If you haven't seen it yet, check out this cinematic for Warhammer Online. Not only is it beautiful, but there are some really nice touches in there that show they really know the source IP. Stuff like the squig, the chaos warrior that mutates his arm into a weapon, man, it really does feel like Warhammer.

I still wish my character could lose a leg or catch the plague though.

GenCon was a blast again this year. Probably not the best one I've been to, but still a ton of fun. It always goes by so fast. One minute I'm waiting at BJ's for the cab to take us to the airport, and the next I'm riding the cab back home. Sigh.

This year I brought my fancy new camera, which is unfortunately much larger than cameras I've brought in the past. I only toted it around on Thursday, so I don't have many photos to share. Well, it's starting to get that you can't really tell one year's GenCon photos from the next anyway.

Here's a link to my schedule for this year. Here's a recap of how it played out:

Thursday
Went to my Warhammer game first thing, which was OK. The GM wasn't very organized or focused, which made the game drag a bit. I met a nice guy from Germany there (Steve I think?) who I would bump into several times later in the con. Next I cruised the dealer's room, and then made my way up to speed painting. I took third, as I seem to do each year, and contemplated whether I would ditch my Cat game early to show up to the finals. A little more time in the dealer's hall, and then it was time to run my first session of Smuggler's Song, the pirates Savage Worlds adventure I brought. The table was full and highly energized. I had a really good time, and I'd rank this as my second favorite game of the con.

Friday
Friday morning I went to the Pinacle Seminar, where I got to put some faces to various staff and forum posters, which was pretty cool. Chaos Steve gave me some coupons to hand out at my next game, and Shane leaked the fact that the MMO he's working on is indeed Deadlands. I then had some more time to roam the dealer's hall, and ended having lunch with the sales guy at Geek Chic, makers of the $10,000 gamer table. He was nice guy, and I really hope they do well. That's a really nice table. Someday when I have a house with a proper finished basement, I might have to look those guys up again.

Next I played a cave-man miniatures game that used Savage Worlds based rules. It was moderately fun, but again the GM was distracted and not on top of thinks. This lead at one point to a heated argument between two guys in the game. Pretty lame. That night I ran the 2nd session of Smuggler's Song, which wasn't nearly as good as the first. I only had four people show up, and one of them was a bit obnoxious. I didn't have the energy to take him to task, so mostly I just let him get away with whatever he wanted. I hope it didn't have too bad of an impact on the rest of the players.

Saturday
By this point I was really looking forward to playing in a good RPG. I spent the morning roaming the dealer's hall some more, and then met up with Jenn at the mall for lunch. I had two games lined up, one from 1-5 and the next from 5-10. With no break for lunch, I tried to pick up an extra sandwich to carry with me, but the line at Subway was huge. Hoping my first game might end a tad early, or that I could live with the granola bar and banana in my bag, I headed to my game. There the GM told us he was very sorry, but he was needed at his publisher's booth. He gave us all CDs full of product (they sell PDFs) and sincere apologies. It's probably the best I've seen a cancelled game handled, but still, I was looking forward to playing something I thought would be good. So I immediately took off for the dealer's room to Pinaccle's booth where they were organizing pick-up games on a chalk board. And wouldn't you know it, there was an opening in a game from 2-5. I took it. This gave me just enough time to head back to the mall, grab a burrito for later (Subway's line was still insanely long), and head over to the game.

The game itself was pretty fun, though short. Basically just a quick explore and then fight game. It was Savage Worlds with a modern setting and the gritty damage rules (no soaking!) The really interesting fact though -- out of the six players I was the only one who was not British. Yeah, I was the Terry Gilliam of the group. Just a weird coincidence too, as the Brits were two different groups of guys who didn't know each other.

That game ran right to 5, but fortunately my next game was right across the hall. It was Cthulu, and it was completely awesome. The game was set around the Franklin Expedition. Basically, we spent the adventure aboard ships that were locked in ice in the Arctic. The game was held in a small room with two tables. We sat around one, while one of the two guys running it sat at the other playing sound effects with a laptop and a set of speakers. The lights were low, a lantern sat at the center of the table, and room was markedly cooler than the rest of the hotel (this I found later to be a happy coincidence, due to having the door shut and the lights out all day). We were given large mittens to wear while we played, and when no ther sounds were appropriate, we had a loop of whisteling wind sounds. The ambiance was just terrific. My only disappointment was that my character never went completely over the edge into insanity. Sigh, maybe next time.

Sunday
As usual, Sunday was pretty chill. Jenn and I played in a game of Cat together, which was moderately fun, but again plagued by an unfocused GM. We had 8 people at the table, which would have made the game horrible, but fortunately two of them bowed out. One left before we even got going, the other slipped out unnoticed during a bathroom break. I considered bailing to go participate in the Speed Painting final, but I felt bad that two people had already left, and didn't want to ditch Jenn. Also, I figured the game would end earlier than the speed painting, and wanted to take one last spin through the dealer's hall.

My Stash
Here's what I brought home with me:

• Last Night on Earth
-- A board game that I had heard a review of before coming the con. Jenn and I got a demo of it on Thursday, and I liked it enough to buy it. I'm looking forward to bringing this one to Helga's soon.

• Tomb
-- My other board game purchase from AEG, I only witnessed the beginnings of demo. It's a dungeon delving game where each player assembles a party and whoever finds the most treasure wins. I'm hoping it'll be fun, or at least live up to the claim of being a fast game (the box claims only 1 hour).

• Miniature Building Authority Stuff
-- These guys make some real nice pre-painted terrain and buildings. I bought some wall sections and their rope bridge. Guess I'll have to run some miniature heavy pulp stuff soon.

• Warhammer FRPG Books
-- Fantasy Flight has taken over publishing WFRPG, and they had some books there. I picked up a few I was missing. I wasn't able to get much info on what they're going to do with the line going forward, but at least the stuff is still in print.

• Tunnels and Trolls
-- My last minute impulse buy as the convention was closing was a copy of T&T 7.5. I hear the older version is actually better, but I was curious to see what the latest edition has. Meant to use it at airplane reading, but I still haven't read it.

• Reaper Minis
-- I just can't seem to avoid picking up some more miniatures at GenCon. As if I didn't already have enough of a back-log for assembly and painting. At least the pre-painted purlple worm won't need any attention from me, just an excuse to use it.

• Dice
-- Bought some more dice from Chessex. Now that I'm off my giant dice kick, my bag of normal size dice seemed kind of skimply and old. I especially wanted some more d10s and d4s, which I didn't seem to have too many of.

That's it. Can't wait for next year. I've already got some ideas of what to run at HelgaCon.

Ah, the last minute packing, the late night runs to Staples, it must be time for GenCon!

We ran out at 8:30 tonight to get to Staples before they close at 9, because I realized I forgot to photo-copy the characters for the second game I'm running. Doh! When we got there and I made my way over to the copy machine I discovered a piece of paper left behind in the tray. And guess what it was? A D&D character sheet!

I wonder who else in or near Acton is headed out to GenCon tomorrow.

My company released a few pieces of concept art at Comic-Con, which as been so far pretty favorably reviewed. Here's a nice site with some reviews of specific pieces:

The Wandering Rogue

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted. I needed that Dr. Horrible post to break the ice. So, here are some highlights on what's going on with me these days:

• Work is going great. I think I've found my niche here. There's tons of work to get done, so I rarely have down moments to cruise the web, write email, or post on my blog. Which I think is a good thing, I'd rather be busy than not have enough work to do.


• It is kind of disturbing though to see your boss on posters in the super market and hear his voice over the PA pimping some charity while you're buying milk.


• We seem overwhelmed with family recently. My mom's side came up two weeks ago for Max's college orientation, the following weekend we drove down to CT to visit Jenn's family, and now this weekend my brother Mark is flying out from CA to stay with us for our brother Dave's wedding this weekend.


• And the weekends continue to be packed through summer -- encampment at OSV, GenCon, and more I'm sure. There might be a free weekend in there somewhere, and we're trying very hard to keep it unplanned.


• I sold off all my old High Elves and some old Chaos stuff I had kicking around. I wanted a second army besides my Vampires, but the High Elf army I had started wasn't doing it for me. I just didn't want another high magic army, and I wasn't excited about the painting. So now that that's all gone, I've started collecting orcs and goblins. I'll probably be posting some pictures as I start assembling and painting the stuff.

OK, I think you're caught up. I'll try to post more in the future.

Everyone is going on and on about Dr. Horrible. Whether it was getting yet another email about it, hearing it playing in the background somewhere in the office, or just listening to people chatter about it, it was really getting on my nerves. I almost didn't watch it out of spite just because the hype was too much.

OK, so I watched the first two parts on Friday night before leaving for CT (and no internet) for the weekend. It was pretty good. The story was interesting, the acting was good. I do think Niel Patrick Harris is a pretty good actor. But why did it have to be a musical? Man, that pretty much shot it for me. I hate sitting through yet another dorky song waiting for the plot to advance again. But that's probably just me.

So this morning I went to check for the last episode, and it was already gone. I know they said they would release the third on Saturday and it 'wouldn't be up long' before it became for-pay only, but holy crap I didn't think they'd do it that fast. I guess it makes sense from a marketing stand point. The whole point of releasing it for free at all is to generate buzz and drive sales once it's for pay only.

And maybe, just maybe, I'd pay a couple bucks to watch the third one. Not because it was so darn good, but because their little marketing ploy worked and I feel the need to see the end. But to do so I have to download iTunes? Umm... no thanks.

When I was in college, and many years after that, I used to build my own computers. It was probably because it was cheaper to build one from parts than to buy an all new machine. I would usually buy stuff one or two revisions old, with the idea that I could upgrade when the latest stuff came down in price, but usually by the time that happened it was time to build a whole new machine.

These days, computers are so cheap, there's really no reason for it. I no longer know how the latest video cards compare, or the names of the latest generation of processors, or what kind of RAM is the best. I'm OK with that, in fact, I like the fact that I've had the same computer for a couple years now and don't feel the need to build a new one.

That is, until the power button stopped working. I have an HP dv6000t, a laptop that fortunately comes with a cute little feature called "Quick Play" which allows you to slap a DVD into the drive and press a button to watch it. It's actually booting a weird stripped down version of XP to run the Quick Play software, so I found I could still boot the machine by pressing the Quick Play button, and then hitting ctrl-alt-delete as soon as it started to boot. Still, what a pain. Oh yeah, also the built in speakers stopped working, which I incorrectly assumed was unrelated to the power button problem.

So I did some digging. The machine is out of warranty, and rumor has it on some forums that HP charges close to $300 to fix it. Fortunately, it's actually a common problem, and you can replace the faulty part yourself. I found a replacement power button board on eBay for about $40. It came in a few days ago, and this morning I put it in.

That's the first time in a long time I've had to open up a computer and play with its guts. And I had to do quite a bit of dismantling to get at the part that needs replacing. The circuit board was fairly accessible, but I had to replace the cable as well, which ran behind the keyboard down into who knows where inside the computer.

The power button works fine now, and even the speakers are working again. Pretty cool. Still, I hope it keeps running for a couple more years. I have no desire to buy or build another computer any time soon.

Now, my server, that's another story...

I tend to be pretty close-mouthed about my new job, at least in terms of what it is we're doing. In this industry, I find that when in doubt it's better to just not say anything. Usually the party line is, if it's been posted publicly elsewhere, you can say it. Which in turn really means that I should just post links to other peoples' articles.

Which is exactly what I'm doing. Here's a really nice article about us from MPOGD that gives some hints on what's going on in the studio. Enjoy.

http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=3748

Kind of funny to book-end a post about the Sox with posts about Order of the Stick. Anywho...

I just noticed the proclamation on the front of the GiantITP site about not converting to 4th edition. Specifically, Burlew says that he will not be making a strip about converting to 4th edition, similar to his very first strip where the characters converted to 3.5. He says:



Ah. I knew there was something I didn't like about the strip these days. There it is.

So, one perk of my new job is access to the occasional Sox game. It was actually kind of cool to amble up to Gate D and say we had "player's seats". Though actually we made it just in time, so it wasn't much of an amble. Still kind of cool though.

The seats were awesome, not too far back and right behind home plate. Probably the best seats I've ever had at a ballgame. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I know the rules well enough to follow and get excited when something happens. And even though the boss is out due to injury, I still feel slightly more involved in the Sox now than simply because I live in the area.

Anyway, we got to see Manny hit a homer in the first, and unfortunately witnessed the end of Youkilis's streak. I had no idea actually until the guy sitting next to me leaned over and said "Youkilis had the record for most consecutive games without an error at first base. It just ended, and you were here for it." Though actually, I imagine he still holds the record until someone can break it. All I saw was the end of the streak.

I brought my camera and got some good shots. I've never taken any action shots with it, so I was pretty happy with how it performed. You can even make out the ball in most of them. I only wish it had a more powerful zoom.

I did manage to get pictures of Manny hitting his homer in the first inning though. Pretty cool.