Archive for Octavian
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
Being the Community Manager for a site as large as this can be draining. 95% of my job is interacting with people, and unfortunately a significant number of those interactions are negative in some way. Forum moderation is probably the most salient example of that, but it doesn't end there. I also mediate disputes between users when trades or sales go bad and am the go-to guy, both in geekmail and our Contact email, for people with general complaints about the site - many of which I can't do anything about directly.
That's not to say I don't enjoy what I do - no one likes negative interactions, but I do like being the guy who can be trusted to handle such things with an even temperament. And it's not all negative. There are times each day where I am able to actually help someone, and though these are often over trivial concerns in the grand scheme of things (I'm an admin on a gaming site - I'm not exactly changing people's lives), these little shining moments definitely help take the edge off of the day's less fun interactions.
I just had one such experience that I felt like sharing here. I received the following through the contact@boardgamegeek.com email:
Quote: I recently purchased the game second-hand, but the instructions were missing. Is it possible to have the instructions sent to my email address? We purchased the game to play with the foster children we provide relief care for.Thank you!
We get emails like this a lot. People Google the name of a game and we're one of the top hits, so they assume we can provide missing rules, pieces, etc. It isn't usually for in-print games, or even games where we have an easily contacted publisher listed. In such cases I typically explain that BGG isn't actually a game company or a retailer, but more of a web-resource like Wikipedia. I provide a link to the general forums and encourage them to describe what they are looking for there in hopes that one of you might know where to look. But I know the chances for a lead on esoteric stuff like this are slim.
And I was anticipating that to happen here. Franklin Goes to School The Game is not exactly the kind of thing that appeals to most of our users. But, as I always do, I checked the actual game entry first, even though I wasn't expecting to find any help. At first glance it looked like my suspicions would be confirmed. No known designer, 25 year old game, only 5 images, only 8 ratings, no threads, no files....none are good signs.
But what is this?
One Weblink: http://www.pressmantoy.com/instructions/franklin.html And more amazing, the weblink was added only one month ago! That's kinda nuts. Had she emailed with this problem 5 weeks ago I would have had to left her empty handed. Instead, I get to save the day!
I beamed as I wrote back with the link, wishing her and her children happy gaming. As I said, hardly something earth shattering. But helping just that one family, even in such a small way, is immensely gratifying.
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
Nothing remarkable happened yesterday in the world of daddy-dom. As I've come to learn, that is the biggest challenge of being a stay-at-home-parent. The day in the life of a toddler is fairly monotonous by default. They eat, they sleep, occasionally you change some diapers. Any variety they get in their day is entirely dependent on you.
I take the boy to the local children's museum - the place is amazing and the boy loves every single minute we spend there. I take him to the library to play with the toys in the kid's room - they've got a rockin train set the he's glued to while we're there. In fact, he starts making train noises as we pull in to the parking lot now. I take him for long walks through the neighborhood - we've got one of those backpacks that he rides in. He gets a pretty good view of things from up there and I get a bit of a workout. And at home we've got books we read, we work on learning new words (his newest is "stuck"), we have blocks for building, and a few favorite movies on the DVR.
I have no worries that he is getting stimulated each and every day. The trick for me is to stay constantly engaged myself. It would be easy to just let him entertain himself (and I do sometimes, when I need a break or want to get some work done) but I don't want to rely on that too much.
Anyone have parenting tips for not only keeping things varied for the little ones but also for yourself?
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
About eight years ago in Pittsburgh I introduced Dungeons & Dragons (3.5 Edition) to a friend and his wife. Soon a third joined in, and then a fourth and fifth. And a sixth. And a seventh. And several years later a party of two 1st level characters were a party of seven 18th level characters.
It was glorious! Unfortunately, with the exception of a few one-off games, that was the last of my significant RPGing.
Hopefully all that changes soon as I'm gearing up to start a new Dungeons & Dragons (4th Edition) campaign in New Haven! Today, I sent the following email:
So what I've got in mind is a sandbox-style heroic level campaign centered around a city and the surrounding region. I've got a bunch of ideas for adventure hooks, but I'm also going to rely on you all to let me know what you're interested in doing. I don't want to waste much time on preparing something that isn't fun for you, and you don't want to waste time playing something that's not fun, so collaborating on the direction of things is win-win.
=================
Here are the basics for the world you'll be playing in:
A decade ago a war that was fought across multiple planes came to an abrupt end when a massive magical force swept the land and destroyed the ability to travel through portals. This left The Kingdom, which had spanned the continent, completely shattered. Without the use of portals to quickly travel between regions, the king's hold shrunk to retaining control over only the capital city of Korath and the nearby city of Koval. Koval was once a thriving industrial town and was the center of production for The Kingdom's war effort. With the war over, the king distracted with self-absorbed interests, and easy portal trade cut-off, Koval has become a shadow of its former self. Buildings once filled with commerce are now vacated and run down, and streets once bustling with activity are now empty and dangerous to walk at night. However, Koval is about to become an important place again very soon....
Things of interest:
The standard D&D pantheon of gods exists. However each god has several sects of followers with different beliefs and values. The alignment of a god is an indication of where most of that god's followers fall. But it is quite possible for a good aligned god, like Pelor, to have an evil desert cult that makes human sacrifices in his name, or for the evil Vecna to have a non-evil scholarly sect devoted to learning. As you can imagine, sects that worship the same god often do not get along with one another.
The king has been hoarding magical items. The king's administration has been granting licenses to individuals and adventuring parties authorizing them to hunt for and obtain these magical items by any means necessary. Though mundane magical items are allowed for general use, no one without such a license is allowed to posses more powerful items (in game terms, magic items approximately 5th level or higher.) It is expected that even those with licenses will only use magic items in the service of acquiring even more powerful items before eventually handing everything over to The Kingdom (in return for generous compensation, of course).
The Warforged are a rather new race created by Kingdom wizards and craftsmen. With the war over they have become unwanted children, struggling to find their place in the world.
---------------------
I'm excited! 
(BTW - there might be a spot available, so if you're awesome, live in the New Haven CT area, and the above sounds fun to you - shoot me a geekmail)
-MMM
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
Cut the Rope is a cute puzzler for the iPad where you swipe various ropes to swing a piece of candy into a little critter's mouth. Like similar puzzle games, it gets updated regularly with new packs of levels.
The boy is something of an iPad prodigy. At a year-and-a-half old he could open the iPad case, press the power button, slide the on screen lock, and scroll through the apps to find ones he wants. We've downloaded a few apps specifically for him (a drawing app, one with animal noises, magic piano) but he also likes to play my game apps. Particularly game apps with opening animations or cool music. Cut the Rope is one such game.
And, for whatever reason, the boy's favorite activity in the game is to go to the Options page and reset all the scores. So whenever there is a new update I need to beat every single level in the game, including the new ones, in a single session. Because next time the boy gets ahold of the iPad everything will be reset again.
As annoyances go, this one is as minor as it gets. But it's a valuable reminder that nothing lasts forever. Particularly with a toddler in the house
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
Here's a dirty little secret about the internet. Site traffic is heaviest during the weekday between 9am and 5pm. So when y'all are supposed to be working, you're actually all busy making more work for me! This also means that when you guys have days off my work load is significantly lighter too. In short, though the internet never sleeps, I still kinda get to do weekend type stuff on weekends.
Saturday, weekend stuff involved a visit from my in-laws. Now, my in-laws don't game outside of occasionally going to a casino. The closest they've gotten outside of that is purchasing a Wii a few years ago, but it mostly serves as a "hey, look at this" conversation piece when friends come over (a notable exception being that my mother in-law used the Wii-Ware option to beat the original Legend of Zelda for the second time in her life! Here's a woman who never plays any kind of video game ever, except for beating the crap out of Legend of M'r F'n Zelda. Crazy. But I digress)
My wife and I tried to introduce her parents to games once with Reiner Knizia's Winner's Circle. It was a disaster. Little fun was had, and it scared us off from trying to expose them to any other games. But the boy was down for his nap and instead of just staring at the tube my wife suggested we try to teach them Tichu. Her parents like card games (or so I'm told - I'd never seen them play any) and I was up for the challenge.
Tichu is a hell of a game to try to teach, but after getting numerous friends, my sister and her husband, and even my own parents hooked on it I've developed a pretty good system. So I buckled down and got to teaching, starting with the normal cards and the different card combinations first - familiar concepts they'd already be comfortable with to ease them into it. Then I started rolling out the more unique aspects of the game, and a few practice hands later we were off and running.
This was an epic win. They were discussing hands after they had ended and getting visibly invested in the outcome of hands as the game progressed. When I heard my mother-in-law gasp when I lost the lead in a hand in which I'd called Grand Tichu, I knew I had them hooked.
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
I anticipate this first blog entry will be longer than usual as I lay out what my typical day is like.
I'm a stay-at-home-dad to an almost 2 year old boy. Most of my day is taken up by him, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The typical day sees me waking up at 8:30 am to take over for my wife, who wakes up an hour earlier. She takes off for work and from then to approximately 6pm is a flurry of non-stop activity with a two hour interruption of calm during his nap time.
I do actually get some work done during that part of my day, though not anything in-depth. I'll use this time to weed through the email we get at our Contact Us email to separate the spam (~60% of it) from the actual messages which I will reply to later. I do something similar with my subscriptions. I am subscribed to several forums on the site and separate the resulting subscription list into threads I'm not interested in, threads I'm personally interested in, and threads that I'm following as a moderator.
If I've been a good husband I'll have dinner ready by the time my wife gets home. I enjoy cooking, so I'm a good husband more often than not The next few hours are spent catching up on each others' day and playing with our boy until bed time arrives around 9pm. Most nights my wife turns in around the same time, but sometimes she'll stay up and we'll enjoy a show on the DVR together (we're currently in Season 2 of The Wire).
After she turns in I get the bulk of my work done. Geekmail never stops coming in. Nor does email. People don't stop posting to the forums. And in addition to those constant streams I need to attend to, I also have a wide variety of other duties. I'm a man of many hats around here and my main challenge is in keeping all the balls in the air as I juggle them.
Fortunately, I love what I do. A lot of my public activity (ie forum moderation) involves playing bad-cop, but most of what I take care of behind the scenes in responding to emails and such involves helping individuals. I can imagine burning out from the negativity forum moderation brings if that weren't balanced by all the gratitude I get from people I assist privately.
Anyways, what you may have noticed is that all the above leaves little time in my day for games. ANY games. The backlog of video games I want to get to (BioShock 2, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Dead Space 2) grows and grows, and I've got games acquired at BGG.Con (Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game, 51st State) still in shrink!
Friday provided a small gaming oasis in my typically barren week. A couple friends (Matt and Joshua) that had midday Friday free so I scheduled some gaming to happen at my place during my boy's nap time. Matt had never played The End of the Triumvirate so I went through the rules and then we got to business. It ended fairly quickly with Josh taking a military victory in the second year (mostly my own fault for creating the opening).
Matt didn't love it, but the constantly shifting alliances reminded him of Chaos in the Old World and thanks to the quick first game we had plenty of time to get that out as well. My son woke up around when we were getting started, so I let him enjoy The Land Before Time (his favorite movie) in the other room. The game marked my first ever win as Tzeentch (a dial victory) and capped off a fun day. All this gaming meant I hadn't prepared dinner (bad husband!), but my wife felt like picking up some fast food anyways (yay!).
Last night's project was my continuing effort to put BGG Secret Santa to bed. We had over 1700 participants and I've only had to match up about 1% of them with new Santas due to gifts not arriving. I think that's pretty amazing! But all the geekmailing to investigate the situation and keep things moving has been a substantial drain on my time and I'm looking forward to having that time to devote to other projects. Still, knowing that no one is being left without a gift makes it well worth the effort.
That sums up yesterday Sorry for the length! As I've laid out what the standard day looks like, future entries will be shorter and focus on unique elements.
Thanks for reading!
|
|
