Dat Archive

Struggled a bit today, stressful day at work, may have pounded down a couple of 20oz Dew's, but I took some measures this evening to provide myself with some more healthy options at work. In my case that mostly just means smaller portions or low cal snacks. Ok, mostly it's about portion control. I do not eat the most healthy of foods, I'm very picky.

I still took the stairs and I'm headed to the gym to do a 30 minute session on the elliptical before I head out to pick up my gal from work.

I am reading an entry today on the Galactic Archive. It was posted Sep 26, 2012. It looked like a biggin, so I set it apart from other entries.

These game features get me pretty excited. I love the story of a game. The why things are and projecting the possibilities. I do this when I read and when I watch TV and Movies. Just last night I was watching The Amazing Spiderman for the first time and I saw they used Gwen Stacy. With my knowledge of Spiderman Cannon and story telling mechanisms I started calculating the probability of her surviving the movie. By the final sequence I'd figured it out, but they did a great job throwing in elements to throw off the trail for people who were familiar with the comic history.

When I played SWTOR I read codex entries as they populated. I read the books that are sitting on chairs in Warcraft. I am frustrated that in GW2 the scouts only tell the story of the region if you haven't completed the renowned heart(s) they are talking about. Sometimes I'd like to just go back and get a refresher, and in some cases the heart itself wasn't clear on the story. What did putting those tools away really mean? Are these guys lazy, or is something going on? Hey Telescope guy, what's the story? -- "Thanks for your help." he says.

Having a permanent record of story that I can open up and flip through at any time is cool and a fun game element to seek the pieces of. They note that the Scientist Path has greater access to the archive Which is interesting for the player seeking to learn more about the game world, but it raises a question about the value of that information. For an Explore having the ability to access secret areas on the map with resources the value is apparent as well as the game play. For the Settler, being able to construct and enhance quest hubs also conveys a pretty clear value. Soldiers can hunt unique monsters which one could assume carries with it a reward. But for the scientist, accessing information that will be available on a wiki within a couple of months of launch, I hope there is some sort of expression of this knowledge that has an effect for the character.

The Blog entry itself has a list of entry categories and a sample of the interface. Tomorrow I'm going to touch on 3 Uplinks that seem unlikely to generate too many words...but I sometimes surprise myself with the things I end up caring about.