Say What??? EA's empty bluster

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

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

and look what I got in the mail!

Your daily dose of Drama

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

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

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.

Acquisitions, Inc. at PAX Prime 2010

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

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"

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

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

The Starcraft 2 dilemma

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

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!

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

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!

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!