So I started putting stuff
up for sale on eBay again. Haven't sold anything in a few months
because it takes a while to set up a sale properly. At this point
though I just want to get rid of some extra stuff so for now low prices
and just whatever fills the shipping box.
Tonight's GamesomeMac was quite bad. The guest was the lead developer
for World of Warcraft, yet another MMORPG which makes it three of the
last four. Anyway, this is also a PC game and there were a bunch of
players in the AIM chatroom and they were going wild. Totally spamming
and throwing insults and behaving like a bunch of 13 year-olds, which
was probably about their age. Meanwhile the GamesomeMac regulars are
going WTF? And eventually I ignore that whole crowd.
Part of it is that Blizzard games appeal to a younger crowd. I remember
the players for A Tale in the Desert II last month were quite mature
and fairly polite. The GamesomeMac hosts weren't trying to moderate the
chat room which I can see because both of them are busy but because of
that the chat room was pretty much useless this week.
I received The Black Enchantress issue 1 comic book from Heroic
Publishing. I think I've commented before that it's a $3 comic book and
they're spending $1.84 for shipping plus a nice cardboard mailer which
is probably 50 cents. There's really not much profit for them from
people who subscribe, though I suppose they do get a bunch of money up
front which helps with cash flow which is quite important.
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Issue 1 is ok. The Black
Enchantress is a villain the same way I play my evil characters -- you
end up doing a lot of good because you're being selfish or
temperamental or whatever evil motive you have. In general I think she
is more interesting as a counterpoint to her half-sister Lady Arcane
who is probably not going to make an appearance any time soon since she
and dear old dad are still lost in another dimension as a result of a
previous comic book several years ago.
One thing I do like about Heroic is that their old comics books are
still canon and Dennis Mallonee has a good graps of the timeline for
each character. The only retcon changes they've made are for copyright
reasons, like when Marksman's creator asked for his rights back so they
renamed the character to Huntsman. It's also interesting that Mallonee
is not shy about stating the Champions roots of his characters.
So far the two comic book series are printed on really good stock with
vibrant colors. Definitely worth $3 which is about standard comic book
prices. And they have very few ads, probably because they're new. Hope
they're not burning through their funds too quickly. The whole line has
been in development for well over a year so they're taking it slowly
and the next series won't start until summer of 2005.
I do like the characters and the stories and I hope they succeed. I'm
not sure how many of the series I'll buy. Certainly all the ones with
former Champions characters. Others I guess we'll see. Luckily I don't
have to make a decision for a few months yet.
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