Recently, a friend from the Central Coast (about an hour and a half north of here) mentioned in passing to another friend that he's interested in playing Mordheim again. For those not in the know, Mordheim is a skirmish-level, campaign-based tabletop miniatures game produced by Games Workshop. I thought it was a grand idea, and promptly read up on all that I needed to know.
Soon after, I was making scenery for a new table. 4 foot by 4 foot, full to the edges with ruined buildings and so on. I've taken to it like a fire in a tissuebox, and in the space of a couple of weeks I've already improved my scenery skills twentyfold. I'm using high-density polystyrene to carve stone structures, balsa wood to make wooden embellishments...
but that's a different story, and I'm digressing from the point. When I first did my research, I found where the rulebook was kept at http://www.specialist-games.com. "Hooray!" I thought, "they still look after us!"
I looked through some of the optional extra warbands available to play in the "rulebook" section of the site, and settled on the Shadow Warriors - a group of exiled Elven warriors who excel at sneaking around, hiding, and shooting without being seen. I rushed out and bought the miniatures required, and after a few haphazard games while we refreshed ourselves with the rules, I totally owned one of my mates.
So he did a bit of research of his own, and discovered my warband is effectively "illegal" because they're too good. This disappointed me. I'd spent $40 dollars on these models. I didn't want it to be a waste! What disappointed me most, though, was that it actually took all of this extra research to find out that I was cheating my friends. I couldn't take the rulebook on face value!
This game is easily one of the best skirmish-based games available. The range of miniatures in plastic (one day I'll write a post about the virtues of plastics) means you can make your warband totally unique. The rulebook itself is purported to be "living" (e.g. monitored and updated as necessary) and free, so you can be up-to-speed at any time you need. Yet still, I managed to make a fairly big faux-pas.
I'm still going to play, don't get me wrong, I've decided to play an Averlander warband after I finished reading Honour of the Grave by Robin D. Laws. It's a novel set in the Warhammer world, and these novels get me excited and inspired to play (as I'm sure they are intended to do). The thing is, I'm going to have to buy the models slowly now, as I have to be selective and plan my purchases ahead these days.
Games Workshop is reporting a loss for the last financial year. They seem to think that they can rest the hopes of an international retail chain on the back of three franchises - Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Lord of the Rings. Gone are the days where you could walk into a GW and find heaps of different games being played. As a result, getting into the hobby is a massive investment of a consumer's time and money.
Give us more ways to use your miniatures, GW! We can't afford to play your games anymore. Bring back Mordheim, keep the rules free (and balanced) and give the casual gamer something fun and quick to do. Bring back Blood Bowl, and release a conversion sprue so we can turn your existing range into football players. Re-release Gorkamorka, and watch your Ork sales rise. Allow Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay into your stores and extoll the virtues of the tabletop combat system. Make Warhammer Quest a reality again - allow characters to fight against any monster from any army book!
There are so many ways to experience the hobby that aren't being explored. Instead, we're told we need a few hundred dollars worth of gear, hours and hours of involvement, and a mate who's done the same before we can truly enjoy the hobby.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Brains vs. Brawn
One day, a few months ago, I was on the way to work and I caught the train. I was playing my DS. At a very busy stop, a guy sat down and pulled out his PSP. He looked over at my DS, and raised an eyebrow in disdain.
Then the guy next to him pulled out his DS and asked if I had Mario Kart.
Then the guy next to him pulled out his DS and asked if I had Mario Kart.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Video games make for terrible television
We don't get a whole lot of gaming television here in Australia. They show a terrible program called Game on ESPN, where the reviewers basically yell their thoughts at you in broken sentences, and the hostess is clearly trying too hard to look excited. We also get a marginally better program called X-Play, which does a better job of reviewing and has a pair of more relatable hosts, but is so out of date they're still anticipating the Wii.
I'm not sure it's much better in the states though.
In Korea, they get a great deal of Starcraft available on the box. This is a scary prospect. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to watch Starcraft for more than maybe five minutes straight. It just isn't exciting, the animations are all the same and never change, and it takes a while for things to get into full swing.
Halo, on the other hand, gets me excited. During my time with Halo 2 I always dreamt of being able to sit down with my mates and a couple of beers, flick on XBox Live and tune in to top-ranked players duke it out in team skirmish. The beauty of Halo is that it could totally become a spectator sport. I can't tell you how many times I've declared "sweet kill!", "nice save!", or "I can't believe you pulled that off." They're definitely making steps toward this with the video playback options available in Halo 3, but that's only available if somebody opts to save the recording, then you'll have to look it up and download it.
Gamers are generally adverse to advertising in videogames, but I think this would be an area where it would be welcomed and beneficial. Would you really mind being told to quench your thirst if it was in between bouts of top-tier Street Fighter? Especially considering that Sprite commercial made the broadcast free for you to access. "Fragzor's 80-kill streak was brought to you by AT&T". The idea is certainly sound.
To be honest, I'm surprised ESPN hasn't already made an attempt to capitalise. It would certainly beat watching American children mutilate the Queen's English in the national spelling bee.
I'm not sure it's much better in the states though.
In Korea, they get a great deal of Starcraft available on the box. This is a scary prospect. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to watch Starcraft for more than maybe five minutes straight. It just isn't exciting, the animations are all the same and never change, and it takes a while for things to get into full swing.
Halo, on the other hand, gets me excited. During my time with Halo 2 I always dreamt of being able to sit down with my mates and a couple of beers, flick on XBox Live and tune in to top-ranked players duke it out in team skirmish. The beauty of Halo is that it could totally become a spectator sport. I can't tell you how many times I've declared "sweet kill!", "nice save!", or "I can't believe you pulled that off." They're definitely making steps toward this with the video playback options available in Halo 3, but that's only available if somebody opts to save the recording, then you'll have to look it up and download it.
Gamers are generally adverse to advertising in videogames, but I think this would be an area where it would be welcomed and beneficial. Would you really mind being told to quench your thirst if it was in between bouts of top-tier Street Fighter? Especially considering that Sprite commercial made the broadcast free for you to access. "Fragzor's 80-kill streak was brought to you by AT&T". The idea is certainly sound.
To be honest, I'm surprised ESPN hasn't already made an attempt to capitalise. It would certainly beat watching American children mutilate the Queen's English in the national spelling bee.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Ah, I love the smell of a first post in the morning
As this is an introductory post, I guess I'll introduce myself. My name is Mitch, and I'm a 'seasoned' or 'veteran' gamer living in Sydney, Australia. I've been going by the handle 'Nerje' for about eight years now, and as far as I can tell I'm still the only one. Don't ask me what it means or where it came from (or even how to pronounce it).
This blog is for my thoughts on games, gaming, gamer lifestyle, and game design. Like everyone who was ever a child, I played games from the very beginning. I started mostly with Lego (which I still think is one of the best things ever concieved) but, unlike most people, I never really grew out of playing games.
When I was six, my uncle Matt handed down his Atari 2600 and I became addicted to Berzerk. One day my parents bought me a NES and Super Mario Bros. became my drug. Over the years I moved on to the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, XBox and now XBox 360. I'm not anti-Sony, I've just had enough friends who owned a Playstation that I never needed to buy one. I'm also not a Nintendo fanboy, in fact I'm far from it (I still feel somewhat cheated by the Gamecube). I don't really have a list of favourite games, but the ones I have the most emotional attachment to are Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo, and Halo 2 for the XBox. I also rate Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros Melee quite highly too.
When I was eight, my parents bought me a game that I'd seen an ad for on television. That game was Hero Quest. Now, I'd played board games before, but Hero Quest blew my mind. I fell in love with the idea of adventure on my tabletop and I played the hell out of that game. I got most of the expansions (the ones I knew about anyway) and when I didn't have people to play with, I made up my own adventures and thought I was ace for doing so. Naturally, I moved on to Warhammer, riding a wave of enthusiasm brought on by my friends. We all discovered it at roughly the same time when our local games store started to stock the miniatures. On the tabletop I've bought and played Warhammer, Warhammer Quest Warhammer 40K, Mage Knight, Pirates of the Spanish Main, HeroClix, Confrontation, Flames of War and many, many others that I just couldn't name off the top of my head.
The other thing that came of the Hero Quest fascination was an interest in role playing. Not the type with cop outfits and handcuffs, but the games involving statistics and oddly-shaped dice. As a kid, my friends and I took the 'play pretend' thing to the next level, creating persistent worlds and concepts that existed in between the short spaces of time we spent together. We had adventures, rivalries and interactions that occurred outside the school playground, outside the boundaries of reality in fact, and we never really though twice about it. It just came naturally. Our first experience with structured roleplay gaming was with an older guy named Noel who introduced to us Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We were really young, like 13-14 years old and we could never afford a full army so this gave us something to do with out Warhammer miniatures. Not long after, I got my Dad to buy me the book for Christmas. Since then, I've played Dungeons and Dragons (post- and pre-d20), d20 Modern, Men in Black, Nobilis, and my current favourite is the latest iteration of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, which I play regularly with what you could call my 'gaming group'.
When I was about ten, I collected the X-Men '94 series of collector cards (as did most of my friends). Around the same time, I picked up a whole bunch of packs from a series called Magic: the Gathering. I was a little disappointed, as I liked the artwork but the card text was nonsense and nobody would trade with me. Later, a friend named Ryan came to school with his own cards, and he showed me how to play. I think, since, I spent more money of Magic: the Gathering than any other past-time apart from video gaming. I loved it. I thought the whole idea was great. I was never any good, of course, but that didn't stop me from spending all of my pocket money every Saturday. More recently, I started to play UFS from Sabertooth Games. I loved this game also, going as far as becoming a 'scout' and running tournaments, but lately the CCG just became too much of a drain on my time and money to keep going. I also played a bit of the Pokemon CCG for a while.
So, that is a brief history of my gaming life. Going into the future, I certainly hope to be further involved in the industry. I plan to become a games designer and publish my own ideas and concepts (in the tabletop, roleplaying AND video games areas). I do, however, know what a fickle industry it can be, so I'm working on establishing a career in the retail industry (games of course!) where I can apply my knowledge and passion to something I truly love.
So!
Please tune in any time, to hear my thoughts and ruminations on this little thing called playing games.
This blog is for my thoughts on games, gaming, gamer lifestyle, and game design. Like everyone who was ever a child, I played games from the very beginning. I started mostly with Lego (which I still think is one of the best things ever concieved) but, unlike most people, I never really grew out of playing games.
When I was six, my uncle Matt handed down his Atari 2600 and I became addicted to Berzerk. One day my parents bought me a NES and Super Mario Bros. became my drug. Over the years I moved on to the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, XBox and now XBox 360. I'm not anti-Sony, I've just had enough friends who owned a Playstation that I never needed to buy one. I'm also not a Nintendo fanboy, in fact I'm far from it (I still feel somewhat cheated by the Gamecube). I don't really have a list of favourite games, but the ones I have the most emotional attachment to are Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo, and Halo 2 for the XBox. I also rate Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros Melee quite highly too.
When I was eight, my parents bought me a game that I'd seen an ad for on television. That game was Hero Quest. Now, I'd played board games before, but Hero Quest blew my mind. I fell in love with the idea of adventure on my tabletop and I played the hell out of that game. I got most of the expansions (the ones I knew about anyway) and when I didn't have people to play with, I made up my own adventures and thought I was ace for doing so. Naturally, I moved on to Warhammer, riding a wave of enthusiasm brought on by my friends. We all discovered it at roughly the same time when our local games store started to stock the miniatures. On the tabletop I've bought and played Warhammer, Warhammer Quest Warhammer 40K, Mage Knight, Pirates of the Spanish Main, HeroClix, Confrontation, Flames of War and many, many others that I just couldn't name off the top of my head.
The other thing that came of the Hero Quest fascination was an interest in role playing. Not the type with cop outfits and handcuffs, but the games involving statistics and oddly-shaped dice. As a kid, my friends and I took the 'play pretend' thing to the next level, creating persistent worlds and concepts that existed in between the short spaces of time we spent together. We had adventures, rivalries and interactions that occurred outside the school playground, outside the boundaries of reality in fact, and we never really though twice about it. It just came naturally. Our first experience with structured roleplay gaming was with an older guy named Noel who introduced to us Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We were really young, like 13-14 years old and we could never afford a full army so this gave us something to do with out Warhammer miniatures. Not long after, I got my Dad to buy me the book for Christmas. Since then, I've played Dungeons and Dragons (post- and pre-d20), d20 Modern, Men in Black, Nobilis, and my current favourite is the latest iteration of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, which I play regularly with what you could call my 'gaming group'.
When I was about ten, I collected the X-Men '94 series of collector cards (as did most of my friends). Around the same time, I picked up a whole bunch of packs from a series called Magic: the Gathering. I was a little disappointed, as I liked the artwork but the card text was nonsense and nobody would trade with me. Later, a friend named Ryan came to school with his own cards, and he showed me how to play. I think, since, I spent more money of Magic: the Gathering than any other past-time apart from video gaming. I loved it. I thought the whole idea was great. I was never any good, of course, but that didn't stop me from spending all of my pocket money every Saturday. More recently, I started to play UFS from Sabertooth Games. I loved this game also, going as far as becoming a 'scout' and running tournaments, but lately the CCG just became too much of a drain on my time and money to keep going. I also played a bit of the Pokemon CCG for a while.
So, that is a brief history of my gaming life. Going into the future, I certainly hope to be further involved in the industry. I plan to become a games designer and publish my own ideas and concepts (in the tabletop, roleplaying AND video games areas). I do, however, know what a fickle industry it can be, so I'm working on establishing a career in the retail industry (games of course!) where I can apply my knowledge and passion to something I truly love.
So!
Please tune in any time, to hear my thoughts and ruminations on this little thing called playing games.
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