Archive for April, 2009

Clues – revealed!

Posted by Rockjaw in Personal, Teaser, Too Much Information on April 7th, 2009

By sheer coincidence, this is my 250th published post. A nice bit of serendipity, because I have something good to say – well actually, a few things.

They’re not all connected, so sorry, the clues don’t add up to one big giant reveal! Here are the details though, by the clue:

“Stand by for action!”

My life’s about to get a lot more crazy.

You probably don’t realise, but 2009 has been pretty sedate for me – which isn’t really my preferred mode of operation. I like to be busy, I like to be challenged, and while I have had stuff to do, I haven’t been rushed off my feet. Why? Well….

In November last year I visited the USA to interview for a job in an MMOG company based in California; those of you with good memories might remember that I told you I got the job. There was only one small detail; I had to get a visa, so that I could emigrate and legally accept the position. (Right now, I’m still a remote contractor and not employed full-time.)

With my wife being American, in theory, this was supposed to be an easy process. In reality, it took the best part of six months… and it’s not over yet. However, three weeks from today, I’ll be having my final visa interview, and not long after, I should be granted the visa itself. (Fingers very much crossed, although by this stage, we should be golden.)

Not long after that, I’ll be jetting Stateside to join colleagues and prepare for E3.

After that, in early June, I’ll be returning to the UK to wrap things up so we can ‘properly’ move, hopefully in time for a good ol’ July 4th barbecue.

So yeah: compared to my current routine of “sit around working remotely, occasionally going to the coffee shop and updating Twitter”, things are about to get a lot more mad. Which frankly, is awesome.

Hence: stand by for action.

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Comic Expo, Draw the World Together, emigrating, musings, mwuahahahaha

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Wizards of the Coast zap piracy by.. er.. encouraging piracy

Posted by Rockjaw in Personal, Roleplaying on April 7th, 2009

In what I can only call a very odd coincidence, the very same day I published my post encouraging you to go download legitimate, reasonably priced PDFs of copyrighted Dungeons & Dragons source material, Wizards of the Coast have pulled all PDFs from sale. Not just old, out-of-print material; all Wizards of the Coast material, anywhere.

Why? Apparently, they’re trying to crack down on piracy. By, umm, cutting off people’s only legitimate way of buying these hard-to-find products.

I am, understandably, not the only one shaking my head here, not by a long shot. While arguably this move is aimed at cutting off the ‘ready-made supply’ for those who are spreading bought-PDF copies of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition all over the interwebs – and they have the lawsuit to show for it – it’s also had the knock-on effect of stopping anyone from legitimately owning vintage D&D material.

This shows a remarkable lack of understanding over at Wizards as to how the modern web works – indeed, how modern economics seem to work, at least from my chair.

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Long Tail, opinion, Wizards of the Coast

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Five roleplaying games I’ve played, and you should too

Posted by Rockjaw in Gamey, Roleplaying on April 6th, 2009

Five roleplaying games

I tend to ignore ‘pingbacks’ or ‘trackbacks’, because nine times out of ten they’re from RSS-scrapers who are linking back to where they stole the original content from, so they can die in a fire. However, very rarely, I get a genuine blog post at the other end; even more rarely, I get a blog post I actually take an interest in.

Witness: 100 Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games You Should Play Before You Die, an impressive inaugural blog post on Games Info Depot’s Games Information Blog. (Looks to me like someone’s been reading hints on making catchy blog headlines. Hey, it worked!)

It’s a pretty good list, admit stretched a bit to get to that catchy one hundred figure; as well as a lot of old favourites there’s some new indie stuff in there too, along with a few titles I’d never heard of, so kudos for the research.

No clue why I got linked for Marvel Heroes (sic) though – if you’re after Marvel Super Heroes stuff (thanks, Pedant Man!) then you should head over to Classic Marvel Forever for everything you’ll ever need.

I thought about compiling my own list of roleplaying games that I’d rate a ‘must try’, but me being me, what started as a simple list turned into a long trip down memory lane, and a lot of research into games I’d never even played.

So in an attempt to give you something that might be a bit more personal, instead of just rehashing Wikipedia, what follows is a look at five noteworthy RPGs I’ve at least played, and figure that hey, you might enjoy too. I’ll get to five more before too long.

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Champions, D&D, roleplaying, Skyrealms of Jorune, Top Secret/SI, Traveller

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