January 13, 2009

Welcome to the first post.

All information here is intended to supplement the material that I post on my Youtube page: www.youtube.com/user/vaulsc - having somewhere to present a lot of text allows me to keep people more educated and informed about me and the content that I upload to Youtube. Posting here will also allow me to go into more depth about things that can't really be dealt with in detail with youtube videos - such as what i'm planning on posting in future, why i'm not posting certain things, what I think of a large section of feedback in general, and information about stuff that I could post but don't. I'll break everything here into relevant sections, so readers can just skip to whatever topics interest them the most.

Starcraft: Brood War

It was a long time before I ever posted anything on youtube that wasn't about Starcraft: Broodwar (bw from now on), so what happened? There was a crucial turning point many months ago now. Strelok (my favourite non-korean bw player) had advertised a training program on Team Liquid which I consulted him about on msn. I was readying myself for either an intense commitment to bw which would take up my whole life, or... nothing. It turned out that his asking price was exorbitant - I came away from that feeling dissapointed and burnt out with bw in general.

Later, I got into Dawn of War and pretty much went on a hiatus from bw. It's saddening in some ways, because I have to still acknowledge that bw is the greatest rts game ever, and rts is my genre. Trying to succeed at an rts other than bw is like running away - it's unfulfilling.

Still, there are a number of reasons bw just isn't fun right now. Every time I try to go back to it and work on it, I encounter the same feelings:

1- I've reached a point where the ratio of improvement to effort invested is significantly low. Playing a lot doesn't result in that very special and enjoyable feeling that i'm really making progress and will continue to the more I play.
2- Often I'll just lose games to players who I really feel didn't deserve to win. Could this just be because i'm not cut out for playing Terran (my race in bw) at a certain level? Is my sense of strategy, timing or mechanical skill just really deficient? It's hard to say. But it's also hard to be optimistic when one fails in such a way - you're constantly worried that you are giving everyone else the impression that you are only as good as the way you are playing, when you know that you worked much harder than that.
3- I get this nagging feeling that had I chosen Protoss as my race for bw rather than Terran, certain things would be easier. Objectively, there's no real argument in favour of either race having more potential, but as an experienced player I really get the impression that when it comes to certain, quite subtle features of bw that the former race is more forgiving than the latter. I will never know for sure.

My youtube bw commentaries will be few and far between, as they have been in recent times. Although, my good friend Tim (aka fonger) is making a road trip up to Auckland this weekend - it'll be good to meet him and play some games. We'll probably also meet some of the regulars from http://www.starcraft.co.nz on saturday at a net cafe.

Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne

I get a surprising number of requests for more commentaries relating to this game. It's the game I played the most, by far - but that was years ago. The game and its scene have stagnated, with high level competition slugging it out on the same maps for years upon years. I enjoy revisiting it every once in a while to comment on a game that turned out to be unusual as well as exciting - but they are rare.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm

Well, the beta for Dawn of war II is coming out next week, for users who have a Soulstorm Cdkey. I will be playing it and commentating on it, so expect videos next week.

As for all those people asking me for a game of Soulstorm - forget it. I don't play random people that ask me for a game by sending me a message via my youtube account. Also, i'm not actually playing Soulstorm at all currently, because:

- Despite being a really fun game, it's finally become boring. I've come within reach of the very low skill ceiling it has. I know what all the abusive strategies and imbalances are. I can read the play when I see it and the game is highly predictable. With the sequel coming out soon, and with a lot of other stuff going on, Soulstorm really isn't interesting right now.

Thanks to everyone who enjoyed my tournament and the more recent showmatch, by the way. Unfortunately there will be no more events like this.

Warhammer 40,000: Tabletop

Unexpectedly, i'm now back into tabletop. It's been strange - I first got into games workshop stuff when I was about 12 (i'm 24 now, so that's 12 years ago). However, I sure as hell haven't been playing for 12 years. More accurately, there were several shorter periods of 1-3 years where I was into the hobby. It's making a resurgence again.

The main reason for this is that my friend Dave (who is in a band with another, closer friend) has a really nicely painted Dark Angels army, so I dug out my old 4th edition (with some 2nd edition models) army looking for some games. While in the mood for that, I also organised a game with other people I knew who had armies and before I knew it, i'm making battle reports and visiting the local gaming club every sunday.

Unfortunately, i'm not liking my collection of models for 5th edition purposes. I abused a very specific army list option (craftworld eldar: iyanden; 3 wraithlords, 15 wraithguard, avatar, 3x heavy support choices) that isn't available for 5th edition. So now I can't use all my stuff in the same list. I've been thinking strongly about collecting a new army for 40k - but more on this at a later date.

Warhammer Fantasy

And then, over the christmas break, I spent a lot of time reading the rules for warhammer fantasy, which is in it's 7th edition, as well as a lot of army books. Fantasy was my introduction into the games workshop set of franchises (after the now extinct space crusade) when I was 12, and I had a High Elves collection.

I loved it back then, but never really did well at anything strategy-gaming, because I was always thinking of the romantic ideals of it all, imagining glorious, sweeping battle, and never paying attention to the cold, brutal mechanics behind things. Boy, how that has changed.

Anyway, looking through the current warhammer range, which has somehow expanded to at least seventeen different and playable races, I spotted Tomb Kings. I couldn't believe that this was a race. Readers who are very familiar with the theme of my music will understand.

An army featuring a Casket of Souls was a must. Reading the mechanics of it in the army book sold me on the idea - I would collect a tomb kings army, and unleash this on people. Some internet feedback on my proposed army list was encouraging. With my mind made up, I then went about the gruelling task of finding the cheapest way to do this financially.

Many people notice right away that everything sold by Games Workshop costs an exorbitant amount of money. I can't walk out of one of their retail stores without feeling like I almost got mugged. It's tragic. Luckily my friend Mark works at an independent stockist, which does discounts on gw merchandize, but this still didn't seem like enough.

But then, on the dakka forums, I saw an advertisement for a mail order website called little metal men. After converting their prices from pounds to New Zealand dollars, I realised that this was cutting down the cost of what I wanted by roughly a half. That's significant. I went ahead and started sending their customer services team a bunch of enquiries. Turns out that their postage prices and so on were all very, very reasonable. So I place and order, but...

...big mistake. It took them a couple of weeks of waiting around (ok, they had only just re-opened after christmas, but they didn't keep up with my e-mails very frequently either), and then I get an e-mail today saying that postage would be a LOT more than they orginally quoted. Even knowing where it was going to be sent to. And much of the stuff I planned to order was now unavailable.

Well this sucks, and my credit card has been billed. We've agreed that they will cancel the order and refund it, but now I have to wait for that. I want to get this army sorted out ASAP, because then I can enter the tournament that is coming up next month.

Be careful when doing business (if at all) with these guys!!

The Disciples of Zoldon

Well, i've been working on new material for a long time now. For the last 4 albums/EP, I put out something new every year. I guess i've only broken with that now that i've really fallen so heavily into online gaming and because my youtube page has been so successful.

Still, just before christmas I made a breakthrough, and worked out how to demo up my stuff at home, rather than just 'planning' it, so to speak, using midi. My friends are pretty stoked on the new stuff i've been coming up with. It's just a matter of continuing the patience that i've exerted over what has probably been a couple of years now.

There will be a new DOZ EP. I can't say when. But it will get done. Other things are taking priority right now, though.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Okay, so I started the 'Chronicles of Balnathus', but to be honest i'm bored already. I've played that game to death in earlier years, and I thought I would be able to come back to it with the motivation of running this commentary series. But it didn't really work - fans will probably not see Balnathus again.

Also, some absolute fuckwit decided to e-mail me with patronizing comments about what I was doing. It's like he assumed I was brand new to the game, when I had explained that in times past I had levelled up to 90, acquired powerful gear allowing me to kill pretty much anything, etc. I could have gone on about that in my videos, but that wouldn't have been at all compelling. He also went and posted a video on his own page just to show everyone what awesome gear his own character had.

Way to go, retard. Diablo II: LOD is a game where maxing out isn't hard. Everyone has access to cheats, dupes, silly trades, maphack, bots.... you name it. People know this, especially me - I wouldn't bother commentating on a game as ancient as Diablo if I didn't know a lot about it's community and background. I better stop ranting about this, it's only making me angry again!