with worlds, trade routes, or faction borders imposed upon it.
The first is functional, but inaccurate, the second is just pretty.
I really have no patience or use for either. I tried to make a sector with FM8...it worked sorta and I could cobble something functional out of it, but for the game table it's not real useful. I'm not going to print every map or bring a lap top with FM8 loaded and say "Go crazy guys" to my players. For one, the work involved in doing that is right at ridiculous. for two, the players would be overwhelmed with even a shred of what that involves.
So I need a solution that does not involve a lifetime of work and does not completely overwhelm my players. How the hell did I handle space travel in d6 back before the age of computer mapping software?
Oh that's right...this table in the core WEG book
It's a simple, and somewhat silly, little thing. Just lists the most notable planets from the star wars universe and list how long it takes to get from one to the other. Simple and somewhat elegant really. Maybe too much for a more massive setting with a few hundred worlds. Still, it worked.
So how I can adapt this to a sandbox and keep things moving along without a chart that lists several hundred worlds? Not sure yet, but I think it might be a more viable option that an actual galactic map. Even if it comes to a massive chart of planets, it would be easier.
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