Day 50 - tedious

 

Day 50.

 

I haven't touched translation of my book in a while. Probably because it's a type of work that is dangerously similar to my job. I'm a tester, technically speaking an automation tester but we all know that given the chance employers will shove manual work onto automation tester instead of employing dedicated manual tester. Use a feature, check for errors, pass or fix. This is what I do when I translate my book, this is what I do for a living too. 

Probably this is why I don't have an easy time finding energy and will to do it...

Day 49 - of money and scrolls

 

Day 49 of this log.

Elder Scrolls Online is experiencing deflation, it's economy is crumbling and the whole case is fascinating!

 

let me start with a little background. Most of the MMORPG games experience a strong inflation, because having players literally print gold by doing gold-awarding activities is perfect way to have hyper-inflation. Money for those rewards comes from thin air and never runs out, kinda like government printing bills. This is why every MMO has some kind of gold sinks, places where money leave the economy vanishing back into thin air. 

 

Elder Scrolls Online has extremely strong gold sinks due to it's decentralised economy. In most MMOs players have access to centralised trading post where they can buy and sell goods between themselves. That's not the case for ESO. In this game every guild has it's own trading post and guilds can buy one NPC trader each via an auction, to serve as access point to their trading post for the players outside guild. Those auctions happen every two weeks and depending on location such NPC can go for few thousand to even over a million of gold coins. Every two weeks trading guilds together flush down the toilet literal mountains of gold.

But that's not all! When you want to sell something you have to pay 1% of it's listing price up front, and 7% os the listing price is split between game and guild when item is sold. This means every time you sell something you loose 8% of it's value/... though 3.5% goes to your guild so not all is lost. Guild will most likely use this money on NPC auctions. Aaaand! If your item doesn't sell within 15 days, it's returned to you and you have to list it again. 

What ESO lacks though is material sinks, game mechanics that consume vast amounts of materials. Crafting is one and done - once you have your dream set, you only repair it... with gold! Travelling consumes gold, upgrading your horse consumes gold, houses cost gold etc. Most resources are now vendor trash that nobody will ever buy and all the others loose around 8% of it's value monthly.

Resources a plenty, money scarce, deflation stalling any economic activity. Many traders stopped selling because prices are racing to the bottom, while many clients stopped buying because waiting just a week or two will lower the price for them. This attitude causes prices to drop even lower and gold to become even more powerful.

Fascinating!

Day 48 - what gets barked on in the night

 

Day 48

 

What gets barked on in the night? Seriously. My dog woke me up in the later part of the night, barking at something in the nearly pitch black darkness outside. Solar street lamps already ran out of power, and there was only a field of rape there.  I grabbed my glasses but couldn't see a thing. Other dogs in the neighbourhood also made noise. What the hell was it?

I moved my outside trash bins away from home, chained them up to the fence posts so wind won't topple them when empty. They look like a pair of chained mimics now. Perhaps I should decorate them somehow... 

In the meantime I'm trying to rest. My wife and kids ain't helping with that.

Day 47 - with a throw of the dice

 

Day 47

 

How much randomness is acceptable in an RPG? That's the question I've been thinking about recently, after my friend complained that in DnD the core 20-sided die holds more power than skills of the player character. On the other hand another system I know and like - Savage Worlds is getting frequent slag for being too easy. Rolling a 4 or higher on either of two dice, one of which is always a classic d6, is not hard. In fact even if the other die is the smallest (d4) it still gives players a 62% chance of success on a skill they are the worst in. 

So where is the middle ground? Well, certainly in D&D it's randomness is also a part of design philosophy. When deciding on Challenge Rating for a monster you are advised that players should be hitting the monster at least 60% of the time and vice versa. Because it's boring to roll the dice and hear "you miss" too often. And because of HP system it's tedious in D&D to have battles with many monsters. Players will never feel that their skills improved if their enemies improve with them (kinda like in Skyrim). You can't feel improvement of +5 to hit if all your enemies got +5 to defense at the same time. 

Philosophy in Savage Worlds is completely different. Important characters get to roll two dice and pick the higher results because story is about them doing stuff, not failing to do stuff. So you are expected to succeed at about everything as a hero, but your nemesis is supposed to do the same. Only minions, servants, mooks and goons don't get the second die. They fail and die easily, because story is not about them. When you put a tough monster in front of the party, all it takes is one wound to kill them. Sometimes though this boss monster poses a question - how to do that one wound? Savage Worlds doesn't care about balance, enemy might as well double the power of your biggest fighter. However non-combatants in Savage Worlds can help the warrior in many ways, giving them a chance to do that one decisive attack. And skewed towards success system means that this chance they all worked for will most likely succeed.

Still the question stands - should dice of character sheet determine success more? Should players feel stronger with levels, or should they always meet challenges equal to their strengths? I think it would be fun to have system, perhaps a simple one, that allows for both.

Day 46 - there was something about desks and minds, but mine is empty

 

Day 46

 

Fencing lessons today. I fought a champion in duel, she was clearly better. We fought till 10 points or 10 minutes.  Ended up loosing 3 to 8. My master still was proud, saying that some people fought her for much longer without scoring a single point.

I have some more inspiration for my stories. Tomorrow is writing day so perhaps I will be able to write something good.

I also have some world-building ideas, but no plot for them yet. Perhaps later, when I flesh it out enough.

Asian concepts like traditional chineese medicine and meditation really work for me. I'm trying to learn more about them since their effects are something I can attest to. Of course I don't expect them to work for everyone, my wife is a prime example. Nothing is absolute, except nothing.

Day 45 - this fucking life

 

Day 45.

Wednesday.

Sword training.

 

Also I'm mentally down. Too much of everything at once for me. They are making our changing room but what they found is that electric cables in this house are a gargantuan mess. Can you imagine all three cables in power source to be positive? I don't know how to better describe it in english, not my native language. And what's worse it seems two rooms now share a light switch. Because it wasn't fucked up enough already...

My master wants me to go to some more serious competition. Why?! I'm not ready! I'm a disaster with a sword, usually winning by doing stuff outside what fencers might expect. And to boost my confidence I'm supposed to do it in a history-themed clothes... Yeah because I didn't feel like I'm unfit enough.

Change of diet doesn't help to calm me down. Another salad please!

My wife said, with seriousness and conviction "this month we shall rest a bit, no big events". This conviction of her lasted for 10 hours, until she got invited to a horse riding event with several competitions, big campfire etc. Yeah, this is my life now I guess...

Day 44 - It's a kind of magic

 

Day 44 of NPC-like log.

 

Sometimes while writing fantasy I wonder what I would do having magic. My first thought is usually that I would murder someone. I'm prone to anger and impulsive under stress. My current solution is a training dummy in garden getting hit as hard as life hits me. Thus I'm pretty sure if I had magical powers I would probably kill someone who angers me unless either I get some real self-control or magic cannot do such thing.

 

Otherwise I would probably seek a job that uses my magic best or hide my magic depending on attitude of others towards it. I bet my wife would think up several ideas on what can be done with any power I might have.

 

Nevertheless - magic. Fun thing, usually does what people wish was easy and possible. But eventually most magic becomes easy and possible thanks to technology, or even new spells are developed because technology outshines magic in specific aspect. For example take notice that long distance communication magic was uncommon in books, comics and movies until mobile phones got invented. If technology can do it, magic can't be worse, right? 

I think such a concept would be extremely cool in fiction. A setting where magic is better than technology in some aspects of life, but much worse than tech in some others. It would be quite cool to see mages being able to stop bullets with a wave of their hand, but shooting back is still more efficient using actual gun.