The Professional Gamer - May 9, 2016

Hello readers! This has been a very intense week on the more personal scene.  Crystal ended up in the ER (she’s fine) and I had a job interview.  Between the two, and trying to make up for the time I missed from work, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to do anything for myself.  During most of the evenings I ended up watching various HGTV shows with Crystal, since those are a bit of a comfort show for both of us.

We had our second session of Traveler this weekend, which involved some interstellar travel, trade negotiations, and problematic passengers.  We had a bit of a time sorting out all of the rules, but I think we are gradually getting a handle on it.  I’m now on the hunt for some simple apps that will simplify some of the dice rolling (looking at you trading rules).  We’ll be taking the weekend off for Mother’s Day, and I have no idea which players will come the weekend after that, so we may end up playing a completely different game.

Also, I am now the proud owner of a Type 7 Heavy in Elite: Dangerous.  It’s a bit of a beast to handle, but it can carry such a huge amount of cargo.  And, although it is not the fastest profit, I’m opting to do multi-hop trading.  Mostly so that I can get to see more of the inhabited galaxy.  In fact, I equipped a discovery scanner in place of my smallest cargo rack, primarily because I’m visiting systems that I’ve never been to before, and it would be hard to find the stations without the navigation data.  As an added bonus, I can sell the scan data to help subsidize the original purchase cost.  At this point, I’m planning to sink some money to upgrade my ship with top of the line frameshift drive (to maximize profit/hour) and thrusters (a valuable quality of life upgrade).

That’s all that I have for this week.  I hope everyone had a great free comic book day.  Have a great week, and game on!

Anime Southwest - A Quick Review

Last weekend Anime Southwest had it's (technically) first event. Due to some personal circumstances I was not able to go near as long as I wanted, but I was able to get a decent handle on the event. 

To start the event was short handed due to a number of staff bowing at the week before the convention happened. The rumors (and that is all I can call them at this time) is that staff from a different con was supposed to assist, but opted not to at the last moment. Despite this problem the staff that were there all friendly. When I met with the press head he took the time to give me a tour of the convention showing me where the panel rooms, VG Room, Main Event, and Dealer room were. It was a much appreciated tour. I also spoke to a few guests and they were appreciative to what the staff were doing for them. One group had a technical issue that was handled in short order while another was able to get an impromptu Digimon panel setup. I hope that in future years they can keep up this level of dedication.

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As for the venue, it was definitely not the location they had wanted, but they were able to make it work. The center of the convention featured Artist Alley.  To get to any of the other rooms you had to go past the artists. They also had the small restaurant with, what I assume, were free snacks to keep the attendees going strong. While I don't see this happening in the future, or at least for all future cons, it was a nice gesture. 

Do I plan to attend next year? Yes, I do. Hopefully I won't have the same personal problems next year to keep me from attending all weekend, so I can truly enjoy Anime Southwest. And for those that want to see the photos I did manage to take, they can be found here.

The Professional Gamer - May 2, 2016

Hello readers!  I’ve managed to have a week with a more normal work load, and therefore had some more time to enjoy myself.  To start with, I’ve spent a few more hours in Elite: Dangerous and manage to get myself to within about 2 million credits of my new ship goal.  I only need about another hour to get myself to my goal, and start the process of searching the galaxy for my new ship and all the equipment that I want for it.  Then, I’ll be off to make a living as a bulk trader: stocking up on goods in one station and hoping that I can make a profit on them by carrying them to another system.  I may keep my existing ship so that I have an option to go back to if I find that I’m not enjoying life as a merchant.

In other space news, we had the first session of our Traveler game this past weekend.  Everything seemed to go fairly well.  Most of the session was dedicated to role-playing the characters and introducing the world, with only a few skill checks to see how things went.  Next session should get us much more involved in the rules system, and therefore have a much greater chance to bog us down with making sure that we’ve learned how to play the darn thing.  I’m expecting the players to spend some time negotiating commodities prices, searching for delivery jobs, and booking passengers on their vessel before heading off to one of the neighboring systems.  Who knows, we might have a space combat.  But that will depend on the random encounters table.

And finally, I’ve discovered a rather bizarre little anime to watch.  The show is called Dagashi Kashi, and the plot is a bit hard to explain.  To start, “dagashi” are inexpensive Japanese snacks, sort of like penny candies, both in terms of size and price, as well as a degree of sentimentality attached to them.  The show centers around Kokonotsu, a middle school boy who dreams of becoming a manga artist.  His father, Yo, owns a dagashi shop in a small town, and wants Kokonotsu to take over for him.  Hotaru, daughter of a snack manufacturer, comes to the town to recruit Yo.  Yo says that he can’t leave unless Kokonotsu agrees to take over the shop.  Hotaru agrees to convince Kokonotsu to take over the shop in exchange for Yo coming to work for her father’s company.  Hotaru is passionate about the snacks, and spends most of the show trying to kindle Kokonotsu’s passion for dagashi.  In spite of this somewhat odd and convoluted plot, much of the show is basically a love letter to the dagashi themselves.  So, if you are interested in the niche world of Japanese snack foods, it’s a fun watch.

That’s all for this round.  Have a great week and game on!

National Superhero Day!

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That is right ladies and gentlemen. It is time to don your capes and masks to do good around the world! According to the National Superhero Day Facebook page 21 years ago today employees at Marvel created National Superhero Day. Interns wore capes from http://powercapes.com/ and wondered around the streets finding out what people thought of superheroes.

Now just because Marvel created the day does not mean you can't celebrate DC or Indie heroes. It also does not mean you have to celebrate a fictional hero. You should also celebrate the heroes that helped you get to where you are today. A Father/Mother that supported you on every step of a long journey, a teacher that never gave up on you, or a friend that picked you up when you were at your lowest. Heroes are everywhere, and today is a day to celebrate them!

The Professional Gamer - April 25, 2016

This has been another week with a lot of commitments at work.  But, I've managed to spend a fair amount of time with virtual jobs this week as well.  I've spent a lot of time this past week playing Fantasy Life.  At this point, I'm trying get myself to master rank in all of the professions.  At this point, I've got about 4 professions to that rank, and should be able to get the rest in a few more weeks.

I've also been flying around a bit more in my Cobra MkIII in Elite: Dangerous, and am now within about 3 million credits of my goal.  I'm excited to be getting to a new ship, mostly just for the novelty of it.  I'm also looking to start doing a big trade loop through inhabited space, rather than doing a single circular loop.  I won't have the armaments of my current ship, but will be able to haul a huge amount of trade goods instead.

Finally, I've found some time to start fleshing out my homebrew D&D campaign.  We've had a long break from playing, but I am anticipating some playing time in the future.  And now, I have to plan some adventures for our Traveler game.

Have a great week and game on!

Titanfall 2 Announced(ish)

EA and Respawn have announced that they are going to announce Titanfall 2 on June 12th. And for this Announcement they have released the following trailer.

Right now we don't now much about the game, just that it is happening and it will be out for Xbox One, PC and PS4.

Fingers crossed that this time we get an actual single-player campaign. I really enjoyed the multi-player, but would get bored quickly. I also don't care as much for only multiplayer games. There is a reason I don't have Battlefront or why I have not played Call of Duty or Battlefield. 

The Professional Gamer - April 18, 2016

This has been the week where I had something scheduled to do every evening.  In spite of that, I managed to play a lot of video games this week.  However, I only managed to watch a very small amount of anime.  Anyway, read on to find out what I've been doing for the past week.

Let's start off with the shortest discussion.  I'm down to the final episode of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash.  At this point, I'm expected the series to end one of two ways: either everybody lives or everybody dies.  I'll probably find out next week.  I also ended up showing Golden Boy to some friends.  I'd forgotten exactly how lewd this series was.  It's so bad; but it's also a lot of fun.  And the friends enjoyed it too!

While I was waiting at some of my meeting commitments, I played some Fantasy Life.  Once I finished Ocarina of Time last week, I needed to find something else to play.  And so, I've spent a bunch of effort on increasing some of my crafting and gathering professions.  To some degree, its a lot of work, but I'm having fun with it.

Finally, I've continued working towards a new ship in Elite: Dangerous, but don't feel like I've made a huge amount of progress this week.  To be honest, 2 million credits is nothing to sneeze at, but I've still got another 9 million to go.

That's all I've got for this week.  See you next time and game on!

Anime Southwest is Coming

Good news (I hope) anime fans! Denver is getting a forth anime convention. Anime Southwest is being held April 29 - May 1st at the Ramada Plaza at I-25 and 120th Ave. This convention is being put on by the group known as Sukoshi Con who have done other anime conventions across the country, so they do bring some experience with them. To some this group may sound familiar, and yes they have worked with Animeland Wasabi, possibly the most controversial convention in town on whether one should go or not. Well while they have worked with them they are a separate group and deserve the benefit of the doubt. So why should you got to Anime Southwest? Well that is always the question.

The panels / events of Anime Southwest include the standard array of costume contest and a dance. For Utena fans there will also be a Rose Ball where you can "Dance the evening away in a rose filled wonderland". The guests will also be holding their own panels. Samantha Inoue-Harte, whom has worked in over 33 anime titles and video games, will have panels about Auditioning for Video Game Voice Acting, Old School Anime Fandom, and what it is like Inside the Japanese Anime Studio. Then we have Blake Shepard who has been working in anime for over 10 years by lending his voice to shows such and Angel Beats, Sacred Blacksmith, One Piece, Air Gear, Elfen Lied and more. He is also a animator and will be doing an Animation 101 panel over the weekend. Kazha is also attending as a musical guest so we can expect to see a concert on the schedule. Lastly we will see two cosplay guests, DugFinn Cosplay and Umbra Cosplay. 

Hopefully we will see more events as the convention closes in. If you want to pre-registers you can do so here for $45.00 for all three days. Look forward to seeing you there.