Hoshnasi

I was playing around with different coats of green on the skin.  The chest is a different blend then the head and neck.  I used a base of Dark Angels green.  Then brought up a layer of Serpentine Shadow.  From there I played around with mixing Serpentine.  I’m much happier with the head area, but in the end I’m going to stick to the RMS paint trio from Serpentine to Scaly Highlight.

I realized after I started this that I finished the eyes, but did snap a shot.  I’ll get it in the next update.

Playing through the Too Human demo a few times made me yearn for a game on Xbox 360 that was more fantasy RPG.  However, I just don’t think thats ever been made on the 360.   So now, I’m looking at the achievements for Oblivion.  I never played Oblivion on the Xbox.  I had it on the PC and I didn’t like it that much, bad balancing and menu design made the game feel really console like.  Which I don’t think will bother me on the Xbox, but killed it for me on the PC.

Too Human and the escapades of Silicon Knights president Dennis Dyack have become infamous. Its hard for any enthusiast to not have an opinion about one or the other -regardless of Dennis’ rants on how anyone should NOT do so. Too Human for those do not know has been in development for nine years and due to a very poor 2007 E3 demo has received almost an endless paddling session from many enthusiasts on different game blogs/forums. At the time I wouldn’t have disagreed. The game looked like ass. However now, with a new demo out. I decided to keep an open mind and give it a whirl.

First and foremost, I treated this game like I treat all demos -with kid gloves. There is no manual, so if its complicated I expect to deal with a learning curve. In Too Humans case, I wasn’t disappointed, it was indeed complicated. While melee combat wasn’t difficult to get in terms of the smacky-smack simple stuff. The more rewarding air juggling and troll mounting took a little bit longer to grasp; there are good reasons though for figuring these advanced combat moves out. First, air juggling breaks enemy shields and troll mounting gets you out of the range of the very strong troll hammer smash, which for all intensive purposes has one of the biggest area effects I have seen on a monster in a long time.

As many already know, attacking both melee and ranged in Too Human requires the use of the right analog stick, which is normally the camera control on other games. For the haters this is the biggest gripe of the demo/game. It was for me as well on my first play through, The lack of camera control was hard to grasp initially, vaguely similar to getting used to GTA 4. However again, I had to learn that I needed to be more proactive on either snapping the camera to my back, or using the D-pad to go into a zoomed out Diablo-esqe camera view. Although I do still have a camera gripe. The setting of this game is massive and beautiful. Interior passages which look like an ancient tomb are amazing. Not having the ability to flick the analog stick around and feel like I’m there on the ground, verses being pulled along with a fixed view floating in a balloon takes away from the immersion. I know many can say “There is a free look mode!”, but all I can say is I hate free-look and don’t usually remember how to do it when needed. I’ll go a step further and say a majority of gamers would agree with me.

At this point I’m sounding like I’ve made alot of consolations for the demo and to be honest I have. I gave the demo an honest and FULL play through and while I have my complaints, like the game taking it self to seriously and my natural human opinion about Dyack and his up-his-own-ass rants on 1UP Yours podcast in regards to forum attacks to his game and his personal retaliation (which are not defendable in my mind). I still like the game and will be buying when it comes out and here is why.

Eighty percent of my gaming is social, either Team Fortress, Halo, COD4, Diablo or hell Uno and Catan. I like playing with people. I also like a good story driven RPG. I think Too Human takes a little bit from most of the aforementioned games. A good thing here is it takes me back to working with friends like in Diablo. Making a party and sharing loot to bolster effects and guarantee success is a huge plus to me. With gobs and gobs of items to loot in the demo I can only imagine customization of your character will be massive. Of course you will have to make sure you turn OFF the auto salvage feature, something I had set to ALL on the first demo run.

Too Human is going to be too much for some of you who have an opinion that they can’t get around. Either that “Its not nine years worth of game.” or “The camera is too much to deal with.” or that you just don’t want Dyack to win his NeoGaf bet (or fill his wallet). Still I’d recommend everyone check out the demo. If you like the game in the first play through I’d rank its a buy, even with some frustration on the controls. If you like the idea of the game co-oping on Live then its also a buy. If you can’t handle the camera even in Diablo mode (as I call it) stay away.

Heres my list of pros and cons:

Pro:

• LOOT LOOT LOOT, I’m looking forward to building a monster commando personally
• Shared skills and competent class system make me look forward to Co-op
• Skills trees that pull in the spider and war cry add versatility to classes. The three classes I ran through (Champion, Commando and Defender) seemed well thought-out and balanced
• Combat is fun, both up close and away once you get the hang of the Advanced Combat system. My big “Ah-ha” moment came when playing the Commando. Holding right trigger performs auto fire, however if you don’t use the right stick to pick a new target you’ll just be spraying bullets into a dead corpse after too long. However a flick to the right or left causes your character to turn ninety degrees. What you have to do is flick up or down, that selects the next adjacent target. For the commando, this meant alot more death to goblin hordes
• The demo both in the tomb and the Fey world were picturesque. I didn’t miss much when in Diablo camera mode, I just had to figure out I needed to be there!

Cons:

• The menu system is poorly laid out. Hitting start for the menu takes you into a rotating dial type thing where Skills and Equipment -the most used branches for me are spaced at opposite ends. Leaving you to scroll back and forth when you need to access both.
• The menu sounds are ear piercing. My Fiance was doing work at home at her desk and couldn’t stand the wretched noise as I went from the root menu to the Equipment branch.
• Shield breaking for the range classes seemed tough, I don’t think I ever figured it out aside from letting the mob attack me, launch it into the air with my sword then air juggle it with my riffle. It seemed like I was missing another way to do it
• How the hell do I use the War Cry? I just couldn’t get it to work. I had the skill points and what seemed like a full combo meter, but no amount of spamming X on the Commando made him do a thing. The game did notify of my failure by giving me another horrible tone with every press

Lessons learned:

Need to work on better layer colors. I have alot of uncompleted sets. Basically what I mean is I’m lacking three or four colors that flow from dark to light with similar shades and tones. I have a TON of whacky off set colors I use for accenting. Mainly because my big box O’ paint went missing.

Also, white is nice. But needs to be done a bit more sparingly.

The last step I did was the base, which sadly was after I realized my failings in blending and layering. So the base is the best part or of mini in my mind.

BTW: this is Reaper model 02408 if you want to buy it.

What do you think?

Last night at about 9:00pm I started the second session painting the Reptus Tyrant. As you might have remembered from the first post, I left the model with the skin and fabric painted. There was also a base coat on the chainmail.

Here are the updated pictures:

I’m disappointed in my NMM on the sword. other than that I am pretty happy. I really wish I hadn’t lost 50% of my paints because I think I spent 25% of my time mixing on the pallet to find the right tones. Side note - Check out the Reaper board on making a wet pallet. It was really helpful in keeping the paint wet under my bright desk lamp.

Backside:

I feel the NMM on the back of the sword is much stronger. The gator skin loses something as well due to my hot flash (I couldn’t get the lighting right). When I start posting auctions I’m going to need to get a light box.

Wide shot:

Things to wrap up:

1. The base, I’m not sure why I based it in brown, since this is for D&D flag stones in grey would have been better.
2. The front side of the sword.
3. Maybe touch up the eyes.
4. POSSIBLY soften some of the whites. I don’t think I should blame my lack of paints on this one. Really my skill is where the buck stops. Regardless. I think the shoulders are over white. Also, the lines are too robust.

I think I’ll get through 1 and 2 and then just leave it. I mean, we play again Monday and I want to get this model on the table!

Next up:

I’m really excited about the model. My buddy is playing a Dragonborn Paladin, I think this model is PERFECT. I’m going to leave the tail on as well. Skin will be sickly poison green tones (he spits poison) and armor a ghostly black/grey.

A canvas is a great place to put paint on. However, I like to paint with nerdy flare. Thats why I like miniatures. Either made by Games Workshop for games like Warhammer 40k. Or Reaper, who have their own games, but more than that have some very beautiful miniatures that many people seek.

The thought to start painting for profit came from three things:

1. Reading the posts by Vaitalla on the Reaper boards
2. My fiance asking to start an eBay second business together
3. Running some quick searches on completed auctions for GW and Reaper

I’m not going to claim I’m a master painter. Hell, I don’t know that I’m even an average painter, but I really enjoy it and might just be the first hobby I have that I can make money from. Leah’s head is spinning at this, mainly because all my hobbies consist of me pour money like water out of my wallet.

Wish me luck! Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to paint up things like Anne on the boards…

<——-Like this!!  Go check the post out its really cool how this model evolved. Frankly I liked what she did with the sheer fabric effect. Pretty amazing.

Last night was our forth session playing D&D 4th edition. I have noticed two things now. When the Warlord (me) gets knocked out, the encounter goes pretty badly. I’m currently the most convenient healer and I enable the team to get into the fray. Take the Blue jelly that smacked me twice and took me out. Everytime I tried to get into the combat I got knocked out. Lessons learned. Time to drop Viper’s Strike for Commander’s Strike. This way I can be safely out of harms way, avoid the blue jelly explosions and give my fighter extra attacks with my int bonus.

Second thing I learned. Time to invest in a spiked chain. I get 2 squares of reach, with a bonus to hit. This makes things like wolf pack tactics GODLY.

Tonight I’m going to try to finish up my miniature and start on the paladin.

Well I started on this little guy last week.

My palette of colors was AWFUL, I stopped at the skin because is came out like a dark leather to gold rainbow. So I reset the mini by stripping the paint and primer using my friend Simple Green, just soak for 30 minutes and rub with an old tooth brush.
Here are the new pictures from last night. The skin is done and I *thought* the red cloth was done, but apparently I hit it with my black wash and grey I’m using on the chain mail.

I think its looking pretty good being my first mini in four years. The fun parts are still left, detailing the armor and his sword, which I’m going to try some non metal metallic (NMM) effects.

Anyone else paint minis?

Girl finds bat in bra after wearing it for five hours.

Seriously, does she get dressed in the dark? How would you not notice this? Must not be a morning person.

My D&D experience started in college with version 3/3.5.  I liked it alot, but it had a steep learning curve.  Couple that with drinking and we often spent alot of time sorting out the details and rules of some of our crazier ideas we had “Pixie fighter?” - “Sure!  Just let me get the rule book and give me 30 minutes.”

However, that complexity did allow anything to happen and we had tons of fun and fond memories.

Naturally when 4th edition came out I heard alot of nay-saying “Its dumbed down”, “It has lost all flexibility”, and so on.  My buddy in particular (our DM) didn’t really think much of it.  That changed last week when he sat down and read some of the core rules.  In and instant he snatched up the book and started making a campaign, which we started last night.  A abridged version of a review would be “Tons of fun, without getting stuck in the rules.  Or having to remember too much of those same rules.”

I had a character made in 20 minutes with the help of the guided list in towards the front of the players hand-book.  Rolling stats, GONE.  replaced with a pretty straight forward point system, all stats start at 8 and you invest “points” to raise them up.  I went with more of a even slope with my highest two stats being 16, (str and int).  The rogue went full 18 in dex.  Why I saw this as a value was WE NOT LONGER HAD TO ROLL STATS!!!!!   THANK THE LORD.  We have literally spent the whole night getting through everyones rolls.  Often our tank would end up completely gimped with a horrible stat-line too

The next thing I appreciated was the new power system.  Regardless if you are a caster, cleric, rogue or fighter you have these new exploits.  There are At-Will powers that can be performed at anytime, an example is magic missile.  Yes, that is right, magic missile is now more of a usable skill that can miss that a spell.  GONE are the days of spell points and saying “Well, we’re all going to camp till the cleric regens his sp.”  There is also Encounter Powers which can be used once per experience (5-6 minute rest period to regen) and Daily Powers.  Which again can only be used once and then require a day to regen.  Daily Powers are very powerful, followed by Encounter and then daily which make up the meat and potatoes of attacking and replace “Slash” and other stands like “Shoot”.

I could go on and on here, but in the end I think 4th edition will get a pretty wide following, much more so that 3rd edition.  While playing a friends girlfriend when watching us battling some kobolds said “Ok, this is pretty cool I want to play” she read the players handbook for ten minutes and had a pretty good idea of how everything works in making a character.  She had never played D&D and no concept of table-top gaming.

Expect things to get expensive though.  I can already predict a huge number of expansion books to follow the players handbook.  More so than 3rd edition.  There is alot of meat left off in the current players handbook and a bunch of standard classes like the bard and monk have disappeared.  I expect to see them in expansion books relatively soon.

Give it a whirl if you used to play D&D!