Gencon,Dragons,Indy Car Racing,C3,Shadowforce at 11:22 AM

Well its about that time of year again, the time when the master event lists are available for Gencon. Its weird though because this year I am not helping run an event and Confrontation is not high on my to do list(I do have an event planned we will talk about that later) so this year my Gencon is pretty much wide open. Hopefully I can find some new game to check out and maybe get in on some old favorites. We will have to wait and see as the event lists are due out any day now.

The Dragon has left the building! Well not quite I need to get him sealed and the humidity has been up the last couple of days preventing me from getting him sealed. It is however based and ready to go. In other painting new I recently got my last batch of Infinity figures primes and started work on them. One of the things I love about the Infinity models is they are clear and concise when it comes to detail so its really easy to paint them up quickly. I expect to have these models ready for Thursday gaming.

Finally the Indy Car Series began it season with 2 races at Homestead Miami. Although I thought the race was great to listen to its still going to take a bit of time for the ex-ChampCar guys to come around. In honor of the new series and the release of an outstanding rFactor mod I am going to attempt to run my own offline racing championship using the mod and rFactor. I hope to have the 1st of many race videos uploaded within the next couple weeks.

Confrontation 3? Yea thats right it looks like they have ironed out the rules for an independent Confrontation 3 tournament for Gencon this year and since its being run by vets from the old tournament scene I figured I should throw in my hat for what I hope is going to be a great tournament for a solid game. I have yet to decide what army to play at this point, hopefully I can convince some of the old local players to jump in and have a go.

Last but certainly not least I have decided to do a revamp on the fledgling spycraft campaign that I started a little over a month ago. We have decided to go into Shadowforce Archer as our setting and I am going to be throwing in stuff from all over. Hopefully I can make a more balanced campaign for our reduced numbers. It should be interesting a Shadowforce has a lot of interesting things going for it already before I start to tinker around with things.

Dragons,MMOs and Miniatures at 12:43 PM

Well another day another opportunity to get some painting done. Well at least one can try, last night I was about to get a quick dry bush highlight layer onto the Cynwall Dragon I am working on for a friend. Not a lot of progress but the majority of the painting is complete and not I am down to the final wash then basing and sealing and it out the door or rather off the "to be completed" shelf.

In other dragon related news...Rackham has release some images of the new Dirz Wyrm. For anyone that has played Confrontation and know a little bit about the Dirz this model is immediatly recognizable as a Driz creature and quite possible a clone. I will say that I am still a bit confused on why the Cynwall Dragon does not have fore limbs and the Cynwall Wyrm does and this model does as well. It also need to be said that the new Dirz Wyrm is must smaller than the Cynwall Wyrm actually he is very close to the size of the Cynwall Dragon. Could this mean that the Cynwall with be about to use the Dragon model as a Wyrm making him a Titan. Rackham if you are listening make it happen the dragon is great but the 200+ dollar Titan model is a bit much.

Enough about dragons and Rackham Tabula Rasa recently announced that version 1.6 is hitting the servers today and at the latest tomorrow. I can't say that I was unhappy with version 1.5 but with the changes coming in 1.6 mainly the ability to respec your character by participating in Control Point defense and attacks is enough to make me want to spend a bit more time in game. Specially since Guild Wars Factions has consumed most of my MMO gaming time as of late. It doesn't help that GWF has little down time and there is always something to do for lack of a better term the game is just fun, much like Tabula Rasa is but very different all the same.

That about wraps it up for today I would like to mention that I do have a FoW lot up for sale over at BarterTown if anyone is interested details can be found here. Tonight is also Infinity gaming night for my local group hopefully I can get a battle report up using one of the operation paradiso missions. On a side note if anyone in the local Indy area is interested I am trying to arrange a Babylon 5 CCG game. It would be just for fun and I would provide any necessary materials for anyone interested. Anyone interested in the B5 CCG game leave a comment.

Guild Wars Factions,Miniatures Gallery,MMOs,Infinity at 7:03 AM

After much thought and going back and for about I decided to give in a pick up Guild Wars but I will qualify that I picked up Guild Wars Factions which suites my play style and interest a lot more than standard GW. It also helps that I had a gift card for the store and that the game doesn't have a subscription fee. Surprisingly I actually had a great time playing through the early levels of the game and can't wait to get into the PVP portions which is what intrigues me about Factions. Unfortunately this means a pause to the MMO search, I know I only made it through two but after listening to a few pod casts and doing a lot of research on Factions I made the low risk decision.

Some of you may have noticed that the Gallery is not working properly at the moment I am working on it and I may have to do something different with it as it seems like the element that I have it linked to has more restrictions than I would like. I should have that sorted out withing the day.

Infinity news...We have big news on the Infinity front, new rules a new site and promised for 2008. It looks like the guys behind Infinity are gearing up for a big 2008, now we still don't have details on a new book but we will be getting a more robust website with just more stuff all around. They have also released their 1st rules update with the creation of additional levels for Infiltration which can be found be linking to the new Haqqislam figure they have previewed on the site. Basically new troops with have access to different levels of Infiltration and existing figures will infiltration will be treated to the level 1 rule which make things a bit riskier for an infiltrator.

Check the following link for more details on infiltration: Daylami Infantry

That about does it for today I should be on Tabula Rasa this evening along with a stint into GW:Factions might even get the gallery finished up still have about 30 or so images to add.

Gallery,MMOs,Computers,End of Eve Online at 6:36 AM

Well another day another post. Actually its been a couple days...As some of you may have noticed there is now some animation going on over on the side of the page, you are not going crazy I was finally able to get some of my miniatures photographed and uploaded to Picasa. I am still working on getting everything uploaded and captioned for now at lease people can check out my painting skills on some of my favorite pieces. There is also a Commission Work section that is where my paint for hire stuff is.

Other than the gallery work its been a slow few days for me, with this weekend being Easter I had the family stuff to do so my time was limited. I have however been playing Tabula Rasa in small spurts. As for Eve Online, I have come to the realization that I really can't afford nor do I really have the time to devote to Eve Online so with that said it looks like if I want to have an alternative to Tabula Rasa its back to Guild Wars, which is not a bad game I do think I am going to pickup the Factions game soon because I really like the concept of the game just wish I could find a free trial for it.

Speaking of computer related things my new Dell was delayed a week. Talk about frustration I order the system back on March 7th and now it won't ship until the 31st. Now this isn't a huge issue but its just the principle of the thing as a geek I was all pumped up to be getting my new hot rod machine and now more waiting. Don't get me wrong my current machine is still functional but its pushing 3 years old now and its at the end of its technological life cycle. That and my personal frustration level with it has gone way beyond healthy.

Enough...Hopefully I will get some captions on the images in the various galleries today as well as get the Operation Paradiso info out to the local group. Till next time.

EVE Online Trial: Day 4 and other stuff at 6:22 AM

Another day more skill points! Not much going on in EVE at the moment I did however move up in the world a bit and picked up a new Incursus Frigate which I have essentially turned in to a gun boat for NPC Pirate Killing . Other than that is more of the same in by day my character is learning Skills while I am at work and at night I run a few missions and try to keep from getting shot at. As boring as that sounds it actually quite fun. I also put in an application to join the EVE University, which is an in game corp that helps train new players and get them up to speed faster. Hopefully I will hear from them soon.

In other news it looks like I am going to be selling off my Flames of War army, not that I don't like they game it just started to dawn on me that I haven't played for months and I don't really have an interest in playing so I am going to keep the books and put the rest up for sale. Hopefully I can sell it all in a package deal, anyone that reads this that may be interest in a good sized painted German force I will have more info in a couple of days I have a couple of friends locally that may be interested in the army if no one here wants them they will go up on Barter town.

Its sad to say but I haven't got much done in the past few days between Tabula Rasa, EVE and watching Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica(I know I am behind no Sci-Fi channel here) I haven't had much time to work on any or my own stuff. I have been doing some commission work but nothing major. Speaking of Battlestar for any of you Freespace 2 fan or even space shooter fans in general there is an awesome stand alone game out there based on Battlestar called Beyond the Red Line. I highly recommend that anyone that was into Freespace or Wing Commander even Star Lancer check this demo out. They are using the open source version of the Freespace 2 engine which has been updated constant over the past few years so the game looks good almost up to show quality.

Some of you out there may have noticed that I have been posting Missions for my Operation Paradiso Campaign, these are pretty much beta missions for use with Infinity. I hope to get all of these out in the next couple of days eventually I hope to have the campaign up and running on the blog for now the missions will do. As always if anyone has any questions or comments please leave them on the specific mission page and I will do my best to answer to every comment.

Well thats pretty much it tomorrow is my weekly Infinity gaming day which should be a blast as usual. Oh before I forget if anyone in the Indy/Central Indiana area that does happen to catch this blog plays Heavy Gear Blitz please leave a comment I am trying to find players in the are before I get to interested in this game.

EVE Online Trial: Day 2 at 8:58 AM

For anyone who has never played or seen EVE I will 1st say this. EVE is not your normal MMO. EVE hearkens back to games like Elite and Privateer as well as the X universe series(space based trade and combat games). With that said the 1st thing that I noticed as a new player to Eve was the user interface, and boy is there a lot of it. The UI for EVE is unique because it is very configurable and for the most part except for a small part of it it can be setup as needed. This comes in handy as it is very intuitive basically if you have used a modern computer you will understand how the windows work and should be able to view the info you need. Speaking of information EVE is loaded with it almost bombards you with information from the start but new players should not fear as every window you pull up has a welcome screen that gives you a brief outline of what is in the windows as well as links to tutorials on how to use them.

Ok, enough about 1st impressions on to the game play. When you begin the game as a new player you go through an in depth character creation process where you create you character portrait which has a fair share of options which allows you to create your image as other players see you. Its important to setup your portrait because this is the only way other than your starship that other will see you in game. The rest of the character creation process evolves choosing your race and then setting up your background by selecting where you character originates as well as selecting their training. EVE doesn't have any character classes so how you setup your character in creation effects you in the future but you are not locked into playing a particular type of character like in other games.

Now that we have our character are spawned in the newbie star base the location of which depends on you choices during character creation. Now that we are in the star base this is the 1st time we get to see our rookie ship which is not much but it yours, we also get to meet the AI thats riding around in our pod to help through the early stages of the game. The introduction to how everything works is done by way of a voiced tutorial. I recommend that new players follow this tutorial because EVE is very different from any other MMO and not following the tutorial you will miss a lot specially how to navigate and fight. The tutorial also help you establish contacts with your agents an possibly even get you into your second ship.

Well thats a very brief run through of how to get into the game. Currently I am working on a Gallente Pilot that is currently working the Essence area. Right now my character is busy running missions and building up skills. Speaking of skills that is another interesting part of EVE, skills are earned over time even when you are not online. It takes a minute to get your head around it but basically you select a skill that you already know or your buy a skill book from the market and you then train. The nice thing is you can interrupt skills being trained and you don't lose any of the training already spent on it. Its very handy when you need to learn a new level 1 skill from a book to pause a higher level skill that will take hours to learn. So the smart player sets up a long skill to train while off line and then works on any short learning skills while online.

Overall I will say that after 3 days of EVE off an on while playing Tabula Rasa I can see why player sometime call EVE a "slow burn" kind of game. Its a game where you are in for the long haul but there are things to do while you are getting there. I am also impressed by how much of the game is player run. I have read many interview with CCP (the makers of EVE-Online) that their goal was to provide the tools and environment for the players to do as they see fit. This is why EVE has one of the greatest communities of all MMOs.

Hopefully in the next week I can get some screen shots up for my characters as well as some images of my Table Top armies. I would also like to point out that I am still playing Infinity every week and enjoying the heck out of that game my army still need some work but it will all be painted soon. I am also looking into getting in a RPG group as a player because I do miss that aspect of gaming the only problem is that currently in this area its kind of a DnD world with few people willing to branch out....and I personally cannot stand the current incarnation of DnD. On a even greater tangent I am actually looking a selling some of my FoW troops to get into another game Heavy Gear Blitz its still just a thought though.

Dark Age of Camelot Trial: Day 3 at 11:05 AM

Well when it over is over. After playing for a couple hours this morning something began to dawn on me. DAOC is to similar to WoW for me to truly enjoy. Yes, DAOC has is differences but over all it more of the same. Bottom line the benefits of playing an older game with a more dedicated community do not out weigh the benefits of playing WoW in the case of DAOC. Since the objective of this search is to find a better alternative then DAOC is not going to work.

So where to now, well with my new gaming machine coming in a few weeks I am going to hold off on playing DDO and EQ2 because of their righter graphic requirements. So with that said I am going to load up EVE and get my space ship fix on.

Infinity,Tabula Rasa, DAOC at 7:17 AM

Not much happening in the world of DAOC or Tabula Rasa. Thursdays are my table top gaming days so my online time is kinda of limited on those days. I did however jump into TR for a few minutes but I didn't have any quality time to spend. As for DAOC day two of the trial is a wash so I am going to try and double up my time tomorrow.

One thing I was able to get some work in on is my Operation Paradiso campaign which I will be posting here later today.

Dark Age of Camelot Trial: Day 1 at 6:35 AM

After my daily gaming time in Tabula Rasa, I decided to fire up DAOC and get the trial under way. From the start it was very easy to get the game setup and running it did take a while to get the game updated but that is almost to be expected with any new MMO installment. It is interesting to note that unlike a lot of new games that use a web based account management system DAOC at least initially has a stand along account creation. This may hearken back the fact that DAOC would be considered a 2nd Generation MMO as it was released back in 2001.

Once my account was created the game showed me a cool intro movie that covered all the races of the world and gave a bit of information on the classes as well as the realm versus realm combat which is what DAOC is know for. After the movie I was presented with the character selection screen where you have the option to pick an existing character or make a new one. With not characters created I had to create a new one. I will say this once I was into the character creation screen it was pretty straight forward with many options which made if easy to create a character that was unique. Another really nice thing that more MMOs need that DAOC has is a random name generator. It may not sound like much but a name generator can solve a lot of problems with coming up with a name that fits the world and helps in the immersion and rp aspects of the game.

With character creation complete it was time for my character to begin his adventure. The game starts your character at a training facility where it you are given the option to run through a tutorial or just jump into game. The tutorial is actually helpful and it is completely voiced so if you don't want to read through a lot of text and if you check out the chat windows there is a lot of text flying around. The tutorial itself is pretty straight forward the first part gives you the basic movement and combat procedures as well as explain parts for the interface. After the basics the NPC sends you on a you way to a small village to show you how the vendor system works. Once you have complete this portion of the tutorial they put you on a horse which is your rapid transit method in the game and they drop you off in what is the real starter area where you can start picking up quests.

Following the tutorial I didn't have much time to really start working quests I was able to complete a couple of fedex style quests and a quest there I had to go out and kill a couple of mobs. I was able to pick up a level and gain a new weapon style as well as buy some better equipment.

Now for my 1st impression of DAOC, overall I was impressed by the look of the game for being a game that is 7+ years old it looks very good. I do know that there has been a graphical update and I am not sure what expansions are included in the trial if any. I will say that one thing that does kind of bug me is the UI I won't say its clunky but it took me a good 5 minutes to find how to exit the game and you cannot edit the video options from in the game. Other than that the interface is configurable and has "hotbars" very similiar to every other MMO out there. Bottom line it functional and not a graphically intensive as say WoW or other modern MMO's. The game has more of a realistic feel. It kind of feels like Ultima Online in the fact that when you look around its all medieval but not cartoony like WoW.

So that was my 1st day in DAOC, not very productive character wise but I did learn a lot about the game I am am pretty confident is using the UI and actually playing the game.

The Great MMO Search of 2008, looking for an alternative to the WoW Career at 1:35 PM

As you may have guessed from the title I am going on a little quest of sorts. A quest to find a better fantasy game than World of Warcraft. So may say it can't be done I personally beg to differ WoW has become more of a career than a game with players having to spend countless hours grinding away for little return.

With that said I have already found my Sci-Fi refuge in Tabula Rasa which is by far the most fun I have ever had in an MMO, but sometime you need an alternative, a side track to prevent burn out. For me normally I have a main MMO and a secondary which I may or may not keep a subscription to or just enough to prevent character deletion. Usually my second game fills some gaps that the 1st has or it just something completely different. In the case of my new quest I am looking for a good Fantasy game that I can alternate with the Sci-Fi game I love.

So Here is the quest, I am going to do as many trials or fantasy based MMOs. I am talking game that are in full release with an established community. I will give each game a full try for the length of the trail post my feelings here and then move on to the next. After a few months I should have a fair grasp on each game and can make a educated decision. For the readers out there I hope to offer and incite into some games that may have been forgotten and new games that people may have written off.

The Great Quest of WoW alternative Finding
Current Candidates and the order in which they will be played

• Dark Age of Camelot--Where WoW got a lot of there ideas on how they do things. To much like WoW to be worth playing for to long
  
• Dungeons and Dragons Online
• Everquest
• Asheron's Call
• Lineage 2
• Everquest 2
• Lord of the Rings Online

EVE Online...Yea I know its not a fantasy game but I have to give this game a full try.

More will be added as they are discovered.

Events,Terrain,Campaign and a New MMO at 8:41 AM

I figured it was time for a little update specially since it been a while since I started this blog and its been pretty inactive. First I would like to say that I am officially done creating and running events for At-43 and Confrontation. This is the result of the utter disappointment at the turnout for the last event(there were 3 of us including myself) and the lack of local players that are willing to participate. The doesn't mean I am done playing Confrontation or AT-43 but they are not going to be my primary games until we have a more stable release schedule and we have more local players. With that said I am going to concentrate my efforts on helping to build the local Infinity group.

Speaking of Infinity I am currently building terrain for 2 4' X 4' terrain. I hope to have images up on the site soon along with information about the company I have purchased the textures from and tutorials on how to make the building themselves.

In addition to terrain I am also working on an Infinity Campaign called Operation:Paradiso which will be a multi-mission map based campaign that will be supported online. More information as

Finally in addition to everything else I have become a Tabula Rasa addict. Its so different than any other MMO out there and the bottom line its fun to play and doesn't feel like a job(like WOW does). If anyone is interested in trying out the game send me a message or leave a comment and I can hook you up with a 3 day trial. For more info on Tabula Rasa visit www.rgtr.com