It's well known that I don't think Intel is really interested in supporting Open-Licensed software beyond simply using people like Keith Packard as strawmen to draw attention away from their anti-consumer / consumer-hostile technologies (TPM, HDMI with HDCP), and two faced software support (BIOS, EFI).
One of Intel's slights of hand to draw attention away from how Open-Licensed hostile they really are has been the release and support of an open-licensed wireless driver. The sad thing is, when you go looking for wireless cards that are compatible with Open-Licensed software, the biggest name in the business was Intel.
Atheros has now stepped up to the plate and delivered a home run on Open-Licensed support for their wireless drivers, and not just any any wireless drivers. The code for their latest 802.11n cards is already online : http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
According to Mad Wifi, Atheros has hired Luis Rodriguez and Jouni Malinen, who are going to continue to work on the driver. That means this release isn't a simple code dump to look good on paper. Nor is the release semi-opened up, it's under the ISC License, which is what the radically open-licensed OpenBSD developers are using.
So, the result is simple. If you go shopping for a new wireless card, laptop, or router, it's probably a good idea to see if it uses the Atheros chipsets. Then you'll know that any Linux or BSD should have no problems supporting the device.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
The problem(s) with the new Batman Universe
Since posting my reaction to The Dark Knight I've been trying to come up with a better way to explain what I felt was wrong with the portrayal of Batman and Gotham City. Why did I walk away from with a sick feeling in my gut, where I walked out of all of the previous superhero movies with a grin on my face. I think I touched on a factor when I noted the bad guys won.
In the films I've seen so far this summer, being Hellboy, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Narnia: Prince Caspian, the good guys always won. At the end of the movie situation was either returned to situation normal, such as in Hellboy and Hulk, or ended up with things better than they were before, such as in Iron Man and Prince Caspian. The Dark Knight ended on a much more sombre tone. The situation wasn't returned to normal, and Batman wound up in a possibly worse position than he started the movie in.
One of the themes The Dark Knight continued to hammer on is that the night is always darkest just before dawn, and the movie worked in a continuous series of shots where there was light at the end of a tunnel. As I see it though, Batman just can't win in the rebooted Batman Begins universe.
In the comics, and in the animation, and in movies before, there was always a certainty that Batman would come out on top. There's always a certainty that the good guys will win. In the rebooted Superman movie, there was no real fear that the Kryptonite embedded in Superman's chest would actually kill him. Everybody watching the movie knew for certain that Superman would come back and save the day.
Batman Begins successfully created a world where Batman can't win. The ever increasing escalation of combat between the masked criminals, the mob, Batman, Gotham itself, and the police force, has created a world where there are no easy answers. Batman Begins successfully made Batman human, a person who makes mistakes, and who doesn't get it right all the time. Simply punching the bad guy in the gut and locking him up in a cage just doesn't work, as expressed by the very short appearance of Scarcrow. The mobs and the arch-villains of Batman have successfully hurt Bruce, and have successfully hurt the police force, and have successfully hurt the populace. The smarter criminals have figured out that Batman simply won't kill them, and the movie plays off of that realization.
The result is that Batman lives in a world where he cannot win, no matter what he or the police force do. That results in a movie that doesn't really give any closure. There's no sense that the story can ever end.
The concept of a never ending world of conflict works in the sense of long running comics and television shows. The Joker, the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Harly Quinn, Two Face, Scarecrow, and all of the other Batman villains can live to run away in the comics and animation. In a movie that relies on some sense of closure or completion? Where there won't be a television spin-off, and there probably won't be a long list of chaining movies like Star Trek? The concept really doesn't work. The arch-villains have to be taken down permanently, and the rebooted Batman universe simply doesn't have an answer for that kind of closure. At least no answer was forthcoming in The Dark Knight.
In the films I've seen so far this summer, being Hellboy, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Narnia: Prince Caspian, the good guys always won. At the end of the movie situation was either returned to situation normal, such as in Hellboy and Hulk, or ended up with things better than they were before, such as in Iron Man and Prince Caspian. The Dark Knight ended on a much more sombre tone. The situation wasn't returned to normal, and Batman wound up in a possibly worse position than he started the movie in.
One of the themes The Dark Knight continued to hammer on is that the night is always darkest just before dawn, and the movie worked in a continuous series of shots where there was light at the end of a tunnel. As I see it though, Batman just can't win in the rebooted Batman Begins universe.
In the comics, and in the animation, and in movies before, there was always a certainty that Batman would come out on top. There's always a certainty that the good guys will win. In the rebooted Superman movie, there was no real fear that the Kryptonite embedded in Superman's chest would actually kill him. Everybody watching the movie knew for certain that Superman would come back and save the day.
Batman Begins successfully created a world where Batman can't win. The ever increasing escalation of combat between the masked criminals, the mob, Batman, Gotham itself, and the police force, has created a world where there are no easy answers. Batman Begins successfully made Batman human, a person who makes mistakes, and who doesn't get it right all the time. Simply punching the bad guy in the gut and locking him up in a cage just doesn't work, as expressed by the very short appearance of Scarcrow. The mobs and the arch-villains of Batman have successfully hurt Bruce, and have successfully hurt the police force, and have successfully hurt the populace. The smarter criminals have figured out that Batman simply won't kill them, and the movie plays off of that realization.
The result is that Batman lives in a world where he cannot win, no matter what he or the police force do. That results in a movie that doesn't really give any closure. There's no sense that the story can ever end.
The concept of a never ending world of conflict works in the sense of long running comics and television shows. The Joker, the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Harly Quinn, Two Face, Scarecrow, and all of the other Batman villains can live to run away in the comics and animation. In a movie that relies on some sense of closure or completion? Where there won't be a television spin-off, and there probably won't be a long list of chaining movies like Star Trek? The concept really doesn't work. The arch-villains have to be taken down permanently, and the rebooted Batman universe simply doesn't have an answer for that kind of closure. At least no answer was forthcoming in The Dark Knight.
Batman: The Dark Knight, in IMAX
I went and saw the new Batman film today, and not just in any theater. A couple friends of mine carpooled up to Atlanta to see the new film in the Mall of Georgia's IMAX theater. While other movies, such as Superman and Matrix, have gone to Imax, very few are actually filmed in the IMAX format. Batman: The Dark Knight, features several scenes that were shot in the IMAX format. On the basis of just being a geek, that was reason enough to see the film.
The big question is then, was The Dark Knight worth going to see? Is it a good film? I'm not sure how to answer those questions. I find myself siding with PvP's Scott Kurtz in that the movie was extremely over-hyped. In my view, the only product line I could come up with that featured more hype is anything that is branded Microsoft Halo. I knew from the start that the film would never be able to live up to the impossible expectations of the product. Posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger? Unlikely. Academy Awards for technical presentation? Unlikely.
As a movie, The Dark Knight almost qualifies as a horror film. Heath Ledgers portrayal as the Joker was in my view, the creepiest thing I ever watched... even down to a medically accurate human response to various injuries. As I walked down the stairs out of the theater, I stated out loud that I was glad that Heath Ledger couldn't do that portrayal again. Remember that bit that I wrote about Hellboy? The whole wanting a level of fantasy in my flicks?
Possibly the worst part of the film is that the film focus's on the Joker, actually far more than it focus's on Batman. Yes, Batman does a lot of cool stuff, and we get to know the Batman even better, but where as Batman Begins was all about The Batman, The Dark Knight pushes Batman to the side. Looking back, the film has far too many stars and stories to work in, with plot lines following the Joker, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Two Face Harvey Dent, and Rachael, never minding the appearances of Lucius Fox and Alfred.
One of the questions posed is whether or not the film was cut to focus on Heath Ledgers performance because he was dead, or was The Joker planned to have such a larger part to begin with? A clear answer may never be forthcoming.
That being said, the film wasn't bad. In fact, I'd almost say it would be an insult to call it good. The cinematography and pacing where just right where all of the plotlines were easy to keep track of. There were the expected plot twists, then there were legitimate surprises. There were moments where the film successfully managed to lead people's expectations down the wrong path, and there were moments in which the bad guys actually won. As a film, the production was almost flawless.
As a movie, as a story?
I put it this way on the way home from Atlanta. Batman Begins was Ocarina of Time. The Dark Knight was Majora's Mask. When people remember Zelda on the Nintendo 64 platform, the game that stands out is Ocarina of Time. While Majora's Mask improved on many of the technical points of the gameplay, it doesn't hold up as well in the memories of gamers, partly because it was so convoluted, and partly because it just wasn't as good in ways that are hard to put into the words. It didn't do anything wrong, the entire game as a whole just didn't leave the same impression. One of the hard to define factors with Majora's Mask is that the game wasn't about Link's story. The game was about Link's story in addition to the story of the Goron's and the Zora's. The game wasn't Link's adventure. The game was about the adventures of those in the world, and how Link became a part of the other stories.
The Dark Knight is technically better than Batman Begins. The complexity of the story, and the delivery though, just doesn't work as well. The movie isn't about Batman. It's about how The Joker interferes with the police form, the justice system, and Batman, just for kicks. There's no motive, there's no point to the Joker. He's just, there, and he just, does.
For myself then, I wish that the next Batman Film will spend more time being about Batman, than being about the enemies of Batman.
The big question is then, was The Dark Knight worth going to see? Is it a good film? I'm not sure how to answer those questions. I find myself siding with PvP's Scott Kurtz in that the movie was extremely over-hyped. In my view, the only product line I could come up with that featured more hype is anything that is branded Microsoft Halo. I knew from the start that the film would never be able to live up to the impossible expectations of the product. Posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger? Unlikely. Academy Awards for technical presentation? Unlikely.
As a movie, The Dark Knight almost qualifies as a horror film. Heath Ledgers portrayal as the Joker was in my view, the creepiest thing I ever watched... even down to a medically accurate human response to various injuries. As I walked down the stairs out of the theater, I stated out loud that I was glad that Heath Ledger couldn't do that portrayal again. Remember that bit that I wrote about Hellboy? The whole wanting a level of fantasy in my flicks?
Possibly the worst part of the film is that the film focus's on the Joker, actually far more than it focus's on Batman. Yes, Batman does a lot of cool stuff, and we get to know the Batman even better, but where as Batman Begins was all about The Batman, The Dark Knight pushes Batman to the side. Looking back, the film has far too many stars and stories to work in, with plot lines following the Joker, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Two Face Harvey Dent, and Rachael, never minding the appearances of Lucius Fox and Alfred.
One of the questions posed is whether or not the film was cut to focus on Heath Ledgers performance because he was dead, or was The Joker planned to have such a larger part to begin with? A clear answer may never be forthcoming.
That being said, the film wasn't bad. In fact, I'd almost say it would be an insult to call it good. The cinematography and pacing where just right where all of the plotlines were easy to keep track of. There were the expected plot twists, then there were legitimate surprises. There were moments where the film successfully managed to lead people's expectations down the wrong path, and there were moments in which the bad guys actually won. As a film, the production was almost flawless.
As a movie, as a story?
I put it this way on the way home from Atlanta. Batman Begins was Ocarina of Time. The Dark Knight was Majora's Mask. When people remember Zelda on the Nintendo 64 platform, the game that stands out is Ocarina of Time. While Majora's Mask improved on many of the technical points of the gameplay, it doesn't hold up as well in the memories of gamers, partly because it was so convoluted, and partly because it just wasn't as good in ways that are hard to put into the words. It didn't do anything wrong, the entire game as a whole just didn't leave the same impression. One of the hard to define factors with Majora's Mask is that the game wasn't about Link's story. The game was about Link's story in addition to the story of the Goron's and the Zora's. The game wasn't Link's adventure. The game was about the adventures of those in the world, and how Link became a part of the other stories.
The Dark Knight is technically better than Batman Begins. The complexity of the story, and the delivery though, just doesn't work as well. The movie isn't about Batman. It's about how The Joker interferes with the police form, the justice system, and Batman, just for kicks. There's no motive, there's no point to the Joker. He's just, there, and he just, does.
For myself then, I wish that the next Batman Film will spend more time being about Batman, than being about the enemies of Batman.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Linus : why are we not offended?
If you haven't heard yet, Linus Torvalds got a little vulgar when describing BSD development and attitude. I'm still tossed on whether or not the metaphor Linus used was the best or worst metaphor I've ever heard. The description certainly fits the likes of Theo de Raadt, whom I've talked about before, and seems appropriate for most of the other BSD developers I've had the displeasure of being in contact with. When I ran the news blurb and Gmane link on Mepislovers.org though, Carlops wondered why he can't stand it when Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is rude, but why does Linus always have him falling off his chair.
Good question. Why is it that when Linus has choice words for somebody else, we laugh and agree, but when people like Steve Ballmer are rude, we instantly go on the attack?
I think I can explain this by making my own extended metaphor. Linus Torvalds is the Bobby Cox of computer development. If you play baseball, or watch baseball, you probably have a good idea of who Bobby Cox is. He's the head coach of the Atlanta Braves, and the mastermind behind the unprecedented and record breaking Pennant streak of the Braves, and the one responsible for the Braves continuing to be a powerhouse over a decade later.
In the world of baseball, Bobby Cox doesn't have a reputation for running his mouth. He's generally seen as a calm and collected coach who sits in the dugout and does his best to be the best coach the team can have. Bobby Cox saves his trips to visit the umpires for when the visit will actually mean something. It's taken for granted that when Bobby Cox goes after the umpires, somebody screwed up, and Bobby is normally backed up later by video replays on questionable calls by umpires. Because Bobby Cox saves his trips, most umpires will take a moment and actually listen to what Bobby Cox has to say.
In the same manner, Linus is known for being the best coder he can be, and backing his words up. When Linus went after the Gnome developers and their clique, he backed up his firestorm with actual code. Where-as Bobby Cox is assigned respect and is deferred to for having proven that he can lead a team through a World Series, and for having proven that he can repeatedly take teams even filled with Rookies through a winning season, Linus has proven that he can code an operating system kernel used by billions.
Steve Ballmer, on the other hand, has proven nothing. The reputation of Steve Ballmer is that he is an outright liar, which is proven just about everytime he opens his mouth in a public location, and a complete nutcase, as evidenced by his chair throwing antics and irrational screaming sessions as reported by current and former Microsoft employees. The fact is, the name and persona of Steve Ballmer carries no respect. There is no deference for his contributions or past, because he has nothing to offer and nothing to show. I've already seen some banks issue financial predictions indicating that if the shareholders of Microsoft don't immediately move to remove Ballmer from a position of authority, that there is no long term future for Microsoft.
I think a better way to say this is that when Bobby Cox is rude, he has a point to make. When Linus Torvalds is rude, he's generally making a point. When Steve Ballmer is rude, he's just being rude. He doesn't have anything to say.
Then there is the method of how things are said. Linus mostly talks in emails, which is more convenient to him as a mass developer. Take a moment and look around for voice and video recordings of Linus making a spectacle of himself. Good luck, even the mighty Youtube is short on videos of Linus being an idiot. Now, do the same for Steve Ballmer. Where as the search for Linus starts out with a tech talk about git, the video searches for Steve Ballmer start out with Crazy Ballmer.
It's obvious that Steve Ballmer, like a certain Presidential Candidate for the Democrats, desperately needs a speech writer, and honestly needs somebody else actually doing the presentation. From an overall viewpoint, Linus's musings on technology and coding are well thought out. Most of the memorandums and emails from Ballmer come across like they were written by a 2 year old, and every time Ballmer is let out his own to do his own thinking and speaking, the results are normally akin to a train wreck.
For many then, Steve Ballmer is seen as being rude, for the sake of being rude, because he just doesn't know any better. Linus is seen as being rude in the light that there is something behind the rudeness.
Its up to the person listening to realize the message and metaphor on their own. I have little doubt that the BSD crowd will take extreme offense to having been painted in the terms of monkeys, but whether or not the BSD crowd will actually get the point behind why they are not number 1 in server usage, nor desktop usage... that's a question for another post.
Good question. Why is it that when Linus has choice words for somebody else, we laugh and agree, but when people like Steve Ballmer are rude, we instantly go on the attack?
I think I can explain this by making my own extended metaphor. Linus Torvalds is the Bobby Cox of computer development. If you play baseball, or watch baseball, you probably have a good idea of who Bobby Cox is. He's the head coach of the Atlanta Braves, and the mastermind behind the unprecedented and record breaking Pennant streak of the Braves, and the one responsible for the Braves continuing to be a powerhouse over a decade later.
In the world of baseball, Bobby Cox doesn't have a reputation for running his mouth. He's generally seen as a calm and collected coach who sits in the dugout and does his best to be the best coach the team can have. Bobby Cox saves his trips to visit the umpires for when the visit will actually mean something. It's taken for granted that when Bobby Cox goes after the umpires, somebody screwed up, and Bobby is normally backed up later by video replays on questionable calls by umpires. Because Bobby Cox saves his trips, most umpires will take a moment and actually listen to what Bobby Cox has to say.
In the same manner, Linus is known for being the best coder he can be, and backing his words up. When Linus went after the Gnome developers and their clique, he backed up his firestorm with actual code. Where-as Bobby Cox is assigned respect and is deferred to for having proven that he can lead a team through a World Series, and for having proven that he can repeatedly take teams even filled with Rookies through a winning season, Linus has proven that he can code an operating system kernel used by billions.
Steve Ballmer, on the other hand, has proven nothing. The reputation of Steve Ballmer is that he is an outright liar, which is proven just about everytime he opens his mouth in a public location, and a complete nutcase, as evidenced by his chair throwing antics and irrational screaming sessions as reported by current and former Microsoft employees. The fact is, the name and persona of Steve Ballmer carries no respect. There is no deference for his contributions or past, because he has nothing to offer and nothing to show. I've already seen some banks issue financial predictions indicating that if the shareholders of Microsoft don't immediately move to remove Ballmer from a position of authority, that there is no long term future for Microsoft.
I think a better way to say this is that when Bobby Cox is rude, he has a point to make. When Linus Torvalds is rude, he's generally making a point. When Steve Ballmer is rude, he's just being rude. He doesn't have anything to say.
Then there is the method of how things are said. Linus mostly talks in emails, which is more convenient to him as a mass developer. Take a moment and look around for voice and video recordings of Linus making a spectacle of himself. Good luck, even the mighty Youtube is short on videos of Linus being an idiot. Now, do the same for Steve Ballmer. Where as the search for Linus starts out with a tech talk about git, the video searches for Steve Ballmer start out with Crazy Ballmer.
It's obvious that Steve Ballmer, like a certain Presidential Candidate for the Democrats, desperately needs a speech writer, and honestly needs somebody else actually doing the presentation. From an overall viewpoint, Linus's musings on technology and coding are well thought out. Most of the memorandums and emails from Ballmer come across like they were written by a 2 year old, and every time Ballmer is let out his own to do his own thinking and speaking, the results are normally akin to a train wreck.
For many then, Steve Ballmer is seen as being rude, for the sake of being rude, because he just doesn't know any better. Linus is seen as being rude in the light that there is something behind the rudeness.
Its up to the person listening to realize the message and metaphor on their own. I have little doubt that the BSD crowd will take extreme offense to having been painted in the terms of monkeys, but whether or not the BSD crowd will actually get the point behind why they are not number 1 in server usage, nor desktop usage... that's a question for another post.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
CoH: Archery / Fire Blaster build
I wasn't sure how to name this post. My initial title had been Blappers Still Don't Exist, since I recently had the displeasure to run into a couple of idiots still trying to play their blasters in melee combat. Even after explaining that the new Defiance was built to eliminate blapper-style play, some people still think it's a good idea. Instead of simply going over the facts and figures again, I decided this time I could simply show why their is no blapper class, by simply showing off my recently respecced and nearly IO complete Archery / Fire blaster. As far as I know, I'm the only archery / fire blaster in play in the City of Heroes game, so it's probably pretty obvious to other CoH players who I'm showing off.
This picture shot is also a little bit more complex and longer than the last build guide I did, the one for my ice / mace tank, which was more complex than the kin / elec defender build. While I'm not entirely in favor of the new detailed information available for each power set, simply because I feel the detailed information removes the aspect of playing a class for fun rather than specifications, the detailed information is going to be useful in proving how the change to defiance in the follow-up patch to the Issue 11 release.
As a quick refresher, prior to the Issue 11 patch blasters recieved a damage bonus that was attached to their health bar. The less health a blaster had, the more damage a blaster would cause. With the Issue 11 patch, blasters received a stacking damage bonus, where each attack would cause the amount of damage dealt to increase. The new Defiance also enables blasters to use their first 3 powers under any status effect that would block power activation, such as being held, slept, or stunned.
So, lets get started.
The theme behind my archery / fire blaster is actually one of control, and as a running joke on the blapper name, this build is often referred to as a bloller, which is an intentionally bad combination of blaster and controller. The point of most blasters is that they are damage dealers, so as always, almost all of the primary powers are taken. I only skipped one, the Stunning Shot power simply because there wasn't any room left in the build.
The first slight change to the shots, making sure that all of the pool powers and epic powers are visible.
Snap Shot: My love of frankenslotting continues. Snapshot is actually one power that I only picked up a couple respecs ago. For the better part of 27months playing time, snap shot was just too weak to use. It is, however, very quick, and costs little endurance to use. Take a look on the right hand side of the screen for a second though. We have most of the same information again, but we can also see the effect on Defiance. Snap Shot delivers a boost of 6.60 strength for a little over 8 seconds.
So lets look at the enhancements behind the buffs. For the first 4 IO's I used the Thunderstrike set, which offers a bonus recovery of 2%, along with a base accuracy boost of 7%.
Then there is the Devastation set. It only takes two IO enhancements for a hefty 12% boost to regen. It also doesn't hurt that Devastation offers a Chance to Hold IO. With a 15% chance to hold on a really quick power, Snap Shot turns into a its only a matter of time. There is nothing quite like a Blaster laying down a complete hold on Ghost Widow.
Aimed Shot: For a long time the Aimed Shot was the default power of choice. Even with a better recharge boost, 59.3% versus Snap Shot's 39.7% boost, Aimed Shot's recharge time is still just about double that of Snap Shot's recharge time, (1.43s * 2) = 2.86s versus Aimed Shot's 3.77s. This gives the completely weird situation where the weaker power, Snap Shot, is more powerful over time, as Snap Shot will do 206.6 points of damage in under 3 seconds, where as Aimed Shot will do 161.73 point of damage in just over 3 seconds. That being said, Aimed Shot has it's advantages too, and chains well into an attack combo. For starters, the Defiance buff is an 11.00 buff to strength.
The majority of the power behind Aimed Shot is once again delivered by the Thunderstrike IO set. So like Snap Shot, Aimed Shot offers a 2% recovery boost and an overall 7% accuracy boost.
If that weren't enough, Aimed Shot is also equipped with two Devastation IOs, with that nice 12% regen bonus. Then there is another Chance for Hold.
Fistfull of Arrows: Surprisingly, a Power I wind up using very rarely. The relative idea is that Fistfull of Arrows offers a shotgun type attack for mobs. However, even with a hefty damage boost, Fistfull of Arrows is surprisingly weak, barely better than Snap Shot, and much slower to boot. The Defiance buff isn't high either, with a 3.20 point rating. However, Fistfull of Arrows is a Targeted AOE power...
That translates into Positron's Blast IO's, and the various boosts that go along with the set, such as the 2.5% recovery boost, 9% boost to accuracy, and a boost to recharge speed. The special IO, chance for energy damage, also adds in a bit of punch that Fistfull of Arrows normally lacks.
Blazing Arrow: Another power listed as ranged damage, so it's probably already obvious what the IO buffs are going to be. Blazing Arrow forms part of my normal attack chain, which runs like this: Snap Shot - Aimed Shot - Snap Shot - Blazing Arrow - Snap Shot - Aimed Shot - Snap Shot - Blazing Arrow - Snap Shot.... and so on. Blazing Arrow also features the strongest Defiance Buff so far, with a 12.10 point buff.
As you were probably expecting, Thunderstrike again features as a 4 slot IO Set.
No Surprise on the appearance of Devestation IO set and the Chance to Hold. With all three ranged attack powers having the Chance to Hold IO, fights become a question of will it live long enough to get held?
Explosive Arrow: Another power that isn't actually used that often by me. It's not that explosive Arrow is weak, although it is a weak power with a base damage value barely higher than Snap Shot. It's not the realitively weak Defiance Buff either, at it's 3.70 point boost.
It's more of the distaste I have for knockback. Due to my lack of defense I try to play with tanks or scrappers who can take aggro, and most aggro holders hate having to play chase the flying freakshow. Having been on the receiving end of knockback happy energy blasters, I decided to de-emphasize the Explosive Arrow pattern in my attack chains. That doesn't mean I didn't get a good boost to regeneration rate out of the IO slotting though...
Or that I didn't pass on the chance to pick up a Chance for Recharge bonus either off the Force Feedback IO set.
Aim: Not much to say on Aim. Although this will actually be a point when I get to the secondary powers. Note the current To-hit buff versus the damage buff.
The IO's in use come from the Adjusted Targeting set, which is currently boosting both recovery and accuracy.
Ranged Shot: The long range sniper shot. Another one I don't use very often, mostly because Ranged Shot is barely more powerful than Blazing Arrow (~322 versus ~316). Granted, Ranged Shot isn't exactly pushing into ED with it's 86.6% damage boost, so some higher level IO's will probably make up some ground.
Talking about the IO set, it's Sting of the Manticore. One of the factors to be noted here is that the power could have taken the Ranged Damage combination I used on Snap Shot, Blazing Arrow, and Aimed Shot. However, with slots running out, I went after a set that would benefit the sniper attributes, such as Interupt Time, as well as giving a Regeneration, Damage, and Recharge boost.
Rain of Arrows / Thunderous Blast (Defender vs. Blaster vs. Rain of Arrows):
Rain of Arrows is often referred to as a half-nuke. Unlike most other blaster sets (ice I believe being the only other exception), Archery gets a nuke that isn't a nuke. Basically most blasters, and defenders for that matter, have a single power that does a metric ton of damage. As I commented in the Kin / Elec build, the Thunderous Blast was about the only time such a defender would be seen killing enemies. Actually, as a refresher, here's my Kin / Elec's Defender Nuke with the new detailed information.
As can be seen, the Defender nuke does massive damage, with an average damage around 373.69 points of damage. The Defender nuke also has an extremely high recharge time with 4m44s between nukes, not to mention the -1000 on recovery rate, and the automatic -40 endurance on top of the default activation 12.87. So, that's a defender nuke. Before we get back to Rain Of Arrows, lets look at the base values on an electric blaster.
Ouch. At level 50 a defenders base nuke damage is 193.62 points of Damage. At the same level, a blaster has a starting value of 305.89 points of damage. That's about 63% of the power a blaster offers, and the highest ratio a defender will ever see. So, how do these compare to Rain of Arrows?
In comparison Rain of Arrows doesn't actually do a lot of massive damage. It's actually weaker than either Ranged Shot or Blazing Arrow, with under 300points of damage on a boost that's creeping into ED, and a base value even weaker than a Defenders true nuke. However, it has an incredible low recharge time, a higher base accuracy value, and none of the punishments associated with a full nuke.
As can probably be expected, Positron's Blast provides the power behind Rain of Arrows. So once again base accuracy, recovery, and recharge times are boosted.
Alright, that wraps up the primary offensive side. Now to take a look at the manipulation powers that back up the ranged punch my blaster offers.
Ring of Fire: Like all secondary sets, the first power can't be skipped. Which isn't a bad thing. Like Snap Shot and Aimed Shot, the Ring of Fire power can be used even when Blasters are heavily status effected. Ring of Fire is also where the change on the Defiance buff is most noticeable. Remember that part that the new Defiance was built to eliminate Blapper-style play? Remember that the lowest buff on the primary power side was 3.20 points? Ring of Fire's Defiance buff is 0.77 points.
For the IO set I focused shortening the recharge time and boosting the accuracy, which Trap of the Hunter allows me to do. The Chance For Lethal damage was a nice bonus.
Fire Sword: Alright, a real attack power. Finally a melee power that will build up the Defiance Buff! Um, no. Yes, there is a Defiance Buff, of 1.21 points. At 244.36 points of damage with an ED hitting 97.1% damage boost, Fire Sword is the 4th most powerful attack in the set, coming in behind and Rain of Arrows, Blazing Arrow and Ranged shot. That's not really surprising.
Like my tanks and scrappers, Crushing Impact was the choice of IO set, with boosts to both Accuracy and recharge rates.
Fire Sword Circle: Yes, another melee power that will no doubt reclaim Blapper-style as a good idea! No, not this time either. Setting a new low for the Defiance buff at 0.40 points, Fire Sword Circle also weighs in heavily on the recharge, endurance use, and has a lower base accuracy compared to primary powers.
That being said, Scirocco's Dervish gives pretty respectable boosts to all aspects of the power, while also giving a hefty regeneration and accuracy boost.
Consume: One of the advantages to the Fire Manipulation set is that it offers an Endurance Recovery power. Granted a new record low for the Defiance buff is reached, with a paltry 0.34 point boost. With a boosted endurance recovery rate though, and a high accuracy boost to go along with it, this power really need only 3 enemies around for a full recovery on the endurance.
The bite to Consume is provided by the Efficacy Adaper IO Set, since it offers both recharge and accuracy buffs in the IO's, as well as bonus's to recovery and regeneration.
Build Up: The flip side to the Aim boost shown earlier. In the view of the developers the To-Hit status is more important than the actual damage output. After all, if you can't hit something, you can't damage it. Build Up has a much lower base to-hit buff, but a much higher damage buff.
Once again Adjusted Targeting provides the backing with it's native damage and accuracy buffs.
Hot Feet: The controller theme starts up again with the Hot Feet power. As talked about before Hot Feet has a Mob-Run attached. A damage dealing power, Hot Feet is not.
So it's no surprise that the Pacing of the Turtle set shows up again. If it weren't for the nice 9% accuracy buff, it'd be tempting to frankenslot this power for lower end usage and more damage... However, the 2 slot buffs on most of the Slow IO sets are utter junk.
Combustion: This was actually the second to last power I took, taking it at 47. It eventually will have 4 Scirocco Dervish's which will help boost the power up. To once again focus on the Defiance Buff, as the last two powers didn't affect Defiance, the rating is only 0.61 points.
Okay, that's all the Fire Manipulation powers that I took. As can be easily seen, players expecting to build Defiance using their melee attacks are going to be in for a rough time. Simply put, Blasters are Blasters. They blast, from a distance, using ranged attacks.
Anyways, now lets go over the pool powers that I wound up taking. Now, having actually tested this before, I found that in order to get all of their native powers by level 38, players will need to take 2 pool powers. With the raise of the level cap, players got an additional 4 powers to play around with outside of their primary and secondary sets. The basic idea is that players would be able to get their travel powers, then drop or discard powers that weren't very good, or didn't fit their playing style.
Combat Jumping: Many blasters take super-speed in order to get the Hasten power. I decided to take Combat Jumping for it's massive defense boost and awesome immobilization protection. Yeah. Right. As can be seen, the base defense value is only 1.75%, and no matter how you slot that, it doesn't add up to much. As I confirmed with the real numbers though, pool power effects change with each archtype, and that the immobilization for a blaster wasn't anything to write home about.
Giving Combat Jumping some of it's boost is the Gift of the Ancients IO Set and it's 2% boost to recovery.
Super Jump: No IO buffs here. Just two level 50 crafted IO's which push the jumping straight into the maximum height and speed.
Acrocatics: Recently the Acrobatics power was brought in line with the rest of the pool powers. Previously, Acrobatics offered a knockback protection of 100 points. Native powers, such as my ice tanks Wet Ice and my willpower scrappers Indomitable Will power offer knockback protection of 10points. All other pool powers are intentionally weaker than native powers because they are ancillary powers. Acrobatics was changed to have a native knockback protection of only 9 points. However, unlike Native powers, Acrobatics can be buffed for a little more protection...
Which is what I did. Two end reductions to keep the power draw down, and a crafted knockback IO to place the buff accepting portion of Acrobatics on the positive side of 3 magnitude.
Health: Only one crafted IO in health. Since Blasters aren't exactly designed to hang around in the middle of mobs, dropping slots here meant being able to slot up on some more damage.
Stamina: Since two high level crafted IO's are pushing into ED to begin with, slots could be saved on Stamina that are made up with the numerous IO buffs.
That finishes up the pool powers, so lets look at the Epic Power Set that finished off the build.
Snow Storm: The controller aspect shows up again. Nobody expects the Blaster to debuff, but that wasn't the reason I took the Cold Powers. I took the Cold powers because of a little game called Chrono Trigger. There's just something about being able to shout Fire! Ice! together I am Antipode!
As can be expected, the Pacing of the Turtle IO set gives an accuracy boost.
Frozen Armor: Aside from the pool power Weave, Frozen Armor is one of the few other chances Blasters get at damage resistance or defense...
Of course, being able to slot the Aegis: PSI+ Def / +20% resistance to status effects was a bonus.
I also discovered a bug with the Aegis Unique IO. It is not a passive IO. In order for the effect to occur the power the Aegis Unique IO is on must be active. This makes no sense as the Aegis Unique IO only lessens the amount of time status effects affect the player. However, since most of the status effects the Aegis Unique IO protects against TURN POWERS OFF, the IO itself is useless unless it's placed on an Archtype that already offers protection against those status effects. Of course, if a Tanker or Scrapper is knocked out of their powers, again, the Aegis Unique IO is turned off. To date no response has been given on when the Aegis Unique IO will be made passive, and will work regardless of the state of the power it is attached too.
Hibernate: One of the last reasons I'm not really concerned about the Stamina power being maxed is that if I need to take a moment and Rest in the middle of combat... I can with Hibernate.
Hibernate is backed up by the 3 available recharge IO's in the Efficacy Adapter IO set to bring the 4m recharge time down to 2m20s.
And just one more shot showing the rest of the detailed information for Hibernate.
Okay, there we go. That's my Archery / Fire build. So hows it actually look, once all the buffs are brought together? Well, see for yourself.
Done then? Not yet.
While writing this I can just see some jackass who still thinks blappers are a good idea saying something to the effect that they can make up the melee damage with pool powers! I'm actually getting a little tired of debunking blappers at everything, but I need to go ahead and shut that train of thought down too. So, here's the list of pool power attacks as used by a level 50 blaster. I'll go ahead and spoil the little surprise that's obvious in all the screenshots.
One of things to note is the strength of the powers. The highest powered attack is Flurry, which offers an average unboosted damage of 63. Yes, this is higher than either Fistfull of Arrows or Snap Shot. However, that's countered by the fact that none of the pool attack powers boost the Defiance Buff, and that with only a limited number of slots to have, blasters would have to give up the buffs that are actually useful, such as Haste, Combat Jumping, Hasten, or Hover on their way to the third level or 4th level power. Why waste slots?
So what about other archtypes? Surely the pool attack powers are good on archtypes other than blaster?
I think my statement stands then. Unless you need to to take a pool attack power to get a higher level buff, such as the case in the fitness pool, just don't bother.
And no, taking pool powers will not automagically make your non-melee archtype into a melee archtype.
This picture shot is also a little bit more complex and longer than the last build guide I did, the one for my ice / mace tank, which was more complex than the kin / elec defender build. While I'm not entirely in favor of the new detailed information available for each power set, simply because I feel the detailed information removes the aspect of playing a class for fun rather than specifications, the detailed information is going to be useful in proving how the change to defiance in the follow-up patch to the Issue 11 release.
As a quick refresher, prior to the Issue 11 patch blasters recieved a damage bonus that was attached to their health bar. The less health a blaster had, the more damage a blaster would cause. With the Issue 11 patch, blasters received a stacking damage bonus, where each attack would cause the amount of damage dealt to increase. The new Defiance also enables blasters to use their first 3 powers under any status effect that would block power activation, such as being held, slept, or stunned.
So, lets get started.
The theme behind my archery / fire blaster is actually one of control, and as a running joke on the blapper name, this build is often referred to as a bloller, which is an intentionally bad combination of blaster and controller. The point of most blasters is that they are damage dealers, so as always, almost all of the primary powers are taken. I only skipped one, the Stunning Shot power simply because there wasn't any room left in the build.
The first slight change to the shots, making sure that all of the pool powers and epic powers are visible.
Snap Shot: My love of frankenslotting continues. Snapshot is actually one power that I only picked up a couple respecs ago. For the better part of 27months playing time, snap shot was just too weak to use. It is, however, very quick, and costs little endurance to use. Take a look on the right hand side of the screen for a second though. We have most of the same information again, but we can also see the effect on Defiance. Snap Shot delivers a boost of 6.60 strength for a little over 8 seconds.
So lets look at the enhancements behind the buffs. For the first 4 IO's I used the Thunderstrike set, which offers a bonus recovery of 2%, along with a base accuracy boost of 7%.
Then there is the Devastation set. It only takes two IO enhancements for a hefty 12% boost to regen. It also doesn't hurt that Devastation offers a Chance to Hold IO. With a 15% chance to hold on a really quick power, Snap Shot turns into a its only a matter of time. There is nothing quite like a Blaster laying down a complete hold on Ghost Widow.
Aimed Shot: For a long time the Aimed Shot was the default power of choice. Even with a better recharge boost, 59.3% versus Snap Shot's 39.7% boost, Aimed Shot's recharge time is still just about double that of Snap Shot's recharge time, (1.43s * 2) = 2.86s versus Aimed Shot's 3.77s. This gives the completely weird situation where the weaker power, Snap Shot, is more powerful over time, as Snap Shot will do 206.6 points of damage in under 3 seconds, where as Aimed Shot will do 161.73 point of damage in just over 3 seconds. That being said, Aimed Shot has it's advantages too, and chains well into an attack combo. For starters, the Defiance buff is an 11.00 buff to strength.
The majority of the power behind Aimed Shot is once again delivered by the Thunderstrike IO set. So like Snap Shot, Aimed Shot offers a 2% recovery boost and an overall 7% accuracy boost.
If that weren't enough, Aimed Shot is also equipped with two Devastation IOs, with that nice 12% regen bonus. Then there is another Chance for Hold.
Fistfull of Arrows: Surprisingly, a Power I wind up using very rarely. The relative idea is that Fistfull of Arrows offers a shotgun type attack for mobs. However, even with a hefty damage boost, Fistfull of Arrows is surprisingly weak, barely better than Snap Shot, and much slower to boot. The Defiance buff isn't high either, with a 3.20 point rating. However, Fistfull of Arrows is a Targeted AOE power...
That translates into Positron's Blast IO's, and the various boosts that go along with the set, such as the 2.5% recovery boost, 9% boost to accuracy, and a boost to recharge speed. The special IO, chance for energy damage, also adds in a bit of punch that Fistfull of Arrows normally lacks.
Blazing Arrow: Another power listed as ranged damage, so it's probably already obvious what the IO buffs are going to be. Blazing Arrow forms part of my normal attack chain, which runs like this: Snap Shot - Aimed Shot - Snap Shot - Blazing Arrow - Snap Shot - Aimed Shot - Snap Shot - Blazing Arrow - Snap Shot.... and so on. Blazing Arrow also features the strongest Defiance Buff so far, with a 12.10 point buff.
As you were probably expecting, Thunderstrike again features as a 4 slot IO Set.
No Surprise on the appearance of Devestation IO set and the Chance to Hold. With all three ranged attack powers having the Chance to Hold IO, fights become a question of will it live long enough to get held?
Explosive Arrow: Another power that isn't actually used that often by me. It's not that explosive Arrow is weak, although it is a weak power with a base damage value barely higher than Snap Shot. It's not the realitively weak Defiance Buff either, at it's 3.70 point boost.
It's more of the distaste I have for knockback. Due to my lack of defense I try to play with tanks or scrappers who can take aggro, and most aggro holders hate having to play chase the flying freakshow. Having been on the receiving end of knockback happy energy blasters, I decided to de-emphasize the Explosive Arrow pattern in my attack chains. That doesn't mean I didn't get a good boost to regeneration rate out of the IO slotting though...
Or that I didn't pass on the chance to pick up a Chance for Recharge bonus either off the Force Feedback IO set.
Aim: Not much to say on Aim. Although this will actually be a point when I get to the secondary powers. Note the current To-hit buff versus the damage buff.
The IO's in use come from the Adjusted Targeting set, which is currently boosting both recovery and accuracy.
Ranged Shot: The long range sniper shot. Another one I don't use very often, mostly because Ranged Shot is barely more powerful than Blazing Arrow (~322 versus ~316). Granted, Ranged Shot isn't exactly pushing into ED with it's 86.6% damage boost, so some higher level IO's will probably make up some ground.
Talking about the IO set, it's Sting of the Manticore. One of the factors to be noted here is that the power could have taken the Ranged Damage combination I used on Snap Shot, Blazing Arrow, and Aimed Shot. However, with slots running out, I went after a set that would benefit the sniper attributes, such as Interupt Time, as well as giving a Regeneration, Damage, and Recharge boost.
Rain of Arrows is often referred to as a half-nuke. Unlike most other blaster sets (ice I believe being the only other exception), Archery gets a nuke that isn't a nuke. Basically most blasters, and defenders for that matter, have a single power that does a metric ton of damage. As I commented in the Kin / Elec build, the Thunderous Blast was about the only time such a defender would be seen killing enemies. Actually, as a refresher, here's my Kin / Elec's Defender Nuke with the new detailed information.
As can be seen, the Defender nuke does massive damage, with an average damage around 373.69 points of damage. The Defender nuke also has an extremely high recharge time with 4m44s between nukes, not to mention the -1000 on recovery rate, and the automatic -40 endurance on top of the default activation 12.87. So, that's a defender nuke. Before we get back to Rain Of Arrows, lets look at the base values on an electric blaster.
Ouch. At level 50 a defenders base nuke damage is 193.62 points of Damage. At the same level, a blaster has a starting value of 305.89 points of damage. That's about 63% of the power a blaster offers, and the highest ratio a defender will ever see. So, how do these compare to Rain of Arrows?
In comparison Rain of Arrows doesn't actually do a lot of massive damage. It's actually weaker than either Ranged Shot or Blazing Arrow, with under 300points of damage on a boost that's creeping into ED, and a base value even weaker than a Defenders true nuke. However, it has an incredible low recharge time, a higher base accuracy value, and none of the punishments associated with a full nuke.
As can probably be expected, Positron's Blast provides the power behind Rain of Arrows. So once again base accuracy, recovery, and recharge times are boosted.
Alright, that wraps up the primary offensive side. Now to take a look at the manipulation powers that back up the ranged punch my blaster offers.
Ring of Fire: Like all secondary sets, the first power can't be skipped. Which isn't a bad thing. Like Snap Shot and Aimed Shot, the Ring of Fire power can be used even when Blasters are heavily status effected. Ring of Fire is also where the change on the Defiance buff is most noticeable. Remember that part that the new Defiance was built to eliminate Blapper-style play? Remember that the lowest buff on the primary power side was 3.20 points? Ring of Fire's Defiance buff is 0.77 points.
For the IO set I focused shortening the recharge time and boosting the accuracy, which Trap of the Hunter allows me to do. The Chance For Lethal damage was a nice bonus.
Fire Sword: Alright, a real attack power. Finally a melee power that will build up the Defiance Buff! Um, no. Yes, there is a Defiance Buff, of 1.21 points. At 244.36 points of damage with an ED hitting 97.1% damage boost, Fire Sword is the 4th most powerful attack in the set, coming in behind and Rain of Arrows, Blazing Arrow and Ranged shot. That's not really surprising.
Like my tanks and scrappers, Crushing Impact was the choice of IO set, with boosts to both Accuracy and recharge rates.
Fire Sword Circle: Yes, another melee power that will no doubt reclaim Blapper-style as a good idea! No, not this time either. Setting a new low for the Defiance buff at 0.40 points, Fire Sword Circle also weighs in heavily on the recharge, endurance use, and has a lower base accuracy compared to primary powers.
That being said, Scirocco's Dervish gives pretty respectable boosts to all aspects of the power, while also giving a hefty regeneration and accuracy boost.
Consume: One of the advantages to the Fire Manipulation set is that it offers an Endurance Recovery power. Granted a new record low for the Defiance buff is reached, with a paltry 0.34 point boost. With a boosted endurance recovery rate though, and a high accuracy boost to go along with it, this power really need only 3 enemies around for a full recovery on the endurance.
The bite to Consume is provided by the Efficacy Adaper IO Set, since it offers both recharge and accuracy buffs in the IO's, as well as bonus's to recovery and regeneration.
Build Up: The flip side to the Aim boost shown earlier. In the view of the developers the To-Hit status is more important than the actual damage output. After all, if you can't hit something, you can't damage it. Build Up has a much lower base to-hit buff, but a much higher damage buff.
Once again Adjusted Targeting provides the backing with it's native damage and accuracy buffs.
Hot Feet: The controller theme starts up again with the Hot Feet power. As talked about before Hot Feet has a Mob-Run attached. A damage dealing power, Hot Feet is not.
So it's no surprise that the Pacing of the Turtle set shows up again. If it weren't for the nice 9% accuracy buff, it'd be tempting to frankenslot this power for lower end usage and more damage... However, the 2 slot buffs on most of the Slow IO sets are utter junk.
Combustion: This was actually the second to last power I took, taking it at 47. It eventually will have 4 Scirocco Dervish's which will help boost the power up. To once again focus on the Defiance Buff, as the last two powers didn't affect Defiance, the rating is only 0.61 points.
Okay, that's all the Fire Manipulation powers that I took. As can be easily seen, players expecting to build Defiance using their melee attacks are going to be in for a rough time. Simply put, Blasters are Blasters. They blast, from a distance, using ranged attacks.
Anyways, now lets go over the pool powers that I wound up taking. Now, having actually tested this before, I found that in order to get all of their native powers by level 38, players will need to take 2 pool powers. With the raise of the level cap, players got an additional 4 powers to play around with outside of their primary and secondary sets. The basic idea is that players would be able to get their travel powers, then drop or discard powers that weren't very good, or didn't fit their playing style.
Combat Jumping: Many blasters take super-speed in order to get the Hasten power. I decided to take Combat Jumping for it's massive defense boost and awesome immobilization protection. Yeah. Right. As can be seen, the base defense value is only 1.75%, and no matter how you slot that, it doesn't add up to much. As I confirmed with the real numbers though, pool power effects change with each archtype, and that the immobilization for a blaster wasn't anything to write home about.
Giving Combat Jumping some of it's boost is the Gift of the Ancients IO Set and it's 2% boost to recovery.
Super Jump: No IO buffs here. Just two level 50 crafted IO's which push the jumping straight into the maximum height and speed.
Acrocatics: Recently the Acrobatics power was brought in line with the rest of the pool powers. Previously, Acrobatics offered a knockback protection of 100 points. Native powers, such as my ice tanks Wet Ice and my willpower scrappers Indomitable Will power offer knockback protection of 10points. All other pool powers are intentionally weaker than native powers because they are ancillary powers. Acrobatics was changed to have a native knockback protection of only 9 points. However, unlike Native powers, Acrobatics can be buffed for a little more protection...
Which is what I did. Two end reductions to keep the power draw down, and a crafted knockback IO to place the buff accepting portion of Acrobatics on the positive side of 3 magnitude.
Health: Only one crafted IO in health. Since Blasters aren't exactly designed to hang around in the middle of mobs, dropping slots here meant being able to slot up on some more damage.
Stamina: Since two high level crafted IO's are pushing into ED to begin with, slots could be saved on Stamina that are made up with the numerous IO buffs.
That finishes up the pool powers, so lets look at the Epic Power Set that finished off the build.
Snow Storm: The controller aspect shows up again. Nobody expects the Blaster to debuff, but that wasn't the reason I took the Cold Powers. I took the Cold powers because of a little game called Chrono Trigger. There's just something about being able to shout Fire! Ice! together I am Antipode!
As can be expected, the Pacing of the Turtle IO set gives an accuracy boost.
Frozen Armor: Aside from the pool power Weave, Frozen Armor is one of the few other chances Blasters get at damage resistance or defense...
Of course, being able to slot the Aegis: PSI+ Def / +20% resistance to status effects was a bonus.
I also discovered a bug with the Aegis Unique IO. It is not a passive IO. In order for the effect to occur the power the Aegis Unique IO is on must be active. This makes no sense as the Aegis Unique IO only lessens the amount of time status effects affect the player. However, since most of the status effects the Aegis Unique IO protects against TURN POWERS OFF, the IO itself is useless unless it's placed on an Archtype that already offers protection against those status effects. Of course, if a Tanker or Scrapper is knocked out of their powers, again, the Aegis Unique IO is turned off. To date no response has been given on when the Aegis Unique IO will be made passive, and will work regardless of the state of the power it is attached too.
Hibernate: One of the last reasons I'm not really concerned about the Stamina power being maxed is that if I need to take a moment and Rest in the middle of combat... I can with Hibernate.
Hibernate is backed up by the 3 available recharge IO's in the Efficacy Adapter IO set to bring the 4m recharge time down to 2m20s.
And just one more shot showing the rest of the detailed information for Hibernate.
Okay, there we go. That's my Archery / Fire build. So hows it actually look, once all the buffs are brought together? Well, see for yourself.
Base: Part 1
Base: Part 2 - Movement
Damage Resistance
Defense
Debuff Resistance
Status Effect Protection
Status Effect Resistance
Done then? Not yet.
Blasters and Pool Powers : No, Blappers still don't exist even then
While writing this I can just see some jackass who still thinks blappers are a good idea saying something to the effect that they can make up the melee damage with pool powers! I'm actually getting a little tired of debunking blappers at everything, but I need to go ahead and shut that train of thought down too. So, here's the list of pool power attacks as used by a level 50 blaster. I'll go ahead and spoil the little surprise that's obvious in all the screenshots.
POOL POWERS DO NOT AFFECT DEFIANCE!
Air Superiority
Boxing
Flurry
Jump Kick
Kick
One of things to note is the strength of the powers. The highest powered attack is Flurry, which offers an average unboosted damage of 63. Yes, this is higher than either Fistfull of Arrows or Snap Shot. However, that's countered by the fact that none of the pool attack powers boost the Defiance Buff, and that with only a limited number of slots to have, blasters would have to give up the buffs that are actually useful, such as Haste, Combat Jumping, Hasten, or Hover on their way to the third level or 4th level power. Why waste slots?
So what about other archtypes? Surely the pool attack powers are good on archtypes other than blaster?
Flurry - Controller - 34.99
Flurry - Tank - 50.89
I think my statement stands then. Unless you need to to take a pool attack power to get a higher level buff, such as the case in the fitness pool, just don't bother.
And no, taking pool powers will not automagically make your non-melee archtype into a melee archtype.
Friday, July 11, 2008
H2: Movies
It is with some strange feelings that I run this post. I just got back from seeing Hellboy 2, and I found it to be one of the best movies I've seen so far this year. Hard to imagine I'd be recommending seeing a movie with such name, but there you go.
As a superhero movie, I thought that Hellboy 2 was better than either Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk. In the overall view of Hellboy 2 as a movie, it's mostly B grade material. While Robert Downy Jr. and Edward Norton might be up for Oscars in their respective superhero displays, it's hard to imagine Ron Perlman getting such an honor.
So why then, if Iron Man and Incredible Hulk are technically better movies overall, do I like Hellboy 2 and place it above either of Marvel's entries? The reason is found mostly in the presentation. I am not a fan of ultra-realistic video games. When I play a game, I want to know that I'm playing a game. I want something that is completely out of the world of physical possibilities to occur. I want to go to a world that I've never seen. In the same way, when I see a movie, I want to see a new world. I want to go someplace else.
Iron Man and Incredible Hulk were excellent movies that blurred the lines of reality. It is very easy to imagine Robert Downey Jr. hopping into a Ferrari, taking off to his mansion, then flying back just a short while later in his suit. For much of the Hulks outing, there was a sense that the movie was taking place in our reality, in our present.
When it came to Hellboy 2 though, there was always a sense that the world they were in, was not our world. Magical and mystical events occurred, that could never be physically possible, and there was no explanation given for the events. Hellboy 2 was obviously fiction.
Then there is the question of the weird spirituality of the Hellboy series. Hellboy tends to mix the practices of Catholicism and old world myths and fairy tails. In the case of Hellboy 2, the movie heavily built upon European beliefs that forests were bad and contained evil creatures. Well, at least one heavily Christian series has done the same thing. Look up an author named C.S. Lewis, and his series of books about Narnia. Where as C.S. Lewis though crafted his works to present an overarching parable and story, it's hard to see such depth, if any exists, in Hellboy.
I tend to put it this way. I don't mind the way churches and religions are pictured in games like Final Fantasy or Grandia. It's obvious that the games are works of fiction. In the same way, the Hellboy series is a work of fiction, and the religion and spirituality of Hellboy is written to proceed the story. To me, that's fine, because nobody in their right minds is going to take Hellboy as the end-all be-all authority on religion. Same thing goes for Grandia, or Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, or Star Ocean, and so on and so forth.
Hellboy 2, as a movie, did a wonderful job of transporting people into a fictional world. The characters, their situations, and their realities, for just a couple of hours, became the reality of everone in the theater. Yet, when the theater walked, there were giggles, laughs, and people talking about the ectoplasmic entity getting the best of Hellboy. I didn't hear anybody walking out discussing how they could actually make an Iron Man suit based on the movie designs, or how Gamma Poisoning wouldn't actually have that effect on a person, without serious chemical alterations before hand.
In that view, I think Hellboy 2 succeeded where few recent movies have. It succeeded in taking people to a new world. Familiar, but still very, very unreal.
As a superhero movie, I thought that Hellboy 2 was better than either Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk. In the overall view of Hellboy 2 as a movie, it's mostly B grade material. While Robert Downy Jr. and Edward Norton might be up for Oscars in their respective superhero displays, it's hard to imagine Ron Perlman getting such an honor.
So why then, if Iron Man and Incredible Hulk are technically better movies overall, do I like Hellboy 2 and place it above either of Marvel's entries? The reason is found mostly in the presentation. I am not a fan of ultra-realistic video games. When I play a game, I want to know that I'm playing a game. I want something that is completely out of the world of physical possibilities to occur. I want to go to a world that I've never seen. In the same way, when I see a movie, I want to see a new world. I want to go someplace else.
Iron Man and Incredible Hulk were excellent movies that blurred the lines of reality. It is very easy to imagine Robert Downey Jr. hopping into a Ferrari, taking off to his mansion, then flying back just a short while later in his suit. For much of the Hulks outing, there was a sense that the movie was taking place in our reality, in our present.
When it came to Hellboy 2 though, there was always a sense that the world they were in, was not our world. Magical and mystical events occurred, that could never be physically possible, and there was no explanation given for the events. Hellboy 2 was obviously fiction.
Then there is the question of the weird spirituality of the Hellboy series. Hellboy tends to mix the practices of Catholicism and old world myths and fairy tails. In the case of Hellboy 2, the movie heavily built upon European beliefs that forests were bad and contained evil creatures. Well, at least one heavily Christian series has done the same thing. Look up an author named C.S. Lewis, and his series of books about Narnia. Where as C.S. Lewis though crafted his works to present an overarching parable and story, it's hard to see such depth, if any exists, in Hellboy.
I tend to put it this way. I don't mind the way churches and religions are pictured in games like Final Fantasy or Grandia. It's obvious that the games are works of fiction. In the same way, the Hellboy series is a work of fiction, and the religion and spirituality of Hellboy is written to proceed the story. To me, that's fine, because nobody in their right minds is going to take Hellboy as the end-all be-all authority on religion. Same thing goes for Grandia, or Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, or Star Ocean, and so on and so forth.
Hellboy 2, as a movie, did a wonderful job of transporting people into a fictional world. The characters, their situations, and their realities, for just a couple of hours, became the reality of everone in the theater. Yet, when the theater walked, there were giggles, laughs, and people talking about the ectoplasmic entity getting the best of Hellboy. I didn't hear anybody walking out discussing how they could actually make an Iron Man suit based on the movie designs, or how Gamma Poisoning wouldn't actually have that effect on a person, without serious chemical alterations before hand.
In that view, I think Hellboy 2 succeeded where few recent movies have. It succeeded in taking people to a new world. Familiar, but still very, very unreal.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Reiser confesses
The Hans Reiser murder case is all but over aside from the sentencing now. I've written about the Hans Reiser case before, both here on this blog, and on MepisLovers. It seems that many of my predictions carried out, exampling this one:
So, what's the impact? Well, there really isn't one. The Reiser file systems have largely been abandoned, although the code is available on Kernel.org. Even if Hans Reiser is let out on parole in 15 years, he's effectively cut off from the Open-Source communities. In all, it's just closure to what was a brilliant programmer's life.
As I see it, the Defenses chances rest solely on the lack of physical evidence. However, people have been convicted of murder before on smaller amounts of non-physical evidence than that brought against Hans Reiser... and have later confessed they indeed committed a crime.Well, Hans Reiser confessed to having strangled his wife, and then lead police investigators right to the buried body. Then I also made the following comments about Han's mental state:
My gut feeling is that no matter how this turns out, Hans Reiser is going to end up in a jail. Either on murder charges, or under state supervision for being mentally impaired.Well, you might be surprised to learn then that one of the last maneuvers made by the defense was to tell the judge that Hans Reiser was mentally incompetent. However, it doesn't seem that the judge bought that excuse. In exchange for leading prosecutors to the body it is reported that Hans Reiser will be sentenced on 2nd degree murder, rather than 1st degree murder.
So, what's the impact? Well, there really isn't one. The Reiser file systems have largely been abandoned, although the code is available on Kernel.org. Even if Hans Reiser is let out on parole in 15 years, he's effectively cut off from the Open-Source communities. In all, it's just closure to what was a brilliant programmer's life.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
AC Con Report
Last year I think i did this on my aging LiveJournal account, since most of the people I know in the fandom have LJ accounts. However, between the lack of LiveJournal currently being operational, and knowing my memory will fade with time... yes, this years AC con report is being posted here.
Wednesday:
The con for FoxCat, Notadream, and myself started Wednesday morning, around 4am. I had told Notadream that we would be starting around 5am. What I didn't mention is that I was working on panic-time for conventions... meaning I was giving myself a good hour or two ahead of the intended times to make sure that if anything went wrong... it could be handled. FoxCat and I successfully made it out of my driveway just before 6am... only to find that Notadream had been awake since 4am and was a little mad at the two hour time before we picked her up.
Off on the road we went. We were making a significant detour for the trip. Kenji lives over in South Carolina... as in Charlestown South Carolina. The good news is that only a couple of major highways (I-20, I-26, I-77, US-19, and I-79) link our towns to each other and Pittsburgh. Even so... it's still a 12+ hour trip all-around. That being said... we did have a 40mile extra detour. As I'm reading the map details I see the next turn-off I need to look for is exit 72. So I'm blazing along and around exit-91 or there-abouts on I-26 I looked back at the instructions just to confirm the upcoming exit... and realized I mis-read them. The exit I was looking for on I-26 was... Exit 116. The other exit... exit 72 was the exit on I-77 in another state. So... the next exit... turned around and went back to Exit 116.
Normally this wouldn't matter much... but I should point out that I'm driving a '99 Tahoe. Not exactly what you would call fuel efficient. Well... it does get good gas mileage around 2k-2.5k rpm, which is important... as I'll get into on Monday's return trip.
From there the trip was relatively un-eventful until we actually got within 35 miles of Pittsburgh... to find that the road engineers had turned a 3 lane highway... into a one-lane highway. So instead of making it to the hotel around 8:30pm, we were well after 9:30pm pulling in.
Then we ran into the next challenge. Parking. Due to a golf event or something... or I don't know what... the Westin's parking garage was locked out... and the parking in the convention center itself was also locked out. The valet told us there was parking a block down Penn Avenue and to the right. Well, the only opening there was the History Center Parking.... and after another trip back to the Valet we verified that yes, we could park in there.
Okay... luggage up to the room. I went back to the car to get Alondro's catnip. Now, at this point I should qualify that I normally do a jester-cat role-play at Anthrocon. Last year one of our favorite DMFA-ites, Rainejoy Bringer couldn't attend the con... she's in Australia. So I wore Kenji's jester-cap so that RJ could be there... if in spirit. Somebody was going to be a jester, and it might as well have been me.
So, I'm walking back from my car... the same Jester-cap from last year on my head... when I hear somebody yell SAIST!!! I look around and see Jouster in his car. Jouster is one of the DMFA-ites from Kentucky... and he can't find parking. He asks where to park... and I start pointing... then he yells, "Get in the car, show us." Okay... I open the door and stuff just starts dropping out of the car... sketchpads, Jiffylube recipients, and backpacks. I shove it all back in, then hop atop the pile... only to find that there was a cooler... full of ice water... somewhere in there... and now said cooler is emptying it's ice cold water all over the feet of Jouster's back seat car mate, Dissy. Front seat car-mate, Ouka, is now laughing butt off at the howls coming from the trapped back seat car-mate, and at the whole "get in the car" event.
We finally park... and being the nice guy that I am... decide to help Jouster and his car mates carry their stuff up to the Marriot. Well, the only Marriot we can see is 5 or 6 blocks... up a hill. Cue multiple telephone calls as Jouster tries to make sure that he's not losing his mind, and that the person who registered the rooms seriously didn't take a hotel 5 blocks away from the convention center. Seems to be that way... so up we go. Jouster and I get to the hotel... when the truth comes out. The hotel that he's supposed to be in isn't Marriot... it's COURTYARD by Marriot. After getting proper-directions from the staff at Marriot, we waited for Oaku and Dissy to arrive. They made it clear they were not going to walk back down the hill. Jouster was going to go drive them down the hill.
So... off Jouster and I go again. Down the hill, to the Courtyard by Marriot. Then we find out why we couldn't find it. Unlike the branded Marriot hotel, Courtyard by Marriot only has one lighted sign, and the whole by Marriot is unreadable at any distance because it's quite literally the smallest font I've ever seen on a hotel sign. Seriously, even junk hotels in downtown LA have better markings.
Anyways, after a convoluted series of telephone calls... of which I only caught Jouster's end, it seemed that somebody else was getting Dissy and Oaku from the real Marriot, Jouster was finding the actual room, and I was off to go get Kenji who was going to be rooming with Jouster in the Courtyard by Marriot.
Okay, all done. everything's good to go? Not quite. By this point, Jouster and I are starved... only to find that just about everything is closed. Even the Mcdonald's, which is open 24/7 where we live... is closed.
A relatively not-so good pizza place nearby was open, that some of our group remembered from 2 years ago. Well, from my point of view, the pizza sauce was good. The cheese was good. The crust.. .wasn't so good. And due to some idiot blue kitten not being able to grasp that food in Pittsburgh generally comes in much larger sizes that food where he lives... we wound up with way too much leftover pizza.
Okay, back to the hotel room. Collapse.
At some point I ran into Grey Wolf. I'm... not sure if I'm considered part of his Wolf pack, but it was made pretty clear that I had better show up at Steel City Diner the next morning at 9am.
Thursday:
Went to Steel City Diner with Grey Wolf, 10 other wolfs from the pack, and some others. After breakfast, being quite tired from the un-intended tour of downtown Pittsburgh, I went back to the hotel room to collapse.
Around 3pm or so, the registration lines opened up. Well, being the idiot blue kitten I am, I hadn't pre-registered for the con. So I'm sitting there in the long lines waiting for registration... when I start adding up monies. I had budgeted $20 for a high-speed wireless access connection for the time of the con. I had also wanted a t-shirt this year, so I had $15 or so set aside for a T-Shirt from the con. A Sponsorship for Anthrcon is $90, so about $40 over the price of the regular con access.
Well, if you remember, I've fussed about Hotel Wireless before, and the Westin was no different. At best my laptops could only get 2 or 3 bars of service from the wireless router, and the connection dropped more times than I'd rather think about. Realizing that the high-speed access plans could only be using the exact same wireless access point, paying out for the Westin's wireless plan seemed something of a really dumb maneuver.
At the same time, Convention sponsors get a free t-shirt, and can get it 2 days before regular attendees... so I could be sure I could get one in my size.
Okay, one Sponsorship attendance... which as I came to find out, meant I didn't have to stand in some lines, and was able to get first and second seat positions for some of the larger events. Trust me on this... I won't ever do anything less than Sponsorship again.
For some reason or another, I eventually wound up back in the hotel room, when it was announced that Keaton had arrived. I go down to say hi.
Now... last year I commented something to the effect that Wildy in a bodice was quite possible that cutest thing I'd ever seen with my own eyes. Actually, LJ is loading for me now. So this is what I said
Friday:
The con starts. Breakfast from Arby's, then to opening ceremonies. From opening ceremonies to the dealers den and Queen Mab. Which is where I ran into Keaton again. I was carrying a cherry coke. Emphasis on was. After making a complete fool of myself yet again, and feeding the floor some of the cherry coke, I pretty much fled off to the Puppetry Panel.
I used to do Puppets several years ago, and figured it might be interesting to see what was up with the puppetry panel. While waiting for the panel to start I found that one high-speed access point had been left on and available, so a quick duck into City of Heroes to check Global Messages and in-game emails, and a quick catch up on my webcomics... and then off to the puppets.
The opening panel was really fun, as eventually the puppeteers made an open-call for anybody to try the puppets. Which I did. After a couple of improv skits talking with each other and people in the audience, it was suggested that we puppet along to a song. Well, as most people know, my music collection has very few secular artists. We were, however, assured that we would indeed know the song that was going to be played. Song starts up... and yes. I... do know it.
We. Got. Rick. Rolled.
Eventually the panel broke up for people to go get lunch. Some more time in the dealers room, and dinner plans were confirmed. Then I found a slight problem with the puppetry location. The section of rooms that the puppets were in had been blocked off the previous year, and many con attendees did not know where to look for the puppets.
This little factor became a problem as almost nobody showed up to the second puppet panel. The plus side was, a music video was shot of a the cutest fox puppet I've ever seen (wig from Build'a'Bear) singing along to a country song.
Started a re-occuring event of mouse chases cat. Somebody was walking around in a fur-suit as a mouse. Remember... I'm playing a Jester-cat. You can see where that went.
Traditionally, the DMFA group goes to dinner with a couple of the artists. While walking to the dinner, the mouse re-appeared with a friend. After some exaggerated poking of each other, then pointing at me, the classic scene of giant mice chasing blue kitty got underway.
Anyways, from the con straight into dinner at an awesome Chinese place with Holly-Ann, Forestcat, her boyfriend, Jouster, Kenji, Tapewolf, Bunny-Boy, Hazzy, Reese, Zedd, and somebody whose name I didn't actually catch. In the middle of our table was a large round spinner. As the food was brought out, it was placed on the spinner, so you could spin the food around and sample what you wanted.
At the same time, FoxCat was going out to an Italian place and had his own event. I still say hanging with Holly for a while was a better deal.
Okay, back to the hotel, I tried to teach Reese how to play Smash Brothers Brawl.
Then off to Kage's story hour, which is one point where the Sponsorship package (only $90), became very worth it.
I think after Kage's story hour I went back to the zoo, then to the hotel room to crash. At some point, pizza was involved.
Saturday:
Lots more time in the dealers room. Got some artwork from Blade.
Foxcat went out to try to sell off the laptop that I had bought and we had a couple of nibbles. I had finally managed to get over the panic around Keaton, so watched her draw for a bit. Had two leads on selling the laptop. Surprisingly one of them was Fernando from a nearby restaurant. The same Fernando that last year took a brick from a bum that was harassing the RadioFurs. Yes, his head is fine. The other was Aleksandra of Aliks Cosplay.
Watched the Fursuit parade, and attended the Masquerade event. Blade said she'd do another button badge design. Got some delicious food from Baker-Bunny. More smash brothers and some Mario kart figured into this day.
At some point Alondro came back to the room and mentioned that Kenji was sloshed down in the Zoo. He had downed two rumrunners, and had been falling out of his chair. It was also reported that Josuter was tipsy, and Mab had been into the long island iced teas. I had to see this, so I went downstairs to the Zoo.
Kenji was indeed completely out of it. On the other paw, he looked so happy sitting there in his chair holding a Zina chibi-on-a-stick. Well, Mab wasn't there, so I asked where she was. She had gone off, probably to the bathroom or something, so I joked to the effect why didn't she have an escort? Well, it was supposed to be a joke. Mab showed back up a few minutes later having been all over the third, second, and first floor of the hotel looking for the bath-room. Mags and I escorted her to the ladies room. Talked with Mags a bit about the failed paintball idea we had planned. Hung around with Mab till I got too tired. She's a treat to watch drawing... maybe next year I can get some artwork from her.
Sunday:
More time in the dealers room. Sold the laptop to Aleksandra. Please... visit her site: http://www.alikscosplay.com. On a side note, due to blue kitty being idiot one more time, you would think that I would remember to bring the OS discs for a laptop that I'm selling. Nope. I still need to send Aleksandra the Vista disc I have for the laptop, and see if I can turn the Xp recovery disc the laptop originally shipped with.
Spent some time hanging with Jouster, who had to leave early.
Went to Floyd Norman's Memories of a Mouse event. It's hard to think that right now Mr. Norman is probably one of the top 10 people within Disney, being one of the few left that was around when Walt Disney himself personally oversaw the companies operations. Mr. Norman also went over some of the projects he's worked on that never made it to the silver screen, which was really interesting.
After the panel went back to the dealers room, and hung around a bit, then to the Zoo before Closing ceremonies. Filmed most of the closing ceremonies on my cell phone. Stopped filming intentionally when it came time for 2 the ranting gryphon. As mentioned last year, I have serious issues with the guy. That being said, Kage accepted an idea to call 2 in the middle of the closing ceremonies on his cell phone... OVER the ballroom's speaker system. Which resulted in possibly the funniest thing 2's ever been involved in, ever, as he's ordering dinner, and getting ordered by Kage to get back to the ballroom, or Kage's mom will spank 2. Figures it would take a 3rd party to make 2 the ranting gryphon funny.
Closing ceremonies. Back to the zoo. Hotel room. Started packing up some stuff. Crash.
Monday:
Time for the long trip back home. Woke up and had most of my stuff packed and into the car before notadream and foxcat even moved from their sleeping places. Went and woke up Kenji over in Courtyard by Marriot, and we all got our stuff together. Final goodbyes and everything.
Then we left the parking lot, and got on the road. After stopping for the first tank of gas, Foxcat took over driving duties. I gave him the instructions to get back and made sure he knew to turn off at US-19, and even made sure the trip-odometer would tell him when to start looking, by setting the trip as we left the tunnel out of Pittsburgh, and telling Foxcat to start looking for US-19 at the trip odometer reading of 150 miles. (136+20+3 on the directions).
I went to sleep. Critical Mistake. Foxcat missed the turn-off for US-19. A near repeat of the last time we allowed him to drive after an event. E.g., returning from White Water Rafting and waking up in Commerce Georgia. Anyways, no big loss. I-79 runs into Charlestown W.V., and I was fairly confident that I could follow road signs to I-77 which also runs into Charlestown W.V. I was right. As I-79 ended it gave instructions to I-77. Reading the trip odometer and comparing it to the exit we normally get off on I-77, Foxcat's detour was another 40-50 mile detour. No big loss in the end. (well, aside on the fuel bill).
Foxcat also found out why I do not drive with Cruise Control. The engine in a Tahoe loves to rev, and above 3k on the rpms, you can just hear your wallet scream as fuel is gulped. Cue amazement from Notadream that I could possibly drive for 10hours plus without cruise-control.
The detours did give us a problem on our gas budget. I wasn't sure we had enough money and gas to take Kenji to his home, and get back. We decided that Kenji would crash at one of our places for the night, and Foxcat would cart Kenji home the next day.
Tuesday:
sometime this morning Kenji and Foxcat dropped by to make the run back to Charlestown. I still had Kenji's gamecube controllers. Also left behind was the Jester cap. It will continue to be safe.
*****
Alright, that's it. That was my con. Fun? Yes. Will I do it again? Yes. Will I remember to bring more computers to sell and try to host my own panel next year? Yes.
Wednesday:
The con for FoxCat, Notadream, and myself started Wednesday morning, around 4am. I had told Notadream that we would be starting around 5am. What I didn't mention is that I was working on panic-time for conventions... meaning I was giving myself a good hour or two ahead of the intended times to make sure that if anything went wrong... it could be handled. FoxCat and I successfully made it out of my driveway just before 6am... only to find that Notadream had been awake since 4am and was a little mad at the two hour time before we picked her up.
Off on the road we went. We were making a significant detour for the trip. Kenji lives over in South Carolina... as in Charlestown South Carolina. The good news is that only a couple of major highways (I-20, I-26, I-77, US-19, and I-79) link our towns to each other and Pittsburgh. Even so... it's still a 12+ hour trip all-around. That being said... we did have a 40mile extra detour. As I'm reading the map details I see the next turn-off I need to look for is exit 72. So I'm blazing along and around exit-91 or there-abouts on I-26 I looked back at the instructions just to confirm the upcoming exit... and realized I mis-read them. The exit I was looking for on I-26 was... Exit 116. The other exit... exit 72 was the exit on I-77 in another state. So... the next exit... turned around and went back to Exit 116.
Normally this wouldn't matter much... but I should point out that I'm driving a '99 Tahoe. Not exactly what you would call fuel efficient. Well... it does get good gas mileage around 2k-2.5k rpm, which is important... as I'll get into on Monday's return trip.
From there the trip was relatively un-eventful until we actually got within 35 miles of Pittsburgh... to find that the road engineers had turned a 3 lane highway... into a one-lane highway. So instead of making it to the hotel around 8:30pm, we were well after 9:30pm pulling in.
Then we ran into the next challenge. Parking. Due to a golf event or something... or I don't know what... the Westin's parking garage was locked out... and the parking in the convention center itself was also locked out. The valet told us there was parking a block down Penn Avenue and to the right. Well, the only opening there was the History Center Parking.... and after another trip back to the Valet we verified that yes, we could park in there.
Okay... luggage up to the room. I went back to the car to get Alondro's catnip. Now, at this point I should qualify that I normally do a jester-cat role-play at Anthrocon. Last year one of our favorite DMFA-ites, Rainejoy Bringer couldn't attend the con... she's in Australia. So I wore Kenji's jester-cap so that RJ could be there... if in spirit. Somebody was going to be a jester, and it might as well have been me.
So, I'm walking back from my car... the same Jester-cap from last year on my head... when I hear somebody yell SAIST!!! I look around and see Jouster in his car. Jouster is one of the DMFA-ites from Kentucky... and he can't find parking. He asks where to park... and I start pointing... then he yells, "Get in the car, show us." Okay... I open the door and stuff just starts dropping out of the car... sketchpads, Jiffylube recipients, and backpacks. I shove it all back in, then hop atop the pile... only to find that there was a cooler... full of ice water... somewhere in there... and now said cooler is emptying it's ice cold water all over the feet of Jouster's back seat car mate, Dissy. Front seat car-mate, Ouka, is now laughing butt off at the howls coming from the trapped back seat car-mate, and at the whole "get in the car" event.
We finally park... and being the nice guy that I am... decide to help Jouster and his car mates carry their stuff up to the Marriot. Well, the only Marriot we can see is 5 or 6 blocks... up a hill. Cue multiple telephone calls as Jouster tries to make sure that he's not losing his mind, and that the person who registered the rooms seriously didn't take a hotel 5 blocks away from the convention center. Seems to be that way... so up we go. Jouster and I get to the hotel... when the truth comes out. The hotel that he's supposed to be in isn't Marriot... it's COURTYARD by Marriot. After getting proper-directions from the staff at Marriot, we waited for Oaku and Dissy to arrive. They made it clear they were not going to walk back down the hill. Jouster was going to go drive them down the hill.
So... off Jouster and I go again. Down the hill, to the Courtyard by Marriot. Then we find out why we couldn't find it. Unlike the branded Marriot hotel, Courtyard by Marriot only has one lighted sign, and the whole by Marriot is unreadable at any distance because it's quite literally the smallest font I've ever seen on a hotel sign. Seriously, even junk hotels in downtown LA have better markings.
Anyways, after a convoluted series of telephone calls... of which I only caught Jouster's end, it seemed that somebody else was getting Dissy and Oaku from the real Marriot, Jouster was finding the actual room, and I was off to go get Kenji who was going to be rooming with Jouster in the Courtyard by Marriot.
Okay, all done. everything's good to go? Not quite. By this point, Jouster and I are starved... only to find that just about everything is closed. Even the Mcdonald's, which is open 24/7 where we live... is closed.
A relatively not-so good pizza place nearby was open, that some of our group remembered from 2 years ago. Well, from my point of view, the pizza sauce was good. The cheese was good. The crust.. .wasn't so good. And due to some idiot blue kitten not being able to grasp that food in Pittsburgh generally comes in much larger sizes that food where he lives... we wound up with way too much leftover pizza.
Okay, back to the hotel room. Collapse.
At some point I ran into Grey Wolf. I'm... not sure if I'm considered part of his Wolf pack, but it was made pretty clear that I had better show up at Steel City Diner the next morning at 9am.
Thursday:
Went to Steel City Diner with Grey Wolf, 10 other wolfs from the pack, and some others. After breakfast, being quite tired from the un-intended tour of downtown Pittsburgh, I went back to the hotel room to collapse.
Around 3pm or so, the registration lines opened up. Well, being the idiot blue kitten I am, I hadn't pre-registered for the con. So I'm sitting there in the long lines waiting for registration... when I start adding up monies. I had budgeted $20 for a high-speed wireless access connection for the time of the con. I had also wanted a t-shirt this year, so I had $15 or so set aside for a T-Shirt from the con. A Sponsorship for Anthrcon is $90, so about $40 over the price of the regular con access.
Well, if you remember, I've fussed about Hotel Wireless before, and the Westin was no different. At best my laptops could only get 2 or 3 bars of service from the wireless router, and the connection dropped more times than I'd rather think about. Realizing that the high-speed access plans could only be using the exact same wireless access point, paying out for the Westin's wireless plan seemed something of a really dumb maneuver.
At the same time, Convention sponsors get a free t-shirt, and can get it 2 days before regular attendees... so I could be sure I could get one in my size.
Okay, one Sponsorship attendance... which as I came to find out, meant I didn't have to stand in some lines, and was able to get first and second seat positions for some of the larger events. Trust me on this... I won't ever do anything less than Sponsorship again.
For some reason or another, I eventually wound up back in the hotel room, when it was announced that Keaton had arrived. I go down to say hi.
Now... last year I commented something to the effect that Wildy in a bodice was quite possible that cutest thing I'd ever seen with my own eyes. Actually, LJ is loading for me now. So this is what I said
From there back into the Westin to put the books back into a safe location... and I think this may have been when I saw Wildy in her Ren Faire Garb... at the risk of getting myself kneecapped next year... oh mew... is she ever such a gorgeous sight... Part of you wants to just pick her up and CUDDLE her... and the other part goes "no... I like living."Well. NEVER ask me to say which is cuter... Keaton or Wildy. I quite literally lost the ability to speak, and according to one person later, possibly turned even whiter. After stammering a bit, I fled back to the hotel room. Cue one blue kitty being an absolute klutz and looking like an idiot... again.
Friday:
The con starts. Breakfast from Arby's, then to opening ceremonies. From opening ceremonies to the dealers den and Queen Mab. Which is where I ran into Keaton again. I was carrying a cherry coke. Emphasis on was. After making a complete fool of myself yet again, and feeding the floor some of the cherry coke, I pretty much fled off to the Puppetry Panel.
I used to do Puppets several years ago, and figured it might be interesting to see what was up with the puppetry panel. While waiting for the panel to start I found that one high-speed access point had been left on and available, so a quick duck into City of Heroes to check Global Messages and in-game emails, and a quick catch up on my webcomics... and then off to the puppets.
The opening panel was really fun, as eventually the puppeteers made an open-call for anybody to try the puppets. Which I did. After a couple of improv skits talking with each other and people in the audience, it was suggested that we puppet along to a song. Well, as most people know, my music collection has very few secular artists. We were, however, assured that we would indeed know the song that was going to be played. Song starts up... and yes. I... do know it.
We. Got. Rick. Rolled.
Eventually the panel broke up for people to go get lunch. Some more time in the dealers room, and dinner plans were confirmed. Then I found a slight problem with the puppetry location. The section of rooms that the puppets were in had been blocked off the previous year, and many con attendees did not know where to look for the puppets.
This little factor became a problem as almost nobody showed up to the second puppet panel. The plus side was, a music video was shot of a the cutest fox puppet I've ever seen (wig from Build'a'Bear) singing along to a country song.
Started a re-occuring event of mouse chases cat. Somebody was walking around in a fur-suit as a mouse. Remember... I'm playing a Jester-cat. You can see where that went.
Traditionally, the DMFA group goes to dinner with a couple of the artists. While walking to the dinner, the mouse re-appeared with a friend. After some exaggerated poking of each other, then pointing at me, the classic scene of giant mice chasing blue kitty got underway.
Anyways, from the con straight into dinner at an awesome Chinese place with Holly-Ann, Forestcat, her boyfriend, Jouster, Kenji, Tapewolf, Bunny-Boy, Hazzy, Reese, Zedd, and somebody whose name I didn't actually catch. In the middle of our table was a large round spinner. As the food was brought out, it was placed on the spinner, so you could spin the food around and sample what you wanted.
At the same time, FoxCat was going out to an Italian place and had his own event. I still say hanging with Holly for a while was a better deal.
Okay, back to the hotel, I tried to teach Reese how to play Smash Brothers Brawl.
Then off to Kage's story hour, which is one point where the Sponsorship package (only $90), became very worth it.
I think after Kage's story hour I went back to the zoo, then to the hotel room to crash. At some point, pizza was involved.
Saturday:
Lots more time in the dealers room. Got some artwork from Blade.
Foxcat went out to try to sell off the laptop that I had bought and we had a couple of nibbles. I had finally managed to get over the panic around Keaton, so watched her draw for a bit. Had two leads on selling the laptop. Surprisingly one of them was Fernando from a nearby restaurant. The same Fernando that last year took a brick from a bum that was harassing the RadioFurs. Yes, his head is fine. The other was Aleksandra of Aliks Cosplay.
Watched the Fursuit parade, and attended the Masquerade event. Blade said she'd do another button badge design. Got some delicious food from Baker-Bunny. More smash brothers and some Mario kart figured into this day.
At some point Alondro came back to the room and mentioned that Kenji was sloshed down in the Zoo. He had downed two rumrunners, and had been falling out of his chair. It was also reported that Josuter was tipsy, and Mab had been into the long island iced teas. I had to see this, so I went downstairs to the Zoo.
Kenji was indeed completely out of it. On the other paw, he looked so happy sitting there in his chair holding a Zina chibi-on-a-stick. Well, Mab wasn't there, so I asked where she was. She had gone off, probably to the bathroom or something, so I joked to the effect why didn't she have an escort? Well, it was supposed to be a joke. Mab showed back up a few minutes later having been all over the third, second, and first floor of the hotel looking for the bath-room. Mags and I escorted her to the ladies room. Talked with Mags a bit about the failed paintball idea we had planned. Hung around with Mab till I got too tired. She's a treat to watch drawing... maybe next year I can get some artwork from her.
Sunday:
More time in the dealers room. Sold the laptop to Aleksandra. Please... visit her site: http://www.alikscosplay.com. On a side note, due to blue kitty being idiot one more time, you would think that I would remember to bring the OS discs for a laptop that I'm selling. Nope. I still need to send Aleksandra the Vista disc I have for the laptop, and see if I can turn the Xp recovery disc the laptop originally shipped with.
Spent some time hanging with Jouster, who had to leave early.
Went to Floyd Norman's Memories of a Mouse event. It's hard to think that right now Mr. Norman is probably one of the top 10 people within Disney, being one of the few left that was around when Walt Disney himself personally oversaw the companies operations. Mr. Norman also went over some of the projects he's worked on that never made it to the silver screen, which was really interesting.
After the panel went back to the dealers room, and hung around a bit, then to the Zoo before Closing ceremonies. Filmed most of the closing ceremonies on my cell phone. Stopped filming intentionally when it came time for 2 the ranting gryphon. As mentioned last year, I have serious issues with the guy. That being said, Kage accepted an idea to call 2 in the middle of the closing ceremonies on his cell phone... OVER the ballroom's speaker system. Which resulted in possibly the funniest thing 2's ever been involved in, ever, as he's ordering dinner, and getting ordered by Kage to get back to the ballroom, or Kage's mom will spank 2. Figures it would take a 3rd party to make 2 the ranting gryphon funny.
Closing ceremonies. Back to the zoo. Hotel room. Started packing up some stuff. Crash.
Monday:
Time for the long trip back home. Woke up and had most of my stuff packed and into the car before notadream and foxcat even moved from their sleeping places. Went and woke up Kenji over in Courtyard by Marriot, and we all got our stuff together. Final goodbyes and everything.
Then we left the parking lot, and got on the road. After stopping for the first tank of gas, Foxcat took over driving duties. I gave him the instructions to get back and made sure he knew to turn off at US-19, and even made sure the trip-odometer would tell him when to start looking, by setting the trip as we left the tunnel out of Pittsburgh, and telling Foxcat to start looking for US-19 at the trip odometer reading of 150 miles. (136+20+3 on the directions).
I went to sleep. Critical Mistake. Foxcat missed the turn-off for US-19. A near repeat of the last time we allowed him to drive after an event. E.g., returning from White Water Rafting and waking up in Commerce Georgia. Anyways, no big loss. I-79 runs into Charlestown W.V., and I was fairly confident that I could follow road signs to I-77 which also runs into Charlestown W.V. I was right. As I-79 ended it gave instructions to I-77. Reading the trip odometer and comparing it to the exit we normally get off on I-77, Foxcat's detour was another 40-50 mile detour. No big loss in the end. (well, aside on the fuel bill).
Foxcat also found out why I do not drive with Cruise Control. The engine in a Tahoe loves to rev, and above 3k on the rpms, you can just hear your wallet scream as fuel is gulped. Cue amazement from Notadream that I could possibly drive for 10hours plus without cruise-control.
The detours did give us a problem on our gas budget. I wasn't sure we had enough money and gas to take Kenji to his home, and get back. We decided that Kenji would crash at one of our places for the night, and Foxcat would cart Kenji home the next day.
Tuesday:
sometime this morning Kenji and Foxcat dropped by to make the run back to Charlestown. I still had Kenji's gamecube controllers. Also left behind was the Jester cap. It will continue to be safe.
*****
Alright, that's it. That was my con. Fun? Yes. Will I do it again? Yes. Will I remember to bring more computers to sell and try to host my own panel next year? Yes.
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