So apparently the database data over at OBS got messed up due to human error.  (Maybe someone ran a DELETE statement when they should have run a SELECT statement.)  The first ten or eleven days of the month are gone, as the backup data wasn’t correct either.  It doesn’t affect me too much, since I have not had any new releases this month so far.  But Morrus over at ENWorld is pitching a fit.  (Rightly so, as he has multiple thousands of dollars on the line for just the ten days in question!)  Hopefully the OBS folks will make it right. I fully expect they will, but timing is the real issue here.  I can afford to wait for a few dollars; a few thousand is not something I would be happy having to wait for.  (Especially during GenCon!)

We played 4E again last night.  hey just got down into the dungeon crawl part of the module. They are all 2nd level now, and are starting to ‘figure out’ how to play their characters.  They did much better against a room full of Goblines (even if one of them fell into the pit trap) than they did against the very first Kobold ambush.

Chris Field is chomping at the bit to get some stuff released.  I’m right there with him.  Look for the first of several to hit this weekend.

I got the new laptop yesterday.  I also got the full Adobe Creative Suite installed last night after work.  Today I transferred all the Skortched Urf’ Studios files to it so I can work from either my desktop at home or my laptop anywhere else.

I see that WOTC will be releasing a revised GSL.  It seems to me that the cold response of the third party publishers, everyone from the Piazo and Kenzer “Big Dogs” to the legion of mid-tier publishers as well as the little fish like yours truly have prompted WOTC to find something a little more appealing.  I don’t have much hope it will do any good.  You simply can’t go from an open license like the OGL and think most folks will be happy with anything more restrictive, especially when the first license was so fucked up as to be laughable.  Who in their right mind would toss all their IP eggs in the WOTC basket with no hope of ever, EVER getting them out again?  Utter bullshit.  So yeah, they are gonna take out a few things and try to get a bunch of support for the new license, but I think it will end up being too little to make any difference.

If WOTC wants active, enthusiastic third party support for 4E they need to allow works to be published in multiple formats like 4E, 3.5, True20 etc. None of this “I must either choose 4E or some other license” and NEVER be able to change it back BS.  They also need to let people publish friggin’ stat blocks in their products.  What the hell good is a module if it simply sez “The party then fights six Kobolds. (See page 52 of the MM.)”  Oh wait, you can’t even do that cuz its a PAGE NUMBER!  Yeah, that’s gonna make lots of third party modules real easy to us.  Don’t get me started on the “You pay all our court costs even if we lose” clause.  Sign me up!  When this is where we are starting from, forgive me if I am not all excited about where  the “revised” GSL will take us.  I hope I am wrong, but I doubt I will be.

WOTC has also fumbled the ball significantly on many other fronts.  Retire Dungeon and Dragon mags for digital versions, including an online tabletop where we can get together and play with our friends spread across the internet.  Yeah, hows that working out?  You’d think a company as big as Hasbro could afford some software programmers to, you know, hit a realese deadline.  (Yes, I know about the guy that killed himself and his wife.  While a tragedy, he didn’t go in and bust caps on the WOTC programmers so I don’t buy that ONE GUY is the cause of the hold up.)

Oh, and while the production values are first rate on the 4E products; a friggin 1st level module is selling for $29.95 retail.  Wow.  The two follow-on modules are $24.95 each, which looks like the new price-point for WOTC modules. Those will take you to 10th level; so in order to “play out” until 30th level using WOTC released modules your gonna shell out $225.00 in MODULES if you get ten levels out of three modules.  (How much is the full subscription to the War of the Burning Sky Campaign Saga again?)

I sent the wife off to college Sunday afternoon. In her excitement she never even called to tell me she got down to North Carolina safe and sound.  She finally called me right as I was drifting off to sleep last night.

So I have the place all to myself this week.  In addition to some PDF work I get to go over a whole “To-Do” list of things for the house.  Unpack boxes, fix the faucet and replace the leaky hose in the ice maker among other things.

Wednesday we are playing 4E again; one last session before one of the players heads out of town for three weeks.  I am supposed to play 40K soon with one of my friends as well; we want to try out the new edition rules and see whats what.  I packed up my figures and will be bringing them to the new house later tonight, as well as setting up my painting area.

I’m bummed I will not be able to attend GenCon this year.  I was really looking forward to it.  Oh well, next year.

We played 4E last night with the local group of guys I know from church.  We are doing the Keep on the Shadowfell.  I like 4E but am still getting used to all the “marking” that players can do.  I had one guy attack one model while marking a second model; which sounds hinky to me.  It seems to me that the marking mechanic is akin to “calling out” an opponent for single combat like in the very beginning of the movie Highlander. I don’t think it should be used to prevent a model from attacking (or at least effectively attacking) the guy he’s already fighting.  I need to look into it a bit more. We are going to play again next Wednesday to get one more session in before one of the players heads out of town for three weeks or so.

I am stoked about the new office.  I am still in the market for an office chair; been checking CraigsList.  Or I may just hit the local Ikea or Staples and pick one up.  My wife will be out of town all next week for school.  (She’s starting her Masters program at UNC so she’ll be down in North Carolina.) I plan to get some serious PDF work done.

They will be delivering my new laptop on Monday as well.  It’s a screaming fast Dell D830 with 4GB of RAM!  I’ll have the complete Adobe Creative Suite installed about an hour after they drop it off.

I want to apologize for the lack of new releases from Skortched Urf’ Studios recently.  I have no good excuse.  I know Chris Field has several projects just waiting for me to release them; so that is costing both of us sales.  I honestly didn’t think the whole house thing would be this much of a drain on my time and resources. It’s just like Louis says; publishers put out products.  I’ve slacked.  All the big plans for the future (and I do have some big ones!) are just so much thin air unless you are actually putting your butt in a chair and working on products.  I won’t bore anyone with my excuses.  Time to get back to work.

Upcoming releases (in no particular order)…

Fantasy Firearms II -More fantasy shooty goodness from Chris Field!

Wizards of Shadowfell -A new take on old school mages like Alanon and Gandalf by Chris Field.

Pandora Inro #1 -A comic book style introduction to the forthcoming Pandora project.  Anthony is currently illustrating it.

Pandora Intro #2 -More illustrated goodness in preperation for the release of the Pandora Project.  Modern Fantasy with a twist.

Dept. 7 Armory Update -A guide to the guns used by Department 7. (Written by yours truly!)

The Book of Plagues -Add some fantasy-style plagues to your campaign and mix things up a bit!

Adventurer Essentials line -The Ten Foot Pole and other goodness is forthcoming.

Department 7: Genesis -A first level D20 Modern adventure kicking off our Modern Campaign series of adventures.

A quick post before I head out.  I now have the new office set with computer, internet, Cable TV and a DVD/VCR combo unit!  While I still have no office chair, I am able to begin working from the new office.  I have plenty of shelf space with more to be added.  I have a small display case for my figures and a large work area.  I still need to hook up a USB hub so I can use my external hard drives and camera.  I may also throw in a second monitor to go with the Wacom tablet monitor I am currently using.

I also got the bed set up in the master bedroom.  That’s nice too I guess.

I’ve been off the internet for the last four days.  I took Thursday and Friday off so i would have a long four day weekend to work on the house and get moved.  We spent Thur/Fri painting and finishing up the bedrooms with a good steam cleaning of the carpets.  Saturday my father-in-law showed up with a moving truck and we spent the next twelve hours moving all out junk from one house to another.  The good news is that we are now moved in to the new house!  (Still plenty of un-packing ahead though.)

I also got my new desktop mounted in the office.  We got the cable/internet/phone hooked up as well.  I still need to hook everything up but I plan to get to that tonight.

In other good news my new laptop is in!  I just need to schedule to have them come install it.

My buddy just got a motorcycle and my wife got her license last week; so the three of us went for a quick ride Sunday afternoon.  After that we hit the pool for about an hour to recuperate from the hard labor of the day before.

No GenCon for me this year.  With the house purchase we are simply tapped out so I can’t see spending the cash on a plane ticket, hotel etc. to make it this year.  (Plus, who wants to go to GenCon without some spending cash for the dealer room? I sure don’t!) I was really looking forward to it; but I’ll start saving for next year.

Sorry for the lack of posts; been a busy week!  Saturday was my birthday.  I spent the morning at the gun show.  Due to the pending house payment on Aug. 1st I was unable to go hog wild and get myself a bunch of new toys.  I picked up a few knick-knacks that were a good deal.  Later that afternoon we saw the new Batman movie with some friends.

Great flick, but I guess I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that as it has been all over the news for the last week.  Heath did a bang-up job; with due credit to the writers for giving him great material to work with.  Loved the Jokers ‘magic trick’ and his bit in the hospital dressed as a nurse!  As good as it was I am also stoked for the next installments; as we have yet to see the Riddler, Penguin, Cat Woman or Robin.  (And the Bat Cave has yet to make a full-fledged appearance either!) It seems Marvel, DC and others are starting to figure out the whole Comic Book Movie paradigm.

I just got some art back from Anthony and he continues to blow me away with his l33t i113ztr4t0r sk1llz! Worth. Every. Penny.

Played the second installment of Keep on the Shadowfell last week also.  We ran into a bit of a rule issue where on of the bad guys used a power that granted his allies temporary hit points. Several of the players thought that this would not apply to minions as they can be killed with one hit and have not real “hit point” total.  A quick search of the web indicated that they do indeed benefit from the temp hit points.  (Which is how I was leaning.)  We have one player who, for the second session in a row, has utterly failed to connect with his coolest daily power! Dude needs to buy some new dice or something.

I noticed an up-tick in sales thanks to the Christmas in July sale OBS ran.  The extra funds will go to paying Anthony for artwork.

My wife took the Basic Rider Course this weekend and is newly licensed to ride motorcycles! We went for a ride yesterday afternoon.  She needs a few more miles under her belt, so we will ride around the neighborhood and surrounding area for a bit before venturing forth onto the highways and byways on our fair state.

I stopped into my local game shop to get a copy of the new 40K game over the weekend, but they only had the collectors edition with a tri-fold cover left on the shelf; for $90! No thanks.  I’ll wait until they get a regular copy in.  My birthday is next Saturday so I may pick up a copy then.  That also happens to be the same day as the really big gun show in our area.  It’s a shame I really don’t have any money!  (Saving it all to make my first house payment on Aug. 1st!)

I left my photo ID for my job at home today, which is a real pain since all the doors to the building i work in use it as an electronic “key” to get in.  Even my office is behind a door that requires a badge and a pin number to get through.  So I have a temp badge and have to get people to let me into my own office for the day.

We’re planning to play 4E again on Thursday.  I can’t find my rule books or the module!  My wife apparently put them away somewhere while getting ready for the move, and now I can’t find them.  I’ll have to tear the place apart tonight and get ready for the game.

Got out of work late last night, so I didn’t get down to the new house until eight PM.  I did manage to get the two remaining kitchen Chairs put together as well as another piece of furniture for the bedroom.  My wife and her mother were wall-papering the bathroom down stairs.  I’ll have to work late again tonight, so I may not stay at the new house tonight but our apartment.  (Which we still have, so we are living in two different places for now.)

I sent Anthony the latest script from Chris to get it illustrated, as well as got an update on a couple other art assignments I sent over a while back.  Anthony is keeping busy with work, which is no surprise given his talent!  I expect I’ll have a few things back in a couple of weeks, but I still have  plenty of projects to work on until then.

Well, I went ahead and got the single issues of Secret Invasion yesterday. I had lunch with a friend of mine who was in the area, so we went to a great little comic shop near where I work. I picked up Secret Invasion #2-4, as well as the Death of Captain America trade and the Secret Invasion Infiltration trade. I finished the issues and the SII trade, and am half way through the Death of Captain America. Did I mention that I really enjoy comic books?

I am itching to get some more writing done and to get back to a regular release schedule. I have several ideas that I want to run with and Chris Field is working on some really cool stuff as well. More info on that soon.  I just sent his latest manuscript over to Anthony for some artwork.

I have a good friend who, through a series of events, is now between jobs and taking the time to work on a comic book project he’s been stabbing at for several years.  I have a couple of those going on as well, and want to get the scripts polished up and illustrated.  He’s got a few contacts and is currently talking to someone “in the industry”.  I hope it works out for him!