Delver's Puffball

     While in a discussion about available resources while trapped in a dungeon +Brett Slocum came up with an idea for an edible fungus called the Delver's Puffball. Although it was originally his idea I decided to post it here because my version is likely to differ from his and also as I use it in game I am planning on letting the details change as to let the idea grow.

Delver's Puffball 

Species:  Fungus
Growth Conditions: Almost Complete Darkness
Water: See Below
Appearance: Round with white mossy flesh and occasional green hues.
Size: Small fluffy bulbs as small as a marble but can grow larger then a horse. Usually just larger then a fist.
Toxicity: Edible but dangerous. Can be hallucinogenic.


     This fungus grows in very dark places and pulls the water out of the air and whatever surface it grows on. It can be found in surprisingly dry places such as old mine shafts as well as in natural caverns. It will usually grow near but not in a light source or thermal energy. Such as lava, glow worms or not far from a fire beetles nest. Some rumors claim they can be a sign of a nearby ancient energy source.


     When exposed to alot of moisture this fungus will grow brown spores that can be very deadly. It will spread at an alarmingly quick rate until nearly all of the water is absorbed. This does not seam to be it's naturally occurring growth pattern but it is hard to be certain as they are not found around moisture but may have already absorbed whatever moisture there was.

     It is for this reason that they are dangerous to eat. If even a single brown spore is ingested there is a chance of it maturing in the body. Within one night a person can be found dead covered in soft white and brown spores. Within two nights the body is gone leaving behind a dried skeletal structurer.

     However, if handled properly the Delver's Puffball can be quite safe. First check for brown spots thoroughly while wearing gloves and using a light source not much brighter then a lantern. Pick the Puffball carefully and avoid storing it near moisture. It is recommended you fry it in hot grease or butter as this can kill any spores. If sautéed in butter it becomes a firm delicious texture but if deep fried it can become crispy and easily snack able.

     Side Effects of eating this fungus include a greenish tint to your skin usually not noticeable for the first week of eating it. However as it builds up in your system being exposed to light can cause hallucinations. Some cases have become sever enough the subject couldn't stand the light of a torch or candle but most cases it takes bright sunlight to cause an adverse reaction.

     After approximately four days expose to sunlight the green tint to the subjects skin will dissipate and the hallucinogenic effect will have passed. During this time depending on how much has been consumed the effects can become very sever.

     There have been a few reports of Puffball junkies easily identifiable by there unusually green skin and wild behavior. It is recommended you avoid them and contact your local authorities.

Adventures Dark and Deep successfully funded

There are six days left to back Adventures Dark and Deep on Kickstarter and it has already reached it's goal of $6,500. So if your planning on getting the Players Manual theres no reason not to back it now you get all that extra artwork with your money.

Actually I am mostly excited just to see everything moving forward even more. Can't wait until the final printing. I just hope Joseph doesn't take as long as Justin Alexander is taking with Legends and Labyrinths. Not really Justin's fault but still the two products I want most I am waiting for patiently, and I'm not known for patience, lol.

Anyway just a random post I wanted to throw out and say yay, the artwork is funded. Now everyone come fund it some more, lol.

Only 7 days left for the Adventures Dark and Deep Kickstarter.

In case you haven't heard Adventures Dark and Deep written by Joseph Bloch is based on the premises of what would Advanced Dungeons and Dragons have been like if Gary Gygax had been allowed to continue developing it himself.

Joseph researched all the articles in dragon magazine and all the forums Gary posted on to gain any insight he could into what Gary would have done, such as how he would have streamlined combat and added classes like the Jester and Montebank.

Adventures Dark and Deep has gone through a two year playtest and all of the rules are finished. The kickstarter project is for funding more artwork. There are only 7 days left and it is nearly funded already. So check it out while you can. I will be getting the hard cover with a second soft cover for my players.

Adventures Dark and Deep and Lightfoot Halflings

Last night we were trying to convert a character from one edition of D&D to Adventures Dark and Deep. We ran into a few issues and worked out the kinks so I thought I would share what we have done.

3e Lightfoot Halfling

The character was a lightfoot halfling, the type you might expect by default in 3.x or one of the subraces from D&D Next. She was basically an assassin/jeweler at about 4^th level. Technically just a 4^th level rogue with an artisan background.

The first thing we ran into is we were not sufficiently satisfied with the Hairfoot, Stout or Tallfellow halflings as none of them seamed to us to be like a Lightfoot. There Hairfoot was closest but small things like a higher max constitution then dexterity reminded us of Hobbits more then Lightfoots.

So we made some changes and this is what we made. Remember that this includes our best understanding of ADD or 1E and then our own changes if I hear from Joseph Block about any changes I should make, I’ll likely make them.

Lightfoot Halfling:

Requirments:

Str 3-16 after a -1 penalty to strength

Dex 9-20* after a +1 bonus to dexterity

Con 3-17

Int 6-17

Wis 3 -18

Cha 6 -18

* The max of 20 I believe goes against the standard rules in ADD

Save vs wands, staves, rods, poison and spells is increases by the following:

con 4-6 +1, 7-10 +2, 11-13 +3, 14-17 +4, 18 and higher +5

Natural Stealth similar to elves, enemies get -2 (or -1 if opening doors is required) to surprise rolls as long as the Halfling is not wearing loud armor such as chainmail and is at least 90’ away from anyone who does not have natural stealth.

Languages: common and one other. Lightfoots do not have their own language. Halflings age only .75 as quick as humans. So in 20 years a Halfling is as developed as a 15 year old.

Level Caps:

Score               bard    cleric   fighter            mountebank  Druid

14                   5          4          4          6                      x

15                   6          4          4          6                      6

16                   7          4          4          7                      6

17                   8          5          -           8                      7

18                   9          6          -           9                      8

Unlimited Levels as Thief, Acrobat or Assassin

Can also be a mystic (cleric) or Jester (use mountebank max levels)

Jester/thief, cleric/fighter, cleric/thief, fighter/thief,

Height between 30 and 42 inches  (2’ 6” and 3’ 8”)

Weight between 52 and 72 pounds

-------------------------------------------------------------------

At first we tried to make the character an Assassin, this didn’t work well as it had a higher xp requirement potentially dropping her to level 2 if we followed that route but also the rogue skills didn’t start until level 4. We decided she was more like a rouge then.

After that the conversion went well with only one other hiccup. Being a jeweler would cost 3000 xp effectively placing her below level 1 if she spent that. This was an important point of her back-story. We could just use the 1e secondary skill rules, which provided little info.

But here is my thought on it:

Optional Rule: At first level a player may pick one secondary skill from the Adventures Dark and Deep Players Manual and will have a penalty of -10% experience until the effective cost of that skill is paid off.

At this point I have not offered the optional rule to the player yet. So I don’t have feed back from her.

On a side note the Kickstarter for the Adventure Dark andDeep Players Manuel is currently running. Please Support Joseph and reward us with lots of extra artwork and continuing development of this awesome game.

D&D Next: Future of Edition Wars.

For Many people the ideas behind D&D Next were exciting and appeared to be a chance to bring together many different play types and maybe bring a change to the conflicting world of Dungeons and Dragons editions. Most of this however was based on various promises by the development team.

“We saw an audience that had been divided by differences in editions and play styles, and wanted to design a version of D&D that all players could experience and enjoy” ~Mearls

I have been following D&D next as closely as I could as soon as I heard about it. I have joined in on the play test, read the blogs, and filled out the surveys and polls. Here is my opinion of what is going on in D&D next.

Wizards of the Coast Spoke very highly of these three things; finding what was common in every edition, establishing a strong and simple core and then adding in modularity.

In my opinion they are not doing this at all. First I’ll start with an example of not doing what is common in every edition. In at least three versions of D&D skills were optional, you could play completely without out them, with the exception of the rouge/thief. Currently in D&D next every class gets skills, every background gets skills and there is a skills specialty.

However maybe you could just cut all that if you wanted, right? Well that brings me to my next point every melee class gets Expertise Dice and practily every class feature is depend on these Expertise Dice, so to cut them would be cutting everything they currently have for the Fighter, Rouge and Monk. What makes it even worse is the Rouge is touted as being different from the fighter because he has Skill Mastery. So now skills are being used to balance classes against each other.

Sure maybe you could cut skills from all classes except the rouge and let them have skill mastery. But then lets not forget a lot of the rouges skills are not just “Rouge Skills” it could be Knowledge or Profession or Track it’s basically a complete list of 3.x skills with specific stat dependencies.

Well lets move on.

So what about these expertise dice, don’t like them and now every melee class doesn’t have their class features. Maybe you could play with no class maneuvers. Lets see you could rework sneak attack as that is now a maneuver and then remake the entire monk class and be left with a fighter who has no ability to cleave or precise shot. But that’s ok right not every fighter has to have maneuvers right, surely they even have an option for that. Nope every fighter has Expertise Dice if you don’t like it then rework the system yourself. Many people on the forums just say “well assume you use deadly strike every time.”

So for a straight and simple melee attacking fighter your either juggling when and how to use these special dice or at least assuming your spending them on Deadly Strike so for damage you’d be rolling something like 1d10 + 1d4 + Your Strength. That’s not too bad but certainly doesn’t look like a common thread throughout editions or a strong simple core.

Maybe you disagree with me though, maybe you think skills are a common thread and the Expertise Dice are a new way of handling common abilities. So lets move on again.

How about a very common thing like flanking or surprise, well in D&D Next this would give you advantage so Roll 2d20 and take the highest…..? Seriously roll 2d20 is a core rule for flanking and such. In what edition was this common? How about if your in a situation that’s bad were you would normally get a penalty; roll 2d20 and take the lowest. So unless your combat has nothing interesting going on your more then likely rolling two dice to hit. Sure you could just ignore it but as it stands that’s a core rule and has been for multiple playtest packets. I have seen no evidence that it will be bumped to being an optional rule, so you can’t just assume that either.

There are many examples of things like this but I’m going to give just one more. As it stands every current clerical healing spell works at range of 50 feet away. So cure light wounds is not a touch spell it is a power word that lets you heal your ally 50 feet away and still lets you attack that turn. This is the default option.

I have not seen any of these presented as optional or modular or any discussion from the development team saying that this is not their strong simple core. I see no common, strong simple core, and very little modularity. Even their critical hits are strange.

Maybe we will get lucky and by the end of the play test they will have a core that shows the common threads and simplest forms of D&D with options to adjust it to be what you want to play. But as it sits it is nothing more then an entirely new edition for which people will Edition War about!

My best judgment tells me this new edition will do nothing more the splinter the player base even further. I could go on with reasons why but this post is long enough already.

I wish the Development Team luck and hope the playtest goes well.

Unfortunately my players no longer want to play test D&D Next as they don’t want to deal with a new game or edition with new rules. We will likely be playing other editions of D&D and/or our own games. You can expect some future posts about Adventures Dark and Deep as well as a few custom content posts.


P.S. If anyone is interested in play testing the new edition I strongly recommend it as the more people play testing and sharing their opinions then the more likely it will become what the community or a larger community wants.

Directions for this blog.

Throughout this year the direction of this blog has changed numerous time from trying to put out my own content, to covering things closely such as Adventures Dark and Deep. Doing reviews of other products to even spending some months not being an rpg blog at all.

From here my intentions is that this be now and forever an rpg blog, maybe occasionally some other content like my Conan movie review or something else might get mixed in, but mainly an rpg blog.

I have a few thoughts about how to handle my posts. First I could do as before and simply post whenever I feel like it. Second I could save some posts to post on days I don't want to write. Third I could have specific days that specific content is posted.

I think i would like to go with at least one or two days that have specific content, that way readers can get use to looking forward (or avoiding) that day. Other then that I'll likely just post when I feel like it.

As for what content I want to post at the moment I'm not sure. Mostly I have been looking at playing a combination of d&d systems or playing Palladium, It's likely that I'll start playing 3.5 again very soon but frankly, I am still waiting for my damn legends and labyrinths book as I would rather play that then straight 3.5. 

One day I intend to get more involved with one specific rpg, kinda like I was with ADD but more closly maybe even release some products. In a way though I am waiting to see what d&d 5e (or d&d next) is going to be like.

UPDATE: Novemeber 24 2012

It's been awhile since I made this post or did any blogging, been busy with college and kids and general real life stuff. I should have been blogging about my play testing of D&D next more thoroughly maybe with campaign logs or something but I just didn't want to add one more thing to my table.

Anyway, I'll likely be blogging about Adventures Dark and Deep and maybe my own rules and first edition D&D for a little while.

I could have made a new post instead of attaching to an old one but I really don't like blogs that just talk about blogging or people saying I'll be back over and over. Expect another Article out today about D&D next.

Back In

I got an email today saying I was accepted into the RPG Blog Alliance, which is weird since I didn't re-contact them in anyway. But if I really am back in the alliance then that's rather convenient timing since I am writing about roleplaying again as well as actually getting to play again.

Recently I ran a game of Keep on the Borderlands with a few small twists, first starting of with a keep from my own campaign setting, sibra1, and a few changes based on things from our last encounters in the caves of chaos.

But the main thing that was a new attempt for us using B2 was letting one player use a 2nd edition characters and another use a 3rd edition one, it really wasn't all that hard. Most things like death, xp, gold ect. was handled using basic edition rules where as each players skills used their respective editions rules.

Might be back into playing d&d.

Yesterday, Me and Laisa made some characters using the box set for basic Dungeons and Dragons. We are planning on running them through the original B-series of modules. Most likely using B1-9 in search of adventure.

At the Same time Mike is interested in starting to come over to either play in the same campaigne or to DM a 2nd edition one. Also two people Anna and Lynn might start gaming with us.

So who knows maybe this time in the next month or two I might be back into the full swing on Gaming and bloging. I am also working on my own little version of a d20ish system I am currently Code naming SOCCER. It basically starts as D&D stripped down to nothing but Str, Dex, Con, HP and AC and then all abilities and other stats are added through picking up Abilities or adding optional rules. Most of which will be gained by spending levels or rather hit dice to get an ability instead. For example you could choose weather to add 1d8 hit points in between your adventures or gaining a bardic music ability instead.

From the way things are going with it, I am thinking the abilities could start moving the game away from any specific version of D&D but if the GM wanted he could choose to use D&D abilities instead or along side them. It's still in a very rough draft form though and needs play testing of course.

One other thing that might get me back into D&D Blogging is I am thinking of making a character tonight and playing through any official solo adventures I can find, even introductory ones.

Random Work 1

Common Rabble

Rolling Stats: They all count as 10
Size: Large Speed 30

HD 1d12 + 3

Skills: Choose 1 skill at 4 ranks, 2 skills at 3 ranks, 4 skills at 2 ranks, and treat all skills as though aid another +2 is always being used. +1 skill point per level.

Proficiency: Simple Weapons and Improvised weapons. (such as torches, pitchforks ect.)

* requires at least 2 of any mundane weapon or armor to count as equipped.

lvl
1 feat
2 +1 ba
3 +1 f,r,w, feat
4 +1 ba, stat bonus
5 Treat all attacks as +2 from aid another. (can be switched to +2 ac if fighting defensively).

Upon multi classing the best man from the group becomes an adventurer

divide hp by 2, change size to med, aid another bonus of +1 remains (still hears and remembers the voices of his comrades).

ADD kickstarter

I don't feel like writing a long post at the moment. But there is currently an Adventures Dark and Deep, kickstarter project.

The New Death and Others, Free for limited time.

Not to long ago I mentioned a book called The New Death and others. It's filled with short stories that are somewhat inter connected and rather amusing with a fairytale like feel but darker.

So if you want a free copy from amazon here is the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q8Q8DY

On a side not I find it difficult to be motivated to put any quality work into my blog ever since my Windows vista snippet tool stopped working. I tried making it re-install but that didn't fix it. It just wont let me save the image I snip.

Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances.

EA games has released the beta latest Command and Conquer game using next generation graphics and gameplay. Well maybe not, that is instead they made a browser based game, you know free to play ecept we want all your money type.

Currently I have been trying out the beta and as far as browser based supposedly free to play games go it's not to bad. Resource production is easy to figure out. it has a simplified way of attacking people and sending in waves of units. And so far I have no been pressured into inviting people.

Other the ambient noise most of the sound effects are decent enough. Worst part so far is that you can only choose GDI and might never be able to change your choice on a specific server and also it looks as though all current players are in protected status.

So for now I must content myself attacking Forgotten Camps, which has been very easy. You can start and invite people into alliances and attacking is based on distance and the amount of command points you have. Basically it costs 10 points + 1-2 per tile away from your base to attack.

Seeing as how there are not many players yet I guess getting in now is a good chance to become either a top player or blogger/forum member about the game.

For example I'm not sure if you must destroy a defense HQ to get the supply crate from it or if Destroying the Construction yard and thus looting the camp will also get you that supply crate. I have asked on the forum and there are no websites discussing strategies for this game. So for now I am making sure to destroy the Defense HQ, hey I want my crate.

First time playing ADOM, game log.

I quickly typed this in note pad while playing ADOM, to keep track of the events my charactor was going through. I don't know if I will continue to type these, I suppose it depends on if there is any interest reading them.

Artemis the orc ranger,
found here self amongst some hill on a road that led from the south west to the north east out of the valley.
 Following the road she entered a small hamlet first scaring some children before
 finding and chatting with the village elder.
 He told her that they were attacked by monsters from a cave in the south east and that the village
 carpenter had gone into the cave and not come out.

 Within the village was a baby water dragon, a rather rude druid and a food shop
 where Artemis bought an apple that quickly rotted.

 She left the hamlet going south east into the forest
 where she stopped and gathered a quick meal.
 Upon finding and enetering the cave she found a door that when kicked opened
 shot a blinding
 light into her face both confusing and blinging her.
 She spent a few seconds ramming herself into a wall before regaining her
 sight and find a
 mob of goblins shoving into the doorway

 She had little trouble turning them, some rats and an orc in to a heap of bodies.
 She found a longsword, a sling and some stones, ate the rats and had gained 2 levels
becoming ambiedextous and increasing her ability to dodge, and fight with weapons.

Wandering down a dark hallway she found a throwing club laying on the ground and
was thinking of ways to be better at attacking from behind.
The hall went west along way and then turned south so aretmis back tracked
to a small room with walls made of solid obsidian where she found a light potion,
and was attacked by bats,
in the next room, one that showed the signs of many battles,
 she found a leather cap that was better then her own.

The cave wrapped back west where she shot down a goblin skeleton and ?ate his frog legs?
Searching the room she found some gold coins and then moved back east, where she
used her crossbow to shot down a goblin and scare away a kobold.
Taking from them some gold coins another sling, an arrow and some rations.

Although seh thought these rooms might link back up to the lon hallway they did not,
although they shared a wall she was forced to walk clear back around.
Well she was doing so another goblin rock thrower attacked her
she killed it quickly and then ate his corpse.

Having got back through the hallway it lead to a small room with a passage(stairs) leading
deeper into the ground, however nothing more seamed to be down there.

Artemsi searched all the walls of the room then decided to leave the cave, she encountered more goblins and rats
and even a homculi on the way out, she gathered up all the stones the goblins
had thrown at her, and the homonuclusi's bones.

Upon arriving at the hamlet she found that the food shop, would only buy food.
And that the elder still wanted her to find the carpenter.
Maybe she had gone to the wrong cave.

For information on the game adom click here to go the official site.

New simcity scheduled for 2013

League of Legends Charactors for Dungeons and Dragons Board Game.

The title is pretty self explanatory, it occurred to me that each d&d board game character starts with four powers and an innate power, each league of legends character has four abilities and an innate ability. They both basically have classes and run around killing things. Seams like an easy thing to convert any league of legends character into a d&d board game character.

Too show what I mean I threw this together rather quickly. It's not perfect of course and his stats are based off the Dragon Born Fighters, for AC and Damage to start. But I think for a quick conversion it holds the flavor of Jax rather well.Also, I did try to turn some of his abilities effects into multiple abilities, and the template I used was made by chromaticdragon who wanted the characters to be able to level upto level 5.

Glad to be an A:!

A: I don't like government and don't want it.

B: What? You don't like roads, or fire departments or police. Who are you going to call if a guy breaks into your house.

A: Which one of those were made by the government?

B: They are all made by tax payers money

A: So the citizens built them then. At most all your saying is we need a treasurer, what do we need congress for.

B: Well what if a foreign country invades, and who are going to call about the robber.

A: You mean what if a foreign Government invades, I just said I wish we didn't have governments, and if someone is robbing me I'm going to kick his ass if I can. If he robbed me when I wasn't home then the police won't find him anyway, just fill out paper work.

B: Well what if your shot, then who are you going to call.

A: The ambulance which charges you an arm and a leg and is not payed for by taxes.

B: Well who is going to make sure we don't all starve.

A: Community ran efforts like the food bank, and besides the government sucks at running a budget and feeding people.

B: Well who is going to deal with criminals?

A: How about a jury of his peers?

B: That's mob rule

A: Your right and thats a form of democracy. Well criminals would be dealt with differently in each community.

B: See so we need government.

A: no that's more like we need team work within the local area, we still don't need anyone in Washington DC.

B: Who would maintain the roads?

A: Construction workers.

B: Their not going to do it for free.

A: if the local community wants roads then they will find a way to have roads. Without any need for congress men, presidents, or supreme courts.

B: It would be anarchy!

A: It would be freedom!

B: The criminals would take over everything.

A: maybe in some areas in other areas the fathers and brothers of the town would stop them as would the local religious congregations.

B: Then the church would become government.

A: If that happened I wouldn't want that government either, but each of us should have freedom from being ruled by state, church or corporation.

B: Your dumb and your lucky to live in the land of the free so you should be arrested for talking like that.

A: *smacks forehead.

Zeus: Master of Olympus

Kinda long name that doesn't tell you much about the game other then the setting.

What is it?

Its a complex city builder. I'd say arguably more complex and rewarding then SimCity 4. Not more realistic I suppose, but where in SimCity for you need, water, electricity, education, health, safety, and access to jobs. In Zeus you need; food, water, jobs, fleece, olive oil, wine, armor, culture, appeal, maintenance, city watch, an army, tax collectors, probably more that I'm forgetting.

But in Zeus each one of things is handled logisticly as in too get fleece to your people you need to, Have a growers hut, buy sheep, both must be by a meadow, it takes workers, then it gets stored in a storehouse, then you need a vendor  to come buy it and then too distribute it. Which means the vendor physically wanders the streets and sells to houses he passes by. And it keeps track of every unit of population and every unit of fleece produced.

Many items such as olive oil need to go through more steps to be made into their final product such as squishing the olives.

If your not careful you can crash your whole economy, sell too much food at a trading post and your houses are fed so they downgrade and your workers move away, literatly picking up their bags walking out of their houses and leaving. Luckily you have a bit of time to fix the problem, but if you don't fix it... Well now there's no workers for your Growing hut, which means no fleece, so now more people move away and soon nothing is being produced, no one is working the store houses and your vendors have moved away.

While all of this is going on your trying to build shrines to summon gods, fight foreign armies as well as mythical monsters, build hero halls to get people like Hercules on your side, compete in the Olympias, and finish missions to move onto your next episodes.

Each mission has multiple episodes and you keep your city and money from episode to episode.

So yeah, the name Zeus: Master of Olympus doesn't tell you anything about the game except it's setting. Unfortunately the game seams to no longer be supported. If you have a hard time "acquiring" the game. You can always try buying a used copy from amazon. Also somewhere on the internet is an official enhancement download / patch. Also an expansion pack called Poseidon master of  Atlantis, which I have not tried.

I have been thinking of making a user guide for the game since the best I can find is usually old walk-throughs that have no pictures. I think there was a Prima Strategy guide available at some point.

The game has a small learning curve so make sure to play the tutorials, and if you liked this post/review make sure to share a link with your gaming friends.

Also feel free to add me on steam, username: heromedel

Rental Scam!

Recently I have been looking for a new place to move too. Somewhere better then where I am use to living. So my wife found a place listed on multiple websites, that looked perfect. We contacted the poster online and was emailed the next day.

Dangerous!

When I started writing this post I was thinking of going into detail about everything that happened but instead I am going to skip straight to the point. The guy claimed to be in london and he emailed me the application. Then when I sent it back (signed), he asked me to Western Union him the deposit and then to scan the recipet and show it too him.

This is a huge flag that it was a scam, with that recipt he could pick up the money anywhere in the world. Once I relized it was a scam and I re-read all our emails, I saw so many sigsn that I had almost missed before.

• Strange english with odd typo's.
• To much info given in usual ways.
• Trying to assure me he is not looking for money and that I will get the keys.
• Being willing to work with me on whatever I need.
• Not actually showing me the house.

Just so you know there are few tricks they can use that make it more convincing, such as those electronic locks that you can access with out key. They could easily get the code just by asking the real owner. Also telling you to send money to a friend you trust and showing him the receipt.

One thing this guy did, is he seams to have the real owners name. I can't find the real owner but no way in hell a real owner would ask you to scan a receipt and show him. And western Union-ing or wire transferring money is very dangerous, even Western Union says don't send the money to someone you don't know.

Bad part is the guy did get all of information, so on monday I am going to be talking to someone from the police department, partly because I have found even more properties in my area being used for scams.

For more information just do a google search for rental scams. Or check out http://rentalscams.org/

Tekpersona website is complete, and my current status.

Last Time I blogged it was about J.C.Kendall's website Tekpersona. At the time some of the links were not yet set up as the site was under re-development. Now the site is finished with more articles (in the articles and docs section) coming soon.

In case you didn't read my last post Tekpersona is a company with many years experience in social media and web presence advertising.

As for me, I haven't been blogging much lately as first I was distracted playing minecraft and running a multiplayer server. It was alot of fun but alas has died down and now there is little activity on the server, maybe we just need some new players. I then spent awhile trying League of Legends. Which I enjoyed more then I thought I would considering how much I don't like pvp typically and that is what League of Legends is all about.

However its one of those supposedly free to play games that I just can't stand. Basically it's free but if you want more then just whatever champions are currently free to play, that costs money (although some can be unlocked just by playing alot) All the skins cost money anything you can buy in game can also be bought with money.

I just can't play a game that constantly wants my money.

Also I am going to be moving soon, we have a house in mind and are likely to get it, and also got on housing which is going to be a pain dealing with all the paper work, but could pay about 30 % of my rent or something. It's a nice house though, in a sub urban area very middle class which is way more then I am use to.

So I haven't been working on any of my game design projects at all. I'm not even sure how I intend to move forward on them. I might just start from scratch using game maker. I found an old copy of game maker 7 on my computer so maybe I wont have to deal with yoyo games bull crap this time. Yay, lol.

Tekpersona

I decided I want to write a review about +J.C.Kendall's site Tekpersona. He did not specifically ask me to either. However it was partly in exchange for him hopefully checking out my blog.

I want to mention first that I doubt I am his target audience but likewise he probably isn't mine. So the first thing I noticed about the site was it looked very professional or business-y which I can get bored of but I'm sure in his line of work professional is a good thing. I liked the color scheme which helped allow me to keep reading.

After looking around abit it appears to me that his line of work and what this business does is online web/social media marketing. (I wonder if they could promote my blog if I payed them. Not that my blog offers much in the way of products to promote though, lol).

One thing that stood out to me on their about page was they clearly value experience, I for one feel more re-assured hearing they know what they are doing rather then how some business web pages just say Innovation.

I think the pictures on the title page are kinda fluffy and maybe abit cramped but not too much and besides dead space would be much worse.

One thing the site has that I find very important, the Contact Us link was easy to find. The site also has an interesting "From Our Articles" section which has some good reads like how google+ is a better facebook the facebook, ect.

I like reading things like this so I would have  actually spent more time on his site just checking out the articles.

 However their contact page, solutions, and technology page and some other links never did anything when I clicked on them. I don't know if was me or the site but I couldn't actually get to any articles.

For someone who likes their page or service it is easy to share with all the links to social media sites right in plain site, makes sense for a social media company. However the social media pics at the bottom were just pics or badges or something.

In conclusion, nice looking and professional site that makes me think they could be worth hiring but either the page isn't compatible with firefox or maybe the sites not done. I should also mention I slightly know +J.C Kendall from google+ so my opinion of him is I would hire his company if I had the money. He seams like the type that is a hard worker and won't put up with people standing in his way.

UpDate:  Turns out the site is under Re-Development so the links will be working, when that is done.

A blog worth following.

I stumbled across The Doglion today and first read an article on viewing games as art rather then stircly breaking them down and giving them scores. Something I find very valid especialy when comparing games like Terraria and Minecraft. Sometimes you just can't even compare things. His example being The Mona Lisa and that one with the screaming guy.

So I decided to see what his most recent article is, and it was a look at the Mongolian educational system (I guess that's where he is from) and it too was very in depth and well thought out. Heck I forgot he was talking about Mongolia for a second and thought it sounds exactly like my schools.

I find most things on the internet to be random spewing but it looks like this takes his time to think thing through. Also I'm looking to follow more indie game blogs which I think his kind of is one. Hopefully I can one day re-create my success I had as a D&D blogger by getting more thoroughly into the Indie Game blogging sphere and finding good blogs to follow.

Stop SOPA

I know I don't have a huge user base or anything but still, in protest of SOPA my blog is going to be blacked out on Jan 18.

Signed up for Diablo 3 beta!

I am really surprised at how easy and convenient battle.net was on signing up. I made a new account using my new email, They wanted me to own at least one full game, so I entered my old Diablo 2 code its like 9 years old but was accepted anyway. And amazingly it looks like they have the option for me to download the game! Yay no more broken disks problem.

My google result for Diablo 3

That let me go to the beta preferences and hopefully someday I will be accepted to play the Diablo 3 beta and if not well I can use this account to try and get on other betas, how convenient.

How to buy a car, like a boss.

This is the kind of thing that should be taught in school, before you turn 18.

Why I hate (supposed) free to play.

This was originaly a comment in respones to The Hammer Strikes post about the free to play take over.

I just wish they wouldn't call it free to play and then pressure you into buying things or getting a premium account. Its not free to play if most of all the cool stuff costs money or worse invites. That's just an extended demo.

I hate it even worse when you do a search for a free game, find one, get signed up and then after you are playing get bombard with being asked to pay money.

For me though I don't like anything that distracts from the game, when you play an oldschool console and turn the game on that's it, your playing a game. Can you imagine playing super mario world with it constantly blocking levels until you pay more money or get more referrals and with ads and a chat thing blocking half the screen.

I don't like monthly subscriptions but saying its free when its not bugs me. For this reason I usually play games where I can host my own server. I really prefer to pay for the game once and be done unless an insanely cool expansion is released a year or more later.

Diablo 3 is going to be better then all the MMO's out there (not saying it is an MMO) but It's only going to cost once. I'm not saying one format will work for all games, but I pretty much stop playing on the spot if asked for more money while in game.

Codecademy

Thie year is code year for  codecademy.com which means that you can sign up to get free weekly lessons emailed to you. They claim to be able to teach you to make websites, games, and apps. They also have places where you can practice in javascript, ruby and one other online.

I have taken the first lesson and am about to take an extra one and here is what I like about it so far. The lesson have you typing in a box right on the same page as the text your reading, so far. Which means I'm not switching between windows.

Also the lessons are organized by exercises and by completing them you gain score, and earn achievements. Each lesson tries to get you to do work for yourself but also comes with a hint button and some of the code filled out where needed.

It all felt very stream lined and simple, and at least for now I really looking foward to my futures lessons, which is such a difference compared to almost any other programming lesson, which to me seam to normaly come in walls of text that are not very clear.

The weekly course does not look like it will be strictly for one programming language, however it does look like javascript will be focused on alot. (Everything seams to be getting web based these days.)

UPDATE:

I have now completed the noraml easy lessons as well as their currently availble extra lessons except for 2 questions in JavaScript Quickstart guide, its lesson 8, Q: 7 and 8 so if anyone can help me with those two questions, that'd be greatly appreciated.

Also if your new to codecademy don't worry about me being stuck their its a more advanced lesson and not one that you ever even need to do.