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It has begun...
May. 12th, 2003 03:53 amWell, tonight I took the first small step in getting my apartment into a state vaguely resembling organized. As I mentioned, on my birthday my family got me some steel-and-particle board shelving. I finally got around to seriously putting some of it to use... to get things started, I'm moving items from the coffee table, couch, etc. onto the shelves. There's a vertical shelf on one side of the room[1], and the same model of shelf in the 'workbench' configuration just inside and to the right of the main entrance to the apartment.
So I've started moving things onto the shelves... books and comics onto one side, everything else onto the other. It's not going to be a permanent sorting yet. It's to just get items off of objects like the piano and endtables and such, and from there I can figure out where I want everything. And if I actually have stuff separated into two groupings, I can find things easier for more specific sorting purposes. At some point I plan on getting the living room cleaned out, and from there I'll have space to put things while I sort the massive piles of junk in my bedroom. And then I'll eventually get some of that stuff loaded onto another shelf I'll put into my bedroom. So far, this seems to be a perfectly satisfactory plan. I will likely screw it up nicely when the time comes. ;)
And now for some rambling...
As a few of you know, I'm a 'Magic: the Gathering' player. I'm a casual player, what the hardcore players classify as a Johnny.[2] People have picked up and dropped the game in recent years, and I myself quit playing for a while, only slipping back in for brief moments up until the Odyssey set came out. Then I started seriously playing again. In particular, I've rather enjoyed the Onslaught block. It's designed for casual players like myself-- except for a few cards, the pro/'Spike' players haven't had much with which to build "Win in 3 turns" decks. There's a slight problem, though.
The game is dominated by Spikes. This is the sort of thing that's turned a number of players off to the game. I imagine that's why they came out with a more casual-oriented set, to try and offset that. Here's where the problem sets in... like the term 'Spike' unintentionally suggests, the Spikes have the game pinned down. I was working on an Onslaught Block deck... I don't have the card pool to creatively stand up to Type 2 (let alone Extended), and I particularly want to build a deck with primarily Onslaught cards as a base.
Well, I wanted to build a deck like this at one point. But I noticed something at the local card store... no Onslaught Block tourneys (unless they're Limited, which means Booster Draft or Sealed Deck). And it occurred to me what the problem was-- there are so many Spikes around here (and Spikes, in general, don't bother with the Onslaught cards) that the local tourney organizers don't want to run Onslaught Block Constructed because the majority of the local players wouldn't want to play unless they really got something out of it. There's not much point in me finishing the deck if I'm probably never going to get to play it.
What it comes down to is even when Wizards tries to direct parts of the game for the casual players, then we get screwed over even more because the tournament organizers have to cater to the Spikes to keep up the tourney attendance. It was this realization (which came to me a while ago, I'll point out-- I'm only just now complaining about it here while I'm posting anyhow) that actually led me to email Mark Rosewater and ask him if he'd seen that sort of reaction coming. He hasn't responded yet, so we may never know. Thing is, I can't even get myself excited over Scourge, the last set in the Onslaught block. That's how bad it's gotten.
But I'm definitely considering giving up the game for something a bit more to my tastes, like L5R. I'll stick with the game up until the first set of the new block, Mirrodin, before I decide one way or the other. Of course, L5R is hardly perfect-- it has its own share of problems (there has been a lot of arguing and bitching in the game, concerning how the Koteis are behind handled, story-wise, but I won't get into that here unless anyone really wants to hear it). But it really isn't hit nearly as hard by the same problems Magic has. The player-developer connection is a lot closer than it is with Magic... on an L5R mailing list, you can ask a rules question and have it answered within a day or two. Alderac Entertainment Group actually notices and encourages things like fan fiction from time to time (that's how they got their two main Story Guys, Shawn Carman and Rich Wulf).
Of course, there aren't any stores around here that deal with L5R, but I'll be working on that-- I've gotten emails full of suggestions on how to increase interest in L5R in an area, and I definitely know it's possible to 'convert' part of a playing population to the game. That's something I definitely plan on doing (or at least trying).
And speaking of L5R, I'd just like to point out that the bounty I referred to before has been earned... the one with the kimono and other stuff, not the big mess of cards.
[1]-- For those, well, one of you who has seen my apartment that reads it (unless my RL friends are reading this and I don't know about it, which I doubt), it's in the far corner from the front door to the apartment; right next to that window over there. Unfortunately, it means I have to find a new place for my Counterclock.
[2]-- There are three basic classifications of Magic players. First you have 'Timmy', who lives for the sole purpose of unleashing gigantic monsters onto the tabletop. Then, you have 'Johnny', who lives to do really cool, interesting stuff with decks. And then you have 'Spikes', who are in it purely for the win (and, 99% of the time, for the cash and prizes that come with winning). And then there are combinations of those three basic categories. If you're a Magic fan, you can find out what sort of player you are here.
So I've started moving things onto the shelves... books and comics onto one side, everything else onto the other. It's not going to be a permanent sorting yet. It's to just get items off of objects like the piano and endtables and such, and from there I can figure out where I want everything. And if I actually have stuff separated into two groupings, I can find things easier for more specific sorting purposes. At some point I plan on getting the living room cleaned out, and from there I'll have space to put things while I sort the massive piles of junk in my bedroom. And then I'll eventually get some of that stuff loaded onto another shelf I'll put into my bedroom. So far, this seems to be a perfectly satisfactory plan. I will likely screw it up nicely when the time comes. ;)
And now for some rambling...
As a few of you know, I'm a 'Magic: the Gathering' player. I'm a casual player, what the hardcore players classify as a Johnny.[2] People have picked up and dropped the game in recent years, and I myself quit playing for a while, only slipping back in for brief moments up until the Odyssey set came out. Then I started seriously playing again. In particular, I've rather enjoyed the Onslaught block. It's designed for casual players like myself-- except for a few cards, the pro/'Spike' players haven't had much with which to build "Win in 3 turns" decks. There's a slight problem, though.
The game is dominated by Spikes. This is the sort of thing that's turned a number of players off to the game. I imagine that's why they came out with a more casual-oriented set, to try and offset that. Here's where the problem sets in... like the term 'Spike' unintentionally suggests, the Spikes have the game pinned down. I was working on an Onslaught Block deck... I don't have the card pool to creatively stand up to Type 2 (let alone Extended), and I particularly want to build a deck with primarily Onslaught cards as a base.
Well, I wanted to build a deck like this at one point. But I noticed something at the local card store... no Onslaught Block tourneys (unless they're Limited, which means Booster Draft or Sealed Deck). And it occurred to me what the problem was-- there are so many Spikes around here (and Spikes, in general, don't bother with the Onslaught cards) that the local tourney organizers don't want to run Onslaught Block Constructed because the majority of the local players wouldn't want to play unless they really got something out of it. There's not much point in me finishing the deck if I'm probably never going to get to play it.
What it comes down to is even when Wizards tries to direct parts of the game for the casual players, then we get screwed over even more because the tournament organizers have to cater to the Spikes to keep up the tourney attendance. It was this realization (which came to me a while ago, I'll point out-- I'm only just now complaining about it here while I'm posting anyhow) that actually led me to email Mark Rosewater and ask him if he'd seen that sort of reaction coming. He hasn't responded yet, so we may never know. Thing is, I can't even get myself excited over Scourge, the last set in the Onslaught block. That's how bad it's gotten.
But I'm definitely considering giving up the game for something a bit more to my tastes, like L5R. I'll stick with the game up until the first set of the new block, Mirrodin, before I decide one way or the other. Of course, L5R is hardly perfect-- it has its own share of problems (there has been a lot of arguing and bitching in the game, concerning how the Koteis are behind handled, story-wise, but I won't get into that here unless anyone really wants to hear it). But it really isn't hit nearly as hard by the same problems Magic has. The player-developer connection is a lot closer than it is with Magic... on an L5R mailing list, you can ask a rules question and have it answered within a day or two. Alderac Entertainment Group actually notices and encourages things like fan fiction from time to time (that's how they got their two main Story Guys, Shawn Carman and Rich Wulf).
Of course, there aren't any stores around here that deal with L5R, but I'll be working on that-- I've gotten emails full of suggestions on how to increase interest in L5R in an area, and I definitely know it's possible to 'convert' part of a playing population to the game. That's something I definitely plan on doing (or at least trying).
And speaking of L5R, I'd just like to point out that the bounty I referred to before has been earned... the one with the kimono and other stuff, not the big mess of cards.
[1]-- For those, well, one of you who has seen my apartment that reads it (unless my RL friends are reading this and I don't know about it, which I doubt), it's in the far corner from the front door to the apartment; right next to that window over there. Unfortunately, it means I have to find a new place for my Counterclock.
[2]-- There are three basic classifications of Magic players. First you have 'Timmy', who lives for the sole purpose of unleashing gigantic monsters onto the tabletop. Then, you have 'Johnny', who lives to do really cool, interesting stuff with decks. And then you have 'Spikes', who are in it purely for the win (and, 99% of the time, for the cash and prizes that come with winning). And then there are combinations of those three basic categories. If you're a Magic fan, you can find out what sort of player you are here.
