For those of us having Guild Wars 2 pre-purchased already, we’ll be able to play the game from Friday noon to Sunday at Midnight (all times Pacific). Unfortunately for me, most of that available time will be spent at work, but I’ll get some time in here and there. I’ll share a few thoughts after the weekend.
Guild Wars 2 is an Massive Multiplayer Online Roll Playing Game, like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic. But unlike them, there is no monthly fee. The game is also balanced and structured differently than most MMOs. There aren’t the usual 3 primary class types that all other classes break down into, that is, there isn’t a healer, a tank and a damage class, everyone gets to do them all to some degree.
Their intro video gives a good overview of what they were aiming for…
I’ve added a lot of boardgames to my wishlist… I may break the boardgames into their own list since they would be more equally share-able with the boys… As a reminder the kids wishlist has been updated recently as well.
My dad had given us a gift certificate for the mall, so I used a bit of it at the game kiosk to buy a Go Board. As a bonus, since the holidays are over they have everything discounted so the whole thing came under $20 even with tax. Go Game with Wood Board
I got my first teaching game of Go today, but before I did that I played yet another bot on KGS. I paid no real attention to the marking of dead stones at the end and hit done quickly. Bad mistake, as the game thought Black (the bot) won by 360.5, when the reality was that White (me) won by 66.5. Unfortunately that was a ranked game and is part of my record. So the lesson from that is, pay attention during the mark the dead stones phase.
Anyhow, for my teaching game, I played a game against a gentleman from Germany (I won’t say his online name here as I am not sure the rules on such things). It was a quick 13 x 13 game where White won by resignation. I was Black and I had a 4 stone handicap, but was far too defensive. My weakness continues to be corners, which even with the computer I tend to loose out on.
Specific things I need to work on. 3×3 invasions when I am on the default 4×4 star point. Building corners period really. Remember to look to connect stones, even if I can’t make a second eye close to the one set, if the other set I might connect to has one eye, then all of them will live. I need to view more moves down the line as I tend not to view too many moves ahead.
Reading the review is a bit harder to follow than the initial time through it since the comments appear when they were entered in, and some of my reactions may have been when he was a few moves from where he mentioned something.
ChiyoDad Learns Go is my favorite Go Blog. It is a very good website, especially for beginners. It is where I first learned of Hikaru No Go, which I will probably talk about at some future point (warning, don’t read past the Spoilers warning on that page until you have finished the series). Anyhow, ChiyoDad Learns Go, GoDiscussions and Sensei’s Library (a wiki for Go) are all things that every Go player should have bookmarked and visit regularly.
I first heard of Go eons ago when Atari was the king of video games. I knew they were named for a Go term, but not much more than that. When they made their Tengen division, I again learned it was a Go term, but thought nothing more of it for a long time.
When Pente came out, I once again learned of Go. This time I gained a more active interest in it, but didn’t do anything about it.
Somewhere along the line I got back into it again and started learning the game. I learned some basics, and attended a local Go club meeting. Unfortunately for me, the club met at a time and date that didn’t work well for me and I was unable to go. They have since stopped meeting after one of the main guys in the club moved out of the area… not that it would matter since it would most likely still be a bad time for me. 🙂 After being unable to go to meeting, and too intimidated to do anything online, I stopped for a few years, once in a great while picking up a Go book and looking through it. As all things go full circle for me, I am once again pursuing Go, and this time will do more online since there are no local Go clubs. I am learning more this time, and once I get a few teaching games under my belt, I am sure I’ll be good to go (no pun intended).
I was looking ahead a bit in my reading of The Second Book of Go (Beginner and Elementary Go Books) and came across the following (I changed it slightly from the book by adding an extra letter, but otherwise is the same save this one is in color rather than 2d black and white):
Here we see the marked white stones has liberties at A and B and the marked Black stones have liberties and B and C. Generally when counting liberties that is where I would have stopped. However Black in this case has one more liberty.
White can play neither B nor C, else she puts itself in atari. That is, if she played B, Black would capture that stone and the marked stones by playing A. If she played C, Black would capture that stone and one more by playing D. So White must first play C, meaning even if White plays first she’ll loose as it would take one more move on her part. (Generally in a capture race, with everyone having the same number of liberties, the one who goes first will win.)
First is Janice Kim’s excellent Learn to Play Go series. These are basically English translations of books from the Korean Go Association. Very good books to have in your Go library. Some say the problem is that it is spread across so many books, and you get the lessons in one or two books from others, but I like them. Learn to Play Go: A Master’s Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I) (Learn to Play Go)
A very good introduction to Go. As a matter of fact, I would say this one is nearly a must have for anyone who doesn’t know how to play Go at all. Once you know more than just the basics, it might be a bit to basic, but a great introduction. The Way of the Moving Horse (Learn to Play Go, Volume II) (Learn to Play Go Ser)
I am nearly done with this one right now. This is probably the first book to get after the basics are learned, even if you skip the first book.
Go: More Than a Game
I am reading this one too right now. It is a nice book. Not an introduction to the game, but an okay book after you know the basic rules of the game. I like the other stuff it covers such as the history of Go and the like.
I have been playing SmartGo a bit… well I only played a couple games, but I have been playing with some of the other features and I have to say that if you have any interest in playing Go at all, you really should get this program. Speaking of playing games against it, here is my second attempt at a 13×13 board with it. I took a 5 stone handicap since I am still a high kyu player… probably lower then I think, but it has been a while since I played anyhow, so until I get used to thinking that way again I’ll stick to saying I am a high kyu player. I added comments to that game… To use that file you’ll need SmartGo or another good SGF reader, of which there are lots out there.
For those looking for a nice screensaver, there is SunXi’s Go Screensaver. This reads SGF files and displays them on your screen with a very nice 3D effect. Beautiful to watch.
I haven’t talked about Go for eons.
First up. I noticed my favorite Go program SmartGo has been updated to 2.3. It has been very much improved since I last used the game back when it was still 1.something… It has a 15 day free trial so give it a go (no pun intended). A few of the nicer additions is the ability to play on the IGS and a bunch of problems from GoProblems.com. It looks like they have added a ton more professional matches to study as well as a bunch more joseki. Is also has pattern matching so you can select a pattern in your game and find a similar match in a professional match to see how they responded.
I may update later with the books that I still need…
Random Musings of Father, Gamer, Author, and occasional YouTuber, and Twitch Streamer, Brian A. Thomas.
and came across the following (I changed it slightly from the book by adding an extra letter, but otherwise is the same save this one is in color rather than 2d black and white):
