U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1

Sigh, I think I've had my fill from the U.S. media this last week. Get ready for a religion & gaming rant in this blog (or stop reading now).

Does it seem like the only thing that won't get mocked by the U.S. news when it comes to religion is Atheism and Islam? Even though combined they still make up less than 10% of the total U.S. population. Earlier this week I read and watched lots of news about how every Christian and all of the Right Wing media is incitement towards domestic terrorism. Yet just before and also the same day we saw terrorist/hate crime acts by Muslims played down in the mainstream media. Thank goodness for the internet and bloggers who will present things that the Cable news networks and Newspapers won't.

I think what was really over the top was the media response to President Obama's speech this week. I'm not going to talk about the speech or the merits of it, you're all welcome to your own political persuasions. But in the U.S. I saw the media stooping to a level deference for Islam that would knock me over flat if they did the same for Christianity, Judaism or even Buddhism. Here is the media emoticon version:

Muslim World = 8D
Christian Nation = ~:(
Jewist State = >:-[

Now I'll be open and honest, I've got respect for a lot of religions but the "Religion of Peace" has yet to win my good neighbor "wouldn't it be nice to have more of those nice folks living next to you" award. While I appreciate the cultures and people of Europe and the Middle East, the months of my life spent in those parts of the world have made me very, very, very grateful to be living in a country with Freedom of Religion protections for as long as it can be made to last.

So what does any of this have to do with gaming? Enter Electronic Arts, already known for draconian measures against paying customers to take control of their computers and make sure you're not doing anything they don't approve of because you've played one of their games. Known for paying bottom dollar in the game industry to its employees, being the first to layoff, hostile corporate takeovers, and having the most MMO games close servers after release. Well here is another one:


EA is now inventing fake religious controversies over their games to try and get media attention.



Easily believed to be another wacky group of Christians right? Well a lot of people believed so, but this is actually an EA publicity stunt. If this had been done as a joke, I might have taken it as one but AP news actually had to do some research to determine it was a fake. I find this as funny as a fake Suicide bomber, fake Self-immolating monk, or an Anti-Semitic joke.

It has already been my policy to not buy EA games because you have no idea what their software is going to do to your computer since they have demonstrated time after time having 0 respect for their customers. But after this kind of gross public misconduct I'm ready to start my own Electronic Arts boycott that extends to Wii games and every platform. I'm not into boycott petitions, but just hurting them where it counts... their bottom line.

Now on to another E3 note:
I guess the good side of the fake Electronics Arts protest is that the E3 security recognized their constitutional right to assemble on a public sidewalk and FAKE protest. Unfortunately they didn't do it out of principle as they tried to have these booth babe protesters removed from the public sidewalk. This also happened to be another fake protest, fake protesting the $3,000 fine for having booth babes wearing bikinis inside the Adults Only E3... in Los Angeles.

Soooooo, yeah. Skip E3, if you have any sense go to PAX which so far has never failed to have more common sense and more respect for your 1st Amendment Rights.

Why I quit MMOs

Getting a good number of company contacts but few interviews and no job offers so far. Hopefully something gives soon, and likely it will be a game company as they are the main companies hiring right now that I'm applying for.

I've kind of quit beta testing the MMO I've been playing. Not because the game is bad, but because some combat changes made it not fun to really test my main character and totally invalidated and made pointless my main alt. It is both good and bad for the game when it releases, but I just don't have the heart to put the work in to try and make the changes work in their current form.

But I did think I'd talk about why I quit prior MMOs I've played:

• Anarchy Online - quit this game due to a dying roleplay community, being harassed by one of their volunteers, and the tediousness of trying to advance my main character at all.
• Neocron - Develops decided to punish all their customers because a few exploited things they didn't like. Some of the exploiters were aided and abetted by GMs (wittingly or unwittingly) and it just made PvP not any fun to be beaten by exploits repeatedly.
• Saga of Ryzom - Despite a lot of warnings they went ahead with patches that destroyed a lot of people's characters and made the game unplayable. They didn't roll back the disaster either and I was among the people leaving in droves.
• World of Warcraft - Left because of drama with the immature community, being stuck raiding for character advancement, then having that raid gear completely redesigned at Blizzard's whim after working hard for it.
  
• Horizons - Bad company took over and killed it for me. The community died and there isn't enough storyline or interesting things to do for me to jump back into their second Tier character advancement. Plus frankly, it is hard going back to those graphics, glitches and sound effects after playing LotRO.
  
• Lord of the Rings Online - Mines of Moria killed it for me by completely screwing up their combat mechanics, redefining the role my chosen class played and making the endgame content both easy and pointless. Don't get me started on how they drove me away from their version of PvP.

I think the main lesson to learn is don't screw up why your customers are there. Don't do the Neocron, always be nice to your customers. Have something challenging and meaningful for when your characters have maxed out casual character advancement. Don't massively overhaul game content once you've launched it if people are still using it, it can be very upsetting. Don't sell your company the moment it starts to make a profit, and don't buy it from someone if the game has just changed around unless you're willing to put A LOT into it.

When you're a developer thinking about how game changes will impact the customer, use the Golden Rule.

Don't let your ego get in the way of doing what is Smart.

Recessions are good for gamers ... in the long run

It sucks having been laid off twice in the last year. I'm wanting to buy up cheap expansions for Runebound right now, but just can't justify it.

Being in Seattle I'm seeing a lot of effects on local game industries. Because people have a lot less discretionary money, or are just too scared to spend their discretionary money it is impacting the game economy. But it is very far from impacting companies equally!

Some game companies are still growing and expanding at this time, some are laying off and shrinking massively and really scaling back in a major way. What do I see as a general trend behind who is doing what? Companies which pump out a lot of low quality games and charge standard prices for them are taking a major beating. Companies that always try to produce high quality games, and don't charge excessively for them are doing really well and even adding positions. Look into the reports of a dozen game companies and you'll see it right now. Quality and not trying to price gouge are huge marks of success right now. For Gamer's this means the low quality game companies are going out of business and will have less money to peddle garbage onto the market but the quality game houses putting out good titles are going to see a lot of growth which hopefully means even more good games in the future as they hire and produce more.

Here is my caveat though. During this recession everyone is trying to scalp bottom dollar on their employees because so many people are desperate for any wage. This doesn't mean you get a good employee, one who is dedicated or will work hard for you. Someone who is making half what he used to for the same job is going to resent his new employer for taking advantage of his situation. It is just human nature and why should employers be surprised at the high turnover of disgruntled new employees or their lack of performance equalling those who are paid twice as much or more?

Furthermore lets take a look at your typical game company pay scales. Game Developer magazine had some recent articles and looking through job postings will agree... QA people get paid the least in the game industry even though they probably have the most impact on a successful or non-successful game company right now. I know way too many game developers who work for companies who aren't worth their paychecks. They have lots of game experience... usually made up of lots of failed titles and it is far far less about performance as much as knowing the right people to get a developer position. The successful QA software engineer will probably still make a quarter as much in many cases as the uneducated game developer/designer without a high profit title to his name. But since fewer and fewer companies have profits they can just flush down the drain, maybe you should start to think about putting your money on the people who are going to really guarantee if you're successful or another high bankrolled flop?

In other news if you're an employer in the Seattle area, let me assure you that I'm worth much more than minimum wage.

Lawbound

Runebound 2nd edition is a lot of fun. Taking legal action against your landlord because they're evicting you for having a kid is not.

Our apartment manager decided suddenly that our newborn is a violation of occupancy limits and gave us an eviction notice (which points to a non-existent clause in our lease). I'm certain it has nothing to do with the fact that our downstairs neighbor has been complaining if she ever hears a kid. We're talking noon - 6pm range, our kids go to bed at 8pm and by complaining I mean she grabs objects and thumps on her ceiling loudly and writes frequent letters to the management. Now you're probably imagining those apartments from hell that we've all lived in with paper thin walls, we generally have to be paying attention to hear the teenager up above us jumping up and down. So while I imagine our 2.5 year old and almost 4 year old are audible, how bad is it? Bad enough evidently that they asked us to change apartments and when I told them we'd do it if they compensated moving expenses they change their mind and decided we'd have to move out or be evicted when my pregnant wife had our son. Should I add that the manager avoids talking to me and comes and harassed my wife about all this as soon as I'd leave for my last job? Now that I got laid off he never stops by any more. I just had explained in detail to me today that there wasn't a more clear-cut case of family discrimination and harassment unless they had publicly advertised it.

But the good news? I have a follow-up interview tomorrow with a local game company for a Game tester position I'm excited about.

Runebound 2nd edition is a game from Fantasy Flight that I had heard raved about by some fans of Arkham Horror. Being another fan of Arkham Horror I was intrigued by this fantasy board game and I'm glad I was.

It is your classic fantasy trope on a board game. I'd call it Dungeons & Dragons in flavor but without bad and intermittent roleplaying or super heavy crunch. In fact this game is easier to start than Arkham Horror and can be played cooperatively or competitively by choice. You choose your hero, give him 3 coin tokens and start off finding and fighting monsters to unlock what threatens the land and defeat it. Along the way you can spend coin on items and allies to help your adventures. You can trade with fellow players if you meet up with them... or fight them. Another big seller for me is that there are lots of little card expansions for the game that cost $6 - $11. Add new monsters, new items, or expand character abilities for a relatively small amount. It is for 1 to 6 players and if it sounds interesting then it is probably worth giving a try.

2nd Generation

He is here, my son is here! A new mind to raise into a future fellow game player. Yay! Unfortunately no job yet, I've gotten a string of "the position you applied for has canceled due to budget cuts" notices. Still I plod away, thank you unemployment!

As you can imagine he has taken up a lot of my time, but I've still been trying to play my two game betas. The parade of family and in-laws hits the hardest in not having time for anything, but it doesn't stop me from trying to squeeze a little in here and there. Both games I'm beta testing are shaping up nicely... maybe I'll be able to name them both by Christmas?

Hopefully will get some Changeling or D&D 4th going soon because I need some actual tabletop gaming for the social factor. Also looking into trying a new board game "Runebound" as it has gotten favorable reviews. Has anyone out there tried it yet?

Final Fantasy Online & Stardock

Well I tried a free trial of Final Fantasy Online. I'd heard a lot about this game and long wanted to try it but never got into it.

I got a character to level 2 and I just don't think I can log in again. The controls for the PC are awful and counter-intuitive. The game was obviously designed for console first with PC being an afterthought. The game is difficult to learn and often very frustrating. Combat is painful and unrewarding. I'm very grateful for the ways in which modern MMOs have progressed.

It makes me think that any Console MMO is just not a good way to go. Too much is sacrificed to produce a quality game that can appeal to enough people. Obviously the biggest MMO out there is PC only, the only advantage to the console is getting that ever decreasing market of people who own a console platform but not a computer. How many people is that in this day and age? How many fewer of them are there every year?

I powered up Galactic Civilizations 2 again recently. That game has staying power. Picked a different race and with the expansions I have for Gal Civ 2 it becomes a very different game and breathes new life into it.

Most of my play time has been spent on a couple games that are still in development. So a lot more going on I can't write about. It may all come to a screeching halt between my son being born hopefully within this week and a job interview I have this week with a household name corporation.

Announcement

I told you to keep an eye out for more VOR announcements and I got the O.K. from Skuzz to let slip a few exciting details of Vor 2.0 !

• Worried about the overpowered abilities of Pharon in 1.0? Worry no longer, with the newly resurrected Traxis available as a special summonable unit you can now go Toe to Toe with the wretched G*d-King!
• Yes, the purging was tough to beat. But the new Union orbital superiority has produced a lot more new and varied assortments of Orbital Strikes. You can take these strikes starting at 500 PV and they cost 10 to 200 points depending on the type of strike.
• Mutant Rad-Troopers. All that radiation had to lead to something good eventually. Instead of dying some Rad-Troopers will "Hulk Out". No more mutant handlers, simply replace a Rad-Trooper with a mutant model after dying on a roll of 1 or 2! The Neo-Soviet forcelist has also been simplified to eliminate the many undesirable units. With the new Mutant Madness Rad-Troops, Chem Grunts and Officers are all you need to win any fight.
  
• Speaking of undesirable units, the Ceru have been eliminated from the game. It simply didn't add as much flavor as the new VOR force "Spider Warriors". The custom spider force from the original core book has evolved to use technology which allows them to teleport about the battlefield on the "hidden web". When they're killed the souls of these spider warriors reincarnate along the path of another warrior discipline.
• Too much bookkeeping with VOR? You'll be glad to know that Topps has been signed up to provide a new innovative miniatures base type which has stats on the bottom and can record injuries with a rotatable 'tic' setting on the bottom of the model.
• Thought VOR was always too good to remain a tabletop game alone? Keep your eyes out for Dawn of VOR coming from Electronic Arts in 2010!
  

Other news of note today:

New line of Vegan foods from Al Gore
France captured Lesbians in WW2
Bjork to be lead singer of newly reformed Led Zeppelin.
Warner Bros to acquire Pirate Bay

Unemployed

So I'm unemployed and playing games half the day. It's great! Unemployment at least through May has the jitters down and I'm hoping one of a few good positions I've applied for come my way. With child #3 on the way it is a good time to be relaxing at home and getting ready for the insanity of 3 CHILDREN!!!!

Dawn of War 2 was a lot of fun, kind of burnt out on the few maps it has though. More importantly I've been beta testing games that are a lot of fun. Unfortunately along with betas generally comes NDAs so not a lot of talking to be done about that either!

If you're following VOR, then the big announcement is the FAQ for 2.0 was released. Lots of new information there that I'm surprised isn't being discussed yet at bioplazm. I've been working on painting up a decent Golem army and Kirara has been greatly expanding her Growlers of late. Need to get down to basing them, but here are some older pictures I should have shown off but never did.

Anima Tactics is still looking good. I wish a lot more people played it locally, it is a shame. Hopefully when their rulebook is finally printed then the game can start picking up a lot more steam. Kirara has certainly "leveled up" with her painting of the fantastic Anima Tactics miniatures. Here is a painting of her "Konosuke" which was sold off on a commission. We got her a replacement so she'll be taking another stab at producing him with a new paint job again. The most recent stuff she has worked on has even better paint jobs than this one.

If you want to beta test Fallen Earth, then go here.

P.S. - Innsmouth Horror is coming. Then the Mountains of Madness movie.

P.S.S. - Keep your eye open on VOR, I expect another announcement sooner than melting glaciers.

Updates

Well, I didn't get that job at Gas Powered Games that I had hoped for. Today is my last day of work on my old job so it is time for unemployment and looking full time for a new job. Does it ever end? To make matters more frustrating... we have a downstairs neighbor in our apartment complex who doesn't like having neighbors that can ever be heard. So after a vicious letter writing campaign which we were unaware of, the owners have stepped and decided we need to go because we have too many kids. Yeah, we know it is discrimination against families... but what good does it do us? At this point at if they've decided they don't like us at least they're not claiming it is for damages or something they can bill us for. My couple bad experiences with landlords before has shown me the law is almost totally on their side unless they've done physical harm to you through negligence and even then you have to prove it or fake it and I'm not willing to fake it.


So we've played Changeling: The Lost recently and enjoyed. Finally a White Wolf setting that isn't so totally dark or weird that I can get into it. Changeling is kind of weird, but at least in a traditional folk tale sort of way. The game is set in contemporary times, so it is great for fans of traditional Shadowrun or even fans of H.P. lovecraft for many of the alien horror elements. If you're into roleplaying and enjoy the old fairy tales like I do, then I have to recommend this game.







Good news for us Shadowrun 3rd edition lovers. Topps isn't selling the Shadowrun license to Catalyst Game Labs (CGL), so maybe there is a chance for Shadowrun to go back to being something more popular than the current venture. Because so long as CGL is making money off 4th edition I doubt they'll ever consider taking Shadowrun back to its very popular and trend setting roots. Time will tell, but odds are probably that Topps will just license it out to CGL and make money the easy way... by doing nothing and charging a renter's fee for someone else to actually due the real work and make any money with the Intellectual Property.


This is the latest game I bought last week. Some good fun multiplayer action whether in the cooperative campaign play or going head to head against other players. Game play is very different from almost every other Real-Time strategy (RTS) game in history. There isn't a bunch of buildings to create, instead you just have one home base. Unit sizes are smaller, and leveling of heros rewards being aggressive. What you end up with is quicker games that quickly get into the combat action without long time periods of building things up.

and it looks like starting next week I might have a lot more time to play all of them.

January Fog

Seems I forgot a few follow-up things. First of all, for those tracking my career. For the big job I really want right now my resume got advanced a tier and has been submitted to a hiring manager who I'm hoping will call for an interview this week. It would be really good news since it looks like now more than ever my job will expire at the end of the month. I've taken a leave of absence from LotRO due to it.

Did I forget to followup my Christmas wish list? Two of the things I wanted I got:

* Ramlar: Lost City of Grynix (available as PDF only)
* Hirst Arts molds for terrain making

and I've been making a lot of major Hirst arts terrain pieces. Expect some big set pictures before summer. I also got the lost city of Grynix, but we're still foraying into D&D 4th edition right now. It is ... interesting. More because of insight into the people that play it, the whole thing is still 90% combat and combat is 80% rolling the dice. It seems like most of the game could play itself. Grynix looks interesting and and seems like a very nice setting for Ramlar. I like how the adventure or campaign setting books add special material for players that isn't in rulebooks. It makes for some nice surprises.

My birthday is coming up in a couple weeks, and we'll see what else I get.

Anyone have any thoughts to post on The World of Darkness? I've never tried it but we're looking at trying the new Changeling RPG at some point. Might this be a decent new game for someone who is a die hard fan of Shadowrun 3?

Not very gaming related

Well, my intent had been to mainly post about Ramlar and do a final review of Card Sharp. My opinion of the adventure hasn't changed much, but I should stress I do still really like many of the mechanics of the game. My group is taking a break from Ramlar and we'll be doing more Arkham Horror and giving D&D 4th edition a shake (I'm not a D&D fan, but others are and it would make an interesting comparison to Ramlar).

Also, a word of warning. I'm applying for a job with a local game development company and if I get the position then my posting about computer games will become heavily curtailed or cease entirely. Wish me luck, I really want the job both because of it being a good gaming company and because my current job runs out soon anyways.

So hmm, can't talk about the RPG I've been playing. Can't talk about the minis game I've been playing, can't talk about computer games. So I'll talk about a recent pet peeve... Data Mining. Some sites have been data mining this blog for my personal info. If I really wanted your company to try and find out who I really am, I'd post that information publicly wouldn't I? On the other hand, my email address Thesallust@gmail.com is not that big a secret, feel free to at least get that part correct with the corporate world's attempts to know everything about us.

Finally, if you don't want to hear about war in the middle east stop reading NOW.

Urban warfare is interesting, but I'm very glad I've never experienced it first hand. It isn't gaming related, but this is my blog so I want to bring up some pet peeves as someone who has lived in the Middle East and is sick of current news coverage. The words "Disproportionate attack" are an oxymoron in any real war. What war was ever conducted with the expectation that both sides would fight exactly the same? This isn't some sparring match, war is simply not ever "proportionate". Stop using the words "Amateur Rockets", there is nothing amateur about them. The exact rockets being used are pictured below:

Those amateur rockets come loaded with shrapnel, ball bearings, and carry enough explosive to blow out an office floor.

It seems to me the press has decided not to support Palestinians and not to support Israel but to actively support Hamas.


Hamas has been dropping rockets on Southern Israel for years... ever since they stopped occupying the Gaza strip with settlers in fact. They launched the rockets because they had to further to find Jews to kill and no matter what happens, they will continue reaching out to kill Jews however they can. This organization is worse than Nazis, they just lack the power and effectiveness of them. For the record, the civillian casaulaties while taking out the Nazis % wise and number wise were far, far worse. Hordes of innocent civillian germans lost their lives and they weren't even used as human shields.

Case in point to both, in just the last week Hamas has proudly announced executing over 30 members of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. The English news isn't covering it, but they've covered it in the Middle East and Palestine and sadly nobody cares. Oh, and Gazans starving to death? it isn't news, Hamas has been starving people and depriving them of food, water, electricity and everything else since they took control. But the press will ignore THAT because Hamas tells them the enemy is -> that way.

There is no freedom of the press in the middle east. Egyptian and Israeli press come the closest, but even they have government censors who can stop things from going to print. The press in Gaza is directly controlled by Hamas, no reported allowed without escort "Stringers" and the PA directly controls all press companies in the West Bank. I would think the press would finally acknowledge their failures from Jenin where they broadcast a fake massacre and faked funerals as fact and we're later caught on film hundreds of deaths when it barely broke double digits. Then just 2.5 years ago faked photographs of Israeli damage in Lebanon. Doesn't anyone remember the photoshopped smoke clouds over Beirut? or the same woman throwing her arms up in anger at having lost her house... the same woman in 12 different regions of Lebanon?

The worst part is Militia "police" executioners that kill dozens of "collaborators" a week. It is why there are so many rockets fired from rooftops and such. If you don't allow them to, then you can be shot as a "collaborator". It also makes it easier for them to get dead bodies for photo shoots of destroyed areas. I recommend the Palestinian directed movie "Paradise Now" which talks about Suicide Bombers. I won't give it away, but it is a great glimpse into Palestinian life and the motivations over there.

But I could fill a library with what westerners don't know about the middle east and I'm not even a native of the region.

I'd like to thank and remember all my friends from over there. I miss my Lebanese floormates who used to play board games on the Sabbath to alleviate the boredom caused by a lack of transportation. You guys gave me wonderful insight and words of wisdom while playing chess... "What we have here is a total seperation between the sexes... (pause) ... it sucks:

To my Palestinian friends, probably still doing guard work on the border. I hope you've learned not to depend on words learned from watching R rated american films. (15 minutes lost trying to figure out how to explain the hilarity without offending some of my readers... don't think I can do it).

To my Israeli friends, sending you some better movies your way from my country this last summer. I really miss getting pulled over and "arrested", but I'm married now as a result of living over there and my wife wouldn't approve. In no other country has getting interrogated by female security/police/military officers been so much fun... in fact it is the only country it has been any fun in at all.

Yes, I spent a lot of time back then being pulled over for long talks with security guards. I developed a nice little nickname on both sides of the security border from my fun (and I'm not using that sarcasticaly) chats to ease the boredom of guards. It still puts a smile on my face that every guard on both sides of the border knew the nickname you gave me.

"Son of Unabomber" out

Happy Boxing Day / New Year

So I just got back from another Canada trip, this one with the family. This time no VOR related visits! Not a lot to say on that front so check out my updated recommended links to visit on my blog.

On my run through B.C. I did find a very nice Game & Hobby store in Imperial Games & Hobbies. They had a nice 25% off Boxing day sale combined with a nice conversion rate and so I had to pick up a few nice Reaper models to proxy. I was particularly impressed with the stores selection of Terrain making supplies. If I'd had enough disposable cash I easily would have picked up a Charon army transport container as well.

So the Ramlar Card Sharp campaign is winding down not as excitingly as it started. The campaign has issues with pacing. Not enough action for some in the front, not enough direction to influence in the later parts. The thing that really irked me as the GM though was a section where the map in the book didn't correspond to the rooms described in the encounter. There aren't even the same number of numbered rooms for it! We'll still come back to Ramlar though. I've got a Grynix book (.pdf download) that I want to try out with the group sometime. We'll be taking a break and playing some other games in between though.

Mines of Moria is losing all steam right now and proving to be a big letdown. The new content is nice, but once you've gotten past all that that rewards and even worse the changes to class roles and combat really take the wind out of one's sails. At this point I'm hoping to get into Fallen Earth's Alpha or Beta.

Back to real life, my contract position ends at the end of this month. So sadly I'll probably be looking for new jobs a lot more and gaming less. So LotRO will be backed off of anyways (though I'll probably still do at least a weekly raid).

Happy New Year everyone. Leave a comment and tell me what games you're most looking forward to in 2009.

My Gaming Christmas List

So what games would I like to get for Christmas?

Well Shadowrun 3rd edition is no longer, Ramlar isn't currently in print with new books. Vor 2.0 isn't out yet and neither is Elemental, Earthrise, or Fallen Earth. So here is what I'd be interested in right now:

* Arkham Horror: The Black Goat of the Woods Expansion
* Golems from Iron Wind Metals
* Half-Life 2: Episode 2
* Ramlar: Lost City of Grynix (available as PDF only)
* Hirst Arts molds for terrain making
* Wii DDR : The Hottest Party 2
* Armorcast terrain
* Wii: Monster Lab

Leave a comment and tell me what should be added to this list.

Mines of Canada Elemental

Two more days till Mines of Moria expansion release for Lord of the Rings Online. I'm somewhat excited; excited because of the new Moria content but heavily dampered by nerfs and bad class redesign. Expect to hear a lot about it in my next post. Also, this next weekend my gaming cohorts will gather and play some more Chronicles of Ramlar and Arkham Horror.

In good and interesting news, Stardock has finally announced their fantasy strategy game in development. You can see an early promo picture to the right for the game. I'll be following this game with much interest till it is released. The release isn't slated until winter of 2010, but as with other Stardock games if you pre-order you automatically get into being able to beta test and can play the pre-release versions of the game. The game looks like it will be the only true spiritual successor to Master of Magic and I have little doubt that it can top the old classic as well. It will be a true 4X game no doubt, but with duel research paths of technology and magic and a lot of interesting dynamics are being discussed that involve trading your power for different kinds of advantages and achieving different kinds of victories. The only disappointment so far is that they're only planning on two playable civilization races for release at this point and I think the game could easily gain from having a couple more. It shouldn't be too hard to do so without falling into the typical elves, orcs, dwarves fantasy trope.

Now the biggest and best news is saved for last and about VOR. I grab local bioplazm forum gamer Scott (left) and went up to Canada to meet "Skuzz" (wave 'hi' Skuzz!) who I caught in the below unprepared picture amid revealing juicy details of Vor 2.0 So I've got the spoilers, sneak peeks, and news about Vor 2.0... unfortunately Skuzz long ago got the promise of secrecy from me so there isn't much I can reveal. I can confirm seeing concept doodles for a new masher unit, and that other work towards the new release is proceeding. My opinions however are not under NDA and I can tell you that I'm very excited and eager for the release of what is in store with Vor 2.0 Old time fans like myself will not be merely pleased with a re-release of VOR but I think you'll be beside yourselves with excitement for the some of the game changes and story advancements. I don't think it will be difficult for VOR 2.0 to make a huge number of new fans as well.

In other VOR news, the next unofficial Golden Growler contest is complete. Head to wargame forums and vote! (and not necessarily for me).

- Sallust/Rishkith over and out!

What is an Expansion?

I start a new job on monday, yay me! This means less time and more money for gaming of course. I was hoping to have pictures of the Golden Growler up, but the contest hasn't had pictures posted yet let alone judged. When it is expect to see my most recent creation as my new mascot and avatar all of the place.

So I've pre-ordered the Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. Sadly, I'm not too enthused about it at the moment. Partially because my kinship is having a lot of drama and I suspect on the verge of falling apart, but mostly just because for most classes the expansion doesn't seem like one. Turbine is behaving more like Funcom, upsetting class balance badly, giving a lot more to certain playstyles that already have plenty while ignoring what the customer base really wants while the marketing folks and community go ... oh we'll get around to fixing it this year.

All computer game developers have to understand, customers expect things to work properly right out of the box. Patches after the fact aren't shouldn't be used for fixing content, it should be used for adding content. That said I'll be there on patch day seeing how good or bad it is for myself.

Sadly I've not been able to get any games of Anima: Tactics in. The support for it at my local game store has pretty much died. I'm not sure what is going on there, a change in management it seems as one of the owners has seemingly lost interest in being involved or something.

We had our second session of Ramlar last night. I had a lot more fun GMing the game than I expected. This was partially do to the fun layout and intrigue for the Card Sharp adventure. This adventure makes a great beginning adventure for Ramlar, though they really need a better "first time" adventure for the game to introduce players to basic mechanics and such. The Card Sharp adventure I feel though is giving my two players a good feel for the setting, the races, and cultures of the world of Ramlar. I eagerly look forward to the next session of the game.