Ups and Downs part 2

The Returning Agent

So in the wake of finally getting the letter I needed for my magic tax number from the IRS, I made the most important decision thus far in my self-publishing adventure.  Get someone to help me.  So with a few checks and with the advice given by good old Richard in mind, I tracked down a returning agent.  An accountant with certification to deal with the US tax code.   So after making initial contact, I was told that a color copy of my passport was required.   Still confused, I asked the returning agent how I would get one since the trouble I had with Passport Canada the first time around.  He told me that making a color copy at Staples was fine.   I asked three times to confirm exactly what he just told me.  A $1.00 copy just didn't sound legal.  But he calmly told me that he could sign it and send it off.

So within a few days, a quick meeting, $160 in fees and my application was off to the IRS for a second time.

A short six weeks

Much to my surprise and delight my second application came back in a mere six weeks.  My application for the ITIN was accepted and I was good to go.   Now by this time, I had already pressed the publish button to get my coupon discount before it vanished.   It otherwise had sat for quite a while untouched, until I logged in to enter my magic tax number.  I had no sales, though the site was pretty unclear if sales only showed after each finical quarter.  But overall I wasn't really worried about that.   Now I had looked through a physical proof and an electronic proof of my book long before pressing the publish button, as well as having other sets of eyes look through it as well.  But, for reasons only known to my unconscious mind, I decided to take another look through my book.  Perhaps it was vanity, confirming to myself that my work was finally done.     And then I saw I them.

Errors

 My book was filled with errors.  Not just a few, but a lot.  My brain flat-lined, as some of the errors I was sure I had fixed before publishing.   Did I somehow upload the wrong files?  How did I miss these in two proofs?  I had no idea.  So I all I could do is suck it up, and fix it.

But there was a problem.  To change on Fastpencil, even for electronic distribution, I had only two options.   Launch a new edition, keeping the old edition up.  Or  withdraw the old edition, and put up the new one, restarting the whole process again.  Either way, I will have to pay again, and this time the full price.   After much hand wringing and knowing full well that I could not afford the republishing cost, I withdrew my book from Fastpencil.

Creatspace

After the collapse of the Fastpencil experience, I decided to move to new route nearly a year after finishing my book.  So I finally decided to do a little research, and found my way to Createspace.

While Createspace didn't seem to have the "world wide distribution" that Fastpencil had promised, it did have first pick to the biggest game on the block, Amazon.   It also was free.  Well they do took a small royalty, but there is no obligatory upfront $270 cost that Fastpenicl had, which was big relief.  It also had the electronic version of the Tax form that had taken so long to resolve with Fastpencil, and rather than weeks, it took a few minutes to fill out and few days to get confirmation.

Overall Creatspace, should have been my first stop, but now I know and knowing is half the battle.

Wait, Error, Fixed

So everything went fine, until like the biggest idiot on the planet I noticed a mispelling in my title.... "againts" instead of "against".   WHAT,  sigh.   I dreaded the issues I had with Fastpencil rearing their ugly head again.  However, with a quick email the folks at Creatspace reopened editing and got it fix super quick, not cost.   So major props. 

The future

With Death Race against the Patriarchy finally back up in the wide world, what's the next step.  Well, other distributors, perhaps like Smashwords and Book Baby.  For any future projects starting with Creatspace makes sense, and any money spent will go to promos and advert instead.    More to come as I head towards other routes.

Self Publishing Ups and Downs part one

Its been a year since I wrote Death Race against the Patriarchy, my first official novel. Honestly I had meant to start a new by now, but I a few detours and curves along the way got me off track.

For now I’ll give an overview of the issues and steps I went through. Call it a self review if you will.

To NaNo or not to NaNo.

http://nanowrimo.org/

Death Race against the Patriarchy was written as a lark as part of the National Novel in a Month...contest? It’s not really a contest, its a more of a self-help motivational tool, with goals and emotional incentives to keep you writing. While it most definitely got me writing, doing 50,000 words in a single month, one must realize the rewards for completion are intangible and not meant to be actual rewards. But this certainly is not an attack on NaNo, as it is a great at promoting literacy and writing.   Upon completion of NaNo in 2015, I was treated with a PDF certificate of completion, not really something you can put on the wall or in your resume, but why not. There was also a bunch of discounts for various writing related services. As fall is when my income dips the most, I could only afford one of them, and decided on a publishing service.

Fastpencil, so it begins

YEP

So my pick of coupons was Fastpencil, a self publishing service that offers world wide distribution of electronic and printed works, with clear focus on the former. Their normal cost was/is a pretty steep at $275, but my coupon granted me use of it for $75, so I brought in. I had no idea of how big or effective Fastpenicl was at the time, and like an goofball following a motivational poster from twitter or the net, I gave into impulse and jumped right in.

The first rule of publishing club...

...is that things are never as easy as you think. The second rule is that a small buy in always becomes a bigger buy in later on. So as I readied to press the “finish your publication” button, I suddenly realized something was wrong. I noticed that I needed to submit an IRS form to Fastpenicl. So I did, but later realized something was quite wrong with that as well. I am Canadian, not a US citizen. There wasn’t much on Fastpenicl on how to go about the process. Trying to contact them was fruitless. But I finally figured out that I needed to fill out a different form before submitting the first form (which I had already mistakenly submitted) and than put that all on the electronic form under my profile. Easy.

The quest for the ITIN begins

So what I needed was an individual tax identification number as a non-resident alien so I could take advantage of the treaty rights between Canada and the U.S. that allowed me to avoid the withholding tax of 30%. Kind of looks like Star Trek Techno-babble, and certainly it felt like at the time. So off to the IRS website for some forms, which I had to find for myself. Oddly the form and information on it seemed straight forward, which should have been my first indication everything was fated to go belly up later on. But in an effort to save some money and confident in my skills to figure things out, I set out to do it on my own.

The most expensive photocopy...

So one of the things I needed for for my ITIN submission was a certified passport as proof of residency. I haven’t had a passport in decades, so I needed to get one. This took a bit of time, but it soon arrived and back to the immigration office to get my certified copy. Now its one thing to send all my passport submission stuff way down east (from my perspective here in western Canada) to the official offices and wait three weeks to get it done. It’s an entirely different thing to send it back down east to the same office and wait another three weeks for an official certified copy. It’s also quite insane to have this process cost nearly as much as the original passport. So when my passport and its certified copies came back in a thin plain envelope causally thrown half ways into my mailbox I certainly needed a “drink-drink” as my grandma would have called it. When I saw my $45 certified copy was a poor quality copy that looked like it was done on a first gen inkjet printer half out of ink and all that was special about it was raised watermark stamp and an obviously form letter signature, I had a couple of extra drink-drinks.

STOP! In the name of law!

So finally I had all I needed, and sent my application for an ITIN down east again, but this time south of the border. Now for those of you who think that the paperless digital age is at hand, realize that the IRS, at least on this front is old school. No digital submissions or replies, snail mail baby in a big unfolded envelopes. Round trip was an estimated 6-8 weeks state side, so I figured 10-12 for me. Unfortunately I was out of time and had to submit my project to get my coupon savings, I would have to take tax hit on any sales. I wasn’t really expecting that many sales to be honest though, it was the principle of the thing.

So considering I finished my book in around November of 2015 and started the Fastpenicl stuff in December, It was around March 2016 that I got my IRS rejection letter. Looking through what I thought where the easy to use IRS instructions, I honestly couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. So I made a fateful call.

This is the IRS, what the hell do you want!

I just assume "Richard" was actually Ben researching his role.

So I called the IRS and talked to...Richard? Honestly I can’t remember his name offhand, but let’s call him Richard for ease of use and to protect myself from his wraith.   If your Canadian and have to deal with the CRA (our IRS), you’ll know that they can be to the point, but generally are well mannered and trained in customer relations. Richard was not. I remember when he first answered the phone, “Internal Revenue Service, what do you want?” Loud, aggressive, and kind of scary. I was taken a back and tried to satiate his fury by meekly asking if he could this poor Canadian. His demeanour didn’t change, but told me what I was missing. First I needed a note from Fastpencil, which hit me as kind of weird as this means that you could not get one if you are a self starter.   I knew that getting a timely response from Fastpenicl was going to be an issue.  But Richard assured me that if I dropped Fastpencil a line and said that the IRS said it had to get done, that it would get done.   So I contacted Fastpencil through Twitter....and the letter got done nearly instantly.    The second thing Richard told me was puzzling.  They preferred colored certified copies of the Passport...which the Canadian passport peoples didn't even offer me and pretty sure I hadn't seen this requirement in the IRS ITIN FAQ.    So, what the heck could I do?   

Continued in part 2.

Hell on Wheels, now that its Done

This is going to be a long track I'm going to lay today

Tonight I said goodbye to Hell on Wheels after what seems a short five years and I well dearly miss it.  I've had a strange relationship with westerns over the years.  I never really had a love with John Wayne movies, they always seemed a little propaganda-ish, to much flag waving (but perhaps that's because I'm Canadian), and oddly clean and sedate.  Its not that I don't respect the old era Westerns with their real stunts and tough shoots, but Wayne was never really my thing.   No, my poison was spaghetti westerns, in my mind as a kid that was how the west really was.  Dirty, violent, and bad dubbing on the back drop of Italy.   They also introduced to me the concepts that I really didn't have word for until much, much later in life.  The Anti-Hero and the sympathetic Villain (well not in every case).

And than it came..my biggest hook and my favorite western of all time and one of my all time favorite movies.  Which, I know is actually based on a Japanese movie that I've only ever sadly come across once...but that's a different tale for a different day.

If your not sure what Hell on Wheels
draws on...well even the promo pic...

And this why I love Hell on Wheels.  It feeds into the grittiness, yet with just enough levity and substance to keep you afloat.  Characters have clear motivations, but are mysterious enough to spark your curiosity.  You even find yourself rooting for the villains quite often, despite yourself.

But instead of step by step analysis of the series,  I'll highlight some of my favorite milestones and yes, some of its lows.   of course this is all from memory, so bear with me...whoops let that one slip.

The Good

Set/Design:  If ever someone tries to tell me just how wonderful the wild west was, were a man could be man and all that other gibberish, I'll show them this series.  I also gladly hold them down as we cauterize their wound with cheap liquor and gun powder before taking some dirty forceps and pulling the bullet out.  DAMN I love the look and feel of this series.  However, unlike that other AMC series, there is a sense of hope over the long horizon, you can just reach it...even smell it...just before it flies away.  But not far enough to give up.  When the final spike goes in (no that's not a spoiler that's history, albeit alternate history on the show) there was a sense of relief that washes over you that had been building up over nearly half a decade.   Real sets, real stunts, real dirt also gives it a strange connection to the Wayne and golden age era of westerns, making Hell on Wheels at times...a little romantic.   Bravo for finding the balance between grit and beauty.

Anson Mount  What's there to say about the man you weren't sure you should be rooting for in episode one to the man who cries at the grave of his dead friend that he....and I won't spoil it any further.  Anson has that southern, genuine (check is IMBD, its legit) charm and in the character of Cullen, the biggest puppy dog eyes you'll ever see on a bad ass.  When he cried. which was rare, I always had a manly tear in my eye as well.  And when he was brought to anger, the skies seemed to calm for the forthcoming storm.  My true hope is he doesn't get typed cast, though sadly that means he'll have to shave those wonderful chin whiskers.   Also Alberta might want to adopt him in real life to go kick some ass and promo our on again/off again movie industry as demonstrated in his wonderfully put together letter HERE  Also will hire him to kick the Calgary Herald's ass if they take down this link.

Christopher Heyerdahl  I have made the classical fan error watching this series and to the actor I apologize.  But it was kind of his fault doing his job too well.  I didn't know his real name (I think I kind of knew it, because credits, but always tried to ignore them).   I didn't know his filmography or his background.  I actively tried to avoid it.  I didn't want to know until last season.    I just wanted to figure out the enigma that was the Swede on my own.  Was he a deranged man  driven by obsession or perhaps he was he simply symbolic or perhaps he really was the devil.   At first I kind of found the character a little cartoony...not in a bad way, but in that spaghetti western "this will be your real villain to make sure you know to root for the anti-hero" kind of way.  But as the seasons passed, I was strangely drawn to him, letting my guard down to his smile and sarcastic wit.  Until he drew blood, time and time again....until the end.

Colm Meaney Must be careful that this doesn't turn into the Colm Meaney can rule the world and that would be just fine rant.  But I do find it strange that he came to my attention in a little show called Star Trek DS9 merely a year after Unforgiven came out.  Coincidence?  Yeah, of course it is.  Anyways, how do you make the underhanded proto-car salesman doomed to failure because of his own greed likable?  Well, make his motives clear and don't make him evil.  He's human like you and me, he's just driven.  He's the mold for American Capitalism, but with all its dirt intact rather than sanitized by time and myth.  And despite his drive and ambition he does have a heart, its just hidden behind a rough exterior and often poor judgement.

I should also mention Robin McLeavy whose story as Eva could have easily been the focus of the series.  For the longest time I thought her acting was a little wooden, not because of her as an actor, but because her character writing seemed a little one note.  But it was a slow, very slow burn, for her arc to develop. And even if was a side story, it was natural, powerful and ultimately mirrored Cullen's own journey... and get this was actually based on a real person..though her story is mentioned in passing from time to time.  See the real Eva here, though additional fact checking is in order.   Her relationship with Colm's character was also a breath of fresh air, being completely Platonic and provided opportunity of humanization of both character.

I'll stop gushing over the cast here, not because the rest are bad because they are not, just getting time to mosey on. Okay just a few more.  Particularly the roles of Common and Dohn Norwood  come up a high water marks, and not wanting to spoil it, one leaves the series far too soon.

The Bad

Whiplash:  Again spoiler free, but season enders for the series always had issues of just ending with something completely out of the blue happening.  Season one was great, but a few seasons had my head spinning.

Mormons:  One of these whiplash moments came with the entrance of the Mormons through such a sudden change in tone and focus  I thought I had missed half a season somewhere.  Its not that they were present poorly, it kind of felt force and quite off the rails.  However, it did give us, what I swear is proof of magical resurrection, Brigham Young...shiver. 

African Americans:  I've seen some discussions of the black workers depicted in the series, that despite being freed slaves, where "too free" and had too much influence on the day to day operations.  Also seen complaints that the racism that they surely felt day to day, hour by hour was mitigated or overlooked in the series.   From TV scripting perspective I understand why they did this, but it does ruin quite a lot of the realism.  Also with the exception of Elam (Common) and Psalms (Norwood) we don't really get to know the black characters in detail, they are after all side characters, which was  disappointing. 

Women:  Okay, unlike the other series on HBO, women in Hell on Wheels certainly had a better presentation.  But I could see argument being made, that like the black characters, that the women's lot in life was lifted higher than what reality actually allowed.  And like in many male centered series and movies, women were also often used to give the males motive for action, particularly for our main character.  Its an old trope, and is getting a little worn in my mind.

Series End and Trimming:  Its odd that I wanted the series to end with the golden spike.  The wrap up episode was okay, but it did too much of "everyone goes off to their new adventures" trope, leaving to many new threads, we know will go nowhere.  Its kind of bad of me to actually want a secured happy ending for Cullen...and yes I know this more John Wayne-less Clint Eastwood, but it would have been nice.   There was also a few episodes over its run that could have cut, a few story lines could have been trimmed to tighten up the overall story.  But, thus is the lot of TV.

The Ugly

Okay, happily there isn't much.

Season Delays:  Now, I'm no idiot, filming the series was more than likely quite tough for the crew.  Its something I really have put my tongue back and realize if I want real sets and stunts that it takes time and money.   But the delay between seasons did get a little frustrating.  Particularly between this last season and former two season, I was ever so thankful for its Netflix release because I had to go back and watch a couple of episodes to remember what happened.   However, Anson's letter (HERE again) might actually shed light of why some of the delays may have occurred.  Thus, I direct people to Netflix to watch it, and wonder if full sit will make the series better or bring out more of its flaws.

Native Americans:   They really tried hard to cover the native perspective here and there, but it was piecemeal and always returned to the mean.  Natives where the enemy, savage, unpredictable, and without characterization.  Decidedly too often the natives in Hell on Wheels come across like those during the golden era westerns.    A side story, which we will never see, from the native perspective would be great.

Bear:  I really don't want to spoil it.  But if you watch it or have watch, you know just how wince inducing "bear" is.  It is odd that the biggest whiplash led to the biggest emotional moment of the series.

The final Spike...its Done

So despite its bad and ugly, for me the good comes out on top and makes Hell on Wheels a must watch for any western fan, which is where maybe I should have stopped in the first place.  Now I'll go back to trying to figure out if I can get Cullen Bohannan and William Money to somehow cross paths in my alternative history in my head.   

So farewell to the cast and crew of Hell on Wheels, we'll see you down the tracks soon. 

Street Fighter V...a few months later

So I've put this off until I thought they had a satisfactory amount of updates to consider it a full game. So now that the story mode is in and the number of playable characters is feeling nice, its time to talk about this.

I got the pre-order bundle for a cool $100 Canadian, which is a lot more than I normally pay for games, but as a fighting game fan it was easy buy.  Sadly my Ryu figure is no longer staying on his stand, otherwise his build quality is pretty good...not perfect...but good.   Other extras included e-comics and some game music codes, all of which are satisfactory.

As usually with these types of packs, and perhaps the reason it might be my last (okay King of Fighters is coming in the fall so that might be my last) is that they rarely include the season pass/DLC for the stuff I should have gotten for the 1/3 of the cost of my system I paid.  But the SFV season pass was one of the most reasonable to date (about $25 cnd), so that was an easy up sell for them since many season passes are just as expensive as the game themselves.

You can find the full history of the game Here on the Wiki because I'm way too lazy to retread over things people already know or have talked about.  Needlessly to say, their slow early sales might have been due to lack of character selection and other content which they have lived up to to their promises to add.

Pros
SFV is close enough to SFIV and still feels enough like the classic Street Fighter games of old, that its not that hard to pick up and play for old folks like me.  However, small changes where made to many characters and there is a bit of a learning curve.

The V-trigger system is great and adds a ton of tactics to the the game.  Getting rid of the clunky ultimate gauge from SFIV was my favorite change, and the return to the more simple power meter (Critical Arts gauge) was welcomed with open arms.

Its hard to tell the difference...but that's not a bad thing.

While the cast of characters was extremely limited early on, the hope is that they made the game open architecture enough to keep expanding the roster until the cows come home.

As a huge thumbs up, I actually went back to play the old games with a character I was never drawn too because of SFV...that being Rainbow Mika.  She is now my favorite character in the new game.  Good Job!

The style of the of the game is much like that in SFIV and Street Fighter vs. Tekken, though a little cleaned up.

Most of the moves and fighting is fluid and relatively easy to pick and play, but with just enough tricks to keep you learning....with a huge caveat coming up later.

Cons
The modes are the same old, same old as seen time and time again, for good and ill. Challenge mode is my personal nemesis.  Its terrible that I have been playing SF since the heady arcade days, but challenge mode vexes me the most. Perhaps its my reaction times, perhaps its my PS4 wireless controllers, but getting 100% in some of the challenges is neigh impossible for me.    Some of the challenges have proved quite valuable for some gameplay, while others have exposed me to attacks and more wiffing.    Perhaps, it's just me not being able to rise my game.

Survival mode gets tough real fast, and really needs a save and load function when an hour passes and getting only close to finishing the challenge.

Individual story modes are short and disappointing, at least "arcade story" mode added something to look at that lasted more than two or three battles.

Online...I was so excited for cross platform with PC (disappointed no Xbox version or cross platform) as ushering in a new era.  Sadly, in many cases I found those playing from the PC side, moving and acting faster than the AI, and doing repeat combo chains that might be either a) awesome players with good skills or b) hotkeying actions.   However, the PC issue and other issues I have had of not connecting moves, while the other player goes nuts could be the Displaylag. Perhaps PC might have some differences compared to PS4.

However, there is real lag occurring, including jittering, sprite jumping, and on and on.  While this again might be on my side, compared to SFIV, Injustice and even games like Star Wars Battlefront, SFV can be a sick slug moving through freezing molasses.

While with a season pass some things in the store are provided to me, while most things require to earn fight money or spend additional real money....so micro-payments for a full priced fighting game.    Fight money as a concept is a not an issue for me if done properly.  I had hoped SFV would learn from the Krypt mistakes of MKX,  but honestly its worse and feels like some casual app game, though those are free to play to start.

While there are some fight money tricks, as Seen Here, it saddens me that one comparison is replaying the new story mode is equal to 1600 online matches...check that...winning 1600...WTF.   OH that's only if you don't get an error 4000 and don't get your fight money, which happens about 1-out-of-5 times...so 1900 wins need than for an major unlock.

Lastly, I dislike the fighter profile card for online, where you cannot choose a character or stange random before a match.  That to change characters you have to exit out of searching, change it, and reenter.  Its cumbersome.  You can do random in the lobbies, you can't see if other players are doing it, so its a bit of a loss of a game play element that I enjoyed in the past.  You don't earn fight cash in the lobby matches, so the incentive for going there is really low.

Conclusions
So to buy?  If you're into full out tournaments, buying all the extras (including perhaps a nice fighting stick), like specializing in a niche and a Street Fighter fan, this is your game.  I do like elements of SFV and will endeavor to get better in it and try to figure a way around some of its weirdness.  But as an entry level fighting game for new or casual players, I suggest wait for another price drop (one already) and avoiding online with any connection of less than 5 bars.

Value:  $$$  ($$$$ with price drop +season pass;  $ when they introduce the zenny (real money for additional game elements)).

Enjoyment:  ^___^  to  "0__0"

Diablo Alternatives

So one of my favorite games of all time, that I still have the disks for, was Diablo II.   I played the crap out of it, used the game editor/hack to make it crazier, and like so many was enthralled by it.    When Diablo III was released I impulsively went out to buy it...for PS3.  Hush, I know, bad me for using my system!   Anyways, since I didn't get the PC version, I have no idea what happened on that end.  I heard they had some server issues at the start, but that didn't affect PS3 at all which was nice for a change.  I did however have the issues that many others had: no multi-player, seemingly limited level lengths, and indeed repetition.  Honestly the original was repetitious as well, so that's a bit of a null agruement for me.  It was also one of the last semi-affordable games I brought for PS3 before gettting a PS4 which ushered in the $80 game era, so I was pretty happy to treat it as the equivalent of buying mindless shovelware.

Should have been advertised as "Redux" o"Redo"  "Reprint"
or "Rebuy this because we totally messed up and trust you
to pick up the bill" Edition

Than they released the expansion.  It suddenly came clear to me that  I had purchased the wrong version of Diablo as the PS3 expansion, both disk and download was not an expansion.  It was full price reprint with the all the missing nuts and bolts added in.   If I had been offered a coupon for the new game or fair trade in for the original disk (which tanked prices locally because of the new "upgrade") I might of have said yes.   But, I will not pay again because someone messed up putting in closed architecture or other problems that prevented an actual expansion DLC for PS3.  Nope, no sale, sorry.    So I was stuck what was my alternatives?

Dungeon Hunter
Ah, Diablo's little clone...I mean cousin.  I actually had the first version and despite its sub-par
graphics, some glitches and limitations, I loved it, and it cost a fraction of Diablo.  With its transfer to portable devices, I had to wait to get an upgraded portable before playing it again.  DH IV is my recommendation for anyone looking to play it, Its fast paced, balanced, and while it does have some micropayment and "earn gems" nonsense, its an easy play.   I just started DH V, from the Win 10 store, which looks pretty good graphically, but has lots of issues.  It no longer has the class system, powers are based on weapons and items which skews its gameplay quite a bit.   Micropayments are EVERYWHERE, and while you can earn gems and the like, it has way to many parts that will definitely bring your gameplay to a grinding halt at higher levels unless you fork over cash.  And while a subscription (really? for shovelware?) is available to remove some barriers, at the time of writing this the chest store (where you use all those gems) is totally broken, with no messages on their site or boards of any notions of the issue or if they are looking into it.   And despite many players offering fixes (none of which have worked for me) any notions of supporting it with cash are now completely abandoned.  You do not spam me "buy this pack for $30.00" while your store is broken and think I'll trust any purchases with your company.     Value: $ with broken store, $$$ when fixed  Enjoyment:  ">__<"  

Gauntlet Slayer Edition
Oh man, when I saw this on the PS store for $14 Canadian, I pounced.  I'm old enough to remember
playing Gauntlet 2 in the arcade, a lot.  But instead of a pick up arcade hack and slash, slayer edition was different.  It has power unlocks and upgrades, weapon optimization and other common dungeon tropes.  However, those are actually good additions I quite enjoy.  What is a bit bad is its dull brown graphics, a camera that is just a little to far out and fonts WAY too small to read from more than

Blurry and out of focus because of crappy
camera on phone.  Yep.
Pretty much the same when playing.
Yep.

1 inch from the TV and...I don't know...just missing something.  There is also a surprising learning curve, which each class having a different controller layout.  While I get why they did this, it makes playing the game not very intuitive or arcade like.  However, I still play it and spent money on the Necromancer, which totally kicks ass.    Value: $$$   Enjoyment:  V__V


Mages and Minions

Well here's my new love from the app store.  Its pretty much what I had hoped that Gauntlet was going to be, quick paced, colorful, a little retro, and easy to pick and play for a few minutes than back to work.  Unlike all the others, this is strictly designed for touch screen, so just touch to move and attack.  Powers are activated by drawing shapes on the screen over your enemies or targeted areas, so

OMG color not washed out browns pretending
to be HD.  Stay true Mages and Minions.

drawing "V" or "Z" with your finger will activate different powers.  you get companion AI slots, your minions, that further grant powers (like the Z draw power) and aid you in battle with unique powers.  It uses shards to upgrade weapons (like Diablo simplified runes), as well as fusing lower level weapons together.  It pretty much has all the tropes you'd expect.  It uses a gem system as well to purchase some store items and speed up item and power upgrades (which are by far the worse part of the game...90 hours to max level my chain lightning...what up!  At least I can still play as it does so).  Gems can be purchased, picked up randomly (a few here and there) and from watching ads from loot boxes.  Now this sounds bad, but honestly compared to other games its pretty harmless.  If you don't want the 5 gems from watching an advert, you may ignore the loot box and never get the popup, which is great!  View enough adverts and they stop popping up in loot boxes for a while, revealing other treasure.  It's great model for other companies to mimic for soft selling over hard selling.  Its lack luster graphics, limited classes (only 2), lack of multiplayer are its major flaws...plus the carpal tunnel I think I'm getting from playing it.  I also, so far, have found it a little to easy, but otherwise  I recommend a try.    Value: $$$$   Enjoyment:  ^__^

T.V. Purgatory

So here is a common massive rant that all viewers are aware of...you missed your favorite show because the network changed its time at the last second.   Because you have to go out and earn that cash the cable company and advertisers so desperately need, you totally missed the advert telling you where it went and it totally slipped your mind to spend every waking hour paying attention to any changes.  But no problem, you have a PVR and your buddy has the new improved expensive version as well, so you got all your bases covered.  However, the network didn't send out a "new" signal for the show or some other electronic curse prevented it from recording your show the second time around.  So when your watch day comes up a week later, there is no sign of the season ender you'd really like to watch.

Just in case you don't know what Beta or VCR is,  this is what
I grew up with as a kid.  It was back at this time that
networks and advertisers tried to make it illegal
to record shows; though they lost in the supreme
court they still long for the day that you
quite your job and stay home to watch their shows,
 because they really need you not to fast
forward through their commercials that
they claim don't actually influence your purchasing
decisions with the money you don't have because you
stayed home to watch their shows.
Hypocrisy never changes. 

Now if my PVR was a VCR or Beta back in the day and I missed my show, because this problem is far from being new, I would have to wait for repeats or be completely screwed.  But this isn't the 80's, its the 21st century, I got the internet.

So loyal to my show and truly wanting to legally support it with my money, which I honestly have tried to do,  I go to the network site a week or two later and get my favorite thing as a Canadian, "this show is not available in your region."

Ahh, Bell and Rogers, our two biggest cable outlets, I smell your monopolization spraying all over the concept of consumer choice and buyer beware.  What makes me sad is the ads on the sites are pretty much exactly the same on TV, the same company in both the US and Canada, so why the block, your still being paid.  But they want you to go to the site of the Canada network they purchased, you are not allowed to watch the show from its original producer that has put it up legally for free.

Ok I will watch your commercials...doing
house cleaning or laundry. Or should I tie
myself to my couch my lord telecom? 

Past experience with this has taught me that my show on the Canadian network site is unreliable for release.  I also know full well and accept that I will need to watch the ads to support my show, FINE.

 But the site is really bad for auto play side ads that interfere with the show, unskippable ads measuring 5 to 10 minutes long and eating up so 90% of my CPU memory when I go there.  So time for Adblock sadly, however they have a adblock blocker, so my show will not come up.

So options:  wait and pay for it on I-Tunes, wait for Netflix (Canadian so probably not), take 2 hours to watch a 1 hour show on the regional site, use a virtual IP to watch on the original site (which our cable companies are fighting successfully make illegal and perhaps serving more time in jail than actual fraud for violating), hope for a rerun that may never come, or download it illegally.

And like so many, you can guess which option we had to go for.   And honestly I actually felt bad about it.

Its sad, because this is the death of TV that has always been marching on for the last 30 years.  Or is it?    What is odd that some of the best produced shows in history have occurred in the  last few years at least in my opinion.  In the late 90s and early 2000s reality TV and networks not wanting to pay writers more than fast food workers, plus the rise of truly illegal copyright issues almost killed TV...but it survived.

While many smaller networks took hits and here in Canada where absorbed by big telecom companies in the most glorious example of conflict of interest in my life time, TV came back.   While procedural crime dramas still dominate the market and reality TV is used to justify the higher channel numbers, there are a number of show that really try to make an effort of being actually good.  So in a weird way TV has sort of had its second coming, but well it last?

Now in real free market capitalism, I the consumer have the right to choose what I purchase and from who I purchase it from.  So naturally I really would love to get rid of the channels and networks that have filled the air with what I consider crap and only keep the stuff I like.  But, since the beginning cable packages have forced me to take one good network along with a list of stuff I don't care for.

Here in Canada, cable companies have been arguing against the consumer choice and the free market, claiming that we should not have the right to choose individual channels or even individual shows.   At the behest of the CRTC companies here where forced to make skinny cable packages.  And the result was a below bare bones package of crap and an a la cart system that is terrible.  And to "promote" this new system and their own streaming services the big companies have pushed to restrict Netflix here in Canada and increase its cost.   They, like telecoms in the states, have also been pushing to get rid of net neutrality and honestly sometimes sound like that consumers need to be forced to buy their products.  Of course this is to maintain revenue, but it is the typical hypocrisy you see when the  free market affects them.

So what is the future of TV and internet viewing in Canada than?  Is TV dead?  No, because the free market's reigning in (by the companies that claim to live by it) well force it to continue and prevent new models from replacing it.  Without change, here in Canada will be dominated by less than ethical consumer methods, and cable TV well be bundled  in such a way to force us to take it or live off the grid.  Television will become stagnet, but unable or unwilling to change or natural die off...becoming TV purgatory.

The future face of Canadian media consumers

Tai Chi Zero....just weirdly awfulsome

Okay back to gaming stuff later.

Today,  Tai Chi Zero (0)

I picked this up as a lark at one of the fine local used DVD/Music/game places around town.  Despite having the internet, I still like to support the local guys on occasion and totally promote that habit for everyone out there.    I spotted a most wicked DVD cover with only a few English words on it, but it looked like Kung Fu, it looked straight from Hong Kong, it was the only one on the self.  So I had no choice, I had to buy it.  

Here's the trailer that makes the most sense of what the movie is about...

Here's the box cover that lured me in.

Awesome right!  Damn, I'd killed see this on the Imax 3D, be like Sharknado on a budget.

I love alternative historical fictions, and this one takes place in around 1800 or so, I think.    The primary issue with the copy I got (bootleg maybe?)  is that the subs are so terrible, that it makes google translate look like the perfect option for getting a doctorate degree in studying ancient original source text.
 
Put the movie on, right at the beginning, and here's what  I get:

Our scene: classic battle between two warring kingdoms is going down on a very pretty green screen, we know who is most likely going to be our heroes from how the shot is being established.   

 General to troops:  "old Zu Tianwei, Paul my magic.   Brethren and discomfited enemy soldiers.   Won the capital, a large number of flour can enjoy the endless.   Kill!"

WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!!     please tell me there's a better sub of this somewhere....or maybe not.
The sub dialog is a mess beyond all reason.   I'm sure a literal translation was done by someone unable to give it context, grammar or anything else.  Which makes me kind of sad, since they clearly spent some coin on the movie, a bit more for better subbing would have been nice.  But, I kind of love the insane wacky translations and being able to follow the story through just its shots and scenes....which honestly is what every movie should have.

So without doing the whole movie scene by scene, or some massive plot synopsis (that's what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_Chi_0 is for), I'll give a quick overview of the parts I love about this corny movie.  

So a young man, with demonic pimple energy (the hows and whys are conveyed through a silent movie backstory with only Chinese text and no subs! awesome, love it) finds himself in the army  and his super power being exploited.  When you hit the pimple, he hulks out and even with his apparent substandard martial arts, he kicks lots of ass matrix style for a few moments before zonking out.

However, the more he uses it, the closer the death he becomes (because it becomes closer to being a big blackhead that might pop?  who knows!)  Thus a wise doctor tells him he must go find better training, a special type of boxing (Kung Fu) that will help him center his energies and a master who may save his life by controling his pimple power.    WAIT...is this the basic plot for Into the Badlands...nah its kind of the plot for 1000+ Kung Fu movies.

Angelababy...actress, model, business woman

Our Hero ends up in the this secretive village (after the half animated/half live action, stop and start credit sequence finally finishes at the 15 minute mark!  YES, Thank you) where no one will give him the time of day when he asks to see the master.  For you see (as we'll learn later) you don't teach the secret old ways to outsider.

 He meets up with a very gorgeous young woman, played by Angelababy (oh mononyms, you know no cultural boundaries)  who turns out to be a doctor...and a master boxer trained in the old traditions...and in reality our real hero.    So lets forget about our loser protagonist and get to the real plot.  

and will happily kick your ass
with a smile.

The East Indian Trading Co.  really wants to put a railroad through China, and in particular put a stop in our secret village (which at one point gets an Chinese language overlay of all the buildings, as if looking for quest giver point in a MMORPG).

The leading voice for this industrious change  is a top hot wearing man who is betrothed to our Kung Fu doctor.  He has returned to the village after being away, not only to bring western tech to a village that doesn't know what electricity is, but to prove to the elders and the locals (who clearly once bullied him mercilessly) that as an outsider he is worthy.    But after a failure of his electricity demo, he is clearly not worthy, and after loosing face he leaves the village and our girl behind (Idiot).  

Little Girl, Perfect Combo...lots of point racked up on the KO.
I think the movie tracks the points...or knock back distance

 So back to wacky hi-jinks as pimple head tries to find the master and some really, really random fighting game references breakout as he tries to sneak back into town (seriously, see the pic and trailer) after being told to get out and go home.   He by proxy is slowly picking up the secret boxing by getting his ass handed to him, and finally gets picked up by "long term employment uncle" (my next character name) who subtly helps him out.  Can you guess who the old pipe smoking philosopher turns out to be...  So Yadda, yadda, back to the real plot once again.  

So old top hat is back, and evil (who knew a British trained turncoat wanting imperial western expansion would turn out to be evil!  Faint!)  He now has vengeance in mind after loosing face.   And this time he isn't just bringing a train to town, oh no, he's bringing the train through town...with....this.....

So its about here I'm going to stop.   Seriously.  If you like "its so bad its good", you really need to sit down and watch it.  Because from here, stuff gets serious....weird.....er....ish...     But basically our  hero tries to stop That Thing, by getting in and literally throwing a wrench in it... And its actually our female lead who shows up (girl gets some props for not once needing rescuing and taking the initiative) and is the one that really figures out how to p'wn it dead.   And..... no, no I'll quit here for real this time.

Because in how this movie's subs would put it:  "farther you go, the less it comes, so no go now here and look it.  Bye and away."    

Value: $$$$$  (I got for like $7.00 used so yes!)
Enjoyment:   0__o  ---> ^___^  Even though this is was a 2012 movie, this will be this year's Mr. X for me.


OHHHH there's a sequel out there too, because huge cliff hanger.

So...5e

Again been a while.  Been busy trying to figure out the business options for my Novel and what I want to do about it.   Also been playing with a possible conversion for DRev out of 3.5 into....5th!     Yes, 5e is now SRD. Well call me surprised that in the world of locking everything behind a copyright door or hiding behind a paywall that this is mostly in the open.  Lessons learned from 4e I guess.  You can find it here:  http://www.5esrd.com/home
 

There are definitely things from 5e I really like, by far the best thing is the easy to understand proficiency system for virtually everything.    Your proficient with longswords according to your character sheet?  Cool what level are you, 5, cool,  proficiency gives +3, add your strength mod and your good to go.  Works for everyone and everything.

The other is Advantage and Disadvantage.   Roll two d20 and take the highest or take the lowest.  Done and done...okay it does have some issues at higher levels as power and situations granting Adv. or Dis.  start to become more common, but since they cancel each other out, all these cool effects will have the possibility having no effect at all.    My idea to help with this issue is use coins or tokens to track Adv. or Dis.  and whichever piles up more will apply, maxing out piles at 3 a piece.     So let's take melee attacks for an example.  You gain Adv. with melee attack, put a red token (or whatever you choose) somewhere that clearly represents your melee attack.    However, you take Dis. from some situation, putting a blue token in place, indicating now that you have neither Adv. or Dis.  You than activate another power that grants you further Adv. with one specific melee attack action on your turn, granting a tempory red token and once again gaining Adv. at least until your attack resolves and the token is once again lost.    This will however might be only an optional rule to ensure streamlining is kept in mind. 

Keeping in the mind of streamlining  a huge couple of questions come to mind.

The first my partner in crime has mused about in the past, Lumping or Spliting for stuff?

The concept in 5e that you have certain tools or tool kits that are required for certain actions.   Instead of writing down that you have a pan, tinder, lighter, some cooking oil, salt, pepper, a plate, fork and knife...you can simply say you have a cooking kit.    So can we just eliminate the giant equipment list....or does that destroy the flavor of our world and ruin player engrossment?    its one the greatest fights in RPGs in the last 20 year for sure.   For DRev 5e which way do we go?

Than there is the idea of general or specific weapons and armor.   5e SRD still goes mainly specific, such as picking up a short sword and leather armor...though if you pick up a shield...its just a shield.  So one of the ideas we we're playing with is general weapons, and in my mind even eliminating things like payload for ammo.  


Here's a new idea for DRev 5e if we go general. 

Name	TIER	Damage	Range	RoF	Reload
Light Pistol	1	1d8	20/60	Normal	6
Medium Pistol	2	2d4	30/90	Normal	5
Heavy Pistol	3	2d6	30/90	Normal	4
Energy Pistol	4	2d6	50/150	Auto	3

So until we decide on the cost thing, we may just stick with our TIER system for virtually everything, though we could use our own version of the 5e rarity version, that I’ll look at in the next blog. 

Range will use the 5e rule, nice streamlining.

Rate of Fire (ROF)  is simply going be labeled as normal, auto or how often it can be used.  Once/two rounds for example.   We’ll examine of really streamlining auto.    Autofire can Burst (-2 to attack, does one additional shot of damage, but cannot do critical damage) or Spray (hits 10 foot area, targets in area make Dex save contested by your attack roll to take half damage.  Can only be used once per round).    

The newest idea I’ve been playing with is a Reload number.  If your attack roll is less than this number the weapon becomes empty of shots, meaning you will have to reload it as a bonus action or reaction.  You will keep track of how many reloads you have rather than having x number of bullets.    So I might have 3 light pistol reloads.  If my attack roll is less than 5, I get one shot off and than will have to take a reaction or action to use one of my reloads for the pistol.       Not sure if this is good idea or not and I know other systems have tried this as a way to streamline weapon use and minimizing what players have to track.  This would even apply for bows and crossbows and the like.   You can also roleplay the reload rate as fussy weapon designs and the like. 

In the next blog, I think I’ll look at the most controversial idea, eliminating gold…...

Windows 10. A few months and counting

Sometime in the fall I took the Windows 10 high contrast pill.  And at first I loved it.  It was pretty and I might be one of the few old timers growing up on DOS and than early windows systems that really, really like the tiles feel of it.  Easy to set up, nice on the eyes.  There was also the promise of more streamed functionality and an app store that could compete with google play.  And the upgrade was free!   NICE!    I was all in.   So off I went on my journey through the new windows.     I think I might have got cut.   

So Edge.   YEAH I KNOW no one ever uses windows IE neener neener.  For years I have rebelled against this notion, I like IE, there I said it.   And the idea of an updated version that might have some the options available to Firefox and Chrome while still keeping its simplicity and stability (at least compared to the version of Firefox I have somehow got to stop working completely even after a reinstall) made me a happy man.   But man it's a beast of something else.   

Right now its only doing 1% CPU use and about 2.5% memory which is beyond awesome, but it has weird spikes of 25% or more depending on what I am up to.    However, this not an Edge issue, this is a windows 10 issue as we will discuss.  

So right now as I a type in Edge in the blog, because I forgot to open it as "Internet Explorer" mode  I can't post screen caps or pics, or links, or anything.   So I can't show you my screen cap of my memory use.  Nor can I open my google docs since this triggers a seizure inducing flicker that does not end until I close the tab.    Clearly this is either a major flaw of Edge or a screw you to Google from Microsoft.   If somehow the second is true, than Hurray Coorporations are indeed people....their toddlers.  But considering the red underline I'm getting for incorrect spelling for the last 2 paragraphs as I write this up I think its the latter (so no screen caps of that either.

When I first got Win 10, I pretty much convinced myself it was window dressing, pretty much a skin you added on with a few minor tweaks.   However, this notion came crashing down as a pack of Win 7 files where segerated or even duplicated in new files.  So for some my older programs I had to redig to find them manually since their links where broken on the desktop.  That was weird.   

Than there are the capatability issues, both backwards, forwards, up down and around.   Campaign Cartographer needed a full uninstall, the installation of CC3+ and the expensive token packs I got still don't want to install...so hurray!  

For Eddge, some site (again like the blog here) kind of run...wonky.  It's not so much they won't run because its acting like a spoiled apple browser hating on certain scripts, its just sometimes a little off.  And not extension or add-on seems to exist to help, just the "open in IE" opition....which makes Edge useless?  

Than there is my much loved security software, Vipre.  I have had a lifetime subscription to them for a long while, and on Win 7, it ran clean and low resource.  And while I know its not exactly windows fault (maybe), Its now running 29% or more all the time.  So now I need to find a new one that I trust, and from what I found, many others have the same issue, even with better CPU speeds.   

Than there is Cortana, stupid stupid Cortana.  Yeah, I've turned her off 3 times manually, but after a windows update she keeps popping back on eating up processor power like nothing else.  Even after a RAM upgrade she's still eating the wrong memory.  So I turned her off with the Regedit trick...yes regedit in my new streamlined family/grandpa/ma friendly OS trying to compete with apple products.   FAIL.   And guess what, after the longest Windows Update I think I have had since the time of dial up, she came back on again....so what??    

Then there's all memory issues with both Edge and Chrome.   Chrome in my opinion has been always a memory hog, but 45% for youtube vidoes...what the hell.   In Win 7, it never seemed this high. 

Next is the store.  Honestly I have actually gotten some pretty good stuff off of it, but I am very, very wary of credit carding anything on it, so pay cards for it at the 7-11 store down the way soon I hope.   But it does seem a little barren, and I didn't see an easy way to upload stuff.   This means they must have a vetting/vendor process not privy to the general public or I haven't bothered looking for.   Google makes it look so easy, but I can't give MS too  much grief.  It's a good way to content control.  But is does mean the store looks sparse and bit unloved.  

So other than a few other annoyances like the sticky "click for office 365" (NO I will not pay you yearly or micro payments for my office program that you might randomly shutdown or put on your cloud without my permission TYVM)  am I satasified with it?     

Good stuff?  I still love the home panels for surfing my PC, I find easy on my brain for some reason, and really like it.   The new mail and calendar stuff is really nice and modern, though oddly sometimes I have to go back to use the 2012 MS desktop mail once and while.  And please, please rename "People" back to "CONTACTS"  like the rest of the planet and stop trying to be a hipster.  Oh and put a link for it in, you know, the MAIL program to reduce window clicking.  Also make it easier to synch with other platforms, like google or android so I can manage all my contacts there.  Geez.

V__V   Meh.    Certainly glad this wasn't a paid upgrade.   But sadly I'm too scared or lazy to step back.  If I go back to Win 7, how many of my recent adjustments get lost in hidden files?  And for just how long before they stop supporting Win 7 and I get seriously left behind like I did with vista and other past builds I kept maybe for way too long?   

$$$$   For the free stuff.      Zero $, for even the NOTION of paying ongong fees for the new office program.  I will not lease or rent my document editors. NO.