Roger Edwards 7/26/19 Roger Edwards 7/26/19

Tolkien (2019)

Within its first five minutes, it becomes very apparent what Finnish director Dome Karukoski is attempting to achieve with his biopic Tolkien. Commencing with JRR Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) as an Army Officer, searching the trenches of the Somme for a lost comrade, the film explores through a series of flashbacks key events that shaped the authors life and inevitably influenced his subsequent writings. Naturally, such a narrative conceit is to be expected when considering such a writer and his literary creations but often during Tolkien, viewers may get a sense that the screenplay is overreaching to draw parallels between real world events and key themes in The Lord of the Rings. Furthermore, when considering Tolkien’s professed dislike of allegory, it does seem a little too heavy handed. Yet despite this stumbling block there are still other aspects of the production to enjoy.

Roger Edwards 7/25/19 Roger Edwards 7/25/19

Video Games and Voice Acting

I think it’s a fair assessment that here are several genres of game that don’t have any requirement for in-depth voice acting. If there is no substantial narrative to tell or a necessity to deliver a lot of complex instructions, then plain text or simple audio soundbites will suffice. However, games such as an RPG or an MMORPG, which tend to have complex stories and multiple characters, benefit immensely from good quality voice acting. Now some gamers are not interested in intricate plots and find dialogue and cutscenes an impediment but I do not believe them to be a majority. If they want to skip dialogue and such like, then that is their prerogative and I support their right to do so. I actually think that both dialogue and cutscenes should wherever possible be “skippable”. But I am often heavily invested in the narratives of the games I play. I enjoy good dialogue when its available and feel that voice acting reinforces the plot and credibility of the various characters. I sorely miss it when it is not present.

Roger Edwards 7/23/19 Roger Edwards 7/23/19

Addons, Dependencies and Libraries in ESO

Once again, I’m writing a post not out of technical enthusiasm but to try and spare someone else the tiresome bullshit I’ve just had to endure this evening. I wrote earlier this year about the duality of addons in The Elder Scrolls Online. They can be a great boon to the player but they can also be fiddly to configure and frequently break when the game is updated. You’re dependent on the good will of a third party to maintain them. Naturally the recent addition of Elsweyr to ESO meant that a bunch of addons were broken by the expansion. Oddly enough I didn’t initially notice that several of mine had stopped working because I’ve been away from the game for a while, plus I was busy trying to transfer various settings from my previous character to my new alt. However, once I actually got down to the business of traversing Tamriel and questing, it came to my attention that lots of details were missing from my map. Hence, I discovered that all was not well in “Addonsville”.

Roger Edwards 7/22/19 Roger Edwards 7/22/19

Creating Alts and Copying Settings in ESO

If you are a veteran player of The Elder Scrolls Online, this post will simply be a statement of the “bleedin’ obvious”. However I have written this article for the benefit of those relatively new to ESO as well as the occasional or casual player who are not au fait with all the subtleties and nuances of the MMORPG. If I can spare someone the hassle that I’ve had over the past 48 hours trying to figure this shit out, then I consider that a valuable social service. Because unlike other MMOs, creating a new alt in ESO causes some additional problems to arise. If you know about them in advance, they are a lot easier to manage. If, like me you were not aware of them, then it can be frustrating attempting to trouble shoot them on the fly.

Roger Edwards 7/20/19 Roger Edwards 7/20/19

Internet Fame and Fortune

I recently read a blog post by Tobold about the subject of “internet fame” and the thorny issue of “influencers”. He referenced how at one point his blog was getting over 3,000 visits a day and he had traction within the wider gaming community. However, over time his waning interest in gaming along with the rise of other social media platforms has seen a steady decline in traffic to his blog. He notes how there’s been a shift towards Streamers and You Tubers becoming major sources of influence. He even goes so far as to suggest that creating visual content is harder than blogging. Yet I’m not so sure about the last point. Scheduling, producing and editing video content is certainly an involved process and requires a degree of skill. But mastering these techniques is not a guarantee of quality. I still believe that the written word, especially in a longform analytical fashion, requires more thought and analysis. And I would also argue that those very qualities subsequently narrow the market for its consumption.

Roger Edwards 7/19/19 Roger Edwards 7/19/19

Cromwell (1970)

Big budget historical costume dramas were still popular at the box office during the seventies although the public was slowly falling out of love with them. Cromwell is a curious addition to the genre in so far that it is actually demonstrably less than the sum of its parts. Despite a high budget and a quite impressive production design, it offers nothing more than a broad historical overview of the English Civil War and is actually quite light on detail and frequently historically inaccurate. It comes across as a somewhat long-winded history primer for schools and the viewer is never really offered anything more than a dozen or so bullet points of information about this period. However, it has a few merits to consider and is certainly not a total waste of time for those seeking a few hours diversion.

Roger Edwards 7/18/19 Roger Edwards 7/18/19

The Elder Scrolls Online and Action Combat

I was recently gifted a copy of Summerset in The Elder Scrolls online by a friend. Naturally this act of generosity lead to me returning to the game. Although I participated in the beta test, I only seriously started playing ESO from January to July last year. I created a High Elf Sorcerer and levelled to the current cap of 50 and then started working on gaining Champion Points, which currently stand at 187. Although I enjoyed the experience, especially from a narrative perspective, I did struggle to a degree with the action combat. It can be a quite a culture shock playing ESO after years of traditional, older MMOs that have a more static combat system. There is a tendency to default to old habits and ways that frequently leads to mistakes. Older MMOs often share common key mappings and system methodologies. ESO often flies in the face of that, so you find yourself having to “unlearn what you have learned” to coin a phrase. It can be done and you can adapt. I managed last year but now, due to the time elapsed, I am now having to do so again.

Roger Edwards 7/17/19 Roger Edwards 7/17/19

A Month in Gaming

This post should have been published two weeks ago but as ever, real life just keeps getting in the way. As expected, June proved to be a busy month, however, I managed to organise my leisure time pretty well, affording me an opportunity to not only play my two current MMOs but also experiment with some other games. At present my caring commitment keep me busy from about 10:30 AM to about 5:00 PM. I tend to get up round about 7:00 AM so if I promptly have a shower, dress and eat, I can usually create a two-hour window in the morning to either tackle admin and paperwork or undertake dailies in games such as The Lord of the Rings Online or Star Trek Online. I can also find several hours in the evening as Mrs Peril tends to go to bed earlier than I. Therefore practical time management has proven beneficial over the last four weeks.

Roger Edwards 7/16/19 Roger Edwards 7/16/19

Thoughts on Blogging Part 9

The last three months have been problematic from a writing perspective and my productivity and motivation have both suffered. I struggle to find appropriate time to sit down and apply myself to writing and when I do, I seldom have the correct mindset to stay focused for long. Yet due to the back catalogue of content available on Contains Moderate Peril, there is still regular traffic coming to the site. Ironically, despite my low productivity, I have started receiving an increase in blog related marketing and have received numerous emails regarding “collaboration”, “featured posts” and “SEO optimisation”. All of which I have no interest in. However, the point remains, I’m not writing as much as I used to and I miss it. The same can be said for podcasting but that’s a tougher problem to fix. It is more labour intensive than writing, so the logical thing to do is to focus on the former and not the latter to fix.

Roger Edwards 7/9/19 Roger Edwards 7/9/19

Midsommar (2019)

There are numerous visual and narrative clues that telegraph both the plot and themes of Misdommar. A painting seen in the protagonist’s apartment offers a clear indication as to what is to come. Director Ari Aster deliberately and painstakingly creates a cinematic metaphor in which the emotional turmoil and distress of the lead character brought about by her disintegrating personal life, are mirrored in the real-world events that overtake her. However, this is far from a traditional horror movie with jump scares but more of a psychological thriller with a growing sense of disquiet and helplessness. The audience are presented with a fait accompli in so far as its clear that things are going to turn bad for all concerned and there is no deeper explanation for events other than what we are presented with. And therein lies the rub. Midsommar goes all in on “the journey” and it is down to the viewer as to whether that is an enthralling experience or not.

Roger Edwards 7/7/19 Roger Edwards 7/7/19

LOTRO: The Pros and Cons of Complex Lore

Professor Tolkien has created one of the most complex and rich fictional mythologies found in twentieth century fiction. There is both detail and ambiguity to be found in his collected works. For example, the line of Númenórean Kings or the family tree of Elrond are clearly explored and catalogued. Yet there are many more obscure and esoteric references littering the various texts, that pique the imagination by alluding to more nebulous people and events. What was the fate of the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando? What was so special about Queen Berúthiel cats which she used as spies? Are there really Were-worms "the East of East"? It is this balance between richly detailed faux heraldry and vague apocrypha which makes Middle-earth such a credible and living world.

Roger Edwards 6/25/19 Roger Edwards 6/25/19

Star Trek Online: Lohlunat Festival 2019 Controversy

Yesterday Cryptic posted details of the forthcoming summer event, known in Star Trek Online parlance as the Lohlunat Festival 2019. As usual there’s a Tier 6 ship to be earned through daily missions along with a ton of cosmetic items. Emotes are popular with players and so this event also includes several that can be used in space via your starship, giving “Captains” further means of expressing themselves. At first glance, there’s nothing exceptional about this bundle of goodies. Nor nothing controversial. However, the devil is in the detail, as developer’s Cryptic subsequently found out.

Roger Edwards 6/23/19 Roger Edwards 6/23/19

Hoard It or Spend It?

This posts stems from a recent experience I had in Star Trek Online but it is not a matter that is exclusive to that MMO. This is a subject that is pertinent to any multiplayer game that has an in-game currency and an economy driven by player activity. I’m not referring to single player games where you can use a console command to give you infinite wealth, such as Skyrim. This is about currencies that are earned in-game through grinding missions, selling gear and other assets to NPCs and trading via the auction house. It’s about how we as player perceive that virtual money and our relationship with it.

Roger Edwards 6/21/19 Roger Edwards 6/21/19

Video Game Tutorials

Video game tutorials are a curious thing. They are intended to orientate a new player and give them a quick and succinct overview of a games systems and mechanics. However few do this well and they can slow the player down. Because the MMO genre shares a lot of common features, it is often relatively straightforward to pick up the controls of a new game. Hence players will complain about the tutorial being a bane rather than a boon. Yet in single player games such as the Sniper Elite series, the tutorials are integrated into the first level and provide a good overview to playing the game without out staying its welcome. Furthermore, you can elect to disable this function in later versions of the game and play through the starter level without assistance. Hence tutorials have a tendency to be a somewhat mixed bag, yet they are a very necessary service. Having to continuously tab out of a game or refer to a website on a second monitor can really kill your sense of immersion and diminish your enjoyment of a new game. On a simple consumer level, selling a product that doesn’t come with some semblance of instructions is poor marketing.

Roger Edwards 6/19/19 Roger Edwards 6/19/19

Childhood's End (2015)

For anyone with a passing interest in literary science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is a seminal novel and considered an essential read. The story of humanity being shepherded into a utopian golden age by allegedly benevolent alien Overlords and the consequences it has upon society, was a radical departure from prevailing science fiction norms of the time. Over the years several film makers have expressed interest in adapting the story, but it has proven difficult to come to grips with. Stanley Kubrick initially wished to develop the novel but his subsequent collaboration with the author eventually lead to the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Since then there have been radio adaptations and audiobook versions, all of which seem to be a better medium for this episodic and contemplative tale. In late 2015 US cable and satellite channel Syfy broadcast a three-part miniseries based upon the 1953 story; something that past me by at the time. I recently caught up with this adaptation which seems to have provoked very mixed reactions among viewers. As ever, the controversy seems to stem from purists who favour a more slavish interpretation of the book.

Roger Edwards 6/17/19 Roger Edwards 6/17/19

The Andromeda Strain (2008)

I always cringe when I hear the phrase re-imagining. It's yet another contrived expression created by marketing bodies to justify the somewhat arbitrary process of remaking an established title. Often the re-imagined product has little to do with the source material and was chosen simply because of brand awareness. If you want a textbook example of a recent example of this somewhat cynical process then look no further than last year’s Death Wish reboot. It had nothing new to say on the subject and simply trotted out a generic and bland revenge thriller. So, when I discovered that Robert Wise's classic science fiction film, The Andromeda Strain had been remade as a TV miniseries (that had completely passed me by), I had great reservations as to whether this would be worth watching. However, the involvement of Tony and Ridley Scott piqued my interest, so I decided to take a calculated risk and give this 2008 A&E Network production a go.