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Wednesday 9 March 2011

Prolix

I'm also getting some pressure from some quarters to start in with Twitter. 140 characters is a little limiting, but sometimes limits actually fuel creativity. If Blogger had actually blorfed on me completely, I'd definitely be going that way. Meantime, not so much. Although I'm considering "blueteddytweets" and "robjudgesyou" as handles.

Let's talk about distractions

Okay, so on the subject of posts that didn't, here's my thoughts on Mass Effect 3, slated for a 'holiday 2011' release.

What is great about the first two games in the series is that you can import characters/stories/histories from ME1 into ME2, and that effects how the second game plays out. If you kill someone in the first one, they're not in the second one. There's a Big Ethical Decision you have to make in the first one that affects who appears in the second one. In addition to your relationships with recruitable party members, there's other characters from the first game who play important parts in specific quest lines (or not, depending on whether you played the first game and how you interacted with them). We're told if you romanced one character in the first game and someone else in the second, this will have consequences in the third.

The second game is also littered with 'cameos'. Either characters who appeared in the first game popping up, or contaacting you by e-mail, to add depth to the story.

So here's my question, for those of you familiar with the series: Who do you want to see in ME3? and in what capacity (i.e. recruitable, quest-important, cameo appearance, or incidental contact)?

We've pretty much been promised an appearance of some kind by the Rachni Queen, if and only if she survives the first game. I'd like to see David Archer, the autistic mathematical savant who can talk to the Geth (robotic enemy race) appear as a recruitable, although he ended the second game pretty damaged and I don't know you you write/animate an interactive autistic character. Not that you can't, I just don't know how.

I'd like to see Kaidan/Ashley (recruitable in the first game and important cameo in the second) reappear as either a recruitable or a quest-important character, considering the history between the player character and those two. Thane, presumably, is not available, but it might be nice to see his son again, in some capacity.

There are others, but those are the ones I can think of at the moment. Your thoughts?

Busy, not bizzay

Okay, I'm going to see if it's somehow the content of my attempted posts, as opposed to their length, by posting on something completely different.

Good news, I'm cooking again. In the sense that every weekend for the last couple, I've made soup. This is good. Trust me.

Bad news, I'm swamped. I need to do some research for a conference presentation in May, on a project I should have finished more than a year ago, and have barely started. But right now I'm swamped with coursework, since I'm making up a course based on a new textbook. And I have 24 letters to write recommending or not recommending admission to the graduate program, or rather informing the applicants of the decision. It's not up to us to actually admit anyone.

THe good news on that front is that tonight the Brier (Canadian men's curling championship) isn't on regular cable, so I can't watch unless I want to stream So maybe I'll take myself somewhere and write e-mails to applicants, instead of going home and eating soup. Which is what I've done for the last week or so, except for the odd night when I decided I deserved a taco salad or a burrito.