pax 2011

So, back from PAX.

PAX itself was flat out amazing. Everything not PAX was horrible — the travel, the logistics, the food (Seattle is obsessed with expensive “dining experiences”) and so on. I’d never do it again, not when PAX East is much closer and easier to deal with. But PAX? Yes. PAX was good stuff.

I figured I’d summarize here since I can’t exactly get all my thoughts down in my various social media streams. Some of the stuff I looked at, what I thought of it.

WildStar – New MMORPG. Beautiful cartoony art style, science fiction background (but leaning heavily on science-tinted fantasy), great character designs, interesting action-based gameplay, etc. I’m really looking forward to this one as it scratches several genre and game design itches I have.

Guild Wars 2 – My mates are going apeshirts over how great this is, but I’m not quite sold. I like their approach to living worlds, and I DO get to carry an assault rifle in a fantasy setting, but it’s still too Generic Gritty Fantasy Game for my tastes. I’ll look into it more.

Fortune Street – Someone yanked me aside for a demo of this, and I had more fun than I thought I would. But, games are long, and only one person in the house is really keen on Monopoly On Steroids(tm) so I’ll probably pass. But it’s quality stuff, indeed.

Torchlight 2 – They split my two favoritest things in the world into two different classes — robot armies of doom and shooting people in a fantasy setting with guns — but it looks GREAT and is still $20, DRM-lite, mod-friendly, and looking amazing.

Fluxx – We also played a few card games and traditional games. Fluxx was a lot of fun; we got a Monty Python themed deck so I was doing great since I remember and can quote/sing from the source material. Doing TOO great. So, we got a more neutral zombie themed deck to play later.

Love & Berry – Yes, the horrific idol singing mass consumerism fashion dressup card mongering arcade game. I saw it at GameWorx and just HAD to take a run at it. It was a living nightmare of PS1 era graphics and terribad game design for little girls, and I loved indulging in the horror.

Other Amazing Games I Really Wanted To See – I couldn’t see them, because the crowds were too thick and the booths too small and the controls up too high for me to reach. Poop. But, I’m patient. I can wait.

PAX, any PAX be it East or Prime, is terrific stuff. Just watch your diet and don’t spend 10+ hours driving and flying in a single day if you can avoid it.

Edit: One other thing. Those business cards promoting anachronauts that I mentioned in my last post? Didn’t get any of them out to the masses. Problem is, we were expecting PAX to be like Otakon, where members of the fandom leave flyers or cards on tables about their various websites, etc. Here, you’re spammed with advertising from moment one… and all of it from people who PAID generously for the right to advertise to you. If we dumped our cards around on tables we’d be unpaying litterbugs and possibly ousted. Darn.

hello, I must be going

If you’re here after poking the URL on the little cards I’m gonna be handing out at PAX… welcome! I hope you enjoy my free online genre-mashup adventure web novel insert more adjectives here fiction series production thing.

May I suggest you start from the introduction page? It’ll help you get an overview of what you just landed on.

If you’re a longtime reader, just wanted to let you know I’m at PAX this weekend, so there won’t be another story update until later next week. Not gonna be writing and posting while on the road. So, catch up a bit, or sit back and enjoy the beverage of your choice. We’ll be back up to speed soon.

(Side note – YAY! Verizon fixed my weird problem wherein I couldn’t load WordPress sites. I can actually see my blog again! Huzzah.)

sf03 makes a semitriumphant return

Planning to plan is still technically a plan.

Posting this blog entry from my phone, over 3G. Why? Because Verizon apparently hates WordPress tonight. Honestly, my one big night where I do a major story update for the first time in two weeks, and I gotta poke it in on a virtual keyboard. Pardon any typos.

So, with these new scenes comes two retcons. Gasp! Shock! Well, no big deal, actually. The key difference is that Camille got a glamour amulet for her birthday, rather than Susie getting one. Originally Susie was going to sneak aboard the ship and go to London, see — but as I was writing it made more sense for her to stay home and Cammy to handle that aspect of the plot. That’s all.

With that out of the way, heres new story content. Enjoy, and feedback welcome. Note that I’ll be at PAX this coming weekend so we aren’t back to a fully regular update schedule yet. Thanks.

status, mr. laforge

What I’ve been up to lately:

• Watched 3 seasons of Mad Men. Depressing but compelling show about complete douchemongers.
• Wrote 5 story arcs for City of Heroes. Got that out of my system (for now).
• Romped through Double XP Weekend in CoH.
• Beta tested (yep) more CoH stuff.

All of that is now behind me. I’ve had some fun, refreshed my creativity. Now it’s anachronauts time.

(It’s funny, but all that time I was anxiety-worrying “I’m not doing enough to contribute to the world because I’m not working on my creative projects!” which, as my sister helped me figure out last night, is incredibly ironic when you consider that what I was doing was consuming the creative projects of others, which is what they wanted me to do with their work, which is why I’m doing the same work for others. CIIIRCLE OF LIIIFE)

I’ve also figured out how to get over a plot problem. It WILL require a retcon. I won’t be saying what that retcon is until the time comes, though, otherwise it’s less Chekov’s Gun and more Chekov’s Rocket Propelled Grenade. I seem to be using those a bit clumsily lately, but I’ll polish ’em up in post, I guess.

So. More to come. No hardline deadline ETA for it, but I’m on the right track. Also, note that PAX will cause more delays, but I have the week after it off, so it shouldn’t be too delaying.

stepping back a bit

I’m going on a minor hiatus, probably a week or two. I need to work out some of the plot issues with the rest of sf03. If I force myself to write it before I figure out those things — some of which may require retcons to earlier chapters, even — the work will suffer for it.

Also, I’m feeling quite refreshed from doing a different writing project lately… City of Heroes arcs. It’s been two years since I last wrote one, due to hitting the file size limit a long time ago, but they’re going to be removing the limit soon and I’ve been giddy as a schoolgirl over it. This is a nice combination of visual design, game development, and writing… without a lot of technical implementation needed.

Working on this helps my creative juices flow for anachronauts, since I’m poking at its plot issues in the back of my head, all the time. Staying too focused on it, though, just loops me over the same problem again and again, without resolution.

I apologize for the lack of timely updates lately. It’s tricky, balancing my life, my hobbies, and my creativity. I figured I should be honest about going on pause, so folks don’t keep coming back on update days disappointed. But keep an eye out… I shall return shortly.

pardon the mess and other news

I’m trying to import all my LiveJournal posts into the WordPress blog. It’s a slow, cumbersome, frequently crashing process. But soon I should have a good legacy archive of all previous posts.

I don’t know if I’ll have an anachronauts update posted tonight. I hate missing update days, but RL continues to be utterly ridiculous, in no small part due to Second Life being a hacker’s wet dream. I am hoping this phase passes… I’ve already patched every single thing I’ve ever made there, and that’s about as much as I can do. I need to get my life back under control and this is not helping.

Edit: Okay, uh. Well, it finished importing, but duplicated comments a few dozen times. Yay. Meh, I’m gonna leave it as is. This is really just a way to preserve the posts if LJ completely dies in the future.

sf03 is hanging with carmen sandiego

Quick, check your atlas to figure out where these master criminals– oh, London, right, okay.

First story update for the new blog! And hoping the new interface won’t cause some commenters to shy away. Although the new shiny may even encourage some new comments. We shall see.

Regardless, this is a pretty beefy story update, with several new scenes telling the entire transition to England and into the next act of the story. I’m having a lot of fun telling “ministories” within scenes… making one encapsulated point, exploring one theme, showing off one side character, etc. It seems to be working well for me.

We’ve hit the point in this chapter where I’m not sure precisely what happens next. I know what GENERALLY happens, but like how sf02’s complete outline was “And then they go find out about the Essence Capacitors and bring home a copy of the spell” my entire outline here is… well, no spoilers, but it’ll be clear by the end.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading. Whaddya think?