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Sunday, May 30 2010

Vote to help find a good name for GameTable?

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, May 30 2010, 09:22

I've been planning to come up with my own version of GameTable - now called OSU-gt - for a while.

I've actually ended up joining the dev team, but at this time, our objectives do not seem to be compatible. I planned an architectural redesign the whole thing - mainly to allow third party plugins, update to latest technology and potentially plug in a better graphics engine. They are working on stabilizing what they already have to push out a 2.0 version. They don't seem to have enough time on their hands to really look over what I plan to do.

I'm not "mr. Free Time" either, so I hate spending what time I had spare for this project on waiting to get my ideas approved... so I decided I'll branch my version out and see what happens. More details on my short-term objectives later on.

Right now, I need a name for the project.

Update

I've had an interesting offer from the OSU-gt team. Maybe I won't branch out after all :)

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Sunday, January 17 2010

What the future holds

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, January 17 2010, 09:18

Wow are things slower than slow around here!

People who know me in the net might have noticed my prolongated absence these last few weeks (or have they been months?)

Lots of stuff happening in real life slowing this end of my activity spectrum. A large chunk of it is my mom's cancer diagnostic and the preparation for the treatments (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) that are to start in a few short weeks.

While my DnD playing has just about stopped (my regular group has been tougher to gather), my love of board games has been rekindled.

I have also had the pleasure to be invited as a regular player to a game of Star Wars RPG by Franky (one of ChattyDM's buddies) and had the pleasure to be invited at their table during a "Geek Out Day".

"Geek Out Day" came not too long about I learned about my mother's condition and was a very welcome event - I absolutely loved the games I played (Chinatown got to be on my "to buy" list) and especially the company I was with. The movie was cool as well. Can't thank you guys enough! :)

Since then, I've been toying with the idea of doing some sort of "Geek Out Fridays" - I have a lot of friends who like board games and we all have lots of board games. Maybe that'll be something to blog about :P

My soon-to-be-wife, in a successful attempt to cheer me up, planned a surprise "geekout" last Friday and invited all of regular group of friends to play board games - of my choosing, none the less!

I had to let go of my planned evening of Dragon Age and instead had tremendous fun playing "Citadelles" and "Le Cercle". Many thanks to my buddies and to my fiancée for the amazing evening!

I've also had a request directly from Simon - the boy for whom I DMed more than a year ago - for another session of DnD. He asked me if they would play the same characters and if they would get to level 2.

For this blog, it means : be ready to hear my thoughts about board games and some more Dungeon Master prepping (letting go of the training scenario I discussed earlier). All of this sporadically, of course :)

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Friday, July 10 2009

An interesting lunch with ChattyDM (did I post this too early?)

By Eric Maziade on Friday, July 10 2009, 10:08

Monkey-typing.jpg This is what you get after a mostly sleepless night, playing with the awesome Ghost Buster video game demo, having a rough morning getting the kids used to kindergarten and looking forward to a lunch with a friend.

This morning my kids woke me up earlier than usual. I helped my wife to get them ready and, since they don't go to kindergarten on Friday, I went back to bed for an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

What resulted is an odd dream - too odd not to share.

So I was diving my car, going to meet ChattyDM for our scheduled lunch. Except this time, it was at his house. So I got there: a enormous mansion. Lots of people and servants working fervently. Looks like they're preparing for Chatty's daughter birthday party.

A skinny hispanic-looking man comes to greet me: "Hey! Mr Maze!", he says. At first, I don't recognize him - but it gets obvious that this is ChattyDM, who obviously (and dramatically) changed his appearance. Chatty talks like a gangster from Godfather - the Italian accent and all.

So we talk business (biz-a-nesse) for a while... and about personal matters. The "impostor" knows everything I know about Chatty and knows about our previous chats and inside jokes.

Eventually, I just can't contain myself: "who are you?", I ask.

- Well, I'm ChattyDM, of course.

- I know ChattyDM... I've met Phil a few times. You're not Phil.

- I'm not Phil. I'm Chatty DM. We all are ChattyDM.

He pulls a conveniently placed curtain and reveals a bunch of guys sitting in front of computers, writing blog posts and constantly chatting about feats, skills and challenges.

- Uh?

- See, ChattyDM is a collaborative effort. We all pitch in. Sorry Phil couldn't make it to the lunch. Will you stay for my daughter's party?

So I stayed for the party, where hundreds of people purchased each tens of gifts. Somehow, a gift I bought for my boy got mixed in there. So I dove into the pile of gifts to retrieve it. Then the Hispanic ChattyDM tried to get away (?), so I ran after him. I had to fight countless illusions with my proton pack before being turned to goo and waking up as some sort of sentient slime thingy in a coffee cup.

Then I woke up.

I rarely remember my dreams... this is probably one of the strangest ones. I feel like I've been railroaded in that one.

Typing Monkey found on Wikipedia

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