Newsy-nooz Bitz . . . .

A few things I've been up to . . . .

1. My Mac is back up. Snow Leopard 10.6.3 + The SL Combo Update From Hell™ + Time Machine + WD MyBook external HD FTW. Apps and data were restored as expected . . . but I need a much bigger internal HDD.

2. Jameece is doing great on her new job. She can sell shoes to a snake, sand to a Bedouin and ice in the Arctic, so it is little wonder that she can sell paid tech support to folks who are unable to do it themselves.

3. I'm back to playing WoW and having fun at that.

4. During my short break from WoW, I found some real gaming gems like Smokin' Guns, ioUrban Terror, Open Arena (OA is to Quake 3 Arena as Open Office is to Microsoft Office) and League of Legends.

ioUT is an open-source Quake 3 engine answer to games like Counter-Strike and Strike Force -- terrorist vs counter-terrorist action with real world weapons, armor and damage models. Plusses -- good assortment of weapons and maps, no "buy system, wounds will kill from bleeding unless bandaged (unlike the "leave me without new damage long enough and I heal" model from Modern Warfare 2). Minuses -- no official bot support and that which is there is for a limited number of maps and game modes, client is not very stable even without bots, ammo is very very limited.

Open Arena is an open-source clone of Quake 3 Arena. I played a lot of Q3A in my pre-WoW days at Apple: the game ran very well on later-generation PPC Macs with 10.2-10.4 and Q3A was in my opinion the ultimate after-work Friday LAN party game. Q3A has it all -- awesome game modes, great maps, smooth-running OpenGL graphics, robust bot / multiplayer support . . . and QuakeC for modders. OA adds some innovative game modes like one-flag Capture The Flag, Domination and others to the usual Deathmatch Team DM, CTF, etc to a set of "new but verrry familiar" maps (the Q3A maps and models were not released under the open software General Public License . . .), bot / weapon models.

League of Legends is a different kind of beast -- a MMOBA (massively multiplayer online battle arena). 3rd person real time strategy view -- think Diablo / Warcraft -- combined with teamplay with uniquely powered classless hero characters. You team up with other "summoners" to play heroes in "kill the other team's base before they does the same to yours." The client is free and the game is free to play . . . but is monetized through game items / power-ups that can be bought in a store.

The game is well done, nice graphics and sound. The monetization efforts with the Store are not very intrusive, and there are two currencies for buying stuff -- one that can be earned by playing, and one that is bought through RMT in the store . . . but I am utterly bored by LoL. The maps make a wrestling ring look exciting, The fights are head-on slugging matches that make Wild West fast-draw showdowns look tactically nuanced. Unlike OA and ioUT, LoL has no Mac client. Sadly, the gameplay is not compelling enough for me to consider Boot Camping my Mac to run Windows.