Starter post (again)

So, this is just a little post to, hopefully, help me get started posting again (again). I don't know what it is but I have been having trouble with a lot of things lately (well...for the last couple of years anyways). Sometimes I think I am thinking too much. Maybe putting undue pressure on myself. Something like that anyways.

Anyhoo...I do want to get back into posting which is a way to hopefully get myself back into writing. That is the real goal. I have all sorts of ideas, and plans, but I don't always take the time to sit down and work on them. I always have an excuse...Not enough time, Not feeling good, In the middle of watching TV or playing a game or some such nonsense, Bored and nothing sounds exciting. Well, I really want to get on track. Lots of plans to plan.

But, I do have a little bit of an incentive now. I finally have a follower. Yeah me! Of course, my new follower isn't really who I would have expected. Is he a family member? No. Is he a friend? Nope. (Not even sure if any friends or family actually read my blog.) He is actually someone whose blog I follow. But he is a follower none the less and I can't let my followers down. If I do they very well might raise up and try to take over my blog. Then I would be blog less. And that wouldn't be good. At least I don't think it would be.

But I do have plans (there is that p word again) to post every Wednesday. Even it is just a short post to say 'Hi'. Plus I would also like to start posting reviews of fantasy related things (art, books, games, music, etc). This would be a separate post. And then there is still the web series that I want to do (which would be a separate blog). That last one is something that I am going to try to get started before the end of May (since April is basically over as of Midnight). Probably won't be anything grand to begin with. But again, I am just trying to get myself writing. Can't write if I don't write.

There are other things I want to work on too, but I think this will be good for now. That may be part of my problem. Trying to get too much going at one time. Gets me all confused and overwhelmed. So, here is to me getting my first post this year up.

Write ya later.

My soccer girl

I am baaaaaack …

Or at least I am attempting to be back.

I know it has been a long time since I last made a post. I have had a few things happen and then just got out of writing posts. It is surprising how easy it is to just say no. Well, at least where my blog (and a few other things) is concerned. I am attempting to get back into my posting and I will explain what has transpired since my last post on my next post. For now I have something else that I am wanting to … rant, say, get off my chest … not sure which would be most appropriate here, but I am going to say my piece anyways.

This post is going to be about my oldest daughter and soccer, or more precisely, her soccer team.

My daughter, Evencia, is nine (9) years old and has been playing soccer for a few years now. And (I love saying this) she is GOOD! I know some people might say … “Yeah, all parents say that about their child.” To which I say … “Pbbbbbbbbbt!”

But seriously, she is good. Always has been, and hopefully always will be. She loves playing the game and we have always let her make up her own mind to play. I have even been told by other parents how good they think she is. So see nay-sayers, it is just me that thinks that.

She started when she was five in a micro-league ran by the city, so no scores where kept … officially (read … kept by the parents or me as several parents would ask me what the score was). There was a season missed b/c they said they weren't going to have a league due to budget cuts, then we found out that they did still do the season. And then she missed a year after she was too old for the micro-league while we searched for another organization that we like for her to join.

The spring season was not a great one. The team she got put on was made up of mostly girls that had never played before. One of the girls that had experience had actually played with Evie in the micro-league. This season they didn't do so well, winning only a couple of games. The league had a summer practice session which Evie attended, along with a couple of her teammates.

We are now in the Fall season and it is like night and day. Her team, which took the name Dynamo after the Houston Dynamo, has gone undefeated so far. They have played three games, they haven't scored less than five goals per game, and they have shut-out the other team. That's no goals scored against them! And Evie has been one of the top scorers each game! That is so … AWESOME! I couldn't be prouder of her.

Now, I just found out from my wife this morning that my daughter's soccer team was under investigation for cheating. That investigators had come out to last Saturday’s game to watch. And that there is a possibility that the league may make the girls start playing in the next age group. I am of two minds of this.

First, I don't think that it is fair that these girls are being treated like this. I mean, how do you assume that nine-year old girls are cheating? Most of them don't know enough of soccer rules to figure out how to cheat, I know my daughter doesn't. Do they believe that the coach is cheating? Then why would they consider moving the girls up to the next level? These were my first thoughts upon hearing this from my wife this morning.

I know that the complaint had to come from the team they played in the second game. After all, my girls did beat them 9-0. I mean, who wouldn't accuse the other team of cheating after a beating like that? Oh wait, I wouldn't (but then I believe that you need to take responsibility of your actions, not blame others for your failings). These girls worked hard to get where they are. I mean, several on my daughter's team went to practice during the summer. And they were practicing with the older girls b/c not enough of her age group showed up for the sessions (another proud dad moment … my daughter held her own against the older girls in the practice games during the summer).

Our coach is also a certified coach. He coached his own girls all the way through the 19 yr age group. He has five championships to his credit. He is actually teaching and training the girls. You can see it on the field when the other team starts to tire and our girls are still pushing hard. So I don't think it would be fair to penalize the girls by either moving them to the next age group or taking away their couch for doing what he is suppose to do.

All that being said, here is my second mind on the subject. It might actually benefit the girls to be moved up to the next age group.

As I have already said numerous times, these girls are good. They are better coached and trained. The coach doesn't allow sugary snacks or drinks during the games or practice. He recommends that the girls not to eat junk food before the games. They haven't lost a game yet and haven't allowed the other team to score. My concern is that they will get overconfident if they keep winning like this. They are only kids after all.

Moving them up would give them new challenges to overcome. They most likely wouldn't win as much or at least win like they are now. The older girls would be more experienced and know more about the game, but I think our coach would be able to help with that. And I do believe that they would still do good (some of them did practice with older girls during the summer) and would be pushed to improve even more.

All in all, I am conflicted with this. But no matter what happens, I am going to always be there to support my daughter and help her to be the best she can be. Whether she likes it or not.

Gaming silliness

You will never guess what I did yesterday. I was playing Oblivion when I did something kinda stupid. I have been playing my current character for a bout one year and I have almost finished the main quest line. It has taken me this long because I haven't really been playing the game a lot lately. In fact, there was a time when I took a break from playing on my Xbox for several months. Moving into a house and getting settled in, and then my mom moved in with me and my family, trying to become a game developer, all added up to me spending less time playing games now then I used to.

Not that I got very far in any game I have ever played. You can ask my sister, we used to play WOW (World of Warcraft for those who have been living under a rock) together. Well, on the same server anyways. I was always restarting my character. I think I played every possible character combination in the game, except for the Death Knights as I hadn't gotten the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I do the same thing with the other games I play. I can count on one hand the number of RPG games I have beaten on one hand and I have played quite a few. So, this isn't the first character I had in Oblivion. I got the game back in 2010 and have been playing it ever since. I have been determined that this game is going to get added to the short list of games completed.

Anyways, I was playing through the main quest line and had just closed an oblivion gate outside the city of Anvil and had headed off to Imperial City to lighten my inventory. A quick note here, every once in awhile I start getting a little bored with exploring or doing quests in the game. When this happens I decide to see how many people I can kill in whatever town I am in before I die. I usually save the game just before I start this little diversion so I can go back to the game without having to worry about who I killed.

Well, I got bored when I was in the Market District of Imperial City. So I decided to go on a rampage. It is interesting to see how the citizens react. Some run away, guards come out of the wood work, and I have seen a few even start attacking the guards. Not sure if they are trying to help me or if they just got caught in the crossfire. I had succeeded in killing everyone in the Market District. I then went around to see what everyone was carrying. I feel kinda sorry for the Imperial Guards as they only had at most four gold. Most of the other 'civilians' were carrying around a lot more. I grabbed the keys from the shopkeepers and decided to go check out the shops.

This is when I realized what I did. If you have never played the game it does an Auto Save whenever you enter or leave a shop or home or town. After going into a few shops I noticed the Auto Save message and then I realized that I hadn't saved the game before my rampage. I wasn't worried about the consequences of the rampage. I could just go to the next district and a guard would demand I either surrender or pay a fine and I could easily afford to pay the 11k+ fine. Or, since I was a member of the thieves guild, I could just go and talk to my contact in the thieves guild and pay him half my fine to erase the warrant (which is what I did end up doing). That way I wouldn't lose any of my loot I had gathered.

The real problem came when I realized it had been over an hour since the last time I had saved the game and I had killed almost every shopkeeper in the district. Since I can't use the Auto Save slot either, I must now decide if I should just continue on with this character (not sure if it will be much of an impact without the shopkeepers) or start another character. With the unwatched shops, I could easily complete the Thieves Guild quest line now but I have been thinking about starting another character for awhile now mainly cause I didn't get my marksman skill up as high as I would like to have it.

I think I might keep playing the mage character though. I have been looking at some things on the Elder Scrolls Wiki and have found two swords that I want to go and try to retrieve now.

Write at ya later.

Game engines

Another week, another update.

Not much to report for this last week. I have worked a little on the Rose Angel Princess game. Mostly just working on the main plot. Evencia has helped with some ideas on the story. Some good, others . . . not so good. But she tries and I do plan to include some of them, it is a game we are both working on after all. I have also been working a little on the plot for my web series 'Generation Demigod'. I am debating on whether to set up a new blog for it or to see if I can post it on this new website I recently found called 'Big World Network'. It is a website that presents stories from different writers on a weekly basis and they do it kind of like a TV series. You submit your project and if accepted you sign up for a season, which is 12 episodes. They have four seasons in a year and supposedly you can go for as many seasons as you want. I plan on looking into it further before I make up my mind. The submission deadline just passed for their fall season so, I have time to make their winter season if I decide to go that route.

In other news, my main project is going to be 'The World of Nuarth'. This is going to be purely fantasy and I have been looking at what it would take to set up a website for it. I also spent yesterday looking at game engines. This project is going to be mostly in game format (at least for now). I had thought of using Engine 001 (the same one I am using for Rose Angel Princess). But the more I think about what I want to do with it the more I wonder if I am going to need something else. So, I looked around on the web for ideas and such. I found quite a few and have even downloaded a couple to look at. So far I am considering Unity, UDK (Unreal 3), Ren'Py, and Game Editor. Maybe I should say that the first two are being looked at more than the last two. Ren'Py is the only one I have looked at so far that doesn't require me to purchase a license or subscription to sell the games I make with it. But, it is more of an interactive novel engine than game engine. It does look neat though and I may do something with it, but it just wouldn't work for my main project (but it would work for a side project with in the main one).

Unity and UDK both have free versions so I can start learning them now and actually get started on my games, but I would need to now an actual programming language also. Unity seems to use C# and UDK seems to use C ++ and another one that I can't remember right now. The other engines were of the drag and drop kind, no programming skills required. But I do still plan on learning C ++ and maybe other languages also, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

My only other concern is trying to work with multiple engines at the same time. I don't want it to hurt my productivity (now I am beginning to sound like a business man). I know the big game companies will often use different engines in different game series that they put out, but they also have different teams that work with the different series. So far it is just me, myself, and me in this little venture. Which also brings me to the point of thinking that I really need to consider finding someone who can do the graphics for all this. But that is for another post (maybe).

Anyways, I shall keep trudging along and will keep the updates coming.

Write ya later.

Blog changes

As you may have noticed, I have made some changes to the blog. I have been reading lately (I know, that is a real shocker) and realized that I didn't really have any clear focus for this blog. So, I am now going to focus this blog on my writing and most things fantasy related. I will also post art work that I do.

I am trying to improve my skill with doing art on the computer. I did the title of this blog with a new program I recently got called GIMP 2.8. No, I didn't do the knight, it was a clip art I got off the web. Totally free, copied it from Clkr.com so no worries about illegal content. Besides, I can't draw that good with pen and paper yet. But hopefully I will get much better.

I am working on this to go with the game programming. I need graphics to go with the games I am making, and unless I can get someone who is really good with graphics I will need to do them myself. Though after last night, I may just opt for searching for someone to do them for me. I was working on an animation sequence for a character that I am developing for my Rose Angel Princess game. I knew it would be a lot of work but just never guessed how much. And all I am doing right now is trying to get the dying sequence worked out. I have started on the body, but still need to add the arms, clothes, hair, face, and probably I will find something else later that needs to be added. Like what happens to the weapon. See, just thought of that.

Of course that is just the graphics, I still need to work on the story for the game. And then work out the system. It's a good thing  I don't have to worry about the game engine at this time. I am using Engine 001 for that. It is free to use, but I am unable to sell the games I make at this time. I can give them away, just can't make any money off of it. That's why I am studying C++ also (or that is the plan anyways).

But, that is going of course for this posting. I am working on a web series, and I will post that in its own little blog when it is ready. Not sure if it will be on Blogger or Word Press yet. I like Blogger but Word Press may be better suited for it. We will see. Anyways, that is all for now.

Write at ya later.