Anime styled Wolverine and Ironman

I saw the videos for these on youtube. The style honestly feels old school anime rather than new school. Especially with Wolverine. Hair that has the same 3 positions that repeats over and over, glowing claws that look more like magical weapons, anime styled kill effects... there's no doubt these teasers are anime through and through.

Many people in the youtube comments seem to be taking a person affront to the new style of some of their favorite memories. As these clips were produced in Japan, in Japanese Anime style, it's kind of a no brainer that they are made for *gasp* the Japanese market. You can argue, you can hate, but it doesn't change the fact that these are highly marketable American icons that require a remake to really break out into a new world market.

Business is business. Repackaging the same product with different colors is not something new, and actually has an air of legitimacy considering they're going after a new market with their new package instead of the same one yet again.

Blizzcon

is coming up. I'm really looking forward to it because Blizzard will most likely reveal a new D3 class. Currently they have 2 magical classes and 1 melee only class, and my bet on the 4th class is going to be either some sort of mutated creature that focuses on melee attacks with some sort of gimmick non magical bonus attack, or it's going to be a magic gunner. A class that focuses on ranged or melee combat using pistols and knives. I honestly can't see any other class being developed except for a magic gunner at this point. If they throw the paladin back in there I'm going to be a little sad, but that probably is going to be one of the last 2 classes as well. Because Blizzard will want to throw out some sort of shield and heavy armor class.

I truly hope that we get a magic gunner, I've been looking forward to one of those in a video game for quite awhile, but nobody ever really seems keen on the concept. Basically you have short range weapons that can be used easily in melee range, a quick class, much like a witch hunter from Warhammer Online tbh, but they also use magic for evasion and diversion as well as imbuing their normal attacks with magic.

I've decided to really start looking at writing or editing jobs, maybe even marketing though I don't have any real marketing concept. I'm going to keep working on my book as well, and still look for local waitering jobs.

Too much good food

I've been eating a lot of dim sum recently, trying out the various restaurants around Atlanta. Oriental Pearl has been the best so far, and the cheapest, and they even passed the water test. The water test is a series of small tests to determine how the restaurant manages the people giving water. We didn't have to ask for it, they refilled it whenever it got low, they passed the water test. Most restaurants we went to couldn't. Though Hong Kong Harbor was probably the most amazing at it, you'd finish half your glass and they'd be there already to refill it, it was almost too much.

I just submitted a new article to MMORPG.com, one that I really like, so I'll throw a link up here when it comes out. It's a list of the 5 reasons I'm going to leave WoW in order to play Aion. I think that most MMO players feel the same way I do, where it's hard to actually play more than one MMO at a time. Unlike other types of games, the MMO market has a potentially finite amount of people that will ever actually be interested.

I'm still looking for a serious job if anyone knows of anything. Writing, editing, researching, analysis. Those are my forte's. I'm also an excellent typist, 100+ words a minute according to one of those online word counter tests anyway. I don't have much time now, but I'll try to get a new update in the next few days, I did try my hand at some drawing but I haven't been able to spend enough time on it yet.

Aion

Aion beta is open again! You can level all the way to level 20. Honestly, the sheer amount of possible grinding in this game is making me hesitate from doing just that. Now, there's nothing wrong with a game that takes a little time and is enjoyable on the way up, but as with most MMO's I've encounters, that enjoyment only lasts the first time through.

I want to make an Aion comic, so I'm hoping to test out my black and white 4 panel across simple drawing skills soon. Nothing as awesome as Sinfest, more along the lines of simple like Applegeeks mini comic thing at the bottom.

Crafting in Aion is very grindy. It's not a necessity either, so I'm not sure if I'll put too much time into it once the real game launches. I'm also completely addicted to harvesting. I was addicted to it in Age of Conan, I'm addicted to it in Aion. Whenever I see a resource I have to go get it, even though I know it's going to respawn in less than 5 minutes and I'll be tempted to take it all over again. It's not like anyone else is taking the damn things, but I just feel the need to when I see them. And honestly, I think I'm about doing it on pace to keep the gathering skill up, which is both enjoyable for me, and scary at the same time, because I've been doing a hell of a lot of gathering.

Still haven't seen the end game of Aion, just knowing that leveling more than 1 character is going to be a major pain in the ass. I'm currently looking at a Templar, but I'm growing disappointed with the lag that occasionally plagues the game. I don't know where this lag is coming from, probably Comcast so me, but the rate of it just makes me think it has something to do with Aion as well. When I can get the Templar to weapon swap perfectly and use abilities at the right time without having to press... wait to see if it worked... no it didn't press again... wait another second... that's what this game turns into sometimes and it's Horrible when it does. When the game runs smooth the combat with a Templar is nice, when it runs even the slightest big laggy you're screwed and going to end up healing yourself between every mob.

So I've been thinking about maybe leveling something else, but I'm not sure what yet. The ranger is fun, the kiting takes skill just like hunters used to in WoW, but I don't know if I'm ready to go back to the same play style I used over 3 years ago and had to watch it deteriorate before my eyes over the last 3. Current WoW hunters are a complete joke in comparison. Aion rangers take that same kind of skill, but the weapon manual weapon swapping is again a deterrent to the class in my eyes. This time from ranged weapon to melee weapon you actually have to swap before using. Considering the up to 2 seconds of weapon swap lag depending on what your doing when you hit the button, it's a terribly unresponsive system. I'm also looking at a Summoner just because the pets look f'in awesome, but I'd probably rather have a sorcerer if I leveled a mage. I don't like either the cleric or the chanter really, and I'm not sure which I would take over the other. The chanter looks like more fun, but it also looks more like the other melee classes, so a cleric might be more interesting.

But we'll see. Also, just started watching some show where this girl dies and ends up being a grim reaper... pretty good so far.

Reading

Finished reading Martin Scott's 1999 book Thraxas. Apparently some sort of British author. Decent read, though I'm not a complete fan of the way he created his world. They do say write about what you know, but when the comparisons are so rapidly determined it feels like the story was thrown together in a number of days with no real effort.

It's a fantasy setting mystery story, with a semi-anti-hero. He's only semi that because he does strive to do the good thing and have a good character etc. etc. like most "heroes", but he's meant to be portrayed as your non average hero. So he's not really an anti-hero as a lazy regular hero. Sounds kind of like the author. He's not a bad author, he's a lazy author.

The entire world that Thraxas lives in is the same one the rest of us live in with maybe two additions. You've got your whites, blacks, and asians. You've got them not getting a long and the way society doesn't always view a mixed ethnic child as something good. You've got your poor and your rich and your greedy and your lazy. Beer is beer, they smoke weed non stop, they have liquor, and they have cocaine renamed to Dwa. It's even referred to by some of its other names, Angel Dust changed to Chorus of Angels for some ridiculous reason.

So Thraxas isn't so much a good fantasy mystery book, as it is just a mystery book. The entire premise could so easily take place Anywhere that it begs the question why did the author choose fantasy and go through all the "work" or replacing cocaine with the word dwa, and asian with the word elf. It's a good read, but much like the main character, very lazy.

I don't have anything next on the table as of yet.