Low tech for lent... 40 days without a laptop.

Well... you may be asking... "Now Ryotgrrl, did WoW eat you? Are you indeed a zombie? Where have you gone?"  Fear not faithful readers!  True to the Ryotgrrl spirit I was trying something new and the same stuff all at the same time!  Easter Sunday has passed and many of the christian faith have been released from the restrictions they put on themselves for Lent.  Like them I got to return to what I had given up, my laptop. You may raise an eyebrow, and without back-story I would too. Hear me out and you'll see where this got skewed up.

http://www.webcomichell.com

"In the beginning, she had an idea: and  she thought it great.  And that was good.
I shall go low tech for Lent! I shall report! I shall... be pious?
And she tried, and that was a different story."
-the book of ryot


So up late I get the idea to dump my high tech gadgets over Lent.  It's just 40 days... and what the hell do I do in a day? It will make a good story! Getting outside is good for you, er me! This can only lead to good things; well I don't know if I was drinking when I came to this conclusion but let's take a look at how this played out.
Usually Mardi Gras is looked forward to and decadently observed in my little world, this year I had already started making excuses for my commitment to lessen long before Ash Wednesday.  Um, I need my... phone still, it is how I talk to my mom and what if there is an emergency? ..... yea. So there I have social networks, all sorts of media and the ability to get more.  And I can't take away the TV, I'm not the only one in the house; or wait! I can watch TV when they do and just not play video games. Wait, did I say not play video games, that's stupid.  So in the zero hour it became I won't use my laptop for Lent. That will still get me out of the house, using my free time more wisely and save monies... somehow.  Again, I forget it's bitter cold here in the middle of nowhere and there is little to nothing to do in this one horse town; oh yea, and I'm incurably lazy with no attention span.
So I started off ok, walking to the store in time I might have been WoWing, cleaning when I could have been blogging and talking to the better half, myself, and my higher power in my quieter moments; this lasted a week, maybe 10 days. Then I was sorta bored, and the house was pretty clean and the cats were looking at me sideways cause I had started making costumes and creating tiny puzzles for them to solve.
I started coming up with excuses for the better half to use my computer, check things, listen to Pandora  pull up movies (you see where this is headed); suddenly the retrospective moments vanished.  I spent more time using internet programs I usually did on the computer on my phone and game console. I got better at cheating. Gave up a PC mmo and started a console one. Then I read somewhere that Sundays didn't count in Lent and out the window went any sort of resolve. Like a doomed New Year's resolution I then lamented my failure instead of just trying again at piety, meditation, alms-giving, repentance and self-reflection I sulkingly plodded on doing the same.  It just built and built until it was pointless in my eyes so I sorta just sat stagnant. This was supposed to be a time for me, regardless of religion, to focus on faith, bettering of my body and soul; and I made it 40 days of excuses, corner cutting and cheating. I gave up WoW for Lent but picked DCUO back up.
I realize and winder how many other people may be turning a good thing around and in that making it the exact opposite of what they wanted.

Why couldn't I give up driving?  I don't even have a damned car.

NOTE: No, I am not making light of sacrifice, meditation, prayer, penance or repentance.  I am also not making statements to anyone's belief or experience over Lent but my own. Lastly I make no clams to the validity of ANY religion. (What the hell would I know?)

Effen game maps...

PREEMPTIVE DISCLAIMER: I know nothing about programming   What I'm about to talk about may be difficult if not impossible to make available in the games I'm speaking about.  I will discuss out of date games and systems.  I may or may not know what I am talking about.  You may or may not agree with me, I don't care. 

OK, I spent the last few days playing a few different titles on the PS 3 and um... it needs to be said; YOU PEOPLE DOING GAME MAPS SHOULD BE SHOT!  I don't need an infrared, night visioned, topographical map of my factious area!  I need straight lines and a big frigging arrow.
It doesn't make me simple it makes me right.

Look, there are good examples and bad but lets look at some tried and true things that have seen us though many a game. We in the beginning had 2 D linear format. Straight line! Easy... we can do that. Then this format exhausted itself... all things do! We were presented with open world maps and random encounters. We were greedy.  Champions of Norrath had a relativity clear mapping for thier open world. (Yes I know it is a linear game I know it's not a truly 'open' world.) There was a mini map that was overlaid atop the players screen in a corner or a full size map over the whole screen.  Nice to just pop-up and close when needed or leave small in the corner.  Did it get in the way? SOMETIMES.  So does hitting a button to bring up a map screen.  Do I hate all maps? Most annoy the heck out of me; shining examples being FALLOUT: New Vegas.  Not only is this map HUGE with other DLC maps that make other areas available; these are gigantic as well.  Let me tell you things like levels the rooms are on are pretty darned unclear in most of the areas especially the vaults.

Is there nothing in the map world that pleases me?  Sure!  I loved the glowing trail toward quests in Fable (all of them were good for this) and there was also a spell in Skyrim that gave another glowing trail to follow for a time.  This is a GREAT way to clear up the confusion when it came to the floor a chest/person of interest or quest item is on.  Yea, it sort of made things too easy sometimes but it also saved me looking around an area for 2 hours to miss the door in front of my face.  Dragon Age, did a fine job to start but tried to open up maps in the expansion; leaving me wandering around in circles looking for landmarks to point me in the right direction.  Dragon Age: II was so nice in it's format for mapping, I know the gameplay was chapter based and the same map had small variations depending on chapters but regardless I was in looooooooooove!  Let me see, what other examples are there of games that let me get from point a to point b, oh yes!  Kingdoms of Amular : Reckoning; another good job.  It had a wide open map, simplified world map, fast travel and a local map that didn't make me want to stab myself in the eye getting from place to place.  I could see areas that were nearby without being confused by icons on my mini map.  Quests didn't have to be active to be marked on the map, it was on the whole a very user friendly map.

So a glowing cheater trail, or a spell you pay for to give you a hint as to where to go.  This seems like a feasible option that could easily be added to games.  I know the argument of the overlaid map being distracting is a valid one but it seems less so than stopping and pulling up the full map.  That may just be me being lazy or even wishing the game worlds weren't so big.   

Like I said, I don't need to have everything spelled out for me, but it is nice to not curse being lost for an hour in game despite pulling up a map screen every 2 minutes and 15 steps.  I'm not willing to check out other games either and see if I don't come around to the way things are mapped out.  Drop me a reply, tell me my gameplay is simple, tell me I'm right. (I mean I know but tell me.) give me good examples or even bad ones!  Lets make maps better damnit there are enough gamers to do it!