tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91248842011-11-27T19:14:04.723-06:00The various projects of Michael Miller.Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-75308785648742598982010-08-06T06:48:00.003-05:002010-08-06T07:29:36.001-05:00

Today I got to play in two (2!) Paranoia events, and they were both a blast.I got going a bit late, but still was able to make the walk from the Holiday Inn Express around the ICC to the Hyatt in 20 minutes. That's a pretty good clip for me, your almost stereotypical fat gamer. (I shower! :)Anyway, the title of the event was Botpocalypse. Bots were going haywire across our sector, and we were

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-85411815298674548782008-08-17T21:57:00.002-05:002008-08-17T22:03:09.710-05:00

(Another temporary post, sadly, as I'm feeling really sick from some kind of cold thingy.)Great turnout for 8 AM CE: 15 people! Thanks again to Derek for bringing his EON set and I hope everyone had a good time.Dungeonquest was a first: all 8 players (the full event) turned in actual event tickets. I promise I'll have the two sets tuned up for next year.I had two interested people show up to

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-57847634523503680742008-08-16T23:04:00.002-05:002008-08-16T23:36:00.705-05:00

(This one is going to be a quick summary as I'm running games early tomorrow morning. I'll flesh it out later.)I spent most of my day in the Dealer's Room. Normally this is an exercise in both fun and henchman ability tests as I watch my money flow from my wallet to the various vendors. This year, though, there wasn't nearly as much stuff that I wanted. No new comics, no Paranoia releases,

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-47821399794240558542008-08-16T00:01:00.004-05:002008-08-16T00:50:09.602-05:00

Today was our big game: Drivin' and Killin' with Jimbo and Ned, pitting the players as the South Park folks vs. the GMs as Jimbo and Ned. The map tiles worked wonderfully, the vehicles all worked out well (especially since Brian, who made the military vehicle, didn't know the specifics of the cars being used against us). We had 6 players who did a bunch of damage to each other as well as Jimbo

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-76549247940319632492008-08-14T22:45:00.005-05:002008-08-14T22:57:31.753-05:00

Today was my long day of running Commodore games and Cosmic Encounter. Had a bit of a hiccup finding my tables and getting set up; I had missed the location of an outlet that was behind the Train gamers' booth, partially because they had run their power over to the Rogue Judges' area and partially because I didn't search hard enough.After that, though, everything went swimmingly. For M.U.L.E. I

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-64996986942951155052008-08-13T22:00:00.003-05:002008-08-13T22:04:42.966-05:00

We've arrived safe and sound. Got our hotel room, settled in, and went to pick up our stuff. As usual, our total wait time was about 5 minutes for badge, bag, and GM stuff. As irritating as the registration system is, it's much better being frustrated in the spring than the day before the con.I went to the Forum Stink but didn't hang out much. Wasn't really in the mood this year, which makes

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-52152352103453278732008-08-12T21:29:00.002-05:002008-08-12T21:31:58.041-05:00

packing...printing...packing...packing...printing...packing...packing...washing...packing...Lots to do before 3 AM! AHH! Too much pressure!

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-39836510781187377552008-07-04T00:14:00.002-05:002008-07-04T00:25:51.171-05:00

It's been over two years since I've released a CWVD. I never thought that the 10.8 Weapons page update would take so long to do. Sure I've had distractions (finally finishing school, volunteering for Con of the North, SPARK taking a year off) but two years?Ah, well. That's life, I guess.To help tide everyone over, I've taken all of the bug fixes (thanks to everyone who reported bugs!) and

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-17152038175507174852008-01-09T18:50:00.000-06:002008-01-09T18:59:43.649-06:00

Even though my set of Queen's Blade Reference Sheets have been posted on the Internet for a while, I've never actually told anyone about them. They've just sat there like my other miscellaneous documents.Well, now that I've caught up with all of the characters I purchased at GenCon and afterwards and finally split them all into their own page I've gone ahead and posted a message to the

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-47450383199850365502008-01-03T06:19:00.000-06:002008-01-03T06:54:55.902-06:00

Not too long ago SPARK finally played some Car Wars again, and as a result I've been working on the new weapons page for the CWVD.And boy, does it suck.Currently each weapon entry has 16 controls. There's 13 weapon lines. Fixing a weapons block involves right-clicking on each control, pulling up the Properties dialog, putting the cursor in the right block, then either jumping to the end (using

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-29224703307234973112007-10-24T23:57:00.000-05:002007-10-25T00:34:37.610-05:00

I was a huge fan of the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks when I was a kid. I don't own them all in multiple versions or whatever, but I do own US Books 1-20, the Gray Star set, the Magnamund Companion, both pairs of Combat Heroes, and some other related books.When Mongoose announced they were rereleasing the entire series I decided to splurge and pre-purchase them all via their Collector's Edition

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-7065277703434507072007-09-24T22:29:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:35:33.622-05:00

I know I'm late to the party, but one of our local game publishers, Fantasy Flight Games, will be putting out a new Cosmic Encounter set in 2008. It's great to hear that a true classic is going to be available again. Now let's just hope it's better than the Avalon Hill set! (Even with FFG's long line of overly-gaudy parts, I don't think it could be worse.)Here's hoping they can sneak a

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-86665331410821220612007-08-20T21:58:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:17:11.743-05:00

ProsParanoia Trek rocked as always. If there's only one named-group-that-isn't* whose events you consider playing, make that group Evil Fleet Productions.In general, the games I got to play were a lot of fun. It was nice being primarily a player this year.Sunday gaming rocks once again! Screw Badge Points, I have happy gamers!**The Collectibles auction was fun. If you're not doing anything

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-24960923674190800222007-08-19T21:44:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:16:59.894-05:00

For the last few years, I've been running a bunch of events: Paranoia, Car Wars tournament, and some board games. Unfortunately, the Car Wars tournament was never very well attended. I planned on replacing the tournament with a single, smaller event and running more board games to compensate, thus still getting enough player-hours to earn back my badge money.This year, Gen Con LLC changed the

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-74105687779139641502007-08-19T21:34:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:16:37.366-05:00

My Saturday started off with Car Wars: Gasoline Alley. The theme is 30s gangsters, and that worked well. The rules are 3x variation of Car Wars using Crimson Skies-style damage rules and modifed weapons for the era. The damage rules lower the effect of rams (they go across the boxes instead of penetrating) and make individual hits more likely to cause internal damage (because they penetrate).

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-31532564575581581642007-08-18T00:31:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:16:20.490-05:00

Today was a good day to die. Except that I didn't, despite one heck of an attempt.Before 9 AM I staggered over to the Hyatt to join in the Hackmaster Wurld Championship after missing it for the last couple years due to scheduling problems. (I'd schedule the events I was running based on when the Hackmaster tournament was the previous year and then they'd rearrange the tournament so that I

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-66836912629108320102007-08-16T22:04:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:15:47.948-05:00

Paranoia Trek: The Evil Fleet guys are awesome. Play games with them. And I'm not just saying that because my portrayal of Wrinkl-Y-HED (Worf) tied for second best roleplaying with the pair playing Touch-Y-FLY. :)Otherwise I spent some cash in the Dealer's Hall and Auction Store and did some more testing for Sunday's M.U.L.E. game. I once again feel sad for those stuck in the registration line,

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-55891293733293827132007-08-14T23:08:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:15:25.504-05:00

Yup, I'm about to head out to GenCon Indy. I've packed up three CE sets (2 Mayfairs and an Avalon Hill), two DungeonQuest sets, my laptop with M.U.L.E. in the Commodore emulator, the main book for the games in which I'll be playing, and a bunch of other stuff.Unfortunately, I still haven't finished my custom CE set. My summer job with Honeywell and work on the Con of the North website have

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-86129861940291131652007-05-31T02:54:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:10:36.976-05:00

With SPARK finally about to resume dueling after an unfortunately shortened 2056 season, I've dusted off the CWVD and begun working on the next version. It features two major changes:1. I've moved to using Office 2003 for development. Hopefully nothing bad will happen to people on older versions.2. The revamped Weapons page is finally going to be finished. Here's two previews: More Info,

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-69494454287331252052007-04-22T16:00:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:14:52.525-05:00

I was debating whether or not to actually run any events this year after they changed the system used for GMs to earn their badge back. In the end I decided to scale back, which means no free badge. Sorry to everyone who loved BLUD Bowl, but I'm not going to have the time this summer to get it set up properly.So, what am I running? Cosmic Encounter, Dungeonquest, and M.U.L.E.! Check them out

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1160203136554691112006-10-07T01:29:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:08:59.301-05:00

At CotN 2007 I'll be running two Paranoia adventures* (WJBL 5: Citizen Buel-R's Day Off and WJBL 10: Actual Alpha), the Order of the Stick board game, and Wake Up With Cosmic Encounter in its traditional Sunday 8 AM time slot.Unfortunately, I'm not planning on running a Car Wars event this year. As you may be able to tell from the SPARK website, we've sort of burnt out on organizing Car Wars

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1157100751234908412006-09-01T02:31:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:09:29.779-05:00

Gen Con's all done, the Con of the North website is mostly up to date, and overall things are getting back to normal again. (Heck, next week I should have my desktop computer back up and running! Yay!)In my spare time I've been working on things that don't need a computer, one of which is a supply of replacement tokens for our CE sets. Little cardboard circles don't last forever and are easy

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1154927447388185572006-08-07T00:07:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:09:46.456-05:00

Despite my collection of computer's best efforts to destroy themselves and prevent me from working on projects, I'm almost ready for Gen Con. I wasn't able to get my CE set done and I'm not quite sure where I'm going to get enough Division 15 cars for BLUD Bowl, but at least my Paranoia adventure isn't quite ready! :(Hopefully after we get back I can get enough stuff fixed to start making web

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1151740702922411392006-07-01T02:57:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:11:03.688-05:00

On to the "second half" of the Destiny deck: Specials and Comets!Layout-wise, the Special Destinies aren't all that interesting. The cones are the same as the White cone I'd made up earlier for normal Destinies, with text centered and wrapped inside the cone part. Simple enough to throw together.One thing I might do is make a duplicate or near-duplicate set of Reverse Cone Special Destinies to

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1151531953306523672006-06-28T16:55:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:12:04.476-05:00

Another new version of the CWVD! 10.7.4 fixes a bug with the new metal spoilers and fixes the gas tank spinner not reactivating by hiding it instead. There's also some new errors and warnings to go along with the gas tank spinner change.Enjoy the CWVD!

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1150700526521104402006-06-19T01:22:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:12:27.795-05:00

One of my favorite games of all time is Cosmic Encounter. We played it almost every day when I was in college, and we still play it rather often ten years later. Unfortunately it's out of print and our Mayfair set is starting to wear down. While there is an online version, for my friends and I it's just not the same. ...That will be the beginning of the page for the CE Project, where I'm

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1150692916187466792006-06-18T23:43:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:12:42.776-05:00

Another week with bug reports, another new version of the CWVD. :)This one fixes the previously-mentioned double charge for six wheel costs, makes Junk Dropper magazines cost money, and fixes a bug with the vehicle summaries if you have a quantity in a weapon or accessory but haven't selected an item to buy. I also threw in a warning for when you go over your GE limit, but it only takes into

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1150656821020696932006-06-18T13:29:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:12:53.756-05:00

I received Tomoe and Echidna this week, the newest hardcover Lost Worlds books from the Japanese Queen's Blade series. The art is very good but perhaps not quite as good as the first four. The hidden pictures this time are "2P" colors: a dark elf/demon for Echidna and purple and white instead of red and white for Tomoe.Flying Buffalo hasn't made a translation available yet, but I've begun

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1150475295985689642006-06-16T10:58:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:13:19.229-05:00

Last night Chris French reported a bug where the CWVD would double-charge you the $100 for a six wheel chassis if you also had an extra heavy chassis. (It took me a bit of back-and-forth to figure out the combination of factors, though.)It's interesting because this bug is very, very old; it goes back to when I first started tinkering with the CWVD in 2001. If you have a copy of CWVD version

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1150182699930189562006-06-13T01:55:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:13:34.893-05:00

People have been reporting issues so the CWVD needed a bugfix release. This mainly fixes non-GE encumbrance; even if you turned off the Alternate Encumbrance preference it would still add the weight to your vehicle. I've fixed that but now it doesn't figure in things like backpacks or the GE loss to IBA. That'll get looked at again soon.For now I'm concentrating on the new Weapons page. While

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1149545737192781952006-06-05T16:33:00.000-05:002007-09-24T22:13:53.146-05:00

::cough cough::Welcome back! Pardon the dust, it's been a while.Now that SJG is allowing us to actually distribute the stuff we've been working on, I've been doing more work on the CWVD. It's a very complicated spreadsheet as such things go, and Excel 97 isn't the most stable of development platforms.A few nights ago I did a lot of work on the CWVD's new Weapons page. Before going to bed, I

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1100502223192001062004-11-15T01:31:00.000-06:002007-09-24T22:14:07.903-05:00

Deleted the old Vehicle Design page tonight. Everything that was previously linked to it is now on Vehicle Design 2.0 or the hidden sheets. There's stil a ton of broken things, but it's a start!The armor section has been mostly completed, ten facings and all. (The extra four facings are basically placeholders right now.)

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1100330150410990182004-11-13T01:07:00.000-06:002007-09-24T22:14:23.442-05:00

After filling out the FAFSA (yet another step towards going back to college), I plugged away on the CWVD. Tires are now mostly hooked up, with the notable exception of their descriptive text. (That will come last.) Also wedged HD Transmission into the acceleration code, which prompted a search to see if you can use Overdrive with HDT.Next came armor: 18 names to insert, 18 edits of spinners to

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9124884.post-1100251522828334092004-11-12T03:20:00.000-06:002007-09-24T22:14:37.271-05:00

Another day, another late night for development on the Car Wars Vehicle Designer. I've mostly finished up the new engines section, with HD Transmission the main exception. Proper hauling stuff math isn't in the sheet yet, so including HD Transmission at all might be premature.

Michael Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16530925976100128753noreply@blogger.com0