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Dragon*Con 2008: Day Zero

Dragon*Con

Before one can go to the Con, one must pick up one’s badge.  This is one of those cases where getting there as early as possible is a fantastic idea.  We didn’t get there so early.  Well, we did, sort of, but we checked into our room and unpacked first.  We shouldn’t have unpacked.  It took an hour and a half to get our badges.  But I hear the wait got up to be over two hours.  Saturday morning will be worse.

But, we got checked in, got our badges, and all is right with the world.

In previous years, Thursday night had always been more about getting a head start on Friday.  You got your registration, your room, and you prepared for the weekend.  Some people and groups would meet up for drinks and that sort of thing, but not a whole heck of a lot.  In recent years that has been changing, and this year Thursday night was Fan Party Night.  As I walked around the host hotels, I saw many large gatherings, but nothing beat the fan group from Battlestar Galactica who met up on the 10th floor of the Marriott.  They we big and loud and pounding shots.  Sadly, having to work in the morning I left early.  I hear there were push up contests and other revelry until quite late.

Next year…

Gone to Con…

Dragon*Con

It is that time of year again, when despite living “in Atlanta” I drive downtown and stay in a hotel for four days.  Dragon*Con.

As I have the last couple of years, I’ll be posting my rundown on what I see and do each day, as if anyone cares.  Mostly I do it so that I can remember what it is I do myself.

Anyway… if you happen to be going, I’ll probably be spending a bunch of my time around the MMO track or the Apocalypse Rising track or the Writer’s track.  The only place I know I will be for sure is Sunday at 1pm I plan to attend the screening of 20 Years After.  I would say, “I’ll be the guy with the shaved head and the goatee” but there will be approximately 2,851 people who match that description as it is, as my friends call it, “the Dragon*Con uniform”.  Instead, look for my hat… I’ll probably be wearing or carrying a tan baseball hat that says “Founded 1733 Savannah, GA” on it.  If you approach me, be sure to speak the passphrase, “The Cheese Stands Alone”, so I’ll know who you are.

Traitor

Reviews

11 out of 13 nots
for illustrating the difference between Muslim and terrorist

The story of Traitor is that of Samir, played by Don Cheadle, who is undercover trying to get at the heart of a terrorist organization, and of Roy Clayton, played by Guy Pierce, as the FBI Agent fighting the same battle from the outside.

The thing I found most compelling in the movie is how it shows that Muslim does not equal terrorist and that terrorist does not equal Muslim.  Samir is a Muslim, but he believes the terrorists are misusing their religious texts to justify their actions.  The movie is a slow struggle for Samir between what he wants to do and what he must do to catch the terrorists.

I think every actor here did a superb job with their roles, and the story kept me riveted.  I’ve seen there are others who don’t agree, they found the film to be boring, they wanted more action, but I thought the film was quite good just the way it was.

Is WAR the WoW killer?

Gaming

Let’s be honest… asking if any game is the killer of any other game is stupid.  No game in MMO history has ever killed any other game, simply because very few of them are actually dead.  And of the ones that are, most of them killed themselves by not being very good.

However, that said, it is possible that a game could, by releasing and being similar to an existing game but different enough to warrant another game, steal enough of the population of the original game that the original game might be declared dead on a technicality.  And by that I mean that the numbers officially shrink to the “die hard fans of the game who will never ever leave until you wipe their hard drives with powerful magnets and rips their keyboards from their cold dead hands” population who will stay and new subscriptions will be few and far between, if any at all.

Warhammer Online, in that respect, is not, and will never be a World of Warcraft killer.  As similar as the play styles of the game may be, through interfaces and other measures, the bulk “goal” of the games are different.  In WoW, no matter how many arenas and battlegrounds they release, PvE raiding is the ultimate goal of the game.  Not hardcore raiding necessarily, but with Wrath of the Lich King’s supposed focus on 10 man scaled instances allowing raid groups to play through the same content as a 25 man raid but with lesser difficulty (tuned for 10 instead of 25) and reward, it is clear that WoW is primarily a PvE game.  WAR on the other hand, by all beta accounts, supports PvE fairly well, but the end game, the goal, is really the PvP/RvR aspects.  That change of focus in the late stage game, from WoW’s PvE raiding to WAR’s RvR conflicts, will appeal to entirely different groups of people.

If WAR is going to kill anything, its going to be Dark Age of Camelot that it steps on.  From all accounts, this game, WAR, is taking many of the best elements of WoW (UI ease of use, etc) and applying them to the best elements of DAoC (realm versus realm conflicts) and then throwing in a few new elements (Public Quests).  Looking at the features list of WAR, and perusing the screenshots and videos and information pooring out after the NDA lifted, unless you are a die-hard fan of DAoC’s lore or have a PC that can’t run better than DAoC, there seems to be no reason not to ditch DAoC for WAR.

So… is WAR the DAoC killer?

Elegy

Reviews

8 out of 13 nots.
for being a decent enough film

Based on the book The Dying Animal by Philip Roth, Elegy is about a man, who doesn’t really emotionally invest himself in anyone, who meets a woman, one of his students thirty years his junior, who inexplicably rouses in him a sense of possession, of wanting to be more involved, but constantly convincing himself that doing so would just end poorly, and by doing so causes everything to end poorly.

The movie is slow, but never plodding.  I never felt, watching the film, like saying, “Just get on with it!”  The acting was superb, and the story of his life and their relationship played out at the proper pace.

Like with many serious dramatic type films, I can’t really recommend seeing it in the theater unless you can find it on the cheap somewhere.  But it is worth seeing, perhaps as a rental or when it comes on one of the many premium cable channels.

Death Race

Reviews

10 out of 13 nots.
for delivering on the promise of the title

If you are looking for an action packed film full of excitement, explosions, death and foul language, then Death Race is the movie for you.

Jason Statham takes the role of Jensen Ames, a man framed for murder in order to get him into prison so he can take up the mantle of Frankenstein, a driver in the Death Race who draws the most viewers.  This movie does not pretend to be anything that it isn’t.  Its about guys racing cars and blowing each other to kingdom come.  It is a ride, and one I really had fun being on.

In my opinion, while the movie isn’t perfect, it is definitely worth the money to see on the big screen.

The Longshots

Reviews

7 out of 13 nots.
for being exactly what I expected, and not more

The Longshots is based on the true story of Jasmine Plummer, who at age 11 became the first girl to play Pop Warner tournament football.

It wasn’t a bad movie, not at all, but it was predictable, even without knowing any of the true story behind the film.  In a way, its like The Bad News Bears for football, only more kid/family friendly and less exciting.

It didn’t suck, but I wouldn’t want to pay full price for this, and probably wouldn’t pay matinee or morning prices either.

Blog Banter: Does Everything Need to be AAA?

Gaming

Welcome, welcome to the 7th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

Topic: Does every game need to be a grade-A blockbuster title?  Would you be willing to play more average games or should every game shoot for the 10.0 rating?

The problem with aiming a game for a rating is that ratings are subjective.  What one person, or one group, considers to be a 10 out of 10, another person, or group, might consider to be only a 7, or worse.  As huge of a success that World of Warcraft is, there are in fact people who don’t play it.  There are *gasp* people who don’t like WoW.

The main issue I think that shooting for “WoW numbers” causes is that it fails to properly manage expecations.  (If you read my blog long enough, you’ll see that managing expectations is a common theme in most things I talk about.)  If you have a game that is set in a genre that even given the “best” game it could possibly be is likely to only attract 200,000 users, if you spend money like its going to clear a million or more, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Personally, I like seeing a variety of games come to market rather than seeing one game or game style dominate.  As Richard Bartle infamously said, “I’d close WoW.” or something to that effect.  The question of this month’s topic is misleading.  Would I be willing to play “more average games”?  Who decides what is more average?  I just want to play more games, to have more options.  If companies dump all their cash into less games seeking WoW or GTA numbers, then no matter how “good” those games may be, I think the industry and gamers on the whole will suffer.

So, no, I don’t think every game needs to be a “top of the line” title.  I think they need to approach each game as unique and manage accordingly, so that variety can flourish, because variety is better than dominance and stagnation.

Check out these other Blog Banter articles! Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Silvercublogger, Crazy Kinux, Gamer-Unit, Unfettered Blather, MasterKitty, Game Couch, XboxOZ360, Omnivangelist, Lou Chou Loves You.

The Rocker

Reviews

11 out of 13 nots
for making me want to start a rock band

The Rocker is the story of Robert ‘Fish’ Fishman.  He was the drummer in a rock band named Vesuvius, until he was kicked out.  Twenty years later, his nephew’s band needs a drummer to play their prom gig.  From there we follow Fish as he is once again in a band on the rise.

When I first heard about this movie, I was worried it was going to be ninety minutes of “the old guy” being crazy and gross before ending with some sort of heart warming ending.  Thankfully, while there are some crazy gross old guy moments they are few, and the movie is genuinely funny.

I really enjoyed it alot, and I suppose it helps that I am already a fan of Teddy Geiger, so I liked the music quite a bit.

Definitely worth seeing.