XBox One: Playing a Bit of Devil's Advocate

People act like what Microsoft did with the XBox One's intended policy for game ownership was a transparent cash-grab that came out of the blue. In truth, we already have virtually the same system in place with games on PCs. Since consoles are really just PCs in a smaller box, why the different system? If Microsoft would have said "Every user has to buy a unique CD key to play a game," people would have understood what Microsoft was trying to do. They want the ownership of a game to be tied to accounts (ie, individual people) rather than to a physical copy of a disk. Instead, we're going to continue to have a system with two different methods of ownership:

1. the disk-based version will continue use the physical presence of an official disk to make sure the company got paid for the game (meaning you have to have the disk in your system to play, even if the game is installed on your hard drive).

2. the digital version will be linked to account ownership, meaning everyone who plays it on a different account will have to buy a unique copy (since it's the only way to make sure people using torrents or file hosts don't just share the game with ten thousand of their closest friends without the company who made it making a red cent from it).

So to everyone saying that they don't want to have to pay separately for every account (ie, every person) to play a game: you're already doing that for digital games. The only difference is Microsoft wants (or, I suppose, wanted) to extend that system to all games, regardless of the physical presence of a disk. They don't want to continue with two different methods depending on whether you installed the game from a disk or through digital download. (And maybe, just maybe, we could have gotten to the point where we could play on a console without having to have the disk in, meaning no more disk-swapping.)

Elves: More than pointy ears and long lifespans

Look up 'elf' in a fantasy dictionary and you are likely to see Legolas, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy

If someone were to ask you to picture an elf, there's a good chance you would picture someone like the gentleman above: green clothing, pointy ears, nice hair, and a bow. Bonus points if you picture that elf in a forest. Elves have been a part of the fantasy genre for so long now that fantasy fans know what to expect from elves, so fantasy settings tend to gloss over them. Magic, trees, bows, ears, done. If a fantasy settings wants to create a race that will make fans sit up and take notice, they create something completely different, like D&D's Dragonborn or the Elder Scrolls' Khajiit and Argonians. World of Warcraft doesn't even have regular elves, perhaps because they thought that nobody would want to play an elf unless it was a "dark" elf or a "blood" elf.

I think that's a shame, because if you stop and think about elves for a moment, you might remember what made them so interesting in the first place. Creators should spend less time trying to come up with new and increasingly ridiculous races and perhaps spend some time thinking about how to make the classic races interesting again.

The time I took a telemarketer on a dungeon crawl

Image from iStockphoto (obv)

Image from Detras de la Pantalla

Recently, I was telling a good friend of mine about the time a telemarketer called me and I took her on an impromptu dungeon crawl. I have spent a lot of time thinking about ways I could have done a better job of it, so when my friend suggested that I blog about it, I decided it was time to revisit this geeky moment in my past.

Iron Man 3: More of What We Love

** Contains spoilers for Iron Man 3, the previous Iron Man movies, and The Avengers **

If you're anything like me, then the main reason you went and saw Iron Man 3 was to see Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow return to their roles as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. It helps that there was plenty of action, a brisk pace, and humor, but that was just an added bonus. As the third film in the series, and the fourth to feature these characters, the characters we see in Iron Man 3 have grown and changed since we first met them. Tony Stark became a hero in the past movies, but now his decisions are catching up to him and he has to deal with the consequences.

Bluefish's Ideas for Star Wars VII

I drew up a comment to the last post, but  it wound up even longer than the original, so I thought I'd post it as its own entry.

I've been thinking about this ever since last night, and I've decided to narrow down my answer in a few ways to keep it from getting to be book-length (or at least fanfiction-length). First, I'm going to write about Star Wars VII, not just a new Star Wars movie. I hope that Disney--as they have hinted--will put out side movies in addition to the regular storyline of VII, VIII, and IX, just like they're putting out individual films for the Avengers in addition to the main plot. So as much as I'd love to watch a Star Wars movie that plays out like a horror movie with the main characters entering an ancient Sith temple on a forgotten planet where a hidden evil lurks, or a movie in which an outcast Jedi is hunted by the enemies she's made in the criminal underworld, those ideas will have to wait until later. And I have lots of ideas. Only a few involve Twi'leks and are rated R.

Picture source: Star Wars Galaxies Trading Card Game, picture by Kieran Yanner

BVC's suggestions for Star Wars VII

In my previous post about the upcoming Star Wars movies, I gave some reasons for optimism. Now that I have had more time to think about it, I would like to make some suggestions for ways in which the new films can be as good as, or even better than, the ones that came before. We have had several decades to enjoy the original trilogy and think about what else we would like to see in the Star Wars universe.

Let's talk about Discworld

Great A'Tuin, by Paul Kidby

Sir Terry Pratchett's birthday was a few days ago, so I think now is a great time to talk about his most famous creation, the Discworld and the series of excellent novels set on it! Discworld, as fans know, is a flat, circular world, born on the backs of four enormous elephants, who in turn stand on the back of Great A'Tuin, a giant turtle who swims through space. The disc is home to people, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, and dragons, though the dragons tend to be small, snivelly creatures who explode when they get excited. It's a fantasy world, but it's also surprisingly familiar. And I love it!