Killed in a smiling accident.

So week two was a bit of an improvement on week one. The whole George Washington/Maroons/ancestor-of-”don’t call me Obama”-presidential-candidate business was arrant nonsense, but turning up late 18th century stuff wasn’t quite so loopy as popping down the second hand bookshop for a 14th century text, and gun toting racists were at least vaguely plausible as Villain of the Week as opposed to nutters in Knights Templar t-shirts beheading people down the local shopping centre. Could Plot Insanity be directly proportional to the elapsed time since the Mystery of the Week?

Based on last night, yes. Back to Roman times, and the insan-o-meter is off the scale. Earthquake uncovers New Old Stuff at the local swimming pool, and poor old Baby Archaeologist (Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Viv) follows in the footsteps of on-screen sister Martha as Doctor Who Assistant, helpfully piping up with “What’s going on?” whenever we need a chunk of exposition, “Who are you talking about?” when the rest of the team are being irritatingly smug over some smugly irritating bet, and calls Boudica “Boadicea” just to wedge in the change in pronunciation, in case viewers thought this week was all about a different Iceni warrior queen. Inexplicably she failed to be dragged off by Daleks or Silurians while shouting “Doctor, Doctor, I’ve been captured!”, maybe next week. Exciting Illegal Archaeology follows, as our team cock a snook at some busybody from the council who wants to keep people away under the feeble pretence that the area is terribly unsafe. What could possibly go wrong? If you said (a), “nothing”, EH EH! If you said (b), “the tunnels collapse and kill our protagonists”, EH EH!, no such mercies. If you said (c), “half the team toddle off to the labs while the other half stick around, get trapped by a cave-in and end up in a desperate race against time”, BING BING BING BING, we have a winner!

The half of the team anyone might possibly care about, Baby and Posh (Hugh Bonneville at least hams it up something rotten as dirty old man “Dolly” Parton, and lecherously points out that at least the audience can use their archaeological imagination when Viv’s around) head off for some Strontium Dog dating, which I think involves phoning up Johnny Alpha and asking if he bumped into Boudica at all during his time travelling escapades, leaving Scary and The Other One to get inevitably trapped. At this point, if we’re following the formula, the Bad Guys should turn up, mortal peril in the present trying to cover up or co-opt the past. Who will it be this week? Perhaps an ultra-nationalist political party, who use Boudica as their figurehead and can’t stand the thought of her having had a fling with some filthy eyetie? The deadly assassins of the Watling Street Chamber of Commerce, who stand to lose £1.34 in ice cream revenue from tourists hunting for Boudica’s true place of burial? No, we’re bravely breaking the formula this week, which is a bit of a relief, and the biggest present-day danger to the team is the head of department wanting someone to give a bit of a speech to some VIPs, AIEEE, THE PERIL! Well, that and an elaborate series of Roman traps involving fuel-air explosive based incendiary anti-personnel mines and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, I think, I was slightly confused after we’d cruised gently past the straits of Historical Liberties and into the choppy waters of What The Fuck?

Still, being trapped underground at least gave our protagonists a chance to talk about their relationship. This seemed to entirely be based around the angle of a Christmas tree, most specifically it having been at “40 degrees”. If you didn’t see the episode and are thinking “that makes bugger all sense”, don’t worry, context really didn’t help. I think it was some attempt at capturing the essence of the slightly up-tight, in control, strait-laced chap versus the crazy maverick woman (surely the first such couple in on-screen history) who’s so out there her Christmas tree was at 40 degrees. Yes, 40 degrees. In case you didn’t catch it the first time, they keep banging on about 40 degrees, sounding like an advert for Ariel washing powder (it shifts stubborn stains, even at 40 degrees!) By the time they’re onto the gaping chasm of musical differences (one liked George Michael, the other one liked Queen; my god, I’m surprised they hadn’t killed each other with guns long before) I was desperately hoping we’d return to the previous formula, and the Bath chapter of a Roman re-enactment society would turn up, terrified the team are uncovering proof that their reproduction armour is ever so slightly anachronistic and ready to KILL to protect their secret. But no. There’s GAS! and EXPLOSIONS! and THE PETRIFIED CORPSE OF BOUDICA only MORE EXPLOSIONS AND STUFF SO IT ALL BLOWS UP and GAS, and Baby and Posh sprinting back from the labs armed with some Latin gibberish from a camgirl that sounded suspiciously like a Ted Rogers riddle from 3-2-1, only it didn’t lead to Dusty Bin but to a secret entrance to a shrine from whence the other two emerge, having managed to set fire to the most amazing archaeological find in history for the second time in three weeks, and it’s home in time for perhaps the most toe-curlingly awful speech of the whole episode, banging on about 40 BLOODY DEGREES again. Oy vey.

I fear there’s a limit to how far you can stretch stories about Amazing World-Changing Discoveries Contradicting All Previously Accepted Historical Fact. As a one-off, in a film, you can just about get away with it, but on a weekly basis? Next time out, Napoleon didn’t die on St Helena, he returned from exile AGAIN! and led a successful invasion of Britain, making it as far as Bath before being defeated by a coalition of forces led by Trotsky, Churchill and the Ogrons! So on Time Team they find a few fragments of stuff and vague traces of a couple of walls, and an artist comes up with a bit of a sketch of how the villa/manor house/village might have looked with varying degrees of artistic license; at least he doesn’t go “yes, and that bloke I’ve drawn there was called Geoff, and his favourite colour was green, and he owned three chickens called Neville, Cedric and Brian, and by the way he’s actually KING ARTHUR working UNDERCOVER with ROBIN HOOD to take down the SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM who was really VLAD THE IMPALER on HOLIDAY!”

Speaking of King Arthur, I’m not even *thinking* about the Mysterious Sword turning up in every episode of Bonekickers. If it’s anything less than Excalibur, which one of the team then wields in a battle against Darth Vader in the finale, I’ll be terribly disappointed.

There was a double XP event in City of Heroes, so I spent much of the weekend dressed in spandex and fighting crime. And also playing City of Heroes, ahh! (I confounded your expectations there, and from thence the humour arose…)

Double XP is a good chance to zap through the early hero levels, which can otherwise involve quite a lot of running around, even with the temporary travel powers on offer from early Safeguard missions. I was strongly tempted to roll another Blaster, using the recently added Psionic/Mental powersets, but already having three Blasters I figured I should branch out a bit, and went with a Tanker. Costume choice, as usual, took a while, I settled on a shovel-wielding eight foot giant in formal evening wear (complete with top hat, monocle etc.) I decided his assignment was to infiltrate the street gangs of Paragon City, and thus gave him a disguise to blend in: a tiny eye mask. Even though it’s purely cosmetic, there’s just something utterly joyful about running around in teams of wildly disparate characters, chain-wrapped denizens of darkness next to orange-skirted cheerleaders with dragon wings, sombre funeral directors with zombie minions alongside a katana toting techno-samurai in neon armour.

As well as getting the new tanker up to level 14 for a travel power, I flitted around a bunch of other characters, doing a bit of Blasting and Scrapping, and also some nefarious villainy, continuing my plans to create human slaves in an insect nation. At level 24 my Arachnos Solider had a choice of becoming a Bane Spider (bonking people over the head with an energy-mace-thing) or Crab Spider (strapping on a multi-armed energy-beam-shooting backpack). No contest, really, hand over the extra arms! Hooking up at various points with some other ne’er-do-wells, much ne’er-do-welling ensued, not just knocking on doorways and running away but also sending packages with insufficient postage stamps, and on one occasion knocking a policeman’s helmet off. Oh, and a couple of occasions where we massacred countless innocents who’d done nothing but stand near a bank we decided to rob, but at least we didn’t download any knock-off films, so that’s OK. Melmoth had been playing a Dominator for a while, with a measured approach where more threatening foes would be detained or fixed in blocks of stone and their fellows picked off one by one, but switched to one of his assortment of Brutes for the weekend. Rendered nigh-invulnerable by assorted forcefields and auras over the top of already decent Brute defences, this caused ever such a slight shift to a somewhat more SMASH!-oriented approach, wherein the Brute steams into anything that moves to keep his Fury bar filled, and everyone else does their best to keep up with the Brute. SMASH!tastic!

Outside the City, I went back to Guitar Hero for a while, several of the Aerosmith songs are growing on me. Also caught up with some of the Guitar Hero: World Tour news coming out of E3, and it’s looking rather awesome, as I believe the correct vernacular to be (I’m extending my index and little fingers at the same time, if that has any bearing on it). Despite my other ravings over customisation, it’s not so much the “create a rocker” feature; the game could display a stick person (with optional hat) cavorting away in the background for all I’d notice, being fixated on the coloured notes scrolling their way up the screen. Not that it’ll stop me spending hours adjusting the exact tint of my nostril hair, should such options be available on the Wii. All fingers, toes and assorted other dactylates crossed that Wikipedia’s suggested EU release date of October 28th isn’t entirely made up (though as it’s not a Friday, I rather suspect it is) and we don’t have to wait for six months (or more) after the US release, as with certain other guitar-drum-and-vocal based rhythm games. I don’t care about global supply and demand issues, I just want to rock (once again, extended index and little fingers there).

Found via Charlie Stross’ blog, Tor have launched a shiny new website, and to celebrate are giving away stuff! Books, pictures and… well, just books and pictures. But that’s enough, surely, especially when it’s a whole pile o’ books in a variety of handy formats (mostly HTML, PDF and Mobipocket). I haven’t tried any of those authors yet, so what better opportunity? The N810 is now loaded up with some extra holiday reading, which is always handy for keeping the weight of a suitcase down. The freebie bonanza is only on until July 27th, so make haste! Even if you miss that free loot it’s looking like a fine site with new stories and all sorts of other interesting posts.

World of Warcraft’s achievements system will launch with more than 500 individual achievements covering every aspect of game-play, and our man on the inside at Blizzard has given us a few of the more common achievement titles and their respective achievements to be found when Wrath of the Lich King launches:

• Glider: Have epic shoulders that are more than twice your characters height in width.
• Opportunist: Steal at least five guild banks within a month.
• Man Eater: Obtain a flying mount by cybering with male guild members.
• True Man Eater: Obtain a flying mount by cybering with male guild members. (Female players only)
• Mercenary: Join at least ten raiding guilds within a week with the same character.
• Triumph of Hope over Experience: Join at least fifty PUGs.
• Outraged: Use the phrase “slap in the face” in at least one hundred forum posts.
• Overcompensator: Have an epic weapon that’s more than twice your character’s height in length.
• Irony Champion: Shout three hundred times in the general channel for spammers to stop flooding the general channel.
• Abasement: Maintain a seven-days-a-week raid schedule for at least four months.
• Ridickeweluss: Attempt to use the word ‘ridiculous’ in a forum post and fail miserably.
• Cavernous Cakehole: Type two thousand words in ALL CAPS.
• Milliner: Possess at least 15 hats.
• Drama Tank: Quit and rejoin the same guild at least five times.
• All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go: Join at least ten PUGs that stand outside of an instance for half an hour waiting for a tank or healer, then disband.
• Nemesis of Originality: Create four characters with names that are rubbish variations on Legolas.
• Validated: Link fifty items in guild chat in one play session.
• Dust Collector: Spend two hundred hours posing outside the auction house or bank.
• Lust Collector: Spend two hundred hours as a naked dancing female night elf outside the auction house or bank.
• Wganker the G is Silent: Gank one hundred players that are at least half your character’s level.
• The Cycle Continues: Get ganked fifty times in Stranglethorn Value by a level 70, then return at level 70 and gank at least fifty players.
• Sun Tzu of the Battlegrounds: Shout eighty helpful commands in battlegrounds like “HEAL!” and “OMG U NOOBS!!!”
• You Don’t Want To Do That: Instruct at least three classes that you have never played how to perform their role, and what their spec should be.
• Horse’s Ass: Sit with your big, fat, show-off mount in such a way as to prevent other players from accessing an NPC for thirty hours.
• Bedhopper: Co-habit with three different guild members in real life.
• Guildhopper: Co-habit with three members of different guilds in real life.
• Mormon: Co-habit with three different guild members simultaneously in real life.
• The Greatest Person in the World Ever: Win at least one arbitrary race against a level one character whilst on your epic mount, or one duel against a level one character whilst wearing your complete set of Tier 7.
• Practising for Real Life: Spend three days begging for gold in a capital city.
• Always Doing Doughnuts: Never remain stationary for more than one second before jumping/running around in circles again.
• Moustache: Loot twenty quest objectives/gathering nodes from under the nose of a person who’s just pulled a mob away from them.
• Full House of Originality: Have characters named after an individual from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dragonlance, The Belgariad and the Chronicles of Narnia.
• Blizzard’s Bitch: Achieve more than one hundred achievements the day Wrath of the Lich King is launched on all five of your level seventy characters.
• Sarcastic Blogger: Make up at least twenty five vaguely insulting achievements.

To a certain set of bloggers out there, who shall remain unnamed.

As the tracked launcher of E3 rolls into position and elevates its firing tubes, the gaming news sections of the internet are blanketed with dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, jamming RSS feeds with a devastating combination of trailers and presentations, shattering rational thought with the shock and awe of hype. Slightly ironically, then, the one thing that caught my topical eye is from Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s non-E3 series They Are The Champions Online, specifically the character customisation article. I’m a sucker for customisation. Library of animation stances? Facial animations to convey emotions? Oh my! I was waxing lyrical to Melmoth about the possibilities when he sounded a thoroughly sensible cautionary note: “I guess we shouldn’t fall into the hype trap, lest we come to play the game and find out that customisation actually consists of a single hat, which you can either have on your head, or not.”

Sorry, no recap this week. Last night’s episode, as a drama, was an improvement on week one, but unfortunately that meant as a crazed work of ludicrous insanity it was a bit of a failure. Plenty of zany happenings, doubtlessly unrealistic archaeology and vastly unlikely coincidences, but mostly to the point of dramatic license rather than brain-popping incredulity (though that might only be in comparison to the first episode, and surely at some point they’re going to run out of hidden chambers that have remained undiscovered in mumble-hundred years… but not next week, according to the trailers). I’m hoping next week is a return to form and features undead Roman ninjas battling South American Libertadores in the Bath branch of WH Smiths.

Dear Warhammer Online developers,

I know that you’re kind of busy at the moment what with having to, according to the more dramatic bloggers out there, remove three hundred and fifty billion percent of your game because you felt it wasn’t up to scratch. I understand that you’re trying to make your game feature and content rich, and that you’ve perhaps bitten off slightly more than you had budgeted mastication resources for, but here are a couple of ideas that I had this morning that might be fun to add (if you haven’t done so already, I’m not in the beta so I wouldn’t know):

If you’re going to have a copy of World of Warcraft’s armoury for your players, and I imagine you are because one would think that in a PvP-centric game, bragging to others is basically the core philosophy behind the design, could you go one step further and have a little Flash plug-in that people could stick on their website? This plug-in that I’m picturing would display a nice 3D-model of whatever character the player decides to show, rotatable through three hundred and sixty degrees, perhaps with a slightly tweaked renderer to make the character look like the classic Games Workshop lead models that we all know, love and have chewed upon in our youth more than is probably healthy. I imagine this character model could even be displayed complete with the little 30mm circular base with slightly dodgy looking foam grass.

Even better (and I’m sure you can slot this in too because you’re not very busy at the moment right?) have an interface to allow the player to paint their figure; I mean, half the fun of the miniatures game was painting your troops in custom colours, so why not continue the hobby with the online game. One of the things I find most depressing about many of the current stock of MMOs is the general lack of character customisation, the fact that there are very few options where the player can express their creativity and originality through their character; the reason I’ve stayed subscribed to City of Heroes for so long is the fact that if the generally grindy game-play becomes too dull, I can always flex my creativity muscle, give my muse a prod and create a bizarre new manifestation from my brain spasms.

Secondly, and along the same lines, have the plug-in also give access to the player’s Tome of Knowledge for that character, such that people can see their achievements easily but in the context of the game interface, thus making it easy for players of the game to navigate. Assuming you’ve got a suitably Hemlokian Nifty! feature in the Tome for it to capture screenshots and store them like a photo album, this would provide bloggers with an easy way to share their character’s adventures without having to constantly crop/thumbnail/rotate/gamma correct/frame in oak their own screenshots.

I’m confidant that this would all be easy to do, probably only a couple of lines of code, and so I’m sure you can fit it in during a lunch break or something.

Love and kisses,

Melmoth.

I’m still chuckling. I think that’s me, and also some of my friends, in twenty years time. (It’d be us now, but we don’t have the elbow patches, I must remember to speak to Howard Moon about that when I next see him).

More of the same genius from Phil Selby over at The Rut.

In a conversation this morning, Elf enquired as to how things were with me, to which I responded:

Work is slightly quieter at the moment, which is giving me one less thing to worry about as I continue to try to grapple with parenthood and fail my attack roll.

Now I’d like to blame the fact that I had been listening to the Dungeons & Dragons Podcast featuring Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, and PvP’s Scott Kurtz. However, in actual fact, I’m just one of those sad people - and I’m sure there are many others of my ilk - who can happily describe their lives in the terms of D20 combat mechanics without batting an eyelid.