Recent events

Well, as it is I have decided to update the blog.  I'm dreadfully sure I don't get many readers, but what the heck. I'm not doing much else.  So, what kinds of gaming have I been exposed to recently? Well mainly League of Legends Which for those of you who don't know is a tower defense type game based off of Dota (Defense of the Ancients).

My experience with this game has been a fairly good one. I consider myself a casual player, I don't play ranked games often. The main perk for me is that this is a free game. I don't need to spend money on it unless I want to. The people who spend all kinds of money on the game have no more real advantage to those who don't. The main perk of spending money on the game is being able to wear alternative costumes for the champion you play in game. Which is indeed pretty cool.

Aside from LoL I have played some Duke Nukem Forever. Which was exactly as ridiculous as I had hoped for. I was not looking for some ingenious shooter with revolutionary graphics and gameplay. I wanted the badass Duke of my childhood with better graphics. That's what I got.

Also recently I picked up an older game called Sanitarium. It is dark and deranged. It seems to be the thoughts of a man's mind with him taking various forms while combating his imagination and past. Sometimes literally. I rather enjoy it. It makes me think about dreams and how nightmares can spawn from the most normal of things. crazy.

I think that's it for recent events. I'm still excited about Diablo III (Duh) and hope that it comes out in 2011 sometime. There is also the matter of my D&D campaign which is going into its 3rd year.  The group is on the brink of finishing the campaign with the epic conclusion at hand. If things go well and we are able to defeat the demonic wizard, there should only be one or two more serious encounters left.  Then hopefully we can usher our characters into retirement. With the alternative being death... Let's see how the dice roll.  

Recent events

A look into the world of gaming

YPSILANTI Mich- Nine people sit around a large black table; there is a large dry erase board with miniatures on it. These represent their characters, which are about to do battle with a great evil. There are several sets of dice at hand, and these will allow them to fight the tyrant in this scenario.

“So, you have decided to finally confront me? “ The lithe human woman said, her fiery hair flowing in the breeze. “There is no such foolishness as that of some dwarves and a few humans it seems.” With that she took a run forward, “You will all BURN!” As she transformed into her true self, a large red dragon, she let loose a jet of blue and red flames. This was followed by a human warrior charging through the flames, heedless of the odds. His head was split in two by the large razor sharp barb on the end of the dragon’s scaled tail. This battle was just beginning.

A look into the world of gaming

What's with the dice?

YPSILANTI, Mich – Graham Bennett, an Eastern Michigan University Alumni, has recently been introduced into the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Although his first experience was over a year ago, he has grown from a N00b (a new player) into a significantly more advanced player who DMs (dungeon masters) as well as still plays regularly.

Although Graham has been a gamer, so to speak, as soon as he had the fine motor skills to operate a Super Nintendo controller almost twenty years ago, he has only recently been involved in tabletop RPGs (role playing games). “My thought on the game (Dungeons and Dragons) was that of nervousness, I didn’t know what to expect and I did not want to give into that schema,” Bennett said. This schema which he was referring to was that of the stereotypical “Nerd” who plays these types of games, and is looked down on for what they do.

“I was not particularly worried about any kind of demonic influences, like some people seem to be,” Bennett said. “I knew that wasn’t the problem. I was worried of how people would act toward me once they knew I played.” Although he was somewhat apprehensive of this stereotype, he decided to give it a shot.

What's with the dice?

Magic: The Gathering tournament at local comic shop

YPSILANTI Mich- Where is it you can test your powers as an arcane wizard and summon creatures to do your bidding and then defeat the enemy wizard on the field of battle? This can be done at Stadium Cards and Comics, on Golfside in Ypsilanti Michigan every Wednesday. There is a hosted Magic: The Gathering tournament held for anyone who wants to try their hand at one of the most competitive TCGs (trading card games) around.

Magic: The Gathering, for those not familiar, was invented by math professor Richard Garfield and was introduced by Wizards of The Coast in 1993. It is extremely popular today and is still growing; the players at “Stadium” as it is referred to by locals are looking forward to the new set of cards called The Rise of Eldrazi. This will unveil some hundred or so new cards and create new “Standard” play, which generally means the cards which are currently new.

Magic: The Gathering tournament at local comic shop

Local Dungeons and Dragons group meets on the third floor of the student center

YPSILANTI, Mich- For this event I covered a Dungeons and Dragons game with live tweets during their session which ran for about 2 and a half hours. This lead to nearly eighty tweets. Feedback is always welcome, please excuse the minor errors during the tweets.

Local Dungeons and Dragons group meets on the third floor of the student center

Test for Twitterfeed / D&D session next week

Here is my test for Twitterfeed.

Also, I will be posting live tweets during a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) session around 7 next Monday. If you are interested, tune in and check it out.

Test for Twitterfeed / D&D session next week

Blog Introduction

An introduction to my blog Alternate Parallel


My reflections on video as a form of digital media.
First off, I will begin this with saying that I now have an extremely high respect for anchor men and women who broadcast the news. It is a lot more work than it looks like. With the help of a friend I was able to film this in about an hour. It took significantly more time to upload the video, due to some problems with windows vista.

Once the video was uploaded onto a computer which had both the visual components to run the clip, as well as the audio. we began editing. This did not take as long however with some simple tools from windows movie maker it was easy enough to edit the clip so it was not all bad.

We then uploaded the video to both Yahoo video and Youtube. Yahoo video is not the best form of hosting, so we went with the Youtube clip. It was from there that I adjusted the size of the video slightly to make it fit this window. Also located to the right is another video. This was added easily using the HTML gadget and taking the code from Youtube.

As a whole, this project was beneficial. Unlike the audio assignment, I think uploading video is more practical and easier to do.

Blog Introduction