Archive | August 2014

The Nightmare, it begins anew.

Aug14

So anyway, I collect and occasionally play Wyrd Games products like Malifaux and the like.
I’ve a range of stuff all the way from1st edition all the way through to the beta of 2nd edition wave 3.
I have three entirely different sculpts of Ramos and his Avatar, so you could say I’m a bit invested.

Anyway, Wyrd are a regular at Gencon over in the USA, a totally massive event.
Wyrd also have a tendency to release new stuff at Gencon.
Wyrd release Gencon exclusive items, referred to as Nightmare editions.
Wyrd also release special gencon exclusive bonus miniatures if you order $100+ worth of product, last year was the Steamborg Miss Step, this year is the female Teddy Miss Ery.

Now I know some of you might be annoyed that you can’t get to Gencon to pick up all the new gear, limited editions, the latest boxed sets and books and so on.
Don’t worry, Wyrd have got you covered.

For the duration of Gencon you can order all the things they’re selling at the event, you can get the exclusive and bonus kits, you can order the new books.
You just need to head over to their webstore and make an order.
That’s how simple it is.

I of course planned a different order to what I made. I intended to get the Nightmare Whiskey Golem, M2E book 2, and the first two books for Through The Breach. Instead I ordered the Golem, Hannah and The Kin.
The reason being the astronomical cost of international postage on the books.
So I’m holding off on those until I have a spare extra $70 on hand.
At least I get the Nightmare figure and Miss Ery.

So go order some stuff and hit me up for a game in Melbourne sometime on a Sunday afternoon at Good Games.

Random musings of a random nature

Aug13

So sitting up here in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
I haven’t been here in around 14 years, a lot longer since I actually had a relaxed holiday (The D Generation were still on ABC backthen.)

Here I am with no broadband, and my wireless hotspot is simply my phone, I have a limited amount of data, and no games.

And you know what, it’s given me some time to think and muse about things with no distractions.

It’s so easy to get lost in gamer culture, games constantly being released, daily log in rewards or challenges, new dlc, ranking up and so on.
There’s no time to actually stop and think with things becoming based on reflex and repetition.

Yet here I am, no games, no real ability to log in, and the only challenge is getting back to basics.
Sadly with basic browsing it’s alarming to see how quickly I’m using data, and I’m not even watching funny cat videos.

However I get a chance at gaining and maintaining a form of clarity due to sitting back.

For example, capitalism. Much like communism, it works in theory.
Everything we do, everywhere we go, everything around us, all driven by capitalism, or rather in it’s current form, consumerism.
Products and services are created to consume, profit is derived, and the profit accumulates in the hands of the few.
Such a thing should naturally be cyclical, you earn, you accumulate, you spend, injecting the money back in to the economic ecosystem.

The problem is people are actively rewarded for accumulating wealth with interest. The more money they have sitting there, the more money gets added due to interest.
The interest has to come from somewhere, with a limited pool in circulation it has to come from other people, banks just can’t create it.
This is purely an incentive to store our money in a bank, granting them the capital with which they can offer loans.

At the same time, loans gather interest as a way so banks and such actively benefit, allowing them to add it to the piles of wealth they’re looking after.

The mechanism of interest itself is what I feel is driving society in a death spiral to the point that the accumulated wealth will gain enough mass to create singularities and the whole lot will just implode.

People will tell me I’m wrong, of course, we’ve all grown up with banks and interest, it’s simply the way things are.

And yet, we’ve seen economies crash, the mega-rich getting richer without having to do anything.

So I wonder, if banks as they are now, no longer existed, all currency was released in to circulation, would society improve due to one less greed-fueling mechanism, or would it get worse?

This is why in part I’m really excited by crypto-currency, there are no interest rates, only transaction fees (and then only if doing things such as converting from one currency to another).
The value is based purely on demand, there are limited amounts that can ever be in circulation, we’re in change of securing it, and the people involved are typically not dicks about it.

So, I’m willing to perform tricks for doge, like a good little shibe.

This has been yet another of my pointless posts, the first from tropical north Queensland.

Candy LAN – Can you stomach the gameplay?

Aug9

So, due to a clerical error, registrations for Respawn LAN’s 32 big event opened up early.

If you don’t know what Respawn is, it’s a regular LAN gaming event held up at Latrobe Bundoora.
In this case it’s held on the 27th and 28th of September, for some it’s Grand Final weekend, but for everyone else it’s a prime opportunity to get together with 424 other fellow gamers.

Each event has a nominated theme, it’s varied from things such as Winter WonderLAN (last time) to 8bit (ages back) with custom trophies and some competitions to match.

This event is of course themed around candy, so I’m fully expecting to see the trophies be unicorns on bridges.

So if you’re not busy on the final weekend of September, are a gamer, feel like being part of an industrial (Zardoz Approved) gigabit network, or just like candy, sign up for CandyLAN here.

If you want to find me, just ask for Beeslol up the front.

Further adventures in the steamboxen.

Aug7

So back in the first half of the year, as some of you may know, I built a Steambox, codenamed Project: One Wood.

Originally I’d planned to build something with a uITX formfactor or something equally small that could fit in a display unit.

That of course went out the window when I won a full ATX Motherboard at Respawn LAN  supplied by their wonderful sponsors over at Gigabyte.

Over the next couple of months I picked up components, where possible, from the various hardware sponsors, such as Corsair.
Then I stopped after finishing assembly at a LAN.

Since then I’ve been living with it hooked up to the TV, and honestly it’s got some real potential.

Sadly the number of gamepad capable games on linux is really disappointing, and I haven’t been able to stream games for use with the gamepad.
I practically turned it in to a Plex dedicated machine, which is amusing considering the grunt contained within the case.
The reason for that, well I use Plex on my main system, I use it on my nexus 7 and Galaxy SIII, and most recently on my brand new Asus t100. It quite simply does a better job than the PS3.
There’s also the fact I can control plex using any of those other devices.

I’ve done very little tinkering under the hood other than getting Plex running, as I want to see what Valve are going to do, and well I don’t want to break it.

Speaking of breaking, I managed to break Big Picture Mode a couple of times already, leading to it re-downloading Steam and reconfiguring it (the first was when I tested Sleep mode, and the most recent today was returning from the desktop).
Other than that and some initial kernel panicking after initial installation it’s been fairly solid.

So now, the steambox finally has a wireless keyboard/trackpad, I can finally play games from the comfort of a soft chair across the room.

Now I just need to wait for the steam controllers to be released and I should be set.

The future is looking good for games on linux, and a way to break out of the microsoft dominated PC gaming market.