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...

Y'know, sometimes people do things and I just can't find any appropriate response... Maybe it's talk about a diet, or self-help system - generally someone expressing a belief that sounds either outlandish or needlessly overcomplicating something simple to me. Years ago, I ran into this with a friend of a friend at a convention who was talking about dragons like she had one. Or had one watching over her. Or something - I don't even recall now other than how all I could really do to respond was smile and nod. Today, we went to borrow something from a friend who was at the train station with some sort of amateur ghost hunting group. That's "bad" enough, but one of the guys there sees the X-Files shirt I'm wearing (came from a Loot Crate, I think the show was fine, but it isn't meant as any embodiment of my beliefs or anything) and introduces himself, following up with inviting me to a... UFO support group? UFO enthusiast support group? Something l...

After a veritech scene came up in our Lords of Gossamer and Shadow game, I was bitten by a bug to skim through possible mecha anime to watch, centering in on Macross series. I've only seen the origin via Robotech rewrites. I watched Macross Plus. Frontier seemed decently recommended, so I started in on that, a little bit surprised to find the series have actually been created with intentional continuity, referencing earlier series (even making an in-universe movie that seems to be a retelling of Macross Zero). In a Macross series, you're getting into a few things. At the very least, there's variable-form mecha, pilots, and music that has in-world effects. I haven't seen enough of the series to generalize too much beyond that, but I'm thinking relationships, especially a central love triangle, seem to be a commonality as well. Overall, I liked Frontier. Sadly, watching without audio, I miss out on the major music aspects, but still. The series manages to include ...

Hopes that I would be spraying primer before the weekend was out were optimistic, it seems. I do have torso armor places in a reasonably final shape with edges sanded and such. I may need to mold the back plate a little more. I did invest in a soldering iron with hot knife attachment, and that made cutting the sintra easier, though still an error. Sunday blew by. I already had a rough form together of sintra for the helmet I got up and started final assembly of it, then filled out a few areas with foam. Then comes the oft-referenced "bondo," an epoxy filler. This adds some rigidity and structure and gives you something to smooth the shape with. Then it dries and you have to sand it down. And repeat. A lot. The bondo sets reasonably quickly, but getting smooth contours takes work. A lot of work. I think I somehow put in over eight hours of filling, drying, and sanding in yesterday and while I sense progress, I'm not done. I'm a little shocked by the amount of time it...