Vox Lusoris

Still here and opposing SOPA

2012-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

I didn't black out the site. I would give you some long excuse, but the reality is I'm too lazy to put the code in and take it out for handful of people who visit my blog daily. So my better idea is to do something that will last longer anyways.

Do you know what SOPA and PIPA are? Well you got here to reading this with the internet so it is in your best interest if you do.

Lego Heroica Fortaan

2012-01-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

It has been a while, but finally here is a new Youtube video from me:

You got some religious bigotry in your game...

2012-01-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

I've become alarmed and rather frustrated with a bunch of games lately that I find are full of Anti-Christian and Anti-Jewish bigotry. I've been looking for a new roleplaying game to get a group together that isn't D&D or Shadowrun third edition. I see a lot of otherwise great games ruined by their bigotry towards most of the people of the world.

Eclipse Phase is a futuristic game that states that all Christians and Jews are wiped out in the future. Also, all the worlds minor eastern religions and even Islam are represented... what? So playing as written you can play a futuristic Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Hari Krishna but we have to tweak the setting for my Christian and Jewish friends to play? Deadlands, Christians and White Men are the root cause of all evil in a very dark setting. Warhammer? Sadly one of the most religiously neutral games I can think of besides Shadowrun is the World of Darkness setting, which seems rather crazy to me as I think of it as the least appealing to religious gamers.

I'm not looking for a game with a religious setting, in fact quite the opposite as that would cause the same problems I'm having with anti-religious settings and feeling as a buyer that I shouldn't have to tweak the official setting in these ways. What I want is a RPG like Shadowrun 1st edition which is completely religiously neutral. In High School I used to play Shadowrun with Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, one Buddhist and one Jew and it was easy because the setting didn't try to trample anyone's beliefs. While I might understand from a business standpoint the calculated hostility towards even Islam or Judaism (as you don't expect a lot of Jews or Muslims to play role playing games, it is almost like Weird Al targeting the Amish in his music) but the great majority of the U.S. population considers themselves Christian of some sort. So why do so many gaming companies (particularly U.S. ones) thrill in putting their bigotry towards mainstream religious groups on display? Why in a country founded for and proud of Freedom of Religion does our gaming producing culture not reflect it by being respectful of if not all people's religious beliefs at least the ones that make up most of the retail market in the U.S.?

Would you plan a business and intentionally go after a religious or political group that would otherwise likely to be a potentially large part of your customer base? It just seems crazy to me.

R.I.P. December 27, 2011

2011-12-27T18:22:00.000-08:00

Rest in Peace Go-Daddy (who thought internet censorship was a good idea) and Ocean Marketing (Customer service shouldn't belittle their customers) which are both companies circling round the toilet bowl today.

Lessons for any company that wants to stay in business. Learn who your customers are, be nice to them and don't try to screw them over with government intrusion. Also, treat your customers with respect. Word of mouth was damaging to companies a couple thousand years ago. With the invention of the internet, Word of Mouth got a lot more powerful.

This doesn't have much to do with Gaming

2011-12-20T21:40:00.001-08:00

... but you should watch it anyways.

What games do you want?

2011-12-14T18:56:00.000-08:00

It is almost Christmas time so lets see some wishlists. Even if you know you won't get it, what do you want that is currently out? For me it is these in no particular order:

Serious Sam 3 (PC)
The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild (Tabletop RPG)
Those Who Walked Amongst Us (Tabletop RPG)
Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii)
Deus Ex (PC)
The Oregon Trail (Wii)
More models for Anima Tactics
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)

Feel free to post some of your own lists.

This is how you stop online "Piracy"

2011-12-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

Serious Sam: BFE "Begone Freeloading Enemies" has introduced a clever way of dealing with pirates. Stick an unkillable foe that follows them and torments them in the game. Way to go Croteam!

He is done

2011-11-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

Natakue is done with Greed Workshop and I think it is about time. What do you think?

A Touch of Evil

2011-10-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

So for the last two months "A Touch of Evil" has been the game of choice for my local group of gamers on a friday night. This game by Flying Frog Productions seems to hit all the key points for use to enjoy it. Wonderfully thematic like Arkham Horror, "A Touch of Evil" is very hammer horror movie inspired. It has the roleplaying feel of an in-depth Fantasy Flight game but is far simpler to setup and play so that the Eurogame fans in our group are willing to play it. It has competitive, cooperative, and team play to satisfy all of us. In fact we have so far been playing almost entirely team based.

In a game the group will pick a villian to fight. It could be the Vampire, Werewolf, Headless Horsemen, or Scarecrow. Each plays very differently so that you get a very different game each time. Then you pick your hero, each hero has 4 different statistics and various special abilities. Then you are off to visit various important locations around the small community and in the process accumulate helpful items, allies, and progress your investigation with clues and favors denoted in the "investigation" currency of the game. To win the game you have to beat the Villian in a "Showdown" fight which is very dramatic and climactic. Your allies will try to help you while your opponents will try to sabotage your effort to fight so that they can slip in after you fail to beat the villian. It is an excellent game and if your gaming group likes thematic games then I can't recommend "A Touch of Evil" enough.

For the Anima Tactics fans

2011-10-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Here is another little Black Sun sneak peek. You are free to repost it and discuss it, just be sure to mention you saw it here first!

Cool stuff from PAX

2011-10-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, barring any bad things from Google here is my long overdue post about PAX. So I'll break out the Geek Chic bell display and hope to keep away all the bad things.

In Case of Vampire

GEEK CHIC continues to get me to drool over all their geeky furniture. This year they got one of my orders. This week I should hopefully be showing off a display cabinet I got for my wife's miniatures.They've got incredible tables of all sorts. Tables that can be used for dinner and gaming, dedicated gaming only tables, gaming coffee tables, and more. One of the amusing and kewl new things they were showing off though was the "in case of..." displays that you will see pictured here. These were prototypes still in development, but they're hilarious gag gifts for geek fans to have in their house. In case of vampire makes it seem like you expect a real vampire to break into your house at night and you expect to defend yourself from it as you would from any home burglar with your shotgun.
Seeing their tables laid out with terrain makes me feel like I'm 16 years old again in the game store just salivating at all the Shadowrun books I could not afford.

Anyways more to come about PAX on a rambling basis. I want to get this posted before it is a month out of date. Enjoy the pictures, I'll include a bunch of the costumes at the bottom as well.

Updates coming again!

2011-10-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Yay! Google got pictures working again. So now in addition to the below blog entry I can get caught up on a host of blog entries including PAX, A Touch of Evil, D&D, and a lot more.

Oh, and the job situation is looking very good for a change. So look for a lot more goodies in the coming weeks!

The Hunter: An Anima Tactics sneak peek

2011-10-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

I got the permission from the guys at Cipher Studios to show this beauty off!

What do you think?

Blogger bugs

2011-09-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I wanted to post some PAX updates with lots of pictures. But Blogger is bugging out and all my pictures get miscolored. Fix it Google!

Also, my posting time is pretty well limited to Sundays as I'm working 6 day weeks. I still want to talk about all the awesome stuff which happened at PAX this year and fun and excitement to come!

PAX Exhaustion

2011-08-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Oni outside PAX

Still too tired and things are too crazy to really write up everything that went on at PAX. So detailed reviews are going to take some days or weeks to get published. Initial takes though was that this PAX was bigger than ever before for good and bad. I do not know how they will cope in future years as PAX is already busting at the seems for all the convention center has to offer.

I wasn't as impressed with the PC and video game offerings compared to years past. That isn't to say there weren't still a few real gems to be found there. I was more impressed with the board game offerings even though I wasn't as impressed with some of the game companies like Fantasy Flight which didn't seem to have anything to show off post Gencon. They didn't even have some of the things they had at Gencon like the new Anima Beyond Fantasy RPG book.

(I feel asleep last night writing this blog, so I'll end it here)

This is PAX weekend!

2011-08-24T20:41:00.001-07:00

I guess I will be blogging a lot in the near future.

Presenting: Maria

2011-08-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

The latest addition to my Church force is Maria, and the latest addition to my useful Samael advantage cards is Chaos!

Gamefly Review

2011-08-06T18:21:00.000-07:00

So I recently finished a 6 month subscription to Gamefly. I've heard a lot of other reviews of Gamefly both positive and negative so I thought I would throw in my own.

I got the service initially because there were a lot of Wii games I was interested in, but I knew that a lot of them were just garbage and I did not want to buy them unknown or pay blockbuster video's expensive video rental. For the price of two blockbuster videos a month I could simply have gamefly mail them and not worry about blockbuster's availability. Unfortunately at the beginning due to living in the Seattle area I only got two games a month. Initially they didn't have a service center west of the Rockies but this was remedied a few months in with a new distribution center right here in Seattle. This changed the service from waiting a week to a week and a half to get a new game in the mail to getting a new game within 2 mailing days. Vast improvement!

In the course of my subscription to gamefly I got 3 bad discs which seemed rather high to me. In the couple years I've had Netflix I think I've only ever gotten one bad disc. This was after extensive efforts to clean the gamefly discs and make them work. The good news is Gamefly had a great customer service after reporting bad discs where they sent the next available game straight out.

My second biggest complaint about the service (and admittedly Gamefly can't fix the biggest one) is that I rarely seemed to get the top 3 games in my queue. Typically I got a game 5 or 6 down on my game queue and even getting the 8th down wasn't too uncommon. By contrast with netflix I don't think I've ever gotten further down the list than number 3 and that is with a number of new release hit movies on my queue there. Gamefly just doesn't seem to stock enough of the popular new release games or something to get them reliably. If someone from Gamefly ever reads this, I would consider it your biggest area for improvement!

Now my biggest complaint is simply one Gamefly can do little about and it is the reason I quit the service. That is simply that there are too few quality Wii games out. I'm sick of so many party or exercise games. They need more quality adventure, RPG, or simulator games. Seriously Nintendo, I know you're opening up new markets but please cater to the old fashioned gamers as well! Now that there are only a few titles left that I'm interested in, and a lot of them are not yet set for import from Japan or are under development... there is no point to a service like gamefly. Hopefully the state of game development improves.

Miskatonic University Student

2011-07-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

I was going to wait until my next game of Arkham Horror to write this, but I decided to get in my first impressions of the new Miskatonic Horror expansion while it is still fresh. The idea of an expansion for the base game and all the expansions of Arkham Horror is a bit off-putting. In practice I think it actually works great and it is a fix for all the Arkham Horror expansions that have been out for a long time and are well known (The revised Dark Pharoah being the exception).

First I guess I will start out with the negative. If you have had the original Dark Pharoah expansion like me and love it, this has little for that expansion. Some new Exhibit items but most of the additions are for the new Ancient Whispers mechanic of the revised edition. I haven't played the new Dark Pharoah yet, but I'm not impressed by the list of changes as I am a fan of the old one and they did not go at all the direction I would hope a revision should. But this review is about Miskatonic, so enough of that!

For our first game we had the Lurker in the Threshold expansion combined with the Black Goat of the Woods expansion. We played with the Lurker as the Herald and Ithaqua as the Great Old One who's coming into the world we were trying to prevent. There were four investigators in the game: Kate Winthrop, Jenny Barnes, Professor Armitage, and Joe Diamond. One of the players was brand new to Arkham Horror and we played with the Organized Crime organization and thought this would all be a lot harder. Everyone choose the option to start off with a retainer as an option under the new Organized Crime organization, basically we were all working for the mob to stop the take over of the world... Ithaqua should have thought twice before taking on the Godfather. One of the bigger changes that was immediately noticed was that the Cult Encounters which rarely make an appearance were a HUGE deal in this game thanks to the Miskatonic Horror additions. One of our investigators started off with a membership and had encounters which gave her the option of recruiting a fellow investigator into the cult (and they had to take a corruption card with it) or suffering for it. However, in the end we were all able to get blessed as a result of having all investigators inducted into the cult. This basically fixed the Black Goat of the Woods expansion as in the couple years I've had that expansion we've only had people become cult members twice. The new Lurker cards unfortunately never really came into play as none of us felt pressured enough to need to ask for his help.

Our next game will be in two weeks and we intend to ramp up the difficulty significantly. The Dunwich board and Dunwich Horror Herald will be coming into play. I'm always excited to play Arkham Horror but the new Miskatonic expansion has me terribly excited to revisit old expansions like Dunwich!

I feel much better now

2011-07-17T12:28:00.001-07:00

It has been a long while, so here is a badly done unboxing video of Miskatonic Horror

So tired

2011-04-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

The good jobs just doesn't last long enough. I'm so tired of a really long commutes for poor pay to work with unpleasant people. More blog posting will hopefully come with the next job.

Wow, I need to support this game company

2011-03-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm really encouraged by how many in the gaming community are coming together to support Japan and the Japanese in its crisis. Square-Enix is giving 100 million yen to support the recovery effort in Japan, in addition to shutting down its massive reveneue generating online game servers in Japan for Final Fantasy 11 and 14. I just can't picture very many american or european companies shutting down their ability to make money for the greater good of the country. Nexon is also donating millions to the cause of japanese relief.

But the most impressive to me was NCSoft who is donating 500 million yen, about 1 months revenue to them to aid with the Japanese recovery. More importantly, NCsoft is a Korean company and Korea and Japan do not have a friendly history towards each other. Many older Japanese and Koreans still bear major grudges towards each other. Japan occupied Korea prior to WW1 and held onto it until the end of WW2. So for NCSoft to send a huge some of money of say their thoughts and prayers are with them is a huge deal.

Way to go NCSoft, guess I'm definitely going to have to buy Guild Wars 2 and give it a try. Because that is the type of company I want to support.

I'm glad someone said it...

2011-03-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

From Game Politics:

Minecraft Creator: Piracy Isn't Theft

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson told attendees of the GDC Indie Games Summit that the notion of piracy as being theft is incorrect.

"Piracy is not theft," said Persson during the session. "If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world. There is no such thing as a 'lost sale.' Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?"

Persson suggested to attendees that many developers see pirates not as "inherently evil, but as potential customers." Persson also took on comments made by Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata, saying that his criticism of small and rampant mobile and social games excludes the fact that games such as Minecraft are more of a service than a one-time purchase. Persson said that games such as his creation and Angry Birds are constantly adding updates and new content and that both have incredible sales numbers.

"Treat game development as a service," he said. "Make a game last longer than a week. You can't pirate an online account."

It is amazing how well it works for business when you treat your customers better than than the pirates. One of the reasons I believe piracy is so rampant, is that there are often more rewards for being a pirate than an honest customer with many companies. That DRM (Digital Rights Management software) which can destroy your computer is no risk on a pirated version, which is only all the more reason to pirate what they put the DRM on!

I would hope this attitude would catch on, but I've worked too long in the corporate world. Power corrupts, and it is as true in the business world as it appears to be in the political one.

PAX is good for families

2011-02-16T19:12:00.001-08:00

So I haven't posted in... way too long. I'm surprised I still have loyal readers who keep coming back to check! I keep changing jobsand throwing my life into disarray, which takes precedence over blogging for me.

Anyways a while back I read Scott Jennings rant on Penny Arcade and PAX.

Scott Jennings:

But the problem is PAX. PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, has fairly quickly become the primary go-to convention for gamer culture – what everyone who tried to sneak into E3 thought E3 was supposed to be. Lots of lan parties, game demos, 2nd tier science fiction actors, and Jonathan Coulton concerts. Geek nirvana, essentially. And game companies have embraced PAX because of that critical mass of success.

Basically "the problem" is he doesn't think people should support PAX because the people behind PAX are also the people behind Penny Arcade. Like maybe we shouldn't support whatever company he works for because of his opinions on his blog? Penny Arcade is an adult and often offensive webcomic. It is my third favorite webcomic and I can firmly say it is third because as much as it sometimes makes me laugh it can not infrequently gross me out and much more frequently offend me. Not as badly as "Saturday Night Live" has a penchant for grossing me out and offending me (i.e. Ambigously Gay Duo), but still all the same Penny Arcade does. So should I boycott every Dan Akroyd movie because he was one of the creative minds behind SNL?

Maybe Scott Jennings would like to denounce Child's Play too? The charity which raises millions of dollars to help out hospitalized children all around the world on behalf of gamers, typically the youngest generation who are normally less likely to be involved with charity?

Here is my take. You don't want to support evil, but Penny Arcade is in no way evil and it is the free expression of a couple of artists which you don't have to follow if you don't want to. PAX and Child's play are entirely separate entities. There is no good reason not to support them if you feel like it.

So just because I go to PAX every year and take my two daughters, doesn't mean any of us are supporting over endowed wolves or sex offending fruit juicers. It does mean we support gaming and having fun!

Christmas games!

2010-12-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

I didn't get a lot for Christmas, and I'm glad a lot of it was useful stuff. However, my kids got a few board games I'm really excited about. Particularly we've been enjoying "Settlers of Catan"! I've been enjoying it with my 4 year old and 5 year old. They seem to get the grasp of it fairly well, though higher level strategy is still beyond them at this point.

Still playing DDO with friends and climbing the Starcraft 2 league rankings. Starcraft 2 is getting tougher as it seems the more casual players are quitting or getting better. So come on newbs, join in and let us win some!

My Sinuses have been flocked

2010-12-16T19:22:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last week sick and feeling a bit like the recent CAD comic like about making terrain:

Finally, J-I-T (Just in Time)

2010-12-03T20:28:00.001-08:00

So, this morning I was having another horrible, awful day that is typical of my days at work now. Called into my Boss' office so he could yell at me, someone had called him and yelled at him accusing me of something and he wasn't interested in hearing anything about it from me. I don't want to go into details of all the petty politicing, rumormongering, lies, and backstabbing which go on at this place. It has the worst office politics by far of all the places I've worked at.

I was fed up and hit the "I don't give a care anymore" breaking point because I knew my superiors didn't care about my performance so much as just trying to forge paperwork to pass an audit next week... which they're almost certain to fail... again.

Well to make this quick after all this and being in a foul mood all through the afternoon I called home this evening. A recruiter had contacted me in my email and was trying to reach me to make me a job offer at a place I'd really like to work at. So this hell job is over and my whole family can go back to living a less stressful and more normal life.

I've been smiling all evening ^_^

Do you read CAD?

2010-12-02T21:06:00.001-08:00

Ctrl-Alt-Del, I love it

Playing a little

2010-11-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

So what I've been up to... not much in the ways of miniatures games lately unfortunately unless you count a couple games of Descent. I've taken up playing 'Vanilla' Descent with my daughters who love the game. Donations to the VOR kickstarter is one of the top two items on my Christmas wishlist this year (the other not being gaming related).

Got in another game of Arkham Horror with a new board game group. Might get some more games worth writing about in the next month, but we'll see. If I succeed in replacing the lame job I have now, then I should be able to play board games a lot more.

I've been playing a little bit of the free-to-play DDO and LOTRO with friends and family. I love that these games are free now and they've certainly breathed new life into them.

But mostly what I've been playing when I have the chance is Starcraft 2. The number of cheaters in the game is annoying (like people who are obviously working together in a FFA). It is still a lot of fun however and it reminds me a ton of my old college days playing original Starcraft and Brood War when they came out. Ah, for the misspent days of my college youth!

But the sad thing is, there is nothing coming out this christmas season that I look forward to. Is there anything that you are looking forward to?

VOR Kickstarter???

2010-11-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

From Mike Nielsen

VOR 2.0 Kickstarter project

Say What??? EA's empty bluster

2010-11-08T13:30:00.001-08:00

If you're a MMO fan and enjoy closely following the industry like I do, then you had to get a laugh out of this one:

"Speaking at London Games Conference earlier in the week Cousins (EA-Easy executive) said that the company's rivals are "resting on their laurels" when it comes to investing in the future of video games."

Really? Other companies are resting on their laurels compared to EA? Because as what I see whenever I go to a store selling PC games is that most of the market is MMOs, and pretty much none of that thriving market is EA. If by "resting on their laurels" he means not buying up successful and productive software shops to turn them into unproductive rubbish bins I'd have to agree. But with what EA has done to the Sims Online, Origins Studios, Earth & Beyond, and most recently the disaster which is Mythic Entertainment....

EA is talking a hilarious amount of smack. It is like the nerdy preppy kid in college telling the all-star athletes that he is going to single-handedly kick all their butts at basketball.

I mean sure, maybe Bioware I can understand because they have a good track record. But when you tell me EA is making a Star Wars MMO I expect it to turn out like this:

Because if any game company knows how to rest on its imperial laurels while its little game studios struggle and die, it has to be EA (Sorry to Mythic Entertainment)

Starcraft 2 finally

2010-11-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

So a quick note on my earlier blog about Starcraft 2. I finally broke down and got it, and I'm very glad that I did. First and foremost because it finally has a good ending to the story from Starcraft: Brood War which just wasn't quite the story ender I wanted. Now I'm sure the next expansion will be something of a cliff-hanger, but the ending point for the campaign in Starcraft 2 was very satisfactory.

If you're an old Starcraft fan you should get it for no other reason than that. The gameplay feels like old fashioned Starcraft with some new gimmicks. Not a lot to say there, but it is still worthwhile.

Home from a long day of work

2010-10-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

and look what I got in the mail!

Your daily dose of Drama

2010-10-16T15:06:00.001-07:00

Need to read some really dramatic flare ups about EA, Mythic, WAR, or simply just want to see verbal sparks fly and flames erupt? Here you go, go read "EALouse"!

The Replacement... Stuff

2010-09-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

It is frustrating being a poor Gamer Dad in a bad recession. My 1 and a half year old son has recently wrecked two dining chairs and my gaming mouse. In addition I've had to put all my painting supplies and models up high as well as my Wii gear. I've had my car throw a bolt and a light socket burnt out at our house. This is just in the last week too so it seems like a lot of stuff is getting wrecked and I don't have much funds for replacing it. My gaming mouse got slightly downgraded with a replacement. Still haven't found dining chairs cheap enough to replace the ones we lost.

Plus with all that I still can't get out of my mind all the Geek Chic furniture at PAX... a Gamers' dream house is made of it!

I sincerely hope by the time my kids are teenagers the job situation has improved and they've stopped wrecking enough stuff that I can just afford these things as upgrades. Or at least have the funds stashed away that when they do wreck stuff I can replace it with something better than what I had!

Samael Tactics evolved

2010-09-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

I thought I would update my earlier writing on My Samael Tactics, since they have adapated and evolved since then. Most Samael teams need Janiel to handle stealthed units and so they never get to take Aoi who is one of the best supporting characters in the game because it leaves them open to ambushes from Stealthed prowlers. I've not played it against a full Azur prowler team, but they're very rare and I've found Momiji alone is enough of a prowler assassin to force other prowlers to be on the defensive or be exposed.

Momiji has a lot of things going for her. She is a Prowler and gains a bonus to her seek roll to find other Prowlers which is key. It allows an automatic success with a Destiny card to reveal other Prowlers who aren't in cover (or using the Nue card). She has high speed and combined with the Covert Operations plot card can start stealthed that sometimes she can charge on the first turn and attack fragile enemy characters. While she isn't as lethal as some Prowlers that Azur alliance has, she is also more survivable and your opponent may have to dedicate a lot of resources to truly eliminating her as a threat to them. All this for one character who buys your main force time to pounce on an enemy force that isn't playing as aggressively as they would like.

Dark Chesire was a killer in my old team, but often died quickly himself. Nahimana isn't as lethal, but survives a lot better. Combined with Coral Ecstasy from Aoi she can recklessly charge into the enemy lines behaving as effectively as a second Konosuke.

Konosuke still travels with Bael, but also with Dinah between him and Nahimana. Combined with Supernatural Weapon and Blessing from Dinah Konosuke has a base 6 attack and extra defense to take less damage. Even 1 less point of damage with all his armor can be very significant. 6 base attack also means he can hit a lot more reliably. Furthermore when you're sure you're not going to be making ranged attacks or want to select something other than the closest target you can berserk him from Bael and now Konosuke has base 7 attack and base 9 damage, a true monster. When pressured you can switch Coral Ecstasy to him and he has 7 armor, 3 healing, 14 resist, and will get all his AP back.

The main strategy is to use Nahimana and Konosuke on either flank protecting Bael and Aoi. Dinah should stay in cover and add situational help (blind, ranged attacks, or devestate if a good chance arrives).

This is my evolved Samael team:
(Team layout from PAX game pictured to the right)

Org. Advantage: Supernatural Mastery

Dinah
Konosuke w/Supernatural Weapon
Nahimana w/Life Potion
Aoi Inukai
Momiji w/Covert Operations (Unassigned plot card) & Destiny
Bael w/Control Bound

300 points of characters with 30 Advantages Points.

It has taken work to get the proper screening tactics and timing of abilities down but I've found this to be a very devestating all comers team so far.

Acquisitions, Inc. at PAX Prime 2010

2010-09-08T20:42:00.001-07:00

The single best event I attended at PAX was easily the Acquisitions Inc, Live event. This was a live D&D event with the guys of Penny Arcade, Scott Kurtz of PvP, and Wil Wheaton of, well... all his writing and acting credits.

This was the equivalent of the super bowl for D&D geeks.

Other great events were the Geek 2.0 panel on Saturday, the Geek Chic booth, Nvidia and Alienware's many booths. Famous people highlights were meeting and talking to Scott Kurtz of PvP Online and one of my favorite webcomic artists Aline Pete of Weregeek. If you haven't started reading Weregeek then you should, it is one of my top three favorites along with CAD and Penny Arcade.

PAX has begun

2010-09-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

PAX has begun! This year's PAX is a blast and I think that soon 3 days isn't going to be enough for it. There is so much to do there and more than I will have time for. Yesterday, Friday was pretty much just a reconnaissance and preview day with so much stuff to do. So much new stuff like "Super Dungeon Explore" from Sodapop miniatures (pictured to the right), the new Tron game, new Fallout game. Plus lots of prizes and goodies to win from old well known companies like NVIDIA, Intel, Warner Brothers, etc. Today I've got 3 or 4 panels to attend as well plus a PAX tournament game of Anima Tactics!

It might take me a long while to blog and catch up with all the stuff I've seen and done!

Listening to beta testers is .... "Elemental"

2010-08-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

Stardock did a wonderful job with Galactic Civilizations, and those of you who follow my blog know that I've been very eager for their new game "Elemental: War of Magic" for a long time. That is until it showed during beta that their egos were getting in the way of listening to customers and beta testers. I won't rehash the old parts, but the behavior continued and despite people like me posting game crashing bugs... the game went gold before it should have and the game you buy in the box is completely unstable. Tonight as I write this I think I'm downloading the 6th post-release patch already adding stabilization and making other basic mechanics work.

So if you're not buying a game and expecting to connect to the internet and patch it right off... don't buy this game. In fact, sadly as someone who already sunk their money into it you are probably better off waiting several months before the game is to the state where it should have been at release. Luckily, with Stardock one can still trust that they will do that and not just drop the title so I do feel that Elemental will eventually be a market ready game.

I painted something

2010-08-20T21:44:00.001-07:00

and just recently go around to finishing a video of the pictures so others can see it.

The Starcraft 2 dilemma

2010-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

So should I get Starcraft 2? I was a major fan of the original Starcraft and played it a lot in college when it originally came out as all my old college roommates can attest.

But this doesn't mean that Starcraft 2 will live up to that. Already I can tell that it seems they're with all the money they're raking in they're trying to be even more greedy by giving fans less for more. No editor like the original game, no LAN play which was and is a ton of fun with original starcraft, and most annoyingly of all you have to log online to "authenticate" your game to start playing it and then once a month there after. Furthermore despite buying the game in a store, once you start playing they'll inform you through an EULA that you don't own the game and owe them royalties for using videos of playing the game. Furthermore the new Battlenet is going to have a store for "premium" content.

But I've not actually played it, is the actual game going to be worth buying it 3 times for the full campaign game?

Summer vacation

2010-07-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well things didn't happen like I'd hoped and we've been busy at home with people coming and going, including ourselves. Summer vacation is upon us and I expect it to last for at least two weeks more. Meanwhile all you VOR fans should be aware of the Ironwind Metals painting contest! Getting something VOR painted and send it in.

In August I will return with new videos and in eager preperation for PAX!

Tis' da Suck!

2010-07-02T21:10:00.001-07:00

New crazy work schedule and insane work politics is keeping me away from my blog. I've got a 3-day holiday weekend with the 4th of July coming up though and I hope to finally get back to properly posting again and finish a video I've had mostly done for ages.

Hopefully this weekend will bring less whining and more gaming. But it will probably just bring more of both.

In a Funk

2010-06-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I've not done much in the way of blog posts and videos for a few weeks. Sorry for that but I've been in a bit of a funk. Adjusting to the crazy new work schedule and the havoc it wreaks on life. Also, had a few events hit me that were more important and worrying.

Speaking of which, if you know Korina Marshall from Omaha, Nebraska (and numerous other locations) then let her know she has people who care about her. I knew her from the Oregon foster care system and was saddened when a relative checked up on her to find her on the missing person's registry. If you've run across her or think maybe you've seen her anywhere in the U.S. please do something about it.

Meanwhile if you've made it this far, don't worry too much because I'm certain new gaming related blog posts will continue soon.

Hang in there Natakue!

2010-06-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

I was going to try and do a lot of things tonight after coming home from work but it just didn't happen after being ambushed at the door with kids and a 12 hour work day. But I did get news that Natakue was admitted to the hospital today for reasons I'll leave private until such a time he decides to announce. I'm hoping he pulls in there and makes a full recovery but I don't expect to see a lot of videos from him in the near future.

Natakue has been a major pillar of the wargaming community on youtube and is one of the admins who put Warmongergameday together. So to Natakue and family, thank you for sharing all your work on the hobby and helping everyone not just to enjoy our hobby more but to do so while coming together as a community!

Get well soon and G-d Bless!

Better late than never?

2010-05-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

I intended to get this game and the battle report in last week for Anima Tactics week... oops. Life happened. But you can still enjoy it now at least!

More from Anima Tactics week

2010-05-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

With my crazy work schedule last week I didn't get to repost as much as I wanted to. Like the review of the Black Sun ruleset I did for Warmonger, or the interview I did with Cipher Dave.

Most importantly if you like painting contests where you can win Anima Tactics stuff as prizes... then you need to enter this one:

The Insanity of it all!

2010-05-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, time has flown. Two weeks ago yesterday I was told I didn't need to come back the rest of the week for my job due to a lack of production. Then I was let go on that wednesday and the same day got an interview for a new job. I had expected to be let go soon and have some unemployment but I got whirlwinded a week ago on monday into a new job. The new job surprised me by having me work 5 back to back days of 12 hour shifts. It is also now a 40 minute commute instead of my old 5 minute commute. So I was expecting to have a ton of time for Anima Tactics week but instead had next to none.

It also just in general sapped me of energy as I'm spending most of my working time on my feet. But the hard part has to be coming home to kids just screaming all the time. Just at the drop of a hat my 3 year old can't do something and decides to act like a 2 year old screaming at the top of her lungs and thrashing on the floor. It feels like I'm a character in the game Arkham Horror failing their sanity check against a Wailing Byakhee and going insane about ready to be committed to the asylum. Now I can understand more what H.P. Lovecraft was writing about with gibbering monsters and bad dreams taking the sanity away from grown men.

Too bad about the employment thing, my sanity could use a vacation I'm not going to be allowed to take.

Battle Report

2010-05-19T20:42:00.001-07:00

Samael team shooty continues a losing streak. But I think it is still one of my best Battle Reports yet!

My Samael Tactics

2010-05-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

While I'm primarily a Church player, sometimes I just want to try something different or try new tactics to beat difficult opponents for my Church forces. For this reason I use my wife's Samael force for playing a lot. Working with this I've found a group almost as effective as my main Church force (and for a long time was more effective till it taught me a different way of playing Church). I like to call this team and the tactics I use with it “Samael Toolbox”.

Statistically there are two unifiers to Samael forces. First they all have ranged attacks, but the ranged attacks largely aren't as powerful as the ones that groups like Wissenschaft get so it can be very hard to compete with Ranged. If you're watching my Battle Reports this week you'll see my “Samael Shooty” team losing to Wissenschaft. Second, they get average stats with no exceptional weaknesses or strengths. It doesn't seem like much does it? But it is enough that in the European Anima Tactics tournaments recently held in Spain 4 of the top 5 teams were all Samael teams.

All the organization teams and even the side aligned teams have glaring weaknesses in addition to their strengths. So this is the philosophy behind my “Toolbox” team. Bring something to exploit every common team's weakness while leaving no singular weakness exposed to your opponent. I learned this while playing Church which is a team of specialists. A big part of winning is being able to match up each of your figures to the proper opponent.
I have an Anti-Armor character then I want him going up against the most armored enemy figure. Note that a VERY hard hitting character like Dark Cheshire or Konosuke can be as effective as an anti-armor character. However, I consider wanderers like Kujaku Hime that are anti-armor to be a strong consideration for inclusion in a Samael list. You need to be able to counter the Stealth units that Wissenschaft, Azur, and Dark teams are going to bring to the table and Samael has both Janiel and Momiji to do this. You can counter Empire tanks with powerful debuffing units like Bael who can Seal and Paralyze the low resistance warriors. In addition to powerful debuffs you have some strong buffing abilities from Dinah and Aoi. Church's strong supporting Mystics can be countered by Momiji or tactically using Ranged attacks.

This is the list I've been using:

Org. Advantage: Innate Mystics

Dinah w/Presence
Konosuke w/Rafael's Gift
Dark Cheshire w/Dragon's Blood or Supernatural Armor or Supernatural Weapon
Janiel w/Destiny
Momiji w/Covert Operations
Bael w/Control Bound

290 Points of Characters w/ 40 Advantage points.

Of course I'm always fine-tuning my team lists. I'm trying out Aoi instead of Janiel since I rarely need Janiel's anti-stealth abilities with Momiji there. I'm also going to try out Nahimana instead of Dark Cheshire to see if her tanking abilities are better than Chesire's kamakazi attacks of destruction. If you have thoughts on this list, be sure to let us know!

Super Natural!

2010-05-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

My Samael overview is finally here in time for Anima Tactics week!

Natakue's AT reviews

2010-05-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to include other people's content on my blog, but Natakue did a great job reviewing Anima Tactics in general and his special review of the Type-005 blister.

If you enjoy the videos, please give them a "Thumbs-up" at Youtube or leave a comment for him!

Black Sunrise

2010-05-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

Black Sun unboxing! This is an awesome new faction, of course you'll have to stay tuned to Warmonger Gameday this week for more on them like a review of how the new rules for them work.

IT HAS BEGUN

2010-05-16T22:08:00.001-07:00

Anima Tactics week begins. All be posting all of my videos here, some of them before they get to the Warmonger channel. But for complete coverage you should be headed to the Warmonger Gameday blog, or join in on the forum discussions there.

I'll be posting my Black Sun starter unboxing in the morning and you can look forward to a review of their rulebook later in the week. Then we've got what I think is a real nice surprise to announce at the end of the week!

It isn't THAT time yet

2010-05-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

Anima Tactics week at Warmonger Gameday is almost here. I will be posting all my blog entries on both blogs, but you'll see more over there as there will be other bloggers going on about Anima Tactics.

You can look forward to Battle Reports, faction reviews (I'll be doing an Overview of Samael and Black Sun), product reviews, sneak peeks and A LOT more! I've got a little tease here just to wet your appetite for next week:

To Create or to Steal my Questions

2010-05-09T11:44:00.001-07:00

So this week I'm going to be conducting an interview with one of the guys at Cipher Studios for Warmongergameday's Anima Tactics week. But I want to be lazy and not have to think up a ton of questions on my own. So I started a thread on Warmonger's forums asking for interview questions. Feel free to either make a post there or leave a comment here with interesting questions you'd like to see answered and I'll consider using them.

But you have to be quick, by this Friday it will most likely be too late.

I want to see more "Intensity"

2010-05-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, I had a total "Office Space" moment with my manager at work today. But first some background on the situation is required to understand it:

I perform my main function very well, am very punctual and in general try to be professional as I always do. The main issue they really have with me is my speed at my secondary tasks, where speed is really all they value. Now I've been a Quality Assurance guy for many years now, I'm professionally certified and excel at those positions. I started at this company as a QA Tech and when I was the #2 pick for the permanent position I got to train my replacement and production decided to take me for my current position. So like anyone else you might know in a QA department I take pride in making my work as flawless as possible... but not as speedy. I've been this way for years and in my next permanent position I'm certain it will be an asset. But when I'm doing secondary tasks rather than my primary function it is clearly a liability and I understand this. I'm also making more as a temp (because my one requirement for agreeing to transfer over was that I keep my pay rate) that most of the permanent workers doing these jobs.

If they let me go yesterday I won't have worried one bit, I rather would have celebrated because the stress level is ridiculous. So when my Manager pulls me aside today I expect some rather legitimate talk either about needing to speed up or him having to let me go or whatever.

Instead I get his talk about how I'm not "Intense" enough about my work as he watches me and how he wants to see more "Intensity" from me. He explains to me that in his long time there he used to invent games out of doing his work to make it more exciting and create new challenges. I think my only puzzled response was "... Intensity???" He went on to talk about it like the job should be some kind of extreme sport (which is Ironic considering he is a GOLF fanatic... how unextreme can you get?)

I realized quickly I wasn't suited for this job after I started it. I'm used to working in casual business attire, button-up shirts and slacks and I'm now working with a crew of T-shirts and slacks. I usually am sitting either in a cubicle or in a lab doing analytical work and now I'm standing all day mostly doing work of a the manual dexterity sort which I just don't have. I've got short, thick fingers that don't play guitar well and aren't good for speedy manual assembly (but I guess I impressed my coworkers by twisting cables with my fingers that I guess everybody has to use pliers for) I'm a "Professional Perfectionist" as my online resume says trying to work in an area where "Blitz speed" should be their motto. I don't think even my Manager has a college degree, let alone anyone else in my department and I've got a Bachelor's in a scientific field. I'm the guy who this morning when one of the computers in our area wouldn't boot up I fixed it before they could even finish finding the phone number to call IT.

So, yeah I'm not exactly a good fit. I'm going to give it my professional best however and try to meet their goals because professional (Not "Intense") is what I consider myself. Furthermore, I couldn't quit if I wanted to because I'd make myself ineligible for my unemployment (from a previous employeer and not them).

So hopefully they'll realize they need to let me go soon and I'll write more blogs about gaming rather than complaining about work. Because if I can't take getting much more "Office Space'd" and keep my sanity.

Anima forums are down, long live the Anima forums!

2010-05-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

The most popular Anima Tactics forums by Edge Entertainment are once again down. A second major crash in two consecutive weeks. Doubtless some of the increased blog traffic I'm seeing right now is a result of it.

So I'd like to remind everyone that there are two other official Anima Tactics forums. The Cipher Studios forums and the Fantasy Flight Games forums.

In addition I would recommend stopping by the Warmonger gameday Anima Tactics forums as a lot more is going on there.

In other news to compete with the news below my post, my 1 year old son got a hold of our (my wife's and mine) work in progress tray for miniatures and shook it out all over the dining room floor. All but one miniature I had assembled was broken (Jerome was saved). Even pinned joints came flying apart. Several models already in various states of being painted (Claude Valmore, Arkeid) came apart. But even at the worst at least there are no infectious diseases involved.

Maybe if I'm lucky enough to get laid off this month I'll have time to get caught back up :(

Such a scary little thing

2010-05-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

I can't believe a little mouse can be such a scary thing. We found a nest of a mouse in our garage and we have no idea how old. However, my wife being a hypochondriac and me knowing a guy in college who died due to hanta virus from deer mice it has the household all upset. We're going to be afraid to step into the garage for the next week. All because of a tiny little mouse that is harmless except for the diseases it may or may not be carrying.

But Hanta Virus is scary, very scary. It acts fast and the fatality rate for it is 30% to 50%. In a house with 3 small children you just don't want to take that risk.

I Descend!

2010-04-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Got a new game to play with sometime soon!

In other news... work sucks again. I didn't get the permanent position where I was working and was replaced. Luckily or unluckily I was requested for transfer to production where I work. I spend half my time as a Tester, and the other half doing odds and ends no-skill tasks for a lot more than minimum wage. So I spend half the time being appreciated and the other half being constantly too slow and overpaid. So I hate half my job but there isn't much I can do about it right now. The economy isn't picking up THAT much yet that I can tell. I think for sanity's sake I'm going to be trying really hard to find a new job anyways.

Sodapop miniatures announces Ryu Beat!

2010-04-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sodapop miniatures just announced a couple new releases. Calico Kate and Ryu Beat were awesome figures I got to see at Sakuracon, but I was asked to keep a lid on Ryu Beat.

Now for those of you prepping miniatures I want to share this handy link of test results for different Primers wargamers are likely to use. The results confirmed what I already knew but couldn't prove, stay away from Citadel primers due to weaker adhesion and stay clear of craft store primers because they're more prone to bubbling. Oh, and don't use really ancient primers (Ral Partha in his case) because the chemicals degrade.

The test is missing two things due to no fault of the author. One is thickness, which is difficult to measure without the proper tools because they all go on thin. You can guess this from trial and error due to overspray and thinness of the coloring agent. The second is environmental conditions. Some primers due better in cold temperatures, warmer temperatures, or higher humidity (if you've got really high humidity though I recommend a brush on primer).

Now if this guide helps you out please drop me a comment or better yet shoot me some pictures of your work!

AT Week is coming at Warmonger!

2010-04-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

So over at the other blog site, Warmongergameday we have a special Anima Tactics week coming up. There is sooooo much special material coming up for that week that I'm really excited to be a part of it. In the meanwhile things unfortunately are going a little slow on my solo blog.

We'll be reviewing models, faction overviews, product reviews, battle reports, and some extre-special stuff still under wraps. But meanwhile I did manage to get a video for AT week prepared to show you some of the models I'll be showing off for the upcoming Anima Tactics week:

U.S. government report on piracy... not as bad as it is made out to be!

2010-04-15T17:22:00.001-07:00

Government Accountability Office (GAO) study says "Study: U.S. Piracy and Counterfeiting Data is Unsubstantiated"

Yep, that's right. They've looked into it and industry is making up data just to justify their claims (who'd have thought of it! /sarcasm) Not only industry either, the FBI was caught in fabricating that industry loses up to $250 billion a year due to copyright piracy... but when questioned had absolutely no data or way to veryify the claim.

In fact the long and short of it was that every government office and private industry group they contacted was making up claims of losses. Which comes back to a long understand issue: How many internet pirates are actually would-be customers if they didn't pirate? And how many pirates instead turn into actual customers as a result of trying a product?

Maybe IP piracy is less of a problem than just making a poor product and treating your customers badly. But I'm sure that is a lot harder to explain to shareholders than the convenient scapegoat of "there are people copying our stuff for freeeeeee!!!!! they made me lose your money".

I'm not sympathetic pirates, but I'm becoming even less sympathetic and intrusions into my private life, poor customer service, and denial of owner's rights in the excuse of combating piracy. When I BUY something from you, I own it... I'm not renting it from you because you have to fight piracy. I don't mind paying for subscription service games... if I get into it KNOWING it is a subscription service game. Big Business and Big Government are colluding to use it as an excuse to invade people's private lives and take away privacy that would never be allowed any other way. I mean seriously if the government or corporations sent people in person to such through all the private files in your house "just because you COULD do something bad" would people accept it?

In fact here in the U.S. we already had an American Revolution due in part to exactly that.

Disappointed with Stardock

2010-04-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

If you've been a long time reader of mine then you know I'm a fan of Stardock. I haven't written about Elemental in quite a while. I'm wondering if they're also getting so big that they don't care about customer feedback. What I mean is tossing aside intense lengthy discussions they invite with customers, in favor of using a 1 dozen post low visiblity thread as an excuse to throw out the most recent economic model in favor of something with far less consensus (and I use that phrase to give them the benefit of the doubt). The forums over there are quite civil so I don't know why they'd ignore it.

Are they playing too much Starcraft over there and thinking that the economy of a real-time strategy game will import smoothly into a turn-based strategy game?

I don't know, but right now I'm hoping the game is worth my pre-order.

Sodapop miniatures

2010-04-08T18:20:00.001-07:00

So something I haven't spoken of enough yet is Sodapop miniatures who was sharing a booth with Cipher Studios at Sakuracon. Their miniatures are cast by Cipher Studios but they have a seperate online store from them at their website and at coolminiornot. Their sculpts in my opinion are top notch and on par with Anima Tactics, though their style is a lot more comical. I'll be keeping an eye on sodapop miniatures in the future.

Also, to all you gamers out there: They do have a game in the works which is aiming for a 2011 release. Right now they're just building the miniatures line for collectors. Keep coming back to this blog because I got a photo of a nice new painted miniature that hasn't been released to the public yet. I was asked to hold off on showing it for a couple weeks, so come back again to get a sneak peek of one of their awesome new figures that is coming up!

Anima Eclipsed... Black Sun Rising

2010-04-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

"AGAIN? Blogging again?" Yes, despite my wife's protests I'm back due to the email messages I keep getting. It appears people don't want me to wait till the end of the week to talk about Black Sun again. So based off the first 3 undead units and the first two mystics here is my initial proposed strategy for Black Sun:

(Pictured at left is the alternate body for the Type-005 which will be sold individually in blister)

I don't understand exactly how the control mechanic works for undead with Black Sun so this is a big caveat in any strategies... it all may change with the Black Sun starter rules. I do know that not having enough Guidance will cause you to lose control of your undead. We just don't know the mechanics for it yet.

So lets work from there. Styx is kept under control as long as you have Promethea and both of these models are a good idea. Promethea, Styx, and Arkham will be your first 100 points toward a 300 point army. Type 005s make up the grunts and having a Commander model makes them controllable. So how about one Commander upgrade and 2 Assault Model upgrades for 80 points bringing us to 180 points total with 6 models. Then we get to the big beat sticks, Raziels....

At 300 points you can take 2 Raziels, huge monsters that are as big as Konosuke. I would recommend giving one the Indestructible and Spectral Body upgrades so it can be a massive tank for your force. In some ways being intangible randomly every other turn is better than being always intangible. Your opponent will be tempted to try an attack it when it is vulnerable and then be stuck in melee with it when he can't harm it. Then try to get Arkham on his target and crit away, stuff without high enough resistance will die fast. The other upgrade option is just mean, take Dual Raxxors and Retractable Fingers Claws. This gives you a 12 inch ranged attack to target anything vulnerable on the other team you can get close enough to. Or use your 005s to engage any shielders and have a shot at them. If they can't resist effect 15, then when hit with the Retractable finger claws they get pulled into melee. Suddenly being support in the back line is no longer safe! On the following turn you will hopefully be able to follow-up with a basic attack and a finisher claw.

So at 300 points you'll have 8 models and a very intimidating mix of beat sticks and debuffing dark mystics. The only weakness I strongly recommend watching out for is AP drainers. Most of your models have 2 AP regen and so you'll have to conserve your action points for when they'll really pay off.

So what do you think? Please leave a comment.

Also lets have a contest. If you're the first one to read this, feel free to post the statistics for Raziel on the Edge Anima forums and let me know that you found it here. ;) Enjoy!

How I got to Sakuracon!

2010-04-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

So some people have wondered, why did you get to go to Sakuracon and see all this fun stuff and get all these spoilers? The answer is simple and comes in two parts. First I'm in Seattle at the right time (I live there, eh?) and second I'm part of Cipher Studios Free Agent program.

I really have to strongly recommend this program (or others like it for other games). If you really like a game then you want more people to play against or with. But people aren't like to try a game they haven't seen or played before. This is where demo-ers come in. It is easy to get people playing a game if they see it and enjoy it.

I'm not the first person to go to Sakuracon with Cipher Studios. Another Free Agent was there the years prior to me but they didn't have a handy blog and HD camera to show off the results. A lot of companies like Cipher Studios are happy to support volunteers who try and promote their game (at least the smart companies are!). So volunteering got me to Sakuracon as a member of Cipher Studios Free Agent program, where could it get you?

More important than visiting conventions is how we grow the gaming community. Be polite and show some new people how to play your favorite little game and you never know. It just might catch on and you'll have the time of your life playing with a legion of friends who got started learning from you. The worst result is you will have spent a day teaching people a game you enjoy anyways. So go to your local gaming club or friendly local game store and show them what you got!

Then take pictures and videos and put it on the internet because fun for you is often vicarious fun for other people like me!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter from Sakuracon! Cosplay Jesus says "Go to Church" (or he'll flip you the bird)

Have some family fun.

or hang out with some friends:

but be sure to hold someone you love!

Black Ol' Sun, Won't you come...

2010-04-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

So I got the chance to pull Dave Freeman, a.k.a Cipher Dave aside and shoot a video where he could present the new Anima Tactics organization "Black Sun" to us.

In addition I got to take pictures of models from the example starter set and of the cards for the first several new Black Sun releases.

The starter is going to be a great set. Black Sun is introducing new undead units and the Guidance/Influence/Uncontrollable mechanic for them. I haven't seen the exact rules, but you'll need Black Sun characters with Guidance to overcome the Influence of the Necromantic weapons Black Sun creates. If you don't have the Guidance needed, they can go berserk on your own units!

After the release of the starter, next will be coming Arkham and Raziel Archetypum for Black Sun. The Raziel will be a larger 40mm based model like Konosuke. With these powerful new abilities I expect Black Sun will quickly become a very popular organization!

I guess it worked out after all

2010-04-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

So a week ago I got sick and was busy "puking my brains out" right after my two daughters did. So I didn't do a demo of Anima Tactics or make any youtube videos like I had planned on. One of those videos I had planned was to do an overview of Summons in Anima Tactics because I had all 4 of them and I figured the next two weren't coming out for a while.

Well I guess I was wrong. I know own one of the two new summons for Anima Tactics.

My wife has fallen in love with this new model as well. It is simply gorgeous and neither of us can wait to start painting it. I'm going to paint her 4 crystal spheres and I agreed to let her paint the girl. If you follow me on youtube then you can expect I'll be updating people on my status of painting her as I go on!

Finally I didn't see Al-Djinn but I did see his stat card:

This guy is going to make things interesting. Seems tricky to use right with only 1 bind point, but he has to be devestating. I think using a Greater version in a Samael team with Genma and Dinah could be potentially very devestating. Deny your opponent Gnosis while using plenty of it on your own ranged attacks. Plus you could use disposable agents to hold your opponent at bay. But I doubt I've yet to see the full potential of this model by a long shot.

Sakauracon 2010

2010-04-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my first day at Sakuracon where I volunteered at the Cipher Studios exhibit booth.

Sakuracon is just non-serious fun. People in costumes everywhere. All the controversial Japanese pop culture I grew up with is everywhere. Anime, Manga, music, women in Kimonos chasing after guys with Samurai Swords. Fun! Even the Cipher Studios booth I was at had its own Booth Babe to show off the new exciting line of Sodapop collectible miniatures. Miniatures gaming is always nice to look at!

But for this first day I'm not just roaming around. I'm focused on introducing more people to the Anima Tactics game. But as a bonus, I get to see a number of sneak peeks of things that have never been seen before!

I love this dynamic looking model. Her abilities fit with it too. Her innate ability Mjolnir causes her opponent to be thrown and lose an action point whenever she scores a critical hit against them. She also has a 3 action point ability "Ka-Boom" which causes ALL enemies in her control zone to lose 1 action point at an effect of 15. That is one powerful hammer girl!

I got to see a bunch of new minis which I will write about soon.

March miniatures painted

2010-03-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

This is what I did with my free time this month! Two painting projects which required entirely different techniques. One an Angel of Light the other a Lord of Shadow.

Coming soon I intend to use them in an Overview of Summons in Anima Tactics, but for now please enjoy this video showing off the paintjobs:

Blog forecast: Increasingly posty

2010-03-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Well, the bad news is in. I didn't get the permanent position at the place where I've been temping for several months. Despite having my entire department and the leads of several other departments trying to pressure my manager into hiring me he went with someone else. I don't know why, and I'm not going to sweat over it. I'm disappointed, but I'll survive on unemployment if it comes to it. So if I am indeed back on unemployment next month you can expect a lot more posts and videos from me. I've spent the last couple nights hunting for my lost Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG book when I'd rather have been making a video. With the prospect of unemployment I can't afford to replace it and losing stuff like that is driving me crazy.

Either way I expect to get my review of Arkham Horror and showing off the two models I painted this month up on youtube.

Natakue on Anima Tactics

2010-03-16T17:28:00.001-07:00

Natakue who is a fellow blogger at Warmonger Gameday did what I thought was a really nice video about the Empire Agent, his painting contest and Anima Tactics in general. It is worth watching, and please rate it and leave a comment if you liked the video!

Runebound Review

2010-03-13T22:50:00.001-08:00

Rishkith reviews Runebound Second Edition:

Iota Tau

2010-03-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

I can't help but notice a lot of visitors coming from Spain and Honduras to my blog. More impressive that so few of you are using translation web tools! So to all of you, welcome!

Since 100% of you appear to be here for wargaming with either Anima Tactics or VOR I wanted to make sure and share the Iota Tau blog which gives great coverage of Anima Tactics. If you're linguistic skills don't extend to a robust knowledge of Spanish as mine don't then handily Google Translator can translate the whole website and give you the latest and greatest news and rumors on Anima Tactics!

Furthermore I've gotten permission to translate their upcoming interview with the people at Anima Studios and repost it to my blog. So look for an english translation coming here soon!

No puedo dejar de notar una gran cantidad de visitantes procedentes de España y Honduras a mi blog. Más impresionante que tan pocos de ustedes están utilizando herramientas de traducción! Así que para todos ustedes, bienvenidos!

Desde el 100% de ustedes parecen estar aquí para juegos de guerra con cualquiera de Anima Tactics o VOR quería asegurarse y compartir la Iota-Tau blog que ofrece una gran cobertura de Anima Tactics. Si estás habilidades lingüísticas no se extienden a un conocimiento sólido del español como el mío no se cómodamente Google Translator puede traducir todo el sitio y darle la mejor y más noticias y rumores sobre Anima Tactics!

Además he conseguido el permiso para traducir su próxima entrevista con la gente en Anima Studios y publicar de nuevo a mi blog. Así que busque una traducción al Inglés de venir aquí pronto!

Wissneschaft

2010-03-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

I'm not the most knowledgable person about Wissenschaft. But I gave reviewing the Anima Tactics organization a fair shot in my latest video about them:

New Music Video

2010-02-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

My latest Anima Tactics video project is complete:

Also, Anima Tactics gave me my first "Kitsune" model to paint. This was a major "leveling up" project of mine where I learned to use Sakura Micropigment art pens to do detail work. Actually I first learned to use them on the Church agent I submitted for the Cipher Studios agent contest, but I did better work with the pens on this model. I'll probably do more videos on how I painted her in the future.

St...Ubidsoft

2010-02-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

Didn't realize two days ago I was going to be writing about the next big webcomic topic.

I have to strongly disagree with CAD and "But I think that the crucifying of these companies for even trying to combat pirates needs to stop."

What needs to stop is the companies crucifying their own customers in the name of "stopping piracy". Which it obviously doesn't. In fact there is an inverse relationship in most games. Pick any game with drastic DRM measures and you'll generally find it is one of the most pirated games.

Seriously, read the interview Ubisoft gave with PCGamer and tell me if that sounds like a company which cares as its customers anything more than a tap to the money supply.

Do Ubisoft understand that we don't want to be permanently online?
They've spotted the outcry, yes. "We know that requiring a permanent online connection is not a happy point for a lot of PC gamers, but it is necessary for the system to work.

So yeah, we know our paying customers hate it. But we haven't to stick it to our customers because they're people and people are also pirates... or some kind of logic like that I haven't figured out.

Personally I hope someone sues them for false advertising. They're still claiming to sell you a game, but you own nothing. All you're doing is paying to rent restricted access to their servers. As soon as they decide it isn't making enough money they'll pull the plug and you'll being holding exactly nothing.

Ubisoft... Uber soft in the head?

2010-02-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ubisoft is following in EA's footsteps now with stupid Draconian DRM to punish you for being a paying customer and rewarding you for just pirating their games instead. I don't support piracy, but it seems some people at Ubisoft want to reward those pirateers for their work.

Looks like I may only be buying PC games from Stardock and its partners for the foreseeable future.

This just in... The Empire

2010-02-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

Another Anima Tactics video. The Empire Strikes Back!

An additional blog

2010-02-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

Because evidently this blog isn't enough for me to keep up on these days, I agreed to contribute articles specifically about wargaming at the Warmonger Gameday blog. If you're only interest is miniatures and not other types of games you might prefer to follow me there rather than here.

Oh, and a new Battle Report from my youtube channel:

Family Gaming

2010-02-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

Things have mostly been pretty good and we've been getting in more gaming as a family. The Wii game "Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball" has been a huge hit in my house. Also, the Wii game DDR 2 has added a second dance pad and now dancing has become a huge family activity. Having games that one can enjoy with your children really helps bring the family together. The Wii has seen a surge of activity and my body is feeling better for the extra exercise. My Shoulders have even been quite sore a few nights from boxing. Plus I can feel my heart getting stronger again from all the vigorous dancing as Dance Dance Revolution puts me through the paces. Meanwhile seeing my kids get more into gaming as they get old enough to enjoy it has me very excited for the future.

I look forward to when my kids are old enough to introduce to roleplaying games. It is still years off, but the linked article makes me look forward to playing Shadowrun 3rd edition or Anima: Beyond Fantasy with new generation of gamers. Sooner than that we might get into the minaitures board game "Descent" if my kids are interested in it.

On my birthday I finally got to try out my copy of Runebound: Frozen Wastes expansion. It was a good expansion. I'm not sure if I like it more than the base game, but it was a lot of fun to mix it up and do something different. The Frozen Wastes expansion makes movement much, much more important. The game is also more competitive as you actually feel driven to keep up with others so the weather doesn't kill you and they don't beat you to winning the game or getting the good treasure. If you're a Runebound player it is definitely worth getting to get some more life out of your Runebound game.

For those of you interested in a good debate about gaming you can go have a debate about Violence in Video games. Worth checking out though both sides of the debate are getting very stale to me in my opinion.Honestly, this isn't new territory. Video games just seem to be a new emerging media to target.

Spammers be gone

2010-02-08T21:45:00.001-08:00

Okay, I've disabled anonymous posting because I'm tired of filtering spam. Not that anyone ever had anything worthwhile to say while anonymous.

Play nice!

My Anima Tactics

2010-01-27T16:39:00.000-08:00

So I've noticed people coming to my blog for Anima Tactics stuff and me not having any recent Anima Tactics articles. You won't find a lot of places with strategies and tactics for winning games, so here is my current tactic for winning with Church forces.

Two things are pivotal to the strategy. You must take the Church Leader High Saint Elienai and the Church organization advantage Divine Meditation. Besides Elienai you should take a full sweep of Inquisitor Warriors, you shouldn't need much healing if done right.

Just having a character in Elienai's large control zone of 12 inches allows you to use Gnosis rolls after you've seen the result. This is a HUGE advantage because you don't waste the few Gnosis points you have but only spend them when you need them. In addition Elienai can deny an opponent's use of Gnosis so they don't get the extra die roll to achieve desired results. You can also as an alternative action grant every warrior in range of her an extra die for Dodges and Attacks. Potentially you can roll 3 dice with Gnosis. But it doesn't there, the organization advantage of Divine Meditation allows you to reroll once per turn. So if that attack is really pivotal... you can roll 6 dice. In Anima Tactics you're normally only rolling one die, so potentially getting 6 dice to roll and choosing the favored result is a MASSIVE advantage.

With those expert dodges you won't be healing your soldiers as often. Also, Elienai can use "Door to the Beyond" to bring them back to life at a sacrifice of some of her own. The disadvantage is that rolling too high can kill her. But with economical Gnosis use and the reroll ability you can make the odds against this pretty good. I always take the advantage card "Dragon Blood" which gives you a chance of bringing a character back to life. Again, rerolling increases your odds of not only being successful but having better success. So the odds of losing Elienai when she is at full health are quite low. Though using warriors like Nero or Xavier who can self-heal helps a bit to save the need to use Door to the Beyond.

Another trick I can use for health on one of my characters is the card Aberration power. Normally few people take this card because a bad roll on activation can have your character removed from the game! But with this Church force you're the master of rerolling, simply use Gnosis if you need it... and even a reroll if you're desperate. I'm still getting the timing of when its best to use the card, but my last game saw it used to great effect. In playing against Empire and Samael the thing to watch out for is your opponent's critical attacks and getting sniped. Do your best to control both and you should be able to win with this strategy!

Vor the Maelstrom review

2010-01-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

Youtube need a bit more VOR the Maelstrom

Expect much, much more this next month.

Israelis committing more "Atrocities"

2010-01-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

So I was rather astounded the other night. After my youtube video asking people to help out with Haiti if they could someone gave me a 3 star right away (Many others have given me 5 star ratings, but still why you watch and rate down a call to help people who are dying?). I know there are people out there who are completely selfish and it shouldn't suprise. Still, after seeing it personally I'm astounded.

Anyways in their "honor" I dedicated these series of videos where the Israeli Defense Forces "IDF" commites more "Atrocities" as they're frequently accused of in Haiti.

Israel does so much to make the entire world a better place. Also, have you EVER heard of a Muslim country sending relief and rescue forces to some un-allied country like this? Please watch these videos and think of them next time you hear about how "horrible" a country Israel and its military is.

Also, if you think the situation in Haiti isn't serious and there isn't a need for people all over to pitch in then I hope you reconsider after seeing some of the damage and devestation done there. If it ever happened to your home, who would help you in return?

Helping Haiti

2010-01-15T21:52:00.001-08:00

The Folks at Joe User had an excellent idea I've decided to pass along and publicize.

Donations:

You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti. The donation will be added to your phone bill.
Donate to the Red Cross Disaster Fund
Follow the American Red Cross on Twitter for updates

If the Red Cross isn't your style consider some of these others:

Salvation Army
World Vision
American Jewish World Service

If the only thing you do to help is to send a text message, try to do something to help today.

It has been a Looonng week.

2010-01-14T17:52:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy work week. I was hoping to do youtube videos or more blogging this week, but work has been kicking my butt. At least right now I only live 5 minutes away from work! I'm hoping to get a video this weekend of our new and improved art space.

There are no updates to Elemental till February, blah. So no updates there. No updates that I know of with VOR since the Masher update.

I rented Avatar for the Wii and found it a fun game and I liked how it made use of the balance board. I'll be adding that one to my wish list as being a Dad and settling into our house didn't give me enough time to really get through it.

Not making any progress on any terrain right now. I've got 4 figures I'm working on painting between now and the end of February, all for Anima Tactics. They are:

Church Agent (for a contest from Cipher Studios)
Kairos (Last time I assemble this model EVER!!!)
Momiji (Greatly looking forward to this one)
Samael Agent

I'll try to get some in progress photos of something up on the blog before too long. I'll try to be interesting again soon when the work week is over!

Teaching your kids

2010-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Are you a parent who wonders if playing games around kids is okay? are you a kid who's parents are worried about you playing games?

Then you might want to read some news. Scientific Research has shown that games can improve Kids' reasoning and and processing abilities. Not only that but the type of game you play will improve different types of skills and learning abilities, duh! Whether you're playing an action game or strategy game for instance makes a difference in developing a Kid's reaction speed and problem solving abilities. I'm not advocating that you should just let your kids playing anything, but you should let them play. Kids who can play video games learn better communication skills and hand eye skills. Myself, as a kid I was inspired to learn to read mostly so I could play Scott Adams' Adventure games. These text adventure games were a lot of fun as a kid and inspired my imagination and storytelling. Fond memories those are, the kids these days just don't have any appreciation for the classics right? (For that matter neither do the adults, we enjoy our fancy graphics!)

For parents stressed out at their kids educational-recreational activities, maybe they need to play some games of their own to de-stress? Then sit down and play some games with your family. My kids and myself have recently been rediscovering the Wii again and they're very enthusiastic about playing with Daddy right now. That family that plays together, stays together I say!

P.S. - This blog entry written while my 9 month old son fell asleep on top of me.

Just me playing games

2010-01-09T18:23:00.001-08:00

Here is a video report of me playing a game of Anima Tactics at my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS).

Time for a product review

2010-01-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

I've posted a product review of the Anima Tactics rulebook on youtube

Should I do more product reviews?

Decyphering Cipher Studios

2010-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

Cipher Studios is the manufacturer for miniature game lines Anima Tactics, Hell Dorado, and AE WW2. They really are a Cypher as first of all I thought they were still in the Seattle area but found they had relocated down to the Oregon/Washington border. Luckily I was invited to come tour the facilities by Cipher President Kai picture to the right. Otherwise, nobody would ever find the place as their facilities are completely hidden and unadvertised. Rabid stalker fans and Ninjas have their work totally cut out for themselves.

The Quality Proces Analyst in me liked the small, isolated seclusion of the facility. They clearly get a lot of work (and play) done without wasting space. Small warehouses mean that they're moving product rather than wasting rent storing product. Nice workspaces organized by process rather than "territory". Lean, but could use a little more 5S. :D

Okay, sorry for the distraction. You wanted to read something more about games right? I got a few spoilers including sneak peeks at the rule book which is now out and I snuck a look at some of the miniatures in process. Looks like Samael is getting a certain "Amazon" Jayan combat monster. Wissenschaft also has a nice combat monster they'll be seeing before too long as well.
Also, I got to see all the terrain pictured in the new rulebook. I hope their upcoming battle report was played on it because it looks totally awesome and was a big center of attention for our traveling party visiting the company. What is pictured is only one piece of a full tables worth of large terrain tiles that can be mixed and matched to make a fun table to play on. Hopefully one of these days at convention or if I'm lucky on another visit I'll get the opportunity to play a challenge game against them on it. Maybe if we're lucky Cipher will do some battle report games on their terrain as well.

Anyways to all at Cipher Studios thanks for the Christmas visit as all of us had a great time. Keep up the great work!

Move Complete - End Turn

2009-12-31T14:40:00.000-08:00

So not only have I been working... I've been moving. With a family moving becomes a horrendous affair. Plus so many delicate minis and terrain that I don't have proper packaging for. Luckily we're only moving about 15 minutes drive so we've made a number of trips for delicate stuff we didn't feel good about packaging. Today is our last day of moving and then I look forward to being able to have fun again and enjoy our new place!

We've got a nice garage in the new place that we're going to use for storage, as an art shop, and for gaming. We'll have a gaming table out there so we can keep games of Arkham Horror or Runebound out without having to put it away from the kids every night.

Speaking of which, I had a very nice Christmas haul. Runebound Frozen Wastes expansion, Runebound Scepter of Kyros expansion, Anima Tactics Momiji, and a visit to Cipher Studios. Once we're a little more settled in you can expect to see some youtube reviews of things and a nice blog entry with pictures about our visit to Cipher Studios.

Until then look forward to a normal resumption of blogging come January!

Working yay!

2009-12-12T16:06:00.001-08:00

So another reason I haven't blogged recently is because I'm working... and moving... and I've had friends and in-laws over.

In other good news if you're a VOR fan be sure to note that the MASHER Sneak peek is here! Merry Christmas to all the VOR the Maelstrom fans! Hopefully 2010 will be a good year for us.

Also of note is that my friend Kirara won the Samael agent painting contest for Anima Tactics.

I'm eagerly looking forward to next month and debating entering the next leg of the Cipher Studios painting contest for Church agents. My funds are going to be limited for a while so we'll see.

My friends and even random people on the internet keep telling me I need to play DragonAge. Is it really that good?

Capcom... demonizing the Religious?

2009-11-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

An article from MCV about Capcom responding to Clergy criticizing the newest Resident Evil game has been making the rounds. Proof yet again that journalism is suffering these days because everywhere I've looked I've seen no more information than presented in the original article. It just isn't much.

"Bishop Bryant of Jarrow, Archdeacon Brian Smith and Rt Rev John Goddard have all accused the game of promoting such interests amongst the UK’s youth, with the latter stating: “If we dabble in this area we open ourselves to influences and put ourselves at risk. I would regard any encouragement for children to be drawn into this behaviour with extreme horror.”

You'd think after being totally had by EA with their fake controversy their might be a little more journalistic investigation before joining the angry mob with "Torch the Christians" hysteria.

The initial article leaves me with several questions:

Who are these Bishop Bryant, Archdeacon Smith, and Rt Rev Goddard?
What organizations do they belong to?
Where did they originally say or write these quotes?
Were the anti-Resident Evil quotes published?
Why did Capcom feel the need to respond?
Why do these news sites keep passing around stories without investigation when they've been had before?

Unfortunately I've not found anyone who has really tried to answer those questions. So I spent a couple hours today and worked on the first question. Who are these 3 guys. Archdeacon Brian Smith was the only one I could get to come up in a google search not related to the Capcom article as there appears to be or have been an Archdeacon Brian Smith on the Isle of Mann off the coast of Britain. Nothing came up providing any context. I've also found reports from a few other bloggers who've found as little or less than I have.

So let me be a cynic here and postulate a theory. Resident Evil 5 initially got loads and loads of free publicity because of the "racism controversy" because it was set in Africa and a lot of black zombies (Shooting White Zombies okay... shooting Black Zombies racist?). Capcom wasn't really sorry, they ate the press up and fanned the flames for free publicity. There were even flash games on the web where you could shoot black african zombies.

But now Resident Evil 5 is being released to not much fanfare. How many of you even knew that it released in the U.S. last week? There wasn't even a peep about it. It releases in Europe next week and surely Capcom wants people to know but the budget for advertising is low in this recession. I suspect after seeing all the publicity EA got for it Capcom is now giving it a try. How about another controversy for RE5? We've got a cult in our game so we can pick on a religious group... lets see Christians or Jews are always the modern favorites aren't they? (They don't have the brass ones to pick on Muslims).

I mean it wasn't a controversy before this, so why would Capcom create the corporate publicity blitz around a protest nobody had heard of?

Recession Time Lapse

2009-11-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

Found an interesting time lapse of how the recession has swept across the U.S. Follow this link if you want the gory picture. Almost as bad as a slow motion picture of a smoker's lungs deteriorating.

Lessons not learned

2009-11-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there were more a lot of brands of PCs that were incompatible. IBM created the personal computer that almost all of us use today. How many competitors can you name though? Apple, Macintosh, Texas-Instruments, Radio Shack (Tandy), any more? There were a lot but the personal computer we have today won out... why? Because they had more than one company making components for them and were able to provide a better overall product because of it. IBM allowed anyone to make PC compatible parts and software, something their competitors didn't allow.

For most mainstream technology that people use all the time it is the same way. Competition was allowed instead of proprietorship and the technology caught on. However, in gaming platforms they're determined not to learn. Nintendo in Spain just lost a lawsuit to prevent 3rd party manufacturers from improving their product under the guise that it might sometimes be used for piracy. You know what the same argument has been used to try and stop VHS tapes, writable CDs, and MP3s. Why is industry frequently determined to fight an uphill battle against their own consumers demands for free use of the products they buy? Microsoft also just got slapped with yet another anti-trust suit for trying to block 3rd party development for the X-box by Datel. Yet, 3rd party development always seems to boost sales for any platform. Nobody would use windows if it wasn't for the 3rd party support of applications it gets. A lot of people prefer Linux but don't use it because of that very same lack of support from their party hardware and software developers. Being rich and powerful seems to always make one a control freak, even though being a control freak is detrimental to what made you rich and powerful in the first place.

Now Microsoft is trying to pay Newscorp (owner of Fox News) to take their news articles off of Google so that they're only found on Bing. I wonder who will lose out from that deal? I really doubt it will be Google. If I was one of Fox News' few conservative competitors (i.e. Pajamas TV) I would be praying that Fox took MS up on the offer so that I could get my articles promoted on Google without Fox competition.

Big business will just never learn. People like to customize things and make it theirs, even if sometimes piracy happens. It is coutner intuitive to the control freak nature But but but... Piracy can happen! is the objection. Yes, it can... Piracy can ALWAYS happen. Are you going to discourage Piracy by making it more beneficial to be a Pirate than a customer? No. You have to discourage Piracy and make it difficult while at the same time making it being more rewarding to be a customer than a Pirate. The stick will never work if the other side has ALL the carrots.

Slothing to 2010

2009-11-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

I can't believe another decade is around the corner. Sigh. Where did this last one go? I graduated from college in 2000 and suddenly... zoom it is 2010 almost already. Meanwhile I had a big job interview last week. I'm in the final 3 for a company that is actually determined to hire someone. It sure would be nice to be collecting a paycheck again! I'm trying to ebay stuff I don't use so I can have some sort of Christmas on my own money. Doubly so since we're moving by the end of December with a job or not. So excuse me if my posting is very infrequent until then.

I'm playing a pen and paper game of Elemental that can be viewed over at their website. It is going about as slow as my blog posting these days though. The others are too afraid that I'm going to win that they can't even make their moves is the way I look at it.

If ebay goes well I'll be buying a new Wii Nunchuk for playing games with my daughters and maybe some cheap Wii games as well. Meanwhile if you want some good reviews of Wii games, check out the Wiiviewer channel on youtube!

EA, owner of the Ethical Low bar among video game companies

2009-11-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

This just in:

EA "restructures" people's jobs to save $100 million a year.
and can therefore spend $300 million to buy Playfish, a facebook app developer.

Because you know it isn't like people can be retrained to write java for less than $200 million. Oh wait, we can train people and don't have to treat them as disposable!

Story courtesy of Broken Toys