A new medium for Wyrd, but is it a new direction?

Good Wednesday everyone!

A bit of a short one today that I suspect some may/will see as a moan/bitch, but anyway...

So yesterday Wyrd revealed the contents of their Black Friday sale http://www.wyrd-games.net/Newsletter_v2/Sale.html

There's a lot to look at here, but only one thing that I think is fair discussing as it doesn't bring the issue of taste and art into it, and that is the mention of 'opaque' sculpts.
It can be better seen in this shot:



So what do you think?

I look at these and something I find very interesting is the comments that comes with it, that these sculpts are tournament legal when unpainted or 'naked'.

It's interesting because previously naked models were not tournament legal for Wyrd, instead they needed to be both painted and based.

Now I am assuming that basing is still required, but this suggests to me that if these models are suitable straight out of the box then in which case there is a possibility Wyrd themselves are seeing the models more as 'game pieces' and less as 'hobby miniature'.

For me if this is the case, I would not be 100% surprised, after all one of the reasons I fell out with v2 Malifaux was because it felt more 'gamey' to me and less of a fun social experience.

When you factor in Wyrd's involvement in making board games (Puppet Wars and Kingdoms) and card games (Evil Baby Orphanage, Jetpack Unicorn and that other one [i forget it's name]) it does seem that Wyrd are moving more and more into a general 'Games Company' and less into miniatures.

Is this just a natural evolution in today's market based on supply and demand? Maybe but it takes a twist when you factor in that Wyrd started as a company who were only making miniatures, and that it was only after they made the models did their initial rules for Malifaux surface.

Anyway, I'll leave this for now, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter, in particular if you think that Wyrd are shifting into being a Games Company rather than a Miniatures Company, but also if you think this is a good or bad, after all change does not have to be bad!

Stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Ad Nauseum

Good Saturday everyone!

Currently I am on a train on my way to the office as I have to work today supervising a deep clean - woo!

But I would like to very quickly share with you the final realisation of literally years of deliberation.

************

So you regularly hear the question asked:

If you could only watch one more film for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ok I admit, I am normally the one asking that question... But it's still a valid question.

For literally years I have struggled with this question.

Just what would I want to be the only film I watch? With something like 500+ films in my collection just what would be the film I would be happy to watch over and over again?

Would it be Fight Club? The clever film that speaks for so many men of my generation?

Would it be Back to the Future? A wonderful family film that never really gets old?

Perhaps it would be Repo:A Genetic Opera?

Well today I realised what the answer was:




James Cameron's Aliens.

I know, big surprise right? -Yeah that was sarcasm, it's only my favourite film in the world ever!

But until this point I have been unwilling to say that I would pick this film. The reason? Because it bothers me that if it was the only film I was able to see, if I would grow to resent and dislike it, and how terrible that would be for me.

This morning however I realised where I was going wrong, how I was looking at this from the wrong side.

The question is not: "what film would I want to watch over and over again?" The question is actually: "What 1 film do I not want to loose from my life? What film has made me a better person, sparked my imagination and driven me to achieve? What film can I not bear to live without?"

And in answering that the result can only be Aliens.

If anyone tells you there is a deeper meaning to the film, then they're just being a pretentious ass justifying their over priced media studies degree. There is absolutely no deeper meaning.

Aliens is an Action-Horror-Sci Fi film, it fits snugly in that small genre and performs exceedingly well there, but it is less the film itself and what it has done for my life which is why I can not bring myself to imagine a world where this film does not exist.

It is based on my love for this full that I am who I am, this film and what has come from this film has given me the strength, courage and need to do many things that I would not have it it had not been for this film.

I have made many life long friends on the back of this film, I have joined, inherited and nurtured an online gaming clan in the game AvP, which had it not been for Aliens would have never existed.

It was this online community which nurtured me with both the bottle and the cane through my angst filled teenage years and saw me emerge a better man because of it.

So much has happened in my life that is either a direct or indirect result of this film and it is for all these reasons and more that I am declaring this film, Aliens as the film I would pick if I could only see one more film for the rest of my life.

It is on that note that I bid you good day, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

An interesting shift

Good Wednesday everyone!

Today I'm here to discuss an interesting shift I have noticed within the Malifaux community.

- Disclaimer
While I may not have made the move to v2, I still keep in contact with a lot of people who did, and almost all the blogs and podcasts I used to/still do read and listen have made the move.

Anyway, I'm not going to name drop anyone as depending on how you take this post it might be seen as an attack, and I don't want to attack people, especially when it comes to writing blogs and recording podcasts.

So one of the reasons I jumped into the Malifaux Twitter community - for the record there is (or was) a massive difference between those on twitter and those on the message boards. Anyway, one of the reasons was the attitude. There was hardly any competitive nature, quite the opposite, I would regular read and hear from a plethora of sources about how they were 'competing' for the wooden spoon.

No, instead the discussion was almost never about tactics, but instead about the models themselves, their emotional experiences, their upcoming plans and everything else tied into the game but almost never about tactics.

Sure there were the occasional discussion of tactics things like "how does Player X make use of Molly effectively", but they were the exception never the rule.

********
Now we're in a whole new world. I could list you countless numbers of blogs that almost exclusively deal with either tactics or game theory, and every single -Malifaux- podcast now focuses on tactics and how to use models well, talking about the models themselves rather than the players behind the models.

Is this a coincidence? Perhaps, but I'm not sure.

V1/1.5 of Malifaux was (apparently) not optimised well for tournaments, where as v2 is (apparently) extremely optimised for that.

Does the focus of the game on bringing out the competition and tournament scene almost lead people down that path? If reading the v2 rules had sparked some joy in me and I had jumped into the game, would I now be discussing how to best play Dreamer in wave 2?

Maybe, but remember, I'm not a competitive player, I never have been and I never will. The few tournaments I've ever been to, I've never focused on playing games, it's been all about meeting people and getting to meet the gamers, not the game.

But I can go on about this all day "What if X" or "Why Y" and I'm not going to play that game.

But it's a shame, my podcast listening I used to need roughly 2 hands to count on, now I don't even need 1 whole hand.

Same with blogs.

Is the content on these products bad? In most cases, no. They are well written posts and good recordings.

If someone was to come to me and ask about advice on playing certain masters, or about how to improve your game then I know exactly where to send them.

The problem I have; I don't have an interest in reading or listening to it myself.

It's a shame, and one I am not happy about as it means I am by choice distancing myself more and more from people who not long ago I called friends and peers, but it's a choice that I have made none the less.

And on that sombre note; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

I have a job!!

Good Tuesday everyone!

Just a small update from me today.

So for those who don't know, the company I work for have been going through a restructure plan for the past 6 months, part of this restructure is merging 3 areas into 1, which of course means only 1 finance team, so like the sword of Damocles I've had the possibility of loosing my job to redundancy hanging over my head.

********

Well, 6 months, many many meetings and updates, countless BS sessions and being reassured so much that "we understand this is a difficult and trouble time for everyone" crap they have finally been able to tell me the only thing that I want to know:

Do I have a job?

**********

As you can probably tell from the title of this post: yes I do!

What is more, my assistant is being promoted to peer and we are making up 2/3rds of the new payroll team! This is fantastic news as we get on really well both as personalities and work wise, plus she knows how to take the crap I deal out and sling it right back at me, and as my wife rightfully put it, anyone who has worked with/for me and survived really should put it on their CV as it's one hell of an achievement!

*********

Anyway, I'm declaring tonight a night of celebration, and to mark the occasion I will begin compiling Dr Loxley's Manual of Monsters!
- Beta testers should expect to see this in this week's update.

Luckily a large amount of this has already been covered in my blog as I've introduced Beasties with short stories, this is good as it means most of the work is done, just a few short stories to write this week, format and arrange, and BAM! One Beasty supplement!

On that note I'll return you all to your evening viewing.

Stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Painting, Computers and more

Good Monday everyone!

I trust you have all had a good weekend.

Mine was a combination of joy and frustration.

So Friday came and the evening was spent on the sofa, brushes in hand doing some painting. After all with my computer out if service I had nothing to do with it.

I spent about 4 hours in total painting, and I must be honest, it feels like I've done next to nothing.

Most of my time was spent lightening up the skin on my demons and Neverborn, but annoyingly so, when I look back at the work I've done, they don't 'really' look any different.

That was annoying, but I will withhold judgement until they're finished.

***********

Alongside painting we were also using the time to clear some of the skybox hdd, involving the last three episodes of Dexter I had yet to watch.

Now I don't know about everyone else, but I've been a massive fan of this show since Episode 2 of Series 1 (Episode 1's Dexter wasn't likeable enough) but I feel that this ending to the show did not do it justice.

I know it was supposed to be emotive etc, but all I walked away with was a feeling that Dexter was a prick and not the likeable character that I had been watching up until this point.

It was almost as if the writers didn't want to commit to an actual final ending for him, so copped out and chose the middle ground: "making him happy would annoy those who want justice", while "making him pay for his crimes would annoy those who want him happy" so instead they went for "we'll go down the 'meh' route instead!"

***************

Anyway, Saturday came and with it my new graphics card!

I was so excited, like a child on Xmas morning. I installed it, ran a game, and then sat there gob-smacked as a card developed in 2011 turned out worse than my 2008 card.

Yeah I didn't really do my research so it's my own fault to be honest. My previous card was a HD 4850 and was beautiful! It would run the latest games at maximum quality with an average FPS of about 30-40, which is more than playable if you MUST have max graphics. The only drawback was the lack of DX11.

My new card is a HD 6450, so a whole two generations higher, it would stand to reason that it should be better.

It was also super cheap at only £30.

Yeah... What was running at 30FPS now ran at 3.

I was annoyed, but more so at myself for not checking this out first.

I had a look at some benchmark tables and found my old GPU had a score in the 400s, my new card, in the 200s.

It's really not for games.

Apparently it's awesome for watching films etc, but rendering games? Yeah...

But it works. If I turn the quality down low I can still play lots of my fave games, and that's better than the current state of my old card which won't even stay powered on for more than 10 mins.

So now I play the waiting game, waiting for Friday the 29th to roll around so that I can buy another graphics card, a HD7750, which has a benchmark score of just over 1000! So well over double the power of my old card. This time, it will be good!

*********

Anyway, the weekend passed, now I'm on my way to work.

It's annoying as it's going to be a 6 day week as I have to work Saturday. The good news however is that I get next Monday off as a result.

So on that note, take care and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Failure (Of Modern Technology)

Good Friday everyone!

Today I was hoping to bring you some painting updates, but sadly that was not possible last night.

You see I got home at the usual time, spent time with the youngling, had dinner and did my studying.

While powering up my computer however I noticed something very strange: green dotted lines along the start up, and crazy strobes along the desktop once it had started.

I knew what that was, it's the classic sign of a failing graphics card. But I thought: "stay calm, just reboot and see what happens".

So I did, and thankfully no more strobes etc.

I counted myself lucky before doing my studies followed by going for a bath.

Following said bath I logged quickly onto WoW and TSW to do some crafting, and I noticed that something didn't feel right. The colours were off, and the framer are just felt... Wrong.

Anyway, I shut everything down as was prepping to do some painting when I noticed strobing again.

Oh no...

So I did some more tests, about an hours worth gathering info, removing the card and cleaning it, reinstalling drivers, nothing worked! Instead it just got worse and worse where eventually it wouldn't stay on for more than about 10 mins before BSODing.

Anyway, onto my phone I go and a purchase later I am expecting a new graphics card in the mail to arrive on Saturday.

I'm not happy about it, after all I love my card! It's four years old but performs like a pro, and I'm concerned that the new one despite being technically better in every way, it just won't give me the same reliability, but oh well, we'll see.

The good news however: being without a computer means that tonight I'll have nothing but painting to keep me occupied!

Stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Time to get my paint on!

Good Thursday everyone!

- Seriously can you believe we're already at Thursday? Where's this week gone?

Just a small one today (that's what she said!) so in the past month or so I've done absolutely no painting or modelling at all, in fact where I left off with my models is as follows:


As you can see, my Malifaux models are pretty much under coated and that's about it!

My Hell Dorado are a bit further along:


Still a lot of work to do, but that's why it's time to get my brushes out and give it some wellie!

Of course I'm going to work right now, so I can't do it straight away, but tonight! Oh tonight I will!

You see a few weeks ago I picked up some new tools including a large flat white tile (I understand they're good for paint manipulation) as well as some Clear Red for making fun gore on my Demons.

With hope I will stick to my convictions and have some more photos for you soon.

I do have another photo to share with you:


This is Simon. Simon was bought back in July 2011 while we were furniture shopping in prep for the Youngling's arrival.

Well it is with great sadness and total serious that I have to share the news that with the recent cold snap we've had, Simon got very unwell and on Tuesday evening was declared dead.

I'll miss you Simon.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley