Author: amuletts

Categories
Blog Computer Games News & Announcements

Diablo 3 release = EPIC FAIL

So Diablo III was launched at Midnight yesterday after one of the biggest game launches in history rivaling the MMO World of Warcraft. We’re talking two million pre-orders (the most ever for a PC game) and eight thousand launch events worldwide. Over 1000 fans were queuing for the game in Oxford Street alone.

So what happened? In short: The launch was an abject failure. The high traffic from so many players logging on all at the same time not only crashed the server but also the gaming forum battle.net as players flocked to it to find out what the hell was happening!

Diablo 3 Error 37: Epic Fail

The problem was caused because Blizzard – in an effort to combat piracy – required everyone to log into its server, even those who wanted to play a single player game, in order to authenticate. Unfortunately this meant that all most players got when trying to play Diablo 3 was Error Message 37: ‘The servers are busy at this time; please try again later.’ This upset millions of Blizzard fans some of which had taken the day off work for the game’s launch.

Surely Blizzard should have been anticipated this kind of traffic and made sure they had the capacity to handle it. But no. This was a total and complete Epic Fail: all that hype over the game only for it NOT TO WORK when it was launched!

One tweeter said: “Diablo 3 is super hard. I’ve been playing for 30 minutes and haven’t even defeated the login screen!”

Boy am I glad I decided I’d play through Diablo 1 & 2 before moving on to Diablo 3. Will they have their problems sorted out by then do you think?

Categories
Art Blog Comic Art

Martin’s Magnetic Attraction

Martin of Epic Fail by Amy Letts

Card Art of Martin for the WAGON Webcomic Battle collectable cardgame. Admittedly I might have gone a bit overboard on this one… fun though!

Martin is very charismatic and attracts attention wherever he goes, he also attracts trouble like flies to shit (which may explain why Amuletts hangs around with him). Nobody is quite sure why but there is no denying it!

Basically Martin reflects the luck of his player. I don’t know whether any other gaming groups have a player that the dice always seem to pick on? We do and it’s Martin. If there’s a random roll to see who a monster will attack: it’s Martin. If there’s there’s a random encounter during the night who’ll be on watch? Martin. If there’s a beautiful maiden -or ugly bugbear- who’ll win it’s heart? Fill in the blank: _ _ _ _ _ _ (Clue – it begins with ‘M’).

Categories
Blog Computer Games News & Announcements

Diablo III Release Announced

WOW! I can’t believe it’s over a decade since the last Diablo game came out, but we finally have a release date on Diablo III which is *Drumroll* May 15th!! Two days before my Birthday! *hint hint* Preorders are open now and you can choose either a digital or physical version.

Diablo II was the most popular game of 2000 and it has been predicted that Diablo 3 will sell 5 million copies this year. Diablo is a Dark Fantasy gaming series with many aspects of horror, lots of undead, and Demons playing a major role. It’s the ultimate dungeon dive descending into the depth of hell itself, and the ultimate monster mash with literally hoards of monsters going after your character (you’ll be racing for those choke points)!

Continue reading “Diablo III Release Announced”
Categories
Art Blog Sketches

Sunday Sketch #18 – Fugly

This is Fugly. I don’t think he was every officially christened, but everybody called him that so he assumed it was his name!

I’ve played Fugly in a few D&D games and he came number 3 in my ‘Favorite 5 Player Characters list.’ He is a classic example of Low Comliness i.e. he is physically unattractive – not to be confused with a low charisma character like Crunt. Fugly actually has a sweet nature that endeers him to people if only they will look past his appearance and get to know him (unfortunately few do).

He is a half-orc and his ugliness is a result of birth deformities which meant he was picked on by both Orcs and Humans and beaten regularly as a result. This left him with scars, a broken nose, cheekbone etc. that made him look even uglier. Unfortunately people can be cruel and judge by appearance. He also has low intellegence but I think that comes from being beaten round the head a little too often. Sad, eh?

Yeah I’m kinda mean to my characters…

Categories
Blog D&D

Ultimate GM Screen of Win

I was kinda browsing and saw the ULTIMATE GM SCREEN which I thought was the coolest thing ever! (Sorry for the CAPS-shouting, but I thought it deserved it). Okay so it’s kinda a cut-out and put together yourself, but I’m crafty and that sort of thing appeals to me. What you get is a Castle Wall that sits in front of the GM with two Dice Towers (basically you drop the dice in the top and they roll out at the bottom).

It’s very solid so it won’t fall over (a common problem with GMs screens) not to mention it looks absolutely fantastic! The idea of Dice Towers is new to me but I kinda like them; it adds a drama to rolling the dice plus makes it less likely for players to cheat by hiding/fudging their rolls. There’s also space on the back for the GM to stick all the gaming tables and handy info s/he needs to run the game. And there are little shelves for figures! How cute! And they can stand on top of the turrets! Overall I think it is very deserving of it’s title as the ULTIMATE GMs screen.

I’ve stuck a video below which really shows the GMs Screen in all its glory. You may want to skip to half way as that’s when you start getting a really good look at it. And it is reduced by 25% this week as part of the GMs Day Sale! Click here to go to a list of all the reduced items at DriveThruRPG.


In case the video is not showing up here’s a link to it.

Happy GMs Day! …week.

Categories
Blog D&D

GM’s Day Sale

GAH! I am such a doofus! I totally missed that March the 4th was GMs Day, the Anniversary of Gary Gygax’s death (he’s rolling 20’s in heaven). Yep, I should probably hand in my geek credentials, but maybe I can earn them back. You see DriveThruRPG is holding a GMs Day sale BUT it lasts all week!

Man I would have felt bad if it had just been the one day and I missed it because DriveThru sell some really great RPG books and resources. I think 90% of their products are PDFs but that’s awfully handy for storage space, plus most of my Players are looking through RPG PDFs on their iPads during gaming sessions now. Our GM needs about 8 books to run a game and they’re awfully heavy if you have to carry them to the gaming venue. I still love books but I have to admit to being a bit seduced by PDFs particularly when it comes to gaming, largely due to the portability factor. Also they’re cheaper and arrive straight away!

DriveThruRPG apparently have THOUSANDS of things reduced by 25% as part of the GMs Day Sale – which is a lot! So take a look and stock up your gaming table. Click here to go to a list of all the reduced items at DriveThruRPG.

Categories
Blog D&D Funny/Cool

New Baldur’s Gate Sequel? Raise Dead!

There has been a great deal of excitement on the rumor-mill concerning a new Baldur’s Gate Website that has popped up at www.baldursgate.com and whether this heralds the release of a new Baldur’s Gate game. At the moment the website shows a ‘teaser’ with the Baldur’s Gate Skull emblem, character portraits tiling the background and the Baldur’s Gate theme playing in the background making our geeky hearts swell with nostalgia. Aside from this there is only the quote:

“The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny, chaos will be sown by their passage.”

So sayeth the wise Alaundo.

The tiled character portraits fairly standard layout which gaming companies use as teasers for sequels – harking back to the games past. So should we get excited yet?

Continue reading “New Baldur’s Gate Sequel? Raise Dead!”
Categories
Art Blog Sketches

Sunday Sketch #17 – Crunt

This is Crunt (derived from Crotchety Runt and only coincidentally sounds like a rude word).
He’s like Grumpy (from the Seven Dwarves) but without the charm. This is the dwarf that other dwarves find too offensive to be around. Crunt is not evil (Lawful Good actually), he’s just unpleasant, rude and smelly (he’s afraid of water). It often annoys me in computer RPGs how you are not allowed to role-play a rude character without it being considered evil. Someone can be ill-mannered yet still carry a good heart.

Crunt is the epitome of low Charisma. Now many, many people get low charisma confused with low Comliness – but comliness is how physically attractive/unattractive you are whereas Charisma is about how attractive your personality is. Look out for an example of low Comliness next week when I’ll be doing the concept art for Crunt’s sidekick Fugly.

Categories
Blog Webcomic Interviews Webcomics

Phineus: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 2

The Phineus: Magician for Hire interview with Barry Linck continues…

Click here if you’ve yet to read the Phinius: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 1.

Q6: Has being a Role-play Gamer helped you with creating stories for Phineus: Magician for Hire?

Yes, definitely. As well as my theater and film background.

Role-playing has gotten me to think as a character, act as a character would act. Being a DM, helped me create worlds, tell stories and create conflict in the stories.

In addition, all the monsters, magic, and Myth are right in there. I know most of the stuff in , say, the Monster Manual, is based on mythology. That said, the various gaming manuals itemize and describe the characters so succinctly that they sort of become my go to Beast-encyclopedia.

There have been stories I’ve done directly lifted from advesntures I’ve played with my game versions of Phin and Sara. I’ve even created a RPG around Phineus, with the help of my friend, John Burris. I’m even working on a second edition.

Continue reading “Phineus: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 2”
Categories
Blog Webcomic Interviews Webcomics

Phineus: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 1

Barry Linck creator of the webcomic Phineus: Magician for Hire takes the hot seat…

Q1: What is ‘Phineus: Magician For Hire’ about?

A1: Phineus is a fantasy/horror/sci fi comic, published on the web, about a paranormal investigations team.

Phin and Sara Beam make up the Beam Agency. The married couple solve all manners of supernatural problems, from vampires and werewolves, to evil garden gnomes, zombies, Elder Things and evil sentient eyeballs bent on world domination.

Phineus is a wizard. A magic Adept, who can cast spells and do magic. Sara is a gun-toting, butt-kicking archeologist and former superhero. Together they protect the world from all the things that go bump in the night.

Q2: Phineus and Sara may be married but they seem like they’re from different world – How did these two get together?

A2: Well, they are from very different worlds, but the same as well.

In the Phineus universe, certain people are what I call “Freak Magnets”. Certain people are genetically destined to run into the paranormal or supernatural. These two are Freak Magnets.

Continue reading “Phineus: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 1”