Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I've mentioned before the legal suits between Harmony Gold and the companies behind Battletech . It's based on a mess of international licensing rights that others have researched and explained better than I every will.  I don't have all the details of the settlement, but the end result seemed to be that certain mecha designs which originated in Macross could/would not be used in Battletech . And so those models, even though they were iconic, became the "Unseen." There have been attempts to redesign them over the years, but mostly they're just sort of avoided. Well, it looks like this has come up again. I wouldn't have noticed or cared, except Harmony Gold is including in its current case the Hairbrained Schemes Battletech game in development. They've also targetting Piranha Games' Mechwarrior Online . This annoys me largely because it may delay (probably not prevent) release of the former, which I've backed and look forward to. If you look

Yknow, after cutting out a bunch of sintra and suffering at least three different forms of finger injuries, I though "hell, that was tougher than expected, but at least the difficult part is done." Then there was the challenge of shaping, forming, attaching, filling, molding, sanding, and eventually painting a helmet. "But at least the hard part is done!" Sometime Sunday, while blasting myself with a heat gun to shape velcro-affixed plates to my torso and lamenting the difficulties in reaching certain pieces, much less seeing them all, it really started to sink in that any thought of being mostly done or whatever might be the hardest part is really premature. A little decision like, "I think these chest plates need to come up about half an inch," is going to necessitate pulling stitches and resewing velcro patches.  Getting my back plate positioned properly is something I still haven't even wrapped my head around a way to approach solo. Shoulders a

Huh. It's been almost five years since I  sampled The Secret World . Rebuilt as Secret World Legends and re-launched as F2P with a most actiony focus, my impressions haven't actually changed much. Skills and weapons in the combat system have definitely changed. Rather than a wheel of stuff, there are trees connected to each weapon type you can unlock and learn. It's different from what it was, but not revolutionary or anything. You still juggle power, cooldowns, and limited hotbar slots with a primary and secondary weapon set to shoot or beat up enemies. Being free to play, though, I've had a chance to play deeper into the game than I did over a sampler weekend. I have a character in level 30's, having cleared the story of the first few zones. It's interesting enough, but a mixed bag. From a mechanical standpoint, it's good to be able to replay missions (after a cooldown timer), though if you're playing for storyline, there's not much point to do

Well, while waiting for pictures to upload for posting over on G+, let's see... We rented a car, left Friday morning, got to Denver with enough time to pick up a con badge that hadn't shown up in the mail, then meet friends for dinner. With a party member who hadn't been exposed, we went to Casa Bonita - which itself means long lines on a Friday night (of a holiday-ish weekend). The food's not bad and the atmosphere is fun. I like the experience, and getting to hang out with an old friend and catch up was a definite plus. This all got us back to the hotel fairly late and road-weary, though. Saturday, we got breakfast close and went off to the convention center. And walked around the convention center to join the line. And shuffled through line for... well, I didn't time it. Over an hour, I'm sure, as it was wrapped around the building and merged with others along the way. I think waiting in line with others can be a bonding experience. And we saw tons of peo