Worldcon - Day 1

Personal blah blah blah

Few years ago I decided that when the next Worldcon would be held in Europe I'd go, but in that time I did not expect to be in a financial situation that can be considered bad. My family and Peter Konings made coming to this year's Worldcon possible and for that I greatly thank them.

Two weeks before Worldcon I started to feel really depressed about all this. I did not have the money to enjoy the convention and it simply did not feel right (as I can hardly pay the rent). I had the same feeling when deciding if I want to participate in Prague Eternal or not. Winning Plateau and Scalding Tarn though payed for all the fees and I still could keep a dual land 'free'. But in this case the money spend in London will just disappear... it will turn into memories. 'Will those be worth it?' I asked myself...Certainly it would be worth it if I would have the money, but the real fact is that we did not pay the rent nor really have much money to spare...So after few days of having a wonderful time and coming back to reality, how will I feel?

So I started to sell a bit more cards and hoped to sell some altered cards. In those two weeks I actually managed to amass a bit greater amount of money. I sold Force of Will alter, Talrand alter, Call of the Herd and some non-altered cards. Thanks the commissioners for this. It is a great help and the money will be used for something good and something that I can actually enjoy. (I forgot that I still need to pay for the hotel.)

The week before Worldcon I was ill and few days before it I felt pretty sick. But I hoped that all this would go away and I would feel great during those few days in London. On Wednesday I felt really terrible. Together with my flatmate we participated in EDH tournament that for me went HORRIBLE (going there was really bad idea, but I needed both the money and GBPs - main reason why venturing there) and for him hopefully better. What did not really help my mood was a player who arrived late and received a bye instead of game loss and then won the tournament. That wasn't fair. I even if I would have won the last round I wouldn't get anything due to this. So I wasn't particularly happy about it, but well I felt like crap and during my flatmate's bye he was the one to fetch me some (GB) pounds. I'm thankful for that because at that time I wouldn't even be able to walk there and back...

At 8am I was woken up by my sister's cell phone (my phone got stolen a week ago) trying to tell me that it received an sms. I got up because I couldn't sleep the whole night so staying in bed made no sense. I collected my stuff and run to catch the subway train to Zlicin. I managed it^_^. At the airport everything went fine. Our flight was delayed but I did not really care. When turning the phone on when we landed it asked for a PIN code. I did not know it at that time. I didn't care much...but later I started to care a bit. And somewhere halfway to Shadwell I finally realized where the hell I am and why. So it was time for me to have some fun.

I bought a ticket to Shadwell and arrived to the hotel without problems (the only problem was a storm that just started). I managed to call my sister from here, get the PIN and later arrive at ExCel. During all those trips from one point to another I managed to read 1/4 of Assail from Esselmont.

During the little walks between tube lines I noticed that many people are either asian or muslim (arab or something - no offense meant). English was hardly present ... Where the hell did I end up? In Great Britain? End of blah blah
Worldcon - Day 1

I arrived at the registration desk around quarter past 3. They had some problems figuring where my badge is but after some time they managed to find it. Then I called my sister to find out where she is. I was told that she's somewhere named 'Capital Suite 11' listening to Introduction to Speculative Biology. It sounded good enough for me so I went there.

Speculative biology refers to a really hypothetical field of science that tries to predict evolution of species be it alternative evolution or future evolution. Science-Fiction worlds' biology can also be considered as speculative biology. Why speculative biology exists? Well, humans have desire to create new life forms or worlds. They like to see grotesque forms and also wonder about 'what if' questions (what if humans did not evolve? what species would rule the world?). We can see many forms of speculative biology in the past be it in religious scripts/art, maps, cave paintings etc. We also see it in art but there it often is more fiction (that would hardly work on Earth). Speculative Biology is something that is part of the SF/F movies, books, worlds - it entertains and it also sells. (see the movie Avatar for example)

Via speculative biology people can also express themselves, their feelings or problems. This will be reflected in their work. In the future speculative biology could become art - a distict genre of art.

After this introduction I wasn't really sure if I want to hear more but I'll see if I have some time for more of this. Anyway next I moved to Anime Canon.

Is there something as Anime Canon? What anime should be on that list? Is the list personal or we can pick series or movies that really stand out. Is it possible that in the upcoming decade certain works will be taught at school? Everyone has read, seen or heard about Legend of Arthur. It is considered something that everyone should know. This more or less happened to Tolkien as well. Will this happen to Anime?

Many agreed that the most influential work sometimes is not something that someone would want to see but it is still something one should see. But if introducing a friend to anime he or she should start with something more contemporary and something groundbreaking nonetheless. Anime that does not really need anyone to have prior knowledge of something (be it history of Japan, anime or whatever) is the best. That can be for example Mahou Shoujo Madoka or Gurren Lagan. I did not really find anything new her at this panel, but it is true that I learned a bit about anime/manga in UK. The thing is that some anime was licensed here, but mostly brutal and not really good anime in general. This was a bad idea. Those people watching it or hearing about this will have this in mind and won't be open for something else that is actually good and non-violent for example. Other countries don't have this problem, for example in France there's kind of everything and people know that they can choose. Anime is of all kinds be it fantasy, cyberpunk, high school love story or giant robots beating each other. Anyway anime that were mentioned were for example FLCL, FMAB, Sidonia no kishi, Hotaru no haka, GitS SAC, Azumanga, InuYasha, XXXHolic, Gunslinger Girl, Elfen Lied, Utena...

Next was Tropes and Players. This did not turn out well. But well...we did not get to what a trope actually is and what ended up as a cliche or what starts to be turned back into a trope. General problems in games is - portrayal of gender and the fact that the online player is anonymous and does not need to give you the information about his/her gender. The game developers are mainly male and thus produce games that are also viewed from the male perspective. If female characters appear they are either bad ass heroine type or damsel in distress.

When it was announced that 49% of players are actually female everything started to go wrong because many simply disagree. In general there are hard core gamers, casual gamers those that consider both groups equivalent. In hard core gamers we won't find many female players I guess but in overall I guess the percentage can be pretty high...because well anyone playing Angry Birds now and then would count. Ubisoft's silly answer to why there isn't a female character playable at Assassin's Creed SP (but is in MP) was also commented. I personally don't care much. But well there are many issues with all this. Even though the male players seem to acknowledge that there are female players they sometimes just can't accept the fact that 'this male'character in a game is actually a female in real life and I don't speak about stuff like competitiveness and other things. I could actually write an essay on this topic...We also got back to the topic of marketing (at the previous panel we got into fanservice and marketing anime). Games being marketed for 18-24 (or whatever...but young) males does not really help anything and in online environment there are no consequences for behaviour.

Fermi Paradox. Fermi wondered in 50s if there is an intelligent life our there and if there is where it is. This panel was actually good, all the present had different views on the topic and in a way all makes sense. We are either alone, or not and the intelligent race just hides its presence (but if there are more then at least one would want to contact us). Not being able to find intelligent life can also be a question of 'bad' timing. Simply it takes too long for a civilization to evolve. The problem can be simple statistics...
Anyway this panel was good. Unfortunately there were too many people, some fainted and some left because there was no air at the back of the small room.

I went outside just to realize that the next panel discussion takes place in the same room I got out of. Unfortunately I did not manage to fit in so I went to a different one - Communicating risk and uncertainty. When communicating risk - probability of occurence (of something) and its consequences - people use different methods, some work better some work worse. People in general have mistrust in authorities when they announce something about certain risks and media also try to make things fuzzy and less understandable. Many people just don't understand what the percentage of the risk actually means. People anyway decide emotionally and rationally can't find a reason why they decided this way or other. What approach is the best? Who knows, sometimes a family member's presence helps, sometimes speaking in non-native language helps someone to make more reasonable decision. The information can be conveyed in many ways and good graphical even though not that precise interpretation can be much more understandable for some then pure figures...

I wish this discussion went on but we were asked to leave the room and could go to a different one.

Neither of us wanted to go anywhere so we went to eat something - I got some spicy lamb curry and rice for 10GBP. It was delicious^_^.

After that we got back to our hotel and we are looking forward to today's programme. At 10am we have about 6 different things each of us would want to attend...but we can only attend one. It seems that for me it will be 'Artistic' day. I'll probably visit some acrylic paints sessions/workshops and see the art gallery. But who knows where my legs will lead me...

That's for it folks. Thanks for reading, not sure if it makes much sense, but for me it is something that will help keep all this in my mind.

Unfortunate Savannah

A friend of mine altered one day a unlimited Savannah for some reason (be it because of damage or something else). He altered it in a way I just couldn't stand watching it even though with quite some tweaks it could actually look awesome. I was getting him a black bordered Savannah and in return I received (except money) the altered Savannah. My plan was to save it somehow. I did not plan altering his illustration though. If I could get rid of the paint without damaging the card I would be happy (this works on some cards that were not damaged prior altering). I knew the risk (would end up with destroyed Savannah) but it seemed worth trying. This time it did not go well. I found out that there were damaged areas on the card and the black border is something I couldn't get rid of. I also managed to damage the card at one place by myself...so I was pretty angry about that.

So after completely destroying the card...I was up to a new task...make it look at least passable. In the end it looks like ...an OK proxy, but the card is actually real.

I apologize thus to JK for destroying his Savannah and painting over it. I will treasure the card dearly though. It will find its place in my Phelddagrif deck.

Now here is the destroyed card and the alter ^_^

Hearthstone - Curse of Naxxramas

disclaimer: don't expect something like a review or something, it's my personal experience with HS after 8 months or so.

Yesterday after a Magic: The Gathering group being a bit flooded with Hearthstone posts I decided to write one as well. As you may well know already I'm not such a great fan of Hearthstone. It simply does not satisfy my needs in terms of a good game. This game certainly excels in GUI. MODO is horrible, SolForge client is eh..still horrible. Hearthstone GUI is fun, nice, flashy ..it's genial. But that won't change my attitude to the game. Anyway I haven't played the game for quite a long time so I decided to run it and see if I would be able to have some fun games or games that I would consider 'games'.

I ran Battle.net and waited for HS to be patched. I then tried to enter the Adventure mode and chose the first encounter. I picked a wrong deck (a deck I build to complete some daily quest) and died horribly. But seeing new cards with deathrattle was good. I wasn't playing against something I played against already. After my defeat I picked my mage deck and went to beat the Anub'Rekhan. My deck could handle this and I was able to win by simply attacking with my creatures. Anub'Rekhan's ability seemed annoying but at that time I did not know about the Heroic mode's ability. In that case he was creating 4/4 creatures I couldn't deal with unlike in the normal mode. What was worse was the fact he got the possibility to clear the whole board that...that wasn't good.

Faerlina was much tougher. She killed me in the first game by using 3 times her ability. First one hit me for 11, second for 7 and the last one for lethal. I should have read the ability before starting to play anything but I was too busy figuring out where are my Tarmogoyfs. During the whole adventure I was trying to process all orders and build a deck for that day's modern tournament in Najada (otherwise I wouldn't even bother playing the game). For game two I decided to get rid of all card drawing effects in my deck and put some creatures that either leave behind something or can survive the Rain of whatever ability. (I added some spiders^^). After this beating her was piece of cake.

Next the big boss Maexxna. Well not much of a boss I guess? Or was I simply lucky? She was bouncing my minions and trying to deal some damage but in the end dealt none and I easily won. I have to say that some cards were really annoying especially those having Stealth. I don't have a way how to deal with big creatures in my deck so I have to outrace. Sometimes it gets difficult but in this case...it was fine. Two Frost Bolts and Two Frost Novae did the job. (Maexxna was going easy on me?)

After beating Maexxna I was hoping for more action but was notified that I have to pay 700gold in order to continue or pay some real money. With my 200 gold I couldn't do much. So I proceeded to Class challenges. I picked the first one. Rogue vs Maexxna yet once again.

Both of the challenges were fun. I got a deck with cards I did not play before. With cards that could deal with anything my opponent played. In between actual plays that were relevant Maexxna was producing spiders and I was producing oozes^_^.

When she played something bigger I killed it with some creature that can deal with that and in the meantime I was killing smaller threats with one creature I always bounced back and played again (it was 3/5 or something being able to kill a little minion). Then something wierd happened^_^ I drew a legendary card. The only legendary card I ever had in my deck was Alexstrasza but it was usually my opponents who killed me with her. Anyway I played the legendary card (making spells cost 5 more next turn) and it got bounced back 4 times before it finally died. After the board was relatively wiped out ... I managed to play some minions and deal some damage with them. 1 life remained to Maexxna. I top decked the One shot, one kill elf and killed Maexxna with that (even though I could have just attacked^^ with my hero or minion).

Then it was time for some druid challenge. Malfurion had to outrace Faerlina which was quite ok. Just needed my creatures to survive. Marks of Nature were great^_^. But the card that actually gave the finishing blow was different. Malfurion got +2Atk +2Armor and swung for the victory. This time I had no creatures in play and it would take me two turns to finish her off. This match leveled Malfurion up - up to level 2!

Now it was time to try the Heroic mode. I still hadn't finished my orders and hardly found anything for my deck. After reading/hearing the warning that this will take many deckbuilding attempts to actually pass I chose the first encounter. At first I thought that only the heroes life total changed but when he started spawning 4/4 each turn I wasn't really sure if I can handle it. At some points in the game it looked like I could actually win but top deck mode was inevitable and my 1 dmg for 2 mana couldn't really stand up to 4/4 each turn. So I tried to deal as much damage I could with my trolls and and hope for something like Fireball to the head and GG and that's what exactly happened.

So well Heroic mode is difficult I managed to get through the beginning (I don't have gold...for the rest) with my basic mage deck (without blizzard and pyroblast).

After this I was halfway through putting together my twin deck. All I needed to figure out is where I have some fetchlands, serum visions and sideboard. I also had some daily quests almost finished so I decided to try to finish them. I clicked on ranked and played 4 matches. In the first one I totally crushed some poor guy. In the second one I had to listen to some taunting guy that actually assembled something like a deck but died to my creatures anyway. The third match was more difficult, but after seeing the Coin being played on T1, followed by 1/1 recruit my opponent did not seem as someone I should lose to. By this time I still haven't finished my daily quests so I chose the ranked for the last time to earn some gold finally. I played against combo rogue that wanted to comment each mistake done (even if it wasn't a mistake but rather a desperate 'best' play I could do not to kill a turn), fizzled in midgame and died later in late game because he ran out of cards and I still could survive, deal some damage and wait for him to die. After this I FINALLY managed to get the gold from the quests and I could close the game because I could not stand another game.

So now comes the question...will I be willing to grind some gold to be able to finish Curse of Naxxramas or not? I need 500 more and that seems like ages in the game...no matter what there are no series to watch and I have nothing to do when processing orders or sorting cards. I was thinking about playing Duels of the Planeswalkers. Get all 900+ cards, build a deck and play online because that would actually make sense. But playing DotP15 takes even more time then HS and my eyes don't like it much (I feel dizzy after playing the game). In this case of dotp15 vs HS, HS wins.^_~

Talrand, Sky Summoner

Maybe when I do this next time it will look better...the colors are intentionally off but I'm not sure if that helped anything...

Academy Rector

Sometimes there are Magic Alters that are really bad. Sometimes someone has a good idea but fails. It is sad to look at such alters and I certainly produced some when I was starting with altering. Sometimes it's better to fix such alters if one can. I would certainly do that with my alters (I have Meddling Mage next to me...and I think nothing can save it^_^ but some cards can be saved).

I got my hands on an altered Academy Rector. Someone tried to paint Ram Singh's Kaurwaki on Academy Rector. I don't like the idea but well someone thought this would be cool. Unfortunately the person did not manage to copy the image well. Kaurwaki was deformed, PT/card name box was really badly outlined with black felt-tip pen. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of how it looked like before but it was really atrocious (and probably I wouldn't show it no matter what). Here's a part of the card how it looked like so you get the idea...

The alter alone probably took the person a really long time to do but in the end it wasn't something one would want to have in a deck. I wanted to fix that if that would be possible (I was asked to by the owner of the card).

So after looking at it I realized what's wrong and tried to fix it, sometimes with more success sometimes with less. But in the end it looks way better and now one can actually look at it. The original alterist put quite too much paint on it and his/her brush strokes were in all directions...I tried to hide it but the texture on the card is really 'deep'. I tried getting rid of the paint but it did not really work well. At some places I used exacto knife to get rid of excess and repaint it, somewhere I just painted over. So well here's Kaurwaki, Academy Rector^_^