Day 4 of the Great Fossil Hunt

It's getting to become a habit this... Friday, head to the coast and look at stones.. To be honest, it's not the worst thing you can do on a Friday.

I had done some more research this week and felt a bit more comfortable in what I should be looking for, I'd also sourced out a new site to visit (15 minutes drive away so easily manageable) and with the low tide being right on lunch time it was a perfect time to get out for a good few hours and so, packing my tools, getting a grunt from the better half as I left the flat (she was busy) I got in the car and headed east for a bit.

Finding the beach was easy, pretty obvious, it looked promising and rocky as I made my way down the pier thingy and I had a decision to make.. To my left was more beach and rocks, to the right 'cliffs'.. So I did what anyone should probably not do and headed straight for the cliffs!

After wee bit of walking over countless stones and rocks I got to the cliffs and settled in a rough area to start looking. I was completely alone and had plenty of time to start breaking things apart. Looking over some of the rocks I worked out there was quite a bit of shale around which was handy as this is the best stuff to find fossil material in. Rock after rock felt the wrath of my hammer and chisel as I turned ancient stones into dust... OK, perhaps not, I'm no dwarf but I broke enough rocks to feel that I'd made a sizable dent in the worlds rock population.

I found a great bit of shale which clearly had plant markings through it, breaking it into layers showed more and more and I actually had to throw away some of it.. Wow, my fourth day and I'm throwing away fossils.. Though to be fair, it was pretty boring lines which indicated plant matter but not much else. After a while I stood up to survey the damage... Oops...

Yeah so a fair few rocks broken up, but plenty around and not near any walkers or dogs (seriously no-one would take a dog this way) so I didn't feel bad about the mess.. It'd be washed away in a couple of hours anyway. Just after I took this picture I noticed another rock with a rock inside it... Looking closer it was clearly.. something... so I broke the 'inner' rock out and was well chuffed.. a very clear fossil of what I have now found out is a calamite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamites) a bamboo like tree thingy.  My best find to date and really if I do say so, not bad looking for 330 million years old. It's about the thickness of a wrist and about two and a half inches long.. No bad!

After a while I finished up and took the 'best bits' back home with me to wash up and clean to see if there was anything great about them. Because the shale is dark it's not the easiest to see but you can see what I found below. Only one other thing I've been able to is a big leave from a cordaites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordaites)


So here's the other bits that came out OK. I may give it a break for a week or two before heading back out but I now know I've got a 'goto' spot for stuff, even if it is still just 'plant material' but just learning the rocks and being able to identify them is half the battle (the other half being lucky enough to open the rock at the right spot and for there to be anything in it to start with).

Yay old stuff!

Day 3 of the Great Fossil Hunt

So with the better half working from home today I decided to head down to the beach to give her (and me) some peace and quiet. It was just before lunch and I intended to just head for a walk for an hour or so. Handily the beach is only about a five minute drive for me.

So I packed up and headed down to the beach where the weather had cleared up again from earlier in the day. So far, that's three days and three cracking days of weather... well no rain anyway which is always a positive. The beach was clear of anyone nearby, just a couple of dog walkers in the distance and I didn't feel so much of a weirdo walking about looking at stones as I have done in the past...

I figure that the more I look, the more likely I am to spot something, it's just learning what I should be looking for more than anything else at this point. I know that the local area geology is Carboniferous sedimentary rocks (which from what I can gather is sandstone, shale and coal. Great.. I just need to work out if these billions of stones on the beach are what I'm looking for.

I walked my 'usual' route (usual in that it's twice I've done it now) towards and past the local castle we have here which is built on the coast. I really had no success and I thought I was doing worse than day two but in retrospect I think I just thought I was doing better than I truly was back then.

A decent walk and some fresh air and I decided to head back to the car, looking at various rocks and seeing if any look like they could have anything on them. On the way back I picked up a stone and thought "Meh, nothing" and dropped it. As it landed it split open and I figured I'd have a look... "Oh... Haaaang on a minute" and I looked closer... Quite a clear tube shape ran through the split and upon getting it home, cleaning it up a bit and posting it online to get some input it appears I've found my first true fossil!

This my dear friends looks like it could be part of a fairly common plant from the Carboniferous era - A lycopid ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodiophyta ). No idea on age, but it's into the millions of years I guess due to it being in the stone. It's a couple of inches long and it's much clearer in person, you can see the texture of the branch/stem type thingy.

So all in all, well chuffed. I have potentially found my first fossil and while it's 'just a plant bit' it's more than I've ever had before.. Can't wait until next Friday now where I think I'll head out again.

The Great Fossil Hunt

So ever since I was a wee boy reading my first book about Dinosaurs I've been fascinated with the past. Those massive beasts stomping about being all cool blew my mind (and still does) and I always wanted to find one.. living (or much more likely) dead.

So it was a few months ago at work we talked about our bucket lists (the list of things to do before we die) and I put on it.. "Find a fossil" and being on holiday this week and just wanting to get out a bit more I decided that...

"I'm going on an adventure!"

Well an adventure might be a bit of an exaggeration but even so, something just clicked with me this week and I really wanted to go and find my own fossil (not of me mind, one I find myself).

Now first of all.. I'm incredibly aware that where I live (central coast of Scotland) I won't be finding a Stegosaurus anytime soon. I'm OK with that, in fact I'm happy to put my goal and aim at a Trilobite or something similar.. 250million years old.. Wow, that's pretty impressive to think an impression of something lasts that long.

So, I did a bit of research and discovered that Trilobites and the more curvy Ammonite are present in sedimentary rocks which are located in my local area (sorta). They are however not big nor easy to find. Again. I'm happy with that, I don't expect to find one on my first attempt.

What I didn't know when I set off on a trial run however was what exactly I should be looking for anyway. I'd read about people breaking open rocks to look for them so that's what I tried on my first run. Breaking rocks...

It wasn't successful. At all.

Broke open some rocks, looked at some bits and realised this would be a bigger task than I thought considering I have no idea what I'm doing.

Despite having a great day and enjoying some complete and utter peace of mind I returned empty handed but keen to find out more about what to do.

Some more research led me to deciding to forgo breaking open rocks and just looking for patterns and such on the 'outer shell' of rocks to see if anything was exposed. My thought was that I could look at the outside of three or four stones in the time it'd take to break open one at one part.

So off I headed again today down to the local beach, my Indiana Jones hat on (no whip nor ark of the covenant at my side) and this time I decided to try and document a bit more of what I find.

It wasn't the greatest of days but it was dry and again I enjoyed just the freedom and relaxing and found some shale which looks like it has patterns of some long dead plant matter.. No beasties found yet but I think if I keep looking and assuming I'm even looking at the right bloody stones I'll find something recognisable!

Writing Challenge 2 is now complete

One more done.. Quite enjoyed writing this one, liked the character even if he's a bit of a bastard :)

Just a note though about the next challenge, the theme is done (I'll post it tomorrow if I remember) but this week has been busy with me doing NFL Draft research (I geek out majorly over it every year) and I'm on holiday next week so will be busy toddling off to random places with the other half, I'll try to write it up but no promises.

The challenge though for was as follows

The theme of this story: epic quest. The main character: ambitious murderer. The start of the story: journey. The end of the story: smuggling.

And this is the end result..'Enjoy'

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Kurz sat on a log staring absent mindedly into the flames. Oh what a fine tale this would have been he thought as he looked at his fallen companions - John the priest, Louella, Brandon and Jugati lay motionless. It was only a days trek to the city where they could have sold the Lich Gem for a kings ransom. Jugati and Louella had set off with two other companions a few years prior to look for a gem and over the months into years the group had changed. Friends had fallen, some had left in the night and others retired to  a whore house or tavern. Kurz had been hired a year ago, back then he was on the run from the Robed Storm and when they learned about his skill in picking locks he was brought on board for 10% of the sale of the Lich Gem. But now they lay dead, scattered in the forest, one day away from riches, the end of an epic journey. Kurz looked up as the sun began to rise and daylight started breaking through the darkness, it was time to move on thought, the Gem wouldn't sell itself. Standing up, Kurz the Dworn wiped his bloodied blade on Jugati, had one final rummage in the companions’ pockets for any coin he'd missed and set off back to the road for the city and his riches.

The road was paved this close to the city of Dit Mere and Kurz stopped by a small stream running along the side, splashing cold water over his scarred and stubbled face. Half Orc - Half Dwarves weren't appealing to Dwarves or Orcs and it was rare for one to survive past infancy but Kurz had a knack for surviving. His mother had called him a curse on her and the name had stuck, she tried to love him but it only went so far for a child that made her an outcast. She had died when he was young and since then he had brought himself up, before moving to the city where he drifted between jobs, guilds and taverns until he found himself here.

Dworn were blessed by an unworldly constitution, able to survive in the harshest of climates, under the most extremes of stress and pain they always emerged stronger and more bitter towards the world. Persecuted and hunted from town to town, hated by all they met it was a solitary life, those that survived into adulthood often became mercenaries or bounty hunters hunting those that would cast them out.

It was past midday when Kurz reached the city gates, he was able to make good pace on the roads, needing little to drink or eat as he focussed on getting to the city, only when he came to a halt at the gates did he realise he needed a drink. Taking a water skin out he took a long drink before pouring the rest of it over his shaven head. His head was covered in lumps and scars, wounds from countless battles,he had small tusks, much shorter than a common or hill Orc would have, rough stubble covered his chin, he would never get a full Dwarven beard but Dworn could grow them out to try to cover the face if they wanted to hide themselves more. His skin was was a leathery brown, a combination of the dark Orc skin, the pale Dwarven skin and years living in every climate known.

He noticed the local stables as he entered the city, the stable master and a young child looked over at him as he made his way in, the thatched roof of the house stretched and covered the stable itself, twelve horses stood in the stable including ten pure white mares, the sign of a Whiteblade presence in the city.

Dit Mere was an ancient city within the lands of Bruto, built hundreds of years ago upon the ruins of a long forgotten town. Streets winded and would suddenly stop and alleyways would loop around leading back onto themselves with no reason. One thing that stood Dit Mere out from other cities in the region however was the merchants. Being on the coast Dit Mere was a central trading port for different kingdoms, from the Gul to the North, to the Six Cities far across the ocean and south the Valun Khur, the Snakeman kingdom. Kurz knew that there would be merchants here but to get a good price he needed to find a specialist.

After an hour of walking through the city and asking locals Kurz eventually found his way to the Diamond District; a series of merchants all tightly packed together dealing in various gems and jewels. Kurz took the gem out the pouch, rubbed it on his jerkin and walked into the first shop.

Kurz could smell perfumed air as he walked into the shop, he passed two Automatons at the entrance that were on an eternal silent vigil. Kurz felt the tension in the air as patrons, all richly dressed stared at him, as he went  to the counter where an old man looked at him.

"We do not serve your kind here not leave before the Automatons force you out" the old man croaked

"I have an item of interest to you" Kurz brought out the gem showing it to the merchant

The old man coughed and quietly spoke "You either stole this or found it. What ever one it was you do not own it and I will not buy it and neither will anyone else in this city."

"This is worth a fortune!" Kurz hissed under his breath

The merchant spoke quietly and drew in closer to Kurz "And this is a Lich Gem and the Whiteblades will execute anyone that owns one and keep it for themselves"

"There must be a buyer somewhere!" Kurz replied

"I can arrange something for you. Go to the Sharksfin tavern tonight, I will send someone to you by dusk with an offer. Now go and do not be seen with that gem and do not draw any more attention to yourself half breed" the merchant whispered

Kurz stepped back, pocketed the gem and seeing the richly painted faces stare at him made his exit as he heard the old merchant claim he knew how to handle half breeds fine.

The tavern was thick with smoke and Kurz sat back on a chair, at least here nobody cared what he was and he drank from the mug of ale on the desk. He looked around and inhaled his pipe weed and thought over the day. He had tried other merchants in the diamond district but none of them would accept the Lich Gem despite his best efforts. He was blunt and straight forward, not used to buttering up merchants but even he was disheartened at the lack of interest. His ambition, his goal of living the life of a fat, drunk, spoilt Dworn had come crashing down and he had fallen back on the first option, the old merchant in the first store.

As the day darkened and the night came in Kurz drank and smoked. Close to midnight a hooded figure moved closer to the table and sat down beside Kurz, instinct made him place his hand at his side, ready to pull the black blade out at any moment before he recognised the old merchant beneath the hood.

"Give me good news or leave me be" said Kurz

"I have a buyer for you if that counts as good news" replied the merchant with a sly smile on his face "However.." the merchant quickly added "The buyer is not here. But in Valun Khur lands"

Kurz took two large mouthfuls of ale and a puff of his pipeweed and sat forward, his face directly at the merchants

"Why?" he asked

"You have a Lich Gem, half the city knows about it now, the Whiteblades are looking for a Dworn that has arrived in the city. And might I add on the the same day he arrives there are four murders on the Broken Way. You can either hold out for a better offer or you can get out this city and get somewhere that will buy it" the merchant replied

"The Valun Khur are at war with the Bruto, what would they want with a Lich Gem?" questioned Kurz

"You know very little of the power of these but there is a buyer. Ten thousand gold scales they offer" said the merchant

Kurz converted the offer in his head, it wasn't ideal but right now it was better than being put to the axe "It seems I don't have much of a choice right now" sighed Kurz as he realised the gravity of the situation “Who and where?”

“Can you read common asked the merchant and Kurz nodded.

The merchant stood up and passed over a parchment with the details on it before leavingquickly. Kurz finished his pipeweed and signalled for another ale, he sat back and thought the situation over. He would be smuggling both the gem and himself out the city, the Whiteblades would have the city on lock down by now so getting out wouldn't be as easy as he got in.

As the hours went passed Kurz finished off his pipeweed and had drank more than enough ale to knock a man unconscious for a week – another benefit of his constitution. He had a plan and now was the best time to take care of it. Throwing a copper bit down on the bar he paid for a torch to light his way through the night. Stepping into the darkness he lit it up on the embers left outside for patrons to use and as it burst into flame he caught sight of a pure white jerkin under a dark cloak on the opposite side of the street, the figure kept its head down but Kurz knew a Whiteblade when he seen one and started moving down the street quickly.

Full of zealotry the Whiteblades were dangerous foes, the law keepers of the Devout they searched out perceived troublemakers and sought to bring back artefacts for the Devout to use. Kurz ducked down an alleyway and came to a dead end, hearing the unsheathing of a blade behind him he turned to see two Whiteblades standing preventing his exit. Kurz grinned at them and reached into his pocket as they drew closer, throwing down three glass beads that shattered immediately spilling liquid on the ground he touched the torch onto the ground quickly and flames erupted immediately up. He looked back to the deadend and with the extra light seen a way up it, quickly scrambling and jumping up he could hear the shouts of the Whiteblades below him as he ran along the wall and jumped onto the rooftops. Kurz knew the light from the torch gave his position away clearly to the whole area but he had a plan in mind and kept on running over the rooftops as he seen more and more Whiteblades gather around shouting and screaming at Kurz as he made his way to the city walls and lept off the last rooftop and onto the city walls.

Kurz sprinted along them until he seen the gates below him,leaping off the walls into the darkness he fell onto the straw roofing of the stable and let go of the lit torch. Rolling off the roof and onto the ground he seen the building erupt into flames. Pulling his black blade out he ran back under the blazing roof where the horses were panicking and cut the rope around the halter of one of the horses and quickly mounted it, kicking his heels in the horse took off with Kurz on top. He looked behind him and seen the city gates open as the Whiteblades burst through before stopping unsure whether to save the horses, go after him or rescue the innocents trapped in the fire.

A child screaming for its parents was the last thing he heard as the horse galloped south... Sacrifices had to be made in this game of life thought Kurz and if it was the blood of innocents that fell in his way then it was to be. He started at the bottom of the pile and he knew one day he would rise from it to be known through the world.

Writing Challenge #2 The theme

Well it was set on Monday just past but I didn't get round to posting it.. The challenge we came up with (again we generate five random themes and pick one between us) is...

The theme of this story: epic quest. The main character: ambitious murderer. The start of the story: journey. The end of the story: smuggling.

Fun theme!

My first writing challenge

Whoops! Forgot to post this on Sunday but here it is anyway, my first writing challenge completed.

I know a few bits I'm not happy with (primarily a lot of repetition of 'realised') but I'll work on that, not aiming for a perfect story straight away, need to get myself back into writing shape first and these little practice runs are fun :) The formatting might also be a bit wonky (that's my term) but I wrote it in wordpad and it didn't copy/paste over correct

So to recap, the challenge was:

The theme of this story: epic conflict. The main characters: sickly manager and militant servant. The start of the story: natural disaster. The end of the story: insight.

And here is how it went...

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“EARTHQUAKE!” Davidson yelled as he ushered the last of the team into the protection modules. That was the last thing they needed right now as the sound of the PGI gunfire was heard as the building started to shake.

“Move Jim, come on! Don’t go back for anything!”

Davidson looked down the corridor and realised he was the last one left. The emergency evacuation handbook didn’t cover what would happen if the PGI attacked during an earthquake but he had to improvise, his team depended on him as the only manager in that day. The local news had predicted the earthquake would happen over the next couple of days so there was only a handful of staff in, enough to keep the paper work under control otherwise they’d be back in next week with the executives complaining at them from the safety of the bunkers.

As he was about to go through the door Davidson coughed and stumbled, that familiar taste of blood and mould told him he needed to take a tablet before the virus got worse. Checking his pocket he realised his tablets were in his suit jacket back in the office.

“Damn!” he cursed out loud, realising he had not taking his tablet this morning. He needed to get one within the next hour or he’d pass out. Realising there was a chance that the protection modules wouldn't have any tablets and the PGI keeping a presence in the zone would hinder rescue attempts he decided to run quickly back to his jacket to get one before meeting the rest of the team

The building trembled and he heard PGI soldiers as he ran down the corridor. It wasn’t far but the voices meant they were nearby and he hoped  they wouldn’t notice him Ducking between the desks he made his way toward his own but stopped short, there was something there, a massive, grey metal figure with a skull head. Davidson coughed and it turned around and looked directly at him. It was a CY-pher, a virtually unstoppable robot, designed and built by the PGI to put fear and terror in the free world.

The CY-pher stared directly at Davidson as it lifted a rifle, pointing the barrel at him.

## SCANNING TARGET… DX: NIL INO: CONFIRMED. ##

## SUBDUE TARGET ##

## INSTABILITY DETECTED IN BUILDING. EMERGENCY IMPACT SHUTDOWN INITATED ##

Then the floor collapsed.

Davidson rolled over, sitting up, dust and glass covered him. His body ached from the fall and he coughed up blood, the viron was getting worse and the last thing he remembered was the floor collapsing . Looking around he was trapped in the floor below, it looked like accounts but he wasn’t sure, the exits were blocked by rubble and the only way out was through a window, a sixty metre drop. His jacket was nowhere to be found, probably under rubble or still in the floor above. Looking over he seen the CY-pher lying there, its right arm torn off, caught under masonry. Then the eyes lit up an unholy red.

## BOOT SEQUENCE INITATED. HBx ACTIVE. WEAPONS INACTIVE. SUPPRESION: NOT AVAILABLE. STARTING EMERGENCY SUPPRESION… FAILED. RETRYING… FAILED…. ##

## EMERGENCY BEACON ACTIVE. EXPECTED EXTRACTION IN… 24 MINUTES. ##

## DAMAGE REPORT: SUPPRESION BACKUP INOPERABLE: RIGHT ARM: INOPERABLE. MINOR DAMAGE TO CHASSIS ##

## AMBIENT TEMPERATURE 18C. LOCAL TIME: 1147. POSITION L=56.11 -3.15 N=0.08 0.39 ##

Davidson looked at the CY-pher as it stirred then darted behind some rubble that had fallen and held his breath.

##  SQUAD STATUS… AR323: DECEASED AN029: DECEASED. DA112: DECEASED ##

The CY-pher stood upright and scanned the area. Beads of sweat formed on Davidsons forehead as he remained motionless, the taste of blood almost making him gag.

“Identify yourself” the CY-pher asked in a computerised voice.

Davidson remained silent, he knew he’d die here, murdered by the PGI.. Alone, away from his wife and kids. This was it, this was the end.

“Identify yourself” the CY-pher asked again.

Exhausted, Davidson exhaled and spat out the blood. Lifting his hands above his head he emerged from behind the masonry

“Please don’t hurt me PGI. I do not want to get involved in your war with us; I just want out of here and back to my family. Please let me go” Davidson pleaded

“I have no intention of hurting you. I simply asked you to identify yourself” replied the CY-pher

“Michael” Davidson replied “Michael Davidson… I work here… Invoices on the 8th floor” he dropped his arms and tasted the blood and mould.

“Where is research and development?” the CY-pher responded

“I.. Uhm.. I’m not sure.” Davidson hesitated and thought to himself”I think R&D moved to Sector 23/R a couple of months ago but we didn’t really see them they were on floor 12”

“Damn… What a waste, what an absolute waste of life” swore the CY-pher. Davidson looked at the robot and edged back, something wasn’t right about this ‘killing machine’.

“What are you?” he asked

“What do you think I am Michael Davidson?”

“A robot, programmed to kill anyone that falls under the WDA”

“I am not a robot and I will not kill you unless you attack me” came the metallic response

“So what are you then?” Davidson coughed, tasting that familiar blood and mould taste only this time it was stronger, much viler and he realised he had limited time left

## TARGET HEALTH DETERIORATING. VIRON INFECTION DETECTED. ##

“You have the viron?” the CY-pher asked

“No thanks to you PGI that dropped it on us. Innocents died that day PGI… My sister was one of them. I was caught in the infection fall out and now I’m going to die because of it. Your attack on innocents only resulted in us showing that we would never give in to your demands” Davidson snapped back

“That's what the WDA told you, what you wanted to hear.” Retorted the CY-pher

“I seen the planes. I seen the bombs. I seen the people dying and YOU.. Death bringer” Davidson spat “You might be a mass of metal and death sent to kill us and I might just be a manager here, sending out forms to barracks telling them they’ve spent too much on ammunition killing scum like you . But I was there CY-pher...” Davidson paused, getting his breath back as he leaned against the rubble, his head sinking.

“So was I.. I died there and I watched your government kill you ” the CY-pher said

“You don’t know...” Davidson lifted his head “ … what? You died there?”

“You wanted to know what I am. Then I can explain but first take your anti-Viron”

“I don’t have any… It’s in my jacket which was near you when it collapsed. Please, do you have any?”

The CY-pher looked around the rubble “No. How bad is it?”

“It's blooded, maybe ten minutes left”

The CY-pher paused for a moment.

“Then it will be too late. Even if the extraction team makes it here they won’t have anti-Viron”

Davidson  suddenly slumped to his knees and put his hands to his face crying.

“So this is it? This is how I die… I fell out with Linda.. My wife this morning, we had an argument and I forgot to take my tablet before I left the apartment. She didn’t want me to go in today, she was scared something would happen with the earthquake..  Linda.. I’m so sorry.. I’m so sorry” Davidson wept. “My kids… Harry and Thomas.. Daddy will be gone.. oh god.. no… “ he checked his pockets “I have a picture of them in my wallet but it’s in my jacket.. I’ll never see them again” Davidson sobbed, his shoulders shook, he retched and coughed hearing the CY-pher walk towards him.

“I know how you feel Michael. My family is lost to me as well” replied the CY-pher

“LIES! YOU’RE A MACHINE!” Davidson shouted

“Listen to me Michael. Accept what has happened, the world isn’t black and white, I’m no killing machine.. at least.. Not right now”

Davidson looked up, took his tie off and wiped his eyes and mouth with it.

“You’ve lost 'family' as well?” Davidson replied  “What is going on?”

“I was a man. I was there at the V-Battle when the viron bomb was dropped”

“So you admit at least you dropped a bomb and killed innocents?”

“I never denied we dropped the bomb. We warned the WDA of our attack, it had become the only way to save ourselves. Under four buildings in the zone were Hyper-Plasma rockets. They were being primed by your military to launch in two days towards us. They would have killed around two billion civillians had they struck. We realised the only way to prevent them being primed was to make the area uninhabitable. Communications went to the WDA telling them to evacuate the area but as the hours counted down we realised they were using civilians as a human shield. We tried to drop personal in to evacuate as many as we could but we were shot down. I was in a VTOL and we were shot down early in the engagement..”

Davidsons eyes glazed over and he took a minute, steadying himself “Then how are you..?”

“My body was dead. My brain was barely alive, drifting towards oblivion when a team moved in and recovered our bodies. We became part of a project, our brains placed inside what you see now to give the CY-phers the ability to learn and improvise. It was a success but many of us retained our memories and were driven insane, they had to be shut down and the brains destroyed .”

Davidson coughed violently, the CY-pher moved to steady him but he pulled his arm away “I can keep myself up PGI, but carry on”

"Eventually they discovered that we retained memories of our past and they developed suppressors that dulled our memory. Only when those were shut off or we were away from our unit did our memories begin to resurface and this is how I talk to you now. My unit is dead, the suppressor they carry most likely crushed and my internal suppressor must be damaged. I can remember faces of a woman, children and I know they are my family. Those that were taken from me because the WDA did not evacuate you”

 The CY-Pher continued “My name is Jake. Jake..  I cannot remember now.. My family will believe me dead and I would never let them see me like this even if I could return”

Davidson coughed up blood, and slumped to his side before rolling onto his back, his eyes were dilated and skin looked fatally pale.

Davidson quietly spoke “So we're dead to our families. Dead because of a war we had no control over, dead because both sides hate one another enough to put innocents at risk over selfish pride.”

## INCOMING SIGNAL. EXTRACTION UNIT INCOMING. 3 MINUTES ##

Davidson closed his eyes and Jake knelt beside him “I'm sorry about this war... I have three minutes left before the extraction team arrive and my memories become suppressed. I have an idea though, for you friend”

Davidson wearily opened his eyes and looked at him “Help me Jake”

“Speak a message to your wife, your children, I will record it and  I will get it to them when the suppression next weakens but tell me where you live ” Jake asked

“477 Sector 43/H. Linda. Harry. Thomas. I love you.” Davidson coughed. “Linda, remember our wedding day... Harry, remember the bonfires and laughter and Tommy think of us building those blocks together, to make the world a better place. I love you all” Davidson closed his eyes, his breathing slowed and black blood trickled from his mouth.

Jake held Davidsons head in his hand, overwhelming sadness and grief hit him as memories started to return.

“Ka.. Cl.. . My love... I need to remember you, to find you as well” his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of engines outside the building and the CY-pher staggered to its feet.

## EXTERNAL SUPPRESION DETECTED. UNAUTHORISED COMMUNICATION LOGS PRESENT IN SYSTEM. PREPARING TO DELETE... DELETING... CANCELLED. PREPARE FOR EXTRACTION ##

Two decades of PC Gaming (1990-2010)

Seen a post on Reddit featuring the best games from each year from 1990-2010 (http://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/1bo5ng/wanted_to_share_this_useful_chart_of_some_of_the/) and looking through it I realised just how brilliant a lot of those games were, and also just how many of them I already owned but never completed or really enjoyed playing. 

So it got me thinking about a challenge to myself (gah! another on including my writing which is almost done for this fortnight). I'm tempted to start back at 1990, pick a game from each year that I either really enjoyed and completed (Baldurs Gate 2), already own but never finished (VVVVV) or one I've heard good things about but never played (BioShock). Work my way through the years consecutively and have fun playing!

So looking through them all I've discovered there's only two years there where none of the top games I had completed but I've got at least one from each year so that will help the finances anyway and there's a couple of them I want to pickup at some point anyway (Baldurs Gate Enhanced) so could  be fun. It's not a timed challenge, just a.. "Well give it a shot" sort of one, no rush or pressure on it :) I'll post about it if I remember and even start the challenge but in the meantime have a browse through the games and see how many years you've played.

A writing challenge

Errr..wow, it's only been just over a year (again) since I last wrote anything here, odd how I always come back to this blog in March.. Hmmm. Anyway I figured while something was about to go down I may as well post about it.

You may, or may not already know I'm a wannabe aspiring writer..Yup, I'm not even at the aspiring stage yet however it can only go up..right? I have a hundred and one ideas for books (and computer games but that's another post) but but not enough boots to my arse to actually start properly.Now it just so happens that a good friend at work is in the same boat as me and we bounce ideas off each other a lot and it happened that on Monday we decided to set ourselves a challenge... A (very) short story every two weeks based on a random theme. It's only 2,000 words and it's a whole two weeks we have to write it, so it's absolutely manageable by even our slacker standards but this is what we need, a way to make a quick and fun story without it being a slog. At least to start with anyway.

So using a random generator over at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-writ.php I randomly made five and we chose one to base our stories on.. For our first challenge we picked...

The theme of this story: epic conflict. The main characters: sickly manager and militant servant. The start of the story: natural disaster. The end of the story: insight.

Idea has brewed in my head today so I'll get something down and for those that don't care I'll put it up for you to shake your head in my butchering of the English language :)

Why I won't buy Mass Effect 3

My stupid, stubborn, misguided, unreasonable principals have really stuck this one to me.

I really enjoyed Mass Effect 1 (well apart from the rubber space buggy) and Mass Effect 2 I felt was very well done although it felt a bit rushed towards the end and I was all looking forward to picking up ME3 at some point to continue the story but... I won't.

It's the EA 'store' Origin at fault for me. ME1 and 2 I purchased through Steam so I have nothing against online stores at all but since I use Steam I already have one good online store which also acts as DRM for those companies that insist on shoving it down our throats so why on earth do EA feel the need to force Origin upon everyone that just wants to play games. I put up with DRM on Steam with very limited patience and I refuse to install more bloatware that I need to register, setup accounts, remember log in details just to play one game because one company are so egotistical they claim they have millions of members when really it's only because people are being forced to use Origin if they want to play certain games not because they want to have a new online store.

So I vote with my wallet. EA won't miss my £35 and they won't change how they treat people that just want to play games because I rant about even more shit to install, run, register and keep a note of. I won't even buy it for my PS3... But it's my choice, it's my stupid, stubborn, misguided and unreasonable choice.

It lives...

Almost a year since my last post but decided it's time to get posting, if not regularly at least something that I can rant about for more than 140 characters... Stay tuned!

/AFK

Just a quick note to mention that I'm on a mini vacation this week so I wont get time to sit down and write a post until next weekend at earliest. I know updates have been sporadic at best over the last few weeks but life has been busy, combined with playing Rift it's not given me much chance to blog, although I do recommend following me on Twitter ( @slashbrb ) as I do have more time for a 140 character tirade!

/BRB in a week!

My first two weeks in Rift

Whitefall is full.

Well apart from that which has already had more than enough time being talked about how is my gaming in Rift going? Overall I'm still enjoying it, yes it's only two weeks but I'm finding enough to do, especially the achievements and collections which keep me occupied far more than it probably should do (much to the detriment of my level). I'll give it it's due though, I've found only a handful of bugs which I've reported and it does play very smooth.

I've done a fair chunk of warfronts (hard to stop when your faction is on a winning roll) as well as a whole one dungeon (I'm potentially one of the most introverted MMO players in the history of ever) which I tanked with no problems. Deepstrike Mines was quite fun as well, a nice level of time needed without it taking forever. Think it was maybe 30 minutes or so even though we were on the high end of the level requirements for it. It was completely pugged and everyone was very polite. Grimnir did a good post about it just now http://grimnir.mmofansites.com/posts/1949-mining-for-alien-gem-boss-things which pretty much sums up the same thing, only without wipes or anyone dying (we just nuked the unliving shit out of everything as I aoe tanked)

Which brings me onto something else. I've noticed that the community does seem very pleasant, helping out and offering advice when folks ask. Admittedly some people always give the sarcastic response or the rant in chat but certainly it seems less frequent than expected. Thumbs up!

The events which happen in zones were fun as well but they do get a bit repetitive after a while and I've only been to two zones, it's basically the same thing, kill xx invasions, close yy rifts and zerg a boss forgetting about tactics. On top of that it's very easy to get high contribution simply by spamming one button over and over. I've seen clerics just spam a 1.5 second heal on me over and over again despite taking no damage for the simple fact that if you don't do anything then contribution drops, fastest way is to simply spam one key... Disappointing I have to admit but I suppose everyone can do the same.

Looking at the quests there was a time in my mid 20's (level wise) where most quests were basically "kill xx mobs" which was a disappointment as there was some brilliant quests which kept me reading the text, I'm not sure if this is Defiant mainly but there does seem to be a high proportion of kill quests, maybe the fact that you get decent xp for killing mobs makes it not seem as bad and the xp noticeably moves makes it less troublesome for most but I'd like to see more variety.

Overall though the game is still holding my attention well and I'm fairly enjoying it, if I had more time to mess around in game I'd be trying out more specs though. I'm not rushing ahead (I can't.. I'm still 87th in the queue at 9pm after already being here 30 minutes) so I fully expect that by the time I'm even starting to look at level 50 content more stuff will be out.

Rifts dynamic events... Not so dynamic?

I recently rolled a new character on a shard that doesn't involve multi hour queues to actually get some play time in. I have to admit, having quests and mobs to myself is quite appealing and there's not been a single bit of bad mouthing on the region chat and people have been very nice and helpful. It's also weird being the first to complete a soul quest 4 days after the server went live but never the less I'm actually getting through the levels quicker than I was on a busier server.

All of last night while I was on I didn't see a single event happen which I figured was fair as there wasn't many on the server however about 30 minutes before the servers went down for the release of live an event started. Now what I noticed to start with compared to my previous server was that only one or two invasions got taken down before the first wardstone was destroyed. I actually took a second look as I went solo against a minor rift and noticed that the victory conditions were exactly the same for part one on a server with very low population as they were on a server that's reached capacity.

I thought that the actual events were dynamic in that they adjusted themselves to the number and level of players but apparently it doesn't seem to be that way. I did a quick /who freemarch and this was the result (keep in mind that as far as I know there's no /anon)....

Really not enough players on to combat an invasion and we didn't, the server took down two or three invasions and a rift before the event failed. Now while I'm not overly bothered it does give me subtle hints that the events aren't as dynamic as believed. Whether they're also on a timer for spawning rather than pure population in areas I'm not sure but there certainly wasn't enough folk in the zone to successfully run the event since it's the same one that 10x the number of folks have to do on a busy server. It's interesting to see though just how events will occur when the population starts maturing on the server to the stage that there's little to no new players running through the early zones.

Rifts biggest flaw right now

And while it may not be a game breaker it's certainly impacting the level of enjoyment of the game...

Server Queues

I had this discussion on twitter a couple of days back but I fail to understand why Trion aren't cloning the busiest servers thus giving the players and guilds who are now established a choice of server (Whitefull) to play on without a huge upheaval process. For example right now the guild I'm in (and have been in since early days of Warhammer) is sitting multiple high 40's that will ding 50 today and many folks now 20 and above. That is a lot of time and effort especially for people like myself that aren't very grindy players (I have played three days and got to 22 due to my habit of running off and doing rifts, events and just exploring). I've seen Freemarch countless times already from beta and I am not sure I can face seeing it all over again, trying to collect artifacts and complete achievements.

Now I know getting to 22 isn't the hardest but I'm also tied in with the guild who are loathe to move now we have a high level core that will be jumping into the experts very shortly and as each day passes the chance of the guild rerolling lessens.

I don't understand why Trion don't just clone say Whitefall and let the players make the choice. The newest server that opened remained on low population all day for EN PVP for the reason that people don't want to reroll. I know people that are now onto the third server. Opening empty servers doesn't solve the queue problem if guilds/players have established themselves. Giving players a choice of server with the same characters and guilds on would do more to lessen the queues than anything else.

Minecraft dreams...

Minecraft is a wonderful little game, appealing to my sense of exploration and creation. I have spent hours just digging out tunnels and wandering the landscape however as each patch passes with it the game seems to step away with what I hope it would become. This is no slight on the developers but simply my own wishes for the game. So without further ado I'd like to mention the 'stuff' I'd love to see in Minecraft. A lot of this is based on Dwarf Fortress which was a part of the inspiration for the game and while I don't want to see a 3d block based DF, in my own personal wish list I'd love to see more aspects of it come together. Really though, a lot of this would have to be a completely separate game mode, a 'Fortress' mode I guess :)

1) Reward the explorer

So far in Minecraft there's very little reason to go exploring other than "because you can" and while I love exploring "because I can" I can't help but feel a little bit more enticement to go outside your spawn point would be nice. Pumpkins are a nice touch but lets add more things that spawn above ground to find, whether it's rare plants, exposed minerals, wood etc, I'm sure there's more that could be found. It doesn't even have to be useful.. Just something to find and collect.

2) Reset your spawn point

So if you do find somewhere awesome and would love to setup base there you pretty much can't due to the spawn point being static. Let us craft something requiring a lot of materials or rare stuff to actually let us rebind a spawn to a new location (must be above ground and must have no blocks above it)

3) Able to MAKE a living world

Dwarf Fortress was a small inspiration to the game but part of DF was that it became a living and breathing world, you'd need to grow crops, dig ore, defend the fortress and make it so it would become a central place to live for other Dwarves... I'd love to be able to trade ore I found to passing merchants and build up something which would come alive after you establish it as a potential colony... Maybe there's even other fortresses out there to work with.

4) The goblin horde

Or any underground horde really.. Ratmen, Orcs, spider people... Imagine creating your fortress and then you end up digging into a cavern to unleash a swarm of dangerous mobs. Maybe an army will show up and try to assault the front of your mine/fortress structure etc, destroying blocks until they're defeated, even better if it works with NPC allies :)

5) Stone Carving

You're still limited to blocks really, I'd love to be able to make proper carvings in the stone to decorate my mines and forts. Whether Dwarven runes or Orcish glyphs, I'd like to be able to tell a story in the walls.

6) More mobs

Lets be honest, it's pretty limited.. I think it'd be great having more mobs in the game (such as the above mentioned) and things such as giants, Merfolk, polar bears etc. I know there's mods to allow more mobs but to actually have a proper collection in game would be great. You could even turn off set mobs in the world generator if you don't want to put up with certain types.

7) Trading posts

So if you have an excess amount of ore or gems, why not be able to trade it for other materials? Even 100 wool could be traded for one block of gold ore for example. This potentially would work more in conjunction with the living world aspect, once you establish a colony you can get trade posts setup.

8) More ore types

I actually remember this from my good old Ultima Online days.. Mining and finding shadow, agapite, verite and valorite ore.. All different rarities with different properties. Would love to be more ore, whether fantastical or not which has more benefit than just colour and durability

9) History to the world

You're meant to be on an unexplored world (I think). Who is to say it's completely unspoiled? Maybe we could find ruins, ancient mines (leading to dragons!), abandoned structures or graves. I know we have dungeons but lets increase the variety of 'man made' objects in the world that can be found. 

10) More world themes

The biomes are great but I'd love to generate a pure desert, volcanic, ashland, swamp or other terrain types just to spice things up a bit.

As you can tell it's all pretty 'RP' type stuff but that's just how my mind works really. I'm sure a lot of this is available as mods but you'd need to combine them to get a Fortress mode. I'm hopeless at the redstone stuff, I just don't understand it, so it's wasted on me sadly and while it's incredibly cool I just can't get my head around it. So that's my wishlist.. Maybe one day we'll see Fortcraft.. or Minefort.. In the meantime I'm keeping my eyes on a little game called Survivors of Ragnarok (more about this another day).

Skyrim Screenshots

Bethesda put some screenshots that first appeared in print online. You can see them here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/sets/72157626024834946/show/

I have to admit it looks gorgeous. I'm a huge fan of Nordic themes in games (yeah I was Midgard in DAoC) so the look of the game is making me feel all fuzzy and warm inside.. Potentially that's the berserker rage building mind you. The final shot of a Nord warrior type in full outfit looking up looks amazing. And in fact.. Yup, it's my new background now! Oblivion was one of those games I never finished due to getting distracted by everything else I could do so I missed out a lot on the story which is a shame. However it's one of my top games still and I love sandbox games which also have a story for you to follow. I am going to finish Oblivion before Skyrim and in fact with two weeks left until Rift is released I really have no excuse not to spend some time on it now.

Right now though it's my number one awaited game for 2011 and something that will make me lose more than a few hours. I just need to retain some focus and actually play the story rather than letting my explorer side kick in and run off to the first mountain I can find to climb up it.

If I'd been a producer of Warhammer Online I would have....

.... probably been a fairly bad one.

But it doesn't stop me making up random stuff that I wish I'd seen in my time in WAR. I fully understand that there is different priorities in MMO development than just adding new stuff or clicking fingers and suddenly all the bugs being fixed so it's not overly realistic.

1) Daily RvR Quests: Dump the scenario quests, the capture bo/keep quests etc. Instead replace them with a daily "Do a scenario", "Capture a BO", "Capture a keep" and a "Kill 50 players in ORvR or Scenarios". Reward would be some gold, XP and renown. This gives players who may not be able to put as much time in a quick way to get a little bit of renown without having to burn hours in a zerg. Can be repeated daily so gives folks a reason to log in even for 20 minutes each day.

2) Career and Mirror Patches: Every three months a patch would be primarily dedicated to a class and its mirror (BO/SM, WE/WH, WP/DoK etc). Solicit feedback from the forums and blogs over class concerns, not just core testers and be honest in communicating with the class, there was so many nerfs that were not given a reason for (still waiting for the reason for removal of the BOrc anti detaunt). Say this is why things are being removed, or why things aren't being changed, understand concerns and put together a list.. first 3 weeks or so can be getting feedback, a few weeks of dev work then a month of focus testing.. I'm sure those players who are interested in the career would put the effort in to help. Players would also know that they would get fixed, changes and attention.. I waited two and a half years for BOrc changes, all I got was no communication and nerfs about the class.

3) Survey System: Back in closed beta there were surveys that popped up regarding the game. Why not bring them back upon log in or in a window that you can opt in for surveys. Get instant feedback which can be controlled easier, can return information about class/gear/level etc much quicker and more reliable than sifting through forum posts. Not everyone reads forums, but every player plays the game...

4) A serious look at Land of the Dead: So much potential, just abandoned now due to game stopping bugs and other changes in the game. It's almost inconceivable that a fairly straight forward 8 boss dungeon can still be completely broken at various points 18 months after it was released. It doesn't look good and has left a bitter taste in a lot of players mouths, there should have been proper rewards for fighting in there, not measly scarabs or shit talismans, heck there could have even been an influence system built in but nope... It got launched, a few fixes and tweaks then dumped and forgotten about, left to rot under a swarm of bugs.

5) Expanding influence system: It wouldn't have taken much (I assume) but expanding the influence system and properly itemising a lot of the loot to generate new content would have been a fairly straight forward way to in effect give RvR content... In PvE raid games you simply repeat killing monsters to gain better loot, so why not keep finding ways to give more loot for killing? It didn't even need to be equipment, how about cosmetic items, mounts, titles etc? Lots of potential there rather than three bars of influence and the gear is pretty useless now anyway.

6) Lairs and Bastion Stair/Gunbad instances: Without a doubt it was much more fun doing warbands in an instance rather than a few people, make them scale depending on number of people in the instance. Not to mention Lairs were incredibly cool but completely neglected and the loot makes them not worth anything more than a potential unlock and certainly not worth the effort in trying to find things to activate them (only for it to bug out and not work anyway)

I could potentially go on for a while but I won't as I'm getting into the realms of a wish list rather than honest thoughts... It's things I'd like to see, all 6 would make me consider subbing back, but I also know that MMO development doesn't work this way.... Oh well.

Sorry stun locks, we should just be friends now...

It's not you, it's me... I just don't think I'm compatible with you anymore. I understand that you appeal to some people with your ability to nullify skill by turning a player into basically an AFK kill but that attitude means you'll never have a place in my heart when you don't realise that you are potentially the worst PvP mechanic to ever feature in a game where you get player against player combat...

/breakup

Seriously though, as I've gotten up the levels in Rift (still no higher than 20 though, I don't want to ruin too much) I have had the misfortune of coming up against more and more stun lock classes. I honestly thought I'd given this shit up in WoW. Does ANYONE apart from the guy doing it at that moment actually enjoy this mechanic and feel it presents a decent form of play? How about take some of the big FPS games like Call of Duty or Quake and see how much players would react to a gun that if it hits you once in the back you can't do anything for 4-6 seconds.. Would it be fun? Fuck no. So why do MMO developers constantly feel the need to add what's known as stun locks into a game? It shows no sense of skill to perform since it requires basic memory to remember the combination to press and if they fuck it up then 9 times out of 10 the stunlock class has a form of quick get away so you can't even teach the little bastard a lesson since they run away depriving you of achievement you got in avoiding his combo-cooldownpop-stunlocks only for him to wait until everything is off cooldown and do the same shit again to you or someone else.

For the love of sanity though, get rid of this shit and stop taking the game out of players hands, let them fight and defend with skill rather than locking a player out.

(Yes I am bitter, yes I am getting more and more pissed off with this in MMO's and in Rift and yes I will be looking at this PvP soul more now...)

/thank Andy Belford

Andy Belford, the community dude for BiowareMythic announced his departure for pastures new (or rather west) yesterday via Twitter.

I've had the fortune to be able to communicate with Andy numerous times and even had the luck of him being able to sort out some GamesDay UK tickets for me (which unfortunately due to some bad timing I had to bail on) so I feel justified in naming him a top notch bloke! So does going west to work in community management mean going to Rift, City of Heroes or something else entirely? Hmmm... I wonder... ;)

So where does this leave Warhammer Online right now? Well with Andy not being a developer although the key figure with Player/Dev interaction it leaves an obvious hole in communication. Now comms has been an issue since December with Mythic so here's hoping that they get the new community manager in place rapidly for the Warhammer players. James Nichols though is still on board and although he tends to focus more on the UO/DAoC side of things (I believe) I'm sure he'll be able to fill in until Mythic get things sorted.

So with WAR getting a new producer (gz James Casey, another top bloke) as well as a new community manager.... dude.. person... type thing... There comes an aura of expectation which I have to admit has peeked my curiosity in WAR again however I'll be holding off until summer into the autumn as promised to myself (unless Rift happens to be a total dive) to get a decent break to re-energise it for me.

So once more Andy. /thank for your time and effort and even the posting back on Mmmmm Gud and twitter posts... Yer a gud git!

Keeping my feet on the ground for Rift

It's no surprise I'm waiting on Rift being launched however I'm waiting for it with a sense of caution. Not that it's a bad game, I'm sure it will do well but I'm not getting carried away in the hype that's being carried by the players and media. I'm keeping both feet firmly on the ground and even though I'm pre ordered the game, I'm not expecting miracles, I'm not expecting the most fabulous MMO since Sliced Bread Online but what I will do is play it under my own terms. I feel sorry for Trion in some regards, the MMO community have now managed to hype the game up without much poking from Trion themselves and yet should it not turn out to be what the community thinks who will get lambasted for it? Not the players.

I'm already reading and hearing about folks in the guild looking for world firsts (not even server firsts) and I'm sitting here thinking "Y'know.. How about playing the game first?". Obviously my main concern is that I fully intend to take my time and not rush the game but with the risk I'll be left way behind and abandoned for any raids (meh). Added to that I'm very much aware that if people are intending to burn through to level 50 within a couple of weeks or so and then gear up for raids and burn through them could we see people having run through most of the game within the first two months or so? If people have will Trion be able to react to make sure there's content for players or can they slow down progression for the people racing ahead?

Ach, going off on a bit of a tangent there but even though I limited myself to level 20 in beta (I don't want to ruin the game completely) and purposely didn't read the quests so I could enjoy the storyline when I play for real I still found myself sitting a few times going "Meh...." and logging out because there wasn't a whole lot there other than a standard grind to 50. Now this will change when it's live but there's a few things that niggle me about Rift that I can't quite put my finger on. So far we've seen from alpha patch notes that have been leaked that Trion are quick to react and make changes but as I've said in the past this is all fine in a beta development phase, wait until live and it's a whole different kettle of fish (where the hell does that saying come from anyway..seriously.. fish.. kettle... wtf). We also have to keep in mind that as a game matures in time people find more and more potent and the easiest ways forward, see the optimum raid setups in WoW or the bomb squads in WAR, once these things are found the developers have to be very quick to make sure it's well within the balance of the game.

We'll see how things go anyway, though as the title of the post goes I'm going to keep my feet firmly on the ground. Maybe I just have 'experience' in being an MMOldie and seeing a lot of launches and watching as the community over hypes a game only to fall upon it with daggers when it's not living up to the expectations the very same players decided on. Either way, come November when the first batch of 6 month subs run out we'll get a better picture of how the game will be doing. It's wrong to judge a game not only in Beta but the first couple of months of live, but after then the studio needs to be very quick to keep momentum going.