Thought Bubble Comic Con Day 1 - Mark Waid REALLY hates motion comics

The first day of Thought Bubble has ended and it's been a damned good one. Between the parade of cosplayers and the panels, this year's con is shaping up to be the best yet. Read on to find out why Al Ewing mentioned talking penises, how come Kieron Gillen overused the word 'demi' and why Mark Waid bloody hates motion comics.

The day began with a panel moderated by Gosh! Comics with creators talking about the best comics they have read this year. Anthony Johnston, Kate Brown, Kieron Gillen, and Al Ewing had an entertaining discussion their picks of 2012, which included a whole lot of talk about Hugo Tate by Nick Abadzis as well as pretty much everyone stating a love for webcomics in general. I neglected to take a notebook because I'm a witless oaf, so I can only remember a few of their recommendations. Journalism win! However, from the get-go, Journey into Mystery scribe Gillen was being given a hard time for his use of the word 'demi-mainstream', and rightly so! From then on it was demi everything and much laughter was had by all.

Next up was the 2000AD 25th Anniversary roundtable, which is the panel I was most excited for. It put together some of the giants of the publication in the same room where they, get ready for it, talked about comics and stuff! Rob Williams, Al Ewing, Simon Fraser, Simon Davis, Leigh Gallagher, Robbie Morrison and Mike Molcher, who delivered a fantastic talk about life working for the galaxy's greatest comic, including answering questions about their sense of decency when coming up with art and scripts. It soon became clear that Tharg's mightiest were also filthier than a rotten dishrag as they regaled us with tales of rejections due to talking penises and a particularly racy Nikolai Dante story that forced the publisher to seal the comic in a bag. Of course, they had to drop in a question about what they thought of the new Dredd film and surprisingly enough they all loved it (except Morrison, who admitted that he still hadn't seen it).

Then it was straight into the next panel - a discussion about digital comics, with Simon Fraser, Becky & Frank, Kate Beaton, Scott C, Mark Waid, Ketan Majmudar and Paul Duffield. This is where I learnt that Mark Waid can talk... a lot. Not to say that's a bad thing, he's eloquent, wise and full of anecdotes, so it's always a joy to hear him speak. Also, while he's a huge promoter of using comics in the digital medium with Thrillbent, he explained his disdain for motion comics, one that we both share. He stated that one of the most important thing about the medium is the ability to give the reader freedom to choose the pace of the story, as well as voices and sound effects. Motion comics take away from that, turning the reader into a passive agent rather than an active one. However, he did say that there are great things happening with digital comics, a view that was shared between the panel, even quasi-Luddites like Beaton and Frank. They showed us a great example of innovation in comics using CSS, where resizing the browser reconfigures the action on the page, making it easy to read comics with any sized screen. It was clear that everyone was enthusiastic about the future of digital comics, especially Waid, who would go on to talk more about it in a later panel.

After pottering around the main hall for 20 minutes, checking out all the awesome that was on offer, I headed over to see Kieron Gillen give a keynote talk about his foray into the industry and the advice he was offered from some of the best writers in the business when he was starting out. It was a funny and inspirational talk that gave a great insight into breaking into comics and how you shouldn't just try to be a good writer, but also a great human being.

To round off the day, I attended the writers' roundtable where industry veterans including Jason Aaron, Andy Diggle, Ivan Brandon, Mark Waid, and Nick Spencer spoke about the comics industry in general and the ever enthusiastic Waid gave a hopeful writer a point-by-point primer of how to write a script. Everything from keeping schedules to the varied ways writers got into the industry were covered in this insightful panel that may not have had the comedy of previous ones, but contained some eye-opening information all the same.

So that was day one of Thought Bubble - and what a day it was. Come back tomorrow for a breakdown of the final day's events.

- Scott Malthouse

Follow @scottmalt on Twitter

Kobold Quarterly closes because it "ran out of miracles"

Sad news today that the bastion magazine for Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons, Kobold Quarterly,  is to close its doors for good after a five and half year run.

Editor-in-chief, Wolfgang Baur, stated that the closure was due to severe time constraints but said that Kobold Press will instead focus its energy on publishing adventures, campaign settings and other RPG material.

"This is a very sad day for me personally, and I know this comes as a disappointment to many of you," Baur said in a statement on his website, "The line on small press magazines these days is, “every issue is a little miracle.” We finally ran out of miracles, but it’s been an absolutely stellar five and a half years with Kobold Quarterly’s contributors, subscribers, and readers."

While Kobold Press recognised Kickstarter as a funding option, they decided that the money raised would not be enough to pay staff on a consistent basis.

But Baur is confident about the future of Kobold Press: "And now, as adventurers do, we will gather in the tavern to hoist mugs of ale and talk about the monsters we slew and the treasures we won. And then we will begin planning and scheming for the next adventure."

Future projects include Player Guides for the Midgard Campaign, the Valhalla Project writing project and two 'top secret' 2013 projects.

The Trollish Delver wishes Baur and his team the very best in the future and we're sorry to see such a great publication close.

[Via Tenkar's Tavern]

- Scott Malthouse

Follow @scottmalt on Twitter

Preview: Maelorum gamebook

There are a tonne of great gaming projects getting the Kickstarter treatment at the moment but one of the most interesting for me is Maelorum, a self-described 'epic gamebook' that's 10 years in the making. Created by William Fincher, Maelorum is a hugely ambitious project that combines the interactivity and depth of videogames with the nostalgia of the Fighting Fantasy series.

One of the biggest surprises that Maelorum presented me with was the choice of characters. This isn't like the new editions of Fighting Fantasy where you get to choose from a few heroes but you inevitably head off on the same story - in Maelorum each character has an in-depth back story as well as their own storyline throughout the adventure. There are three to select from: Edan Kain, the warrior and the king's favourite knight; Raevena Cantor the gypsy rogue; and the aptly named Bryn Morecast, a wizard. Each character feels three-dimensional, with their own history, emotions and goals. They also have their own stats that reflect how difficult they are to play. For instance, Edan Kain is essentially the amateur setting, while Raevena is medium and Bryn difficult; meaning Maelorum has replayability written all over it. Heck, there are even achievements you can earn such as 'Heroic' and 'CodeBreaker', meaning completionists will probably have a lot to go at.

In my playthrough I chose Edan the knight, favourite of King Riordan, who happens to be the reason he's sent out on a mission to investigate the possible return of Goblins in the Elderwood, a blight that could be devastating to the kingdom. So off I go, being teased by the other knights while I leave into the wild green yonder like a bad-ass.

It's not long until my horse and I are attacked in the night by a shadowy assailant who I choose to chase into the mountains, a decision that comes with the first stat change for Edan. This is a really cool idea - each character has intelligence, persona, damage and defence as well as hit points, but these stats can change depending on your decision. Effectively, your choice of direction on your adventure directly affects how your character evolves. Because I chose to immediately head off into the night after the assassin my intelligence was reduced (since it wasn't the best idea) but my persona increased (because of my force of will). This mechanic somewhat echoes features in computer RPGs like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect and it's an interesting way to handle a gamebook.

 Eventually I come to the Black Cloister, a seemingly abandoned wizard sanctuary, which is where I encounter my first combat - a wraith in the guise of a child. Combat is handled in a pretty ingenious way - first you roll to see if you get to attack, which occurs on a two or higher. If you do, then you take your damage value and subtract the opponent's defence value; the result being the amount of damage you do to your opponent. The enemy then rolls 1d6 and you consult its chart, which is unique for every creature. The number rolled determines what happens and how much damage it does. In the case of the wraith, a roll of a two means that it only grazes your arm, but if you roll a six the creature stabs your right through your armour, delivering some severe damage. This combat system keeps each fight exciting and fresh while also being really quick and easy. You eventually also incorporate an NPC into fights, which is resolved in turns, but it never feels at all complex.

In the cloister, I came to a hall where I could select from a multitude of doors. There was a full colour image to go along with the scene, showing the doors each with a number on them. This made it really easy to navigate the section and it's an idea that plays out really well throughout the adventure. This page also contained a little picture of a bookmark denoting that I should either stick a bookmark in there (unfortunately not possible with a PDF) or just record the passage number shown on my character sheet. This is testament to how huge this game is to need save points. Fincher actually states at the beginning that it would be a bit ridiculous to start the book again if you die because it's so huge. It would be like getting firmly into Skyrim and then having to completely re-do it when you're offed. It also means that you can run multiple characters through the book simultaneously, which is a first for me with a gamebook.

I continued my adventure, finding items, solving puzzles, overcoming traps, gaining experience and slaying creatures. Once thing that really stood out was the quality of the writing. While it's true that I was using a draft copy of the book and of course there were a few inconsistencies, it is an amazingly written book with a good story and fleshed-out characters. This definitely isn't just your everyday dungeon romp - it's a multi-levelled adventure where your character grows through both experience and based on your decisions. The options presented to you throughout are logical and plenty, and with multiple characters there's no way you'll be finished with Maelorum for a long time to come.

Maelorum has just hit its funding target, but giving it an extra boost will go far to make what is shaping up to be an amazing gamebook into an even better experience.

Fund Maelorum on Kickstarter. Thanks to William Fincher for sending a preview copy of the book.

-Scott Malthouse

Follow @scottmalt on Twitter

Guest post: who can be counted as a casual MMO gamer? (part 2)

Liam Harper concludes his exploration of casual players in MMOs. Check out part one here.

While the majority of the first part of this post seemingly been me defending Blizzard (I’m quite often a huge critic of theirs, if you follow me on Twitter you will know that), however there are some things that have really irritated me.

• Cross Realm Zones - The idea was a noble idea, but in reality it’s killed the enjoyment of low level zones for me. They feel too crowded, the competition for mobs too severe. I’ve felt myself bubbling up on quite a few occasions when I have to wait for a quest mob to spawn because it has just been killed by someone on another server. I feel like an old grandad running out of his front door and saying “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
  

• Items behind gated content that is behind gated content. - Whilst this doesn’t bother me, I do agree with people’s grievances about it. For example you have to do dailies with one faction to unlock another faction, to get access to the gear for that faction. You then need to make sure that you have the correct reputation AND valor points to get the item you require. They’ve hidden things behind too many gates and that needs looking at. I’m not against some gating, but having 3-4 levels to go through before finally get there feels a bit too much.
  

• Rep grinding too slow - This again is to do with dailies, but one of the things that put me off the whole daily grind is that you’d sometimes hand in a quest and get 138 reputation. 138?!? Was there really any point? There’s an argument going around that tabards should be reintroduced, and I agree with this. You should have to do dailies until you reach honored and then have the option to either equip a tabard and run heroic dungeons or carry doing the dailies. I don’t see a problem with this.

And finally

I saw a great tweet the other day from Velidra that said:
 
“Dear everyone. If you have already got 9x raid ready characters and are burning out, I'm not going to have much sympathy”

This is so true that I can’t even begin to describe. You’ll be surprised how many people post and say “I’ve got to level 90 in 3.5 hours, I reach exalted with everyone since the 15th of last month. I’M BORED”

Well to be honest. That is your fault. If you don’t pace yourself then you only have yourself to blame!

- Liam Harper

Follow Liam on Twitter @Guillin

Guest post: who can be counted as a casual MMO gamer? (part 1)

Today The Trollish Delver is excited to invite Liam Harper to share his thoughts on casual gamers in MMOs in the first of a two-part series of posts.

“Casual Gamer” - it’s a term that is thrown around more often than a cricket ball, one that has seen more use than your local taxi service. Once it probably had meaning but now, it’s thrown around way too liberally and seems to be used whenever someone can’t get their own way. What do I think is and isn’t a “casual gamer?” Well here are my definitions and as you can see, even these get a little blurred as we move on.

When I used to play World of Warcraft religiously (I didn’t get on my knees and pray, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see the screen properly) I would frequent the EU and US forums. Yes I realise that I’m lucky I still have a hand left after all the facepalming I did, but at least 5 times a day I would see the term “casual gamer”. A casual gamer for me is someone who either chooses to or is unable to play videogames for more than 2 to 3 hours each day and not every day. This could be due to a demanding job, a busy family or simply that they don’t wish to play any longer. For me that is the SOLE definition on a casual gamer. Topic over then right? Well not quite.

I don’t raid there for I am

One of the common reasons you will see for a casual gamer is “I choose not to raid therefore I am a casual gamer”. Here’s a revelation to you. That does not make you a casual gamer.

Speaking from experience as someone who quit raiding in World of Warcraft back in Wrath, you can still play all day and choose not to raid, but that does not make you casual. In fact, that makes you as much as a hardcore gamer as those who raid and in some cases even more so. The fact that you’re choosing not to raid has absolutely no bearing on whether or not you are hardcore or otherwise. Despite having the obvious time to do what is required, you are choosing not to. Whether that’s because you don’t enjoy raiding or just can’t be bothered is neither here nor there. If you play all day, every day, then you are a hardcore gamer. In my eyes there are no two ways about it.

Earlier on I said that raiders can be more casual than those who stay on all day and don’t raid. “But raiding is for hardcore only”. Again, I totally disagree with this. There are hundreds of guilds out there who raid three times a week and only three hours at a time. On top of that you also have the option of using the Looking for Raid feature. You DON’T need to be a full time professional gamer to raid. You just need some willpower to actually do it.

I have a family to look after! I should still get stuff!

I’m sorry but say what? That’s like (and I know analogies are normally frowned upon) saying “I’m not going to work today, PAY ME ANYWAY!” It doesn’t work like that. This is going to sound harsh but I have to wonder. If you pay for a subscription game that is designed to take at least an hour or two out of your day and you don’t have time to do that. then what are you paying the money for? Surely that could be better spent elsewhere?

As for people complaining about the content and level 90? Here’s my thoughts.

Everything is too time consuming! There’s too much to do!

I must admit on this one, at the start of Blizzard’s latest expansion this is totally how I felt. You have about six million and three dailies, pet battles, scenarios, dungeons, battlegrounds and so on, but only a few hours in the day to squeeze them all in. This is what I would do. For the first couple of days I tried to squeeze everything into the little time frame that I had. I felt myself getting stressed and nearing burn out. It’s an old school mentality that people really need to get out of and let me explain what I mean.

Back in vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade expansion, you felt like you had to do dungeons, you had to raids, you had to do PvP and near the end of The Burning Crusade, you had to do dailies so that your character could stand a chance in even participating in the world. This got engrained into a lot of us, and when Mists of Pandaria hit we saw everything that we can do and our brains suddenly thought “oh my god! We need to do all these things.”

That is not why Blizzard have done what they have done. They’ve given us options this time. Want to raid? Go ahead, Want to do dailies? Sure. Pet battles? Why not! PvP? Go get pummeled by the warrior. What they’ve done and really for the first time in the history of the game, is that in my opinion they’ve made the game non-linear. You don’t have to do X-Y-Z, you can just do X, or Y, or hell even J if you so choose. Each path has it’s own progression. Some are titles, some is gear, some are vanity rewards. You don’t have to do everything because it is there.

I, myself, gave up on dailies pretty quickly. I found them to be monotonous, cramped and just downright tedious. What did I do? I tried the other sides of the game and found that I became ridiculously addicted to pet battles. Everyone has their own opinion of what they find fun. For example, when I do log onto the game, my guild master loves doing as many dailies as he can, he just loves them, and that’s fair enough. One of the officers spends all his time doing challenge modes and again, that’s ok too.

It’s kind of worrying to me when you see some people in the player-base who seem unable to make their own decisions about what they need to do. It seems to me that unless it’s clearly laid out with a big sign saying “THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO”, then they will just run around in circles chasing their tails. Word of advice. Figure out ONE thing you want to do today and do it. If you have time after that to do something else, then great! If you don’t, then at least you’ve accomplished your main goal for the day. Get out of the mindset of “everything is there, so I must do everything, and I must do it now”

by Liam Harper

Follow Liam on Twitter @Guillin 

Don't forget to give your two cents about this post in the comments 

Comic artist slams 'Cosplay Chiks', the internet ignites

Comic book artist Tony Harris, known for work on Ex Machina and Iron Man, has ignited controversy with a tirade against 'Con-Hot' female cosplayers, calling them fakers.

Harris took to Facebook in a rant that has the internet geek community reeling.

So Tony Harris doesn't want my business. Or maybe, because I'm not quite pretty enough? Or only if I don't cosplay? Whatever, no business.
— Ruth (@cthulhuchick) November 13, 2012

I've never read Ex Machina, but was planning to someday. Now I won't because Tony Harris is a misogynist! #FakeGeekBoy
— Logan Bonner (@loganbonner) November 14, 2012

I'm coming out of convention retirement, putting on my Emma Frost costume, & I'm going to stand in front of Tony Harris's table and grind it
— BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (@BRIANMBENDIS) November 14, 2012

So what did he say? Here's the full rant:

I cant remember if Ive said this before, but Im gonna say it anyway. I dont give a crap.I appreciate a pretty Gal as much as the next Hetero Male. Sometimes I even go in for some racy type stuff ( keeping the comments PG for my Ladies sake) but dammit, dammit, dammit I am so sick and tired of the whole COSPLAY-Chiks. I know a few who are actually pretty cool-and BIG Shocker, love and read Comics.So as in all things, they are the exception to the rule. Heres the statement I wanna make, based on THE RULE: “Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, you are more pathetic than the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY PATHETIC. But we are onto you. Some of us are aware that you are ever so average on an everyday basis. But you have a couple of things going your way. You are willing to become almost completely Naked in public, and yer either skinny( Well, some or most of you, THINK you are ) or you have Big Boobies. Notice I didnt say GREAT Boobies? You are what I refer to as “CON-HOT”. Well not by my estimation, but according to a LOT of average Comic Book Fans who either RARELY speak to, or NEVER speak to girls. Some Virgins, ALL unconfident when it comes to girls, and the ONE thing they all have in common? The are being preyed on by YOU. You have this really awful need for attention, for people to tell you your pretty, or Hot, and the thought of guys pleasuring themselves to the memory of you hanging on them with your glossy open lips, promising them the Moon and the Stars of pleasure, just makes your head vibrate. After many years of watching this shit go down every 3 seconds around or in front of my booth or table at ANY given Con in the country, I put this together. Well not just me. We are LEGION. And here it is, THE REASON WHY ALL THAT, sickens us: BECAUSE YOU DONT KNOW SHIT ABOUT COMICS, BEYOND WHATEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH YOU DID TO GET REF ON THE MOST MAINSTREAM CHARACTER WITH THE MOST REVEALING COSTUME EVER. And also, if ANY of these guys that you hang on tried to talk to you out of that Con? You wouldnt give them the fucking time of day. Shut up you damned liar, no you would not. Lying, Liar Face. Yer not Comics. Your just the thing that all the Comic Book, AND mainstream press flock to at Cons. And the real reason for the Con, and the damned costumes yer parading around in? That would be Comic Book Artists, and Comic Book Writers who make all that shit up.

This attitude is unfortunately something that some men (and probably some women too) hold towards women who happen to be attractive that are heavily into fandom. Somehow Harris thinks he has everything sussed out, but he just comes off as shallow and a douche. Women have more to them than their image, and that's something that really needs addressing in our community and I think this combined with other recent events has brought that to the forefront. 

- Scott Malthouse

Follow @scottmalt on twitter