New Year, Fist Update....

Hello all,

 

Just wanted to drop in and give an update. The transition from WGF is complete, we have our warehouse and have been shipping from that location for about two months. We have worked out the software issues for the wholesale orders and have been filling them.

 

We have about a year's supply of product on hand and OOS items such as the Panzerjäger are on the water heading here now.

 

I have been working on the day to day business aspects, cost analysis, product restocks back end implementation issues, etc. so not a lot of glamorous items to give an updated on for that front.

 

We have two restock orders incoming from China, the cost has been educational. The cost of shipping is not just crazy expensive for my customers but for us as well. In some cases, it costs more to ship a product than it does to produce it, in other cases the cost to produce a kit was not in line with what it is being sold at into distribution. Some kits were being sold at a net loss once shipping was factored in. Unfortunately, this will mean a price increase, some kits will see a marginal increase, other will be a bit more drastic.

I will give a detailed SKU by SKU run down and explanation later this week.

 

We have two new SKU's that will be offered once they arrive. The 15mm scale Capacitor cooler and a 60mm tall display model of one of our Assault Troopers. We should have these in hand sometime next month. We are putting the final touches on the files for the Shadokesh main trooper box set. No eta on a release date yet for the Shadokesh, until they are on the water and heading here it is simply impractical to give an estimate.

 

That's it for now.

All the best!

Mark

Hypercharge: Unboxed - Now Available For Pre-Purchase On The Nintendo Switch.

Independent developer Digital Cybercherries have announced that Hypercharge: Unboxed is now available for pre-purchase on the Switch eShop. For those who want to get in on the toy-themed action can do so by pre-purchasing the game at a discount with 10% off its $19.99 launch price. The game will officially release Jan 31, 2020.

About the game
Cooperative First Person Shooter including Multiplayer (Split-screen/Online) with Wave based Tower Defense mechanics.

HYPERCHARGE Unboxed tells the story of Sgt. Max Ammo and his epic mission to defend the HYPER-CORE. Your task is to fulfill his mission and prevent the HYPER-CORE from being destroyed. If it's destroyed, you can bid farewell to your human friends. They'll forget about you. It'll be like you never existed. Do not let that happen. Work together and win, for the future of toys everywhere!

Game Features

• Co-op - Fight for Toy-kind, together. Squad up with 3 other players in Online / Local Co-op and save the HYPER-CORE from total annihilation.
• PvP – Plastic vs Plastic. Go head-to-head against other small soldiers as you fight to become top of the scoreboard.
• Single-player - Not every hero needs a team. Are you a lone wolf and prefer to play offline on your own? Don't worry, we've got you covered.
• Split-screen - Old school. Buddy up on the sofa and blast the enemy as a team. (4-player Split-screen when connected to the dock).
• Explore - The Sky is your limit. Well, the top shelf is. Unlimited freedom to scavenge each environment for credits, coins, batteries and if you're skilled enough collectables.
• Fortify - Defend what you swore to protect. Build turrets, traps, walls and fight off evil hordes of weaponized toys. Watch out for the T. Rex.
• Progression - You deserve to look the part. Earn XP, unlock skins and customize your action figure and weapon. Just because you're small, doesn't mean you can't look the part.
• Strategies – The Art of Defense. Discuss tactics with your squad and plan out the best form of defense. Teamwork is crucial if you want to earn the highest tier rewards.
• Difficulty – A choice for the whole family. With Casual, Regular and Expert, there's always a mode to suit your level of skill.

eShop: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/hypercharge-unboxed-switch/

Rainbow Six Siege Character Deactivated For The Third Time In 10 Months - IGN Games

Rainbow Six Siege Character Deactivated for the Third Time in 10 Months

People Of Frictional: Max Lidbeck

WHO AM I

I'm Max, and I do gameplay programming and design. I joined Frictional about a year and a half ago, and I've been working on one of our super secret projects since.

Yours truly.

For the first nine months or so I, like everyone else, worked from home. Last summer we got an office set up in the heart of Malmö. Since then the amount of days I spend working from home has reduced greatly, though I still do it from time to time.

Setup at home and at work.

These are my two workspaces, the first one in the office and the other one at home (which is rather bare bones right now, moved in just a couple of days ago!). They're quite similar; both the computers and the chairs are the same kind. I wanted to be even more consistent and get the same type of desk as the office one at home, a decision that was ultimately overruled by my better half (apparently it doesn't go with the rest of the decor).

BACKGROUND

Games have always been a big part of my life. Most of my time growing up was spent either playing games or talking about games. But, for quite a while, my family didn't have a PC. Which meant I was stuck playing all sorts of old, weird games on rapidly aging Apple computers. One of my earliest gaming memories consist of repeatedly failing at air-hockey, losing to a hideous pig-man in Shufflepuck Cafe on my dad's old Macintosh.

Eventually I scraped together enough money to put together my first PC, in front of which I would stay rooted for the following years. In addition to playing, I spent a lot of time creating custom content for games with my friends. It was always quite basic though, as I hadn't learned any programming yet.

For a year or so I studied film and media studies at the university, with a diffuse goal of wanting to work in games down the line. One night my girlfriend gave me a push, and I applied for a three-year game development program at Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH).

My years at BTH were a mixed bag. On one hand, we had a lot of freedom and got to work on tons of small projects, which was very fun and super rewarding. On the other hand, some courses felt like they were only marginally related to game development. Working on side-projects during your spare time was crucial. I got through it all by finding a good group of like-minded students that I stuck to for the entirety of the education. Our final project was a side-scrolling adventure game called Far Away - you can watch the trailer for it on Youtube.

Perfectly in sync with graduating, I stumbled across a job opening at Frictional and sent in an application. Over the following weeks I answered some additional questions, did a work test and finally had an interview. A couple of days before I would hear from Frictional, I got a job offer from another company in software development. I clumsily explained to them I was waiting on another offer and asked for a few more days. Finally, I got an email from Fredrik and Thomas offering me the job. It was a no-brainer, and I happily accepted.

WHAT I DO

My first few weeks at the company consisted of completing a list of introductory tasks, to learn more about the tools and the engine. This was a lot of fun, and culminated in the creation of a silly mini-game where I got to put everything I had learned to the test.

After I had completed the introductory tasks I got to work on Safe Mode for SOMA, which was something I was really excited about -- contributing to a game I truly thought was great. From the get-go, we felt it was important to maintain the monsters' threatening presence in order for their new behaviours to gel with the overall tone of the game. We couldn't just disable their ability to harm you; doing this would end up breaking immersion (imagine repeatedly throwing a toolbox in Akers' face and him just standing there, taking it). Instead, we tried to focus on how to best tweak each monster's behaviour in a manner that suited that particular encounter. For instance, some might eerily walk up to you and size you up, and can even bluff charge you if you've strayed too close. To further enforce the behaviours fitting with the world, we decided that if you were to actively mess with monsters (like invading their personal space for too long, hurling trash at them and so on), they should still be able to hurt you, just not kill you. Overall it was a very worthwhile experience, and I'm quite happy with how it all turned out.

Now I'm working on one of our secret projects. As the gameplay programmer/designer workflow has already been described in previous posts I won't go into detail, but my days in general are spent designing and scripting events and scenes, as well as programming gameplay systems.

THE OFFICE

Additionally, I thought I'd talk a bit about the differences in working from home compared to working in the office. We're also gonna do a proper office tour later on, so stay tuned!

This is where the magic happens.

This is our office! Currently, we're around seven people occupying this space, probably with more to come. It's quite seldom all of us are here at once though, but there are usually a few people around. And on the off chance that you're here by yourself one day, fear not; there's always the noisy, seemingly stiletto heel-wearing, tap-dancing travel agency crew upstairs to keep you company (seriously).

So, it really isn't all that crowded here. But, seeing as most of us don't work from the office, we often have meetings over Slack. It can easily get annoying for your desk-mates if you keep babbling on and on in various meetings throughout the day, which is why we've set up a separate meeting room. It also moonlights as a test room, complete with a TV, some dev kits and a monster webcam.

The fact that the company is split into people working from home and people working in the office could potentially lead to complications, such as communication issues. In order to prevent this we've made sure that all important decisions and discussions still happen over Slack, to keep everyone in the loop. So far this policy has worked well, and the transition has been quite smooth.

In the end, a typical day of work in the office is very similar to one at home. There is of course the added social aspect of working in the same physical space as you colleagues, which is great, but if you one morning feel like you'd rather stay at home and work, you can. Having this option every day really is quite luxurious.

Other than this, and the requirement to wear pants, the routines of working in the office and and working from home differ very little.

Wanna see who else works at Frictional? Check out the rest of the People of Frictional posts!

So Much Terrain!

   I have been working fairly consistently on terrain the last couple of weeks in my limited hobby painting time. The results are a fair bit of work done on Frostgrave terrain and a few random pieces as well. That would, of course, include finishing up those minefields for Team Yankee that I showed off a few posts back.

   So here are a few photos of what I have managed to accomplish:

These are supposed to be bases but I thought they would look good as ruined scatter terrain.

An experiment in bamboo stands and some additional small trees.

I should do a few trees up as Frostgrave bushes I think.

The largest piece of Frostgrave terrain I have. It gives a bit of a third dimension to

the battlefield, which it desperately needs. I need a tower, too.

A harmless statue, or a devastating golem?

Another statue? And yet another ruined wall... are there no buildings still standing?

More tombstones (I think I will sell some on eBay)

Also, a trio of beer barrels. Because beer.

Bimonthly Progress Report For My Twitch Channel, FuzzyJCats, Dec 25 Through March 1

Twitch Channel FuzzyJCats

This is a much overdue monthly report! I've also decided to make it easier to remember by writing the report on the first day of the month, so progress will be discussed up through today, March 1.

Also, as I'm only streaming 2 times/week, I've decided to make these bimonthly progress reports as not much change occurs in only 8 streams.

Since Christmas, I have improved in terms of being able to multi-task without any preparation almost as smoothly as when I'm fully prepared, that is being in good health and having exercised before streaming! I recall when I first started streaming, I was flustered and struggled whenever anything goes awry, and my resilience in streaming has improved over the months of practice.

Therefore, I can stream more spontaneously, and as a result, I streamed after work yesterday, when I tend to be completely brain dead, and it wasn't a bad performance!

I felt that by streaming after work and having my days off to do whatever I need or want to do, it will improve my lifestyle. The issue with work is that I dread having to get up and being tied to a schedule as well as paperwork. But if I have streaming to look forward to, it would make me look just a little bit forward to work, rather than having that sinking feeling.

It's more ideal to be able to live in the moment and enjoy the day off before work, but that's easier said than done. Instead, I think about how I have to get up and be rushed to go to work, which gives me a sense of dread. I'm the type of person who likes to do chores and responsibilities in a relaxed manner (again, something that I have to work on).

While getting to the ideal state of being able to live in the moment, and not being so non-plussed about being rushed to a schedule, I think streaming after work can help with not feeling as much dread, since again, it will be something that I look forward to.

I believe I have gotten over my issues with viewer numbers. Tired of having the post-it blocking my viewer numbers on screen, as it blocks the game, I decided to take off the post-it. The fact that I don't even notice the red viewer numbers flashing means that I'm immune to feeling one way or the other by these numbers!

However, there are times when I feel a little demoralized when I see that my Wed viewer counts aren't as high as my Sun numbers, and noticing that my average concurrent viewers over the months haven't really increased, but remained stable at around 10.

Even so, I believe that not caring about the viewer numbers while live shows progress and also helps with gameplay as I can see the more of the game.

The other thing that came up as an improvement is that in the past, I streamed because it forced me to exercise - but now I no longer need to exercise before streaming. Furthermore, before I came down with current bronchitis, there were quite a few days when I exercised when I didn't have to stream! Now that I no longer need streaming to force me to exercise, the only reason for me to stream is if and only if I find it fun!

I believe I was burned out at one point and decided to stop Twitch completely since I got deeply involved in a niche Japanese RPG game, Atelier Sophie. During that time, I was thinking, wouldn't it be nice if I can spend more time playing video games with complete focus and immersion on my days off than having to stream!

However, I then felt guilt that if I stopped streaming altogether, it'll be unfair to my viewers who subscribed to me - they're paying monthly fees to watch me - and I feel that I need to give them their money's worth.

Whenever I have to do something out of duty and responsibility, it tends to be a wet blanket. I don't know what changed and made me find streaming a joy again - perhaps it was taking off a week due to getting chest cold - because streaming the past 2 days in a row was a joy!

In other words, anytime I feel that streaming is a burden and an obligation, that will be a sign to me to take some time off - hopefully I can stream a couple of more times just to give the community a heads up that I'm going to take a break. 

When I was caring about viewer numbers, however, I joined stream teams and found out that they tend to have extreme favoritism, where members who may not support but are friends reap all the viewer numbers. I've noticed quite a few members who support the leaders of these stream teams through buying and gifting subs, bits, and donations, yet had low concurrent viewers. On the flip side, those who are friends (despite not supporting at all) had very large numbers, despite the quality of streams between the two groups being more or less the same.

As a result, I stopped making these stream teams my main team. Fortunately, I'm not going to fall for these stream teams anymore since I'm more or less able to not care about my viewer numbers as evidenced by no longer needing post-it to block these numbers during broadcast.

I still need to work on habits such as making a cluck sound at times when I complete a thought, and again decreasing filler words. Making sure my eyes go back and forth from game to chat has not come naturally by any means. There're still quite a few times when I get so enthralled in the game that I forget to look at chat, or I get too involved in chat, that gameplay comes to a grinding halt.

Progress made:

• Being able to change my schedule after work to improve quality of life - I can multi-task almost as well even if I'm not in perfect condition thanks to months of streaming practice.
• Streaming is no longer a "crutch" to force myself to exercise as I no longer need to exercise before streaming, AND I was exercising on days when I wasn't streaming.
• Therefore, only reasons for streaming are for fun and obligation to paid subscribers.
• Recognizing if I feel burnout, taking time off is a must!
• No longer caring about seeing viewer numbers while streaming, no longer needing to block off screen with post-its, so gaming is easier and more pleasant with greater visiblity.
• Recognizing stream teams to gain followers don't work - no longer buying into stream teams that promise increased viewer numbers, but end up showing extreme favoritism.

Improvements to be made:

• The usual being able to chat and gameplay at same time (this is not habit yet).
• Decreasing filler words and vocal "tics".
• Continuing to not care at all about numbers.

The How of Happiness Review

Post Oblivion Faction Choice

In my last post I opined on what I'd want to see for the rest of the faction spoilers and what my pro/cons were for each faction.

Well it's been a little less than a week since Oblivion dropped and I've been mulling over what to play for the next few months and I've reached a decision...

Legion!


So why Legion over Trolls and CoC? Well I've got a few reasons and it's easier to start with the reasons I'm not going with Trolls or CoC rather than what I'm going for in Legion.

Why Not CoC?

Convergence was what I was playing before Oblivion and it's what I have been inclined to keep with after the changes, but there are some things that made me decide shelving them for a bit.

The Dynamic Update changes for CoC were pretty minor beyond the (massive) theme changes, only the Colossal's got points drops and the Developers stated that they want to do more, especially with the medium based infantry (which I love), but they can't really test that until all the new stuff that is coming in a few months is also being tested. As such things are mostly the same, though we're far more likely to play in Clockwork Legion, even for Vector heavy based lists.

In the Steamroller I went to a few weeks ago I played two DI lists in my pairing and while I could manage threat ranges to get up on attrition, I had trouble contesting with new scenarios and lost on scenario before I could capitalize on the attrition win.

If you're in DI, you've got no screen of infantry or much in the way of throw away items, and our heavies are still pretty expensive for what they do.

The other changes that have me excited to play CoC is the Void Archon in Clockwork Legions being in the theme - except it will not pre-release at Gencon and so I'm waiting till October before I can really start playing the lists I want to be playing anyway. By that point we will be very close to the CoC new CID

The final reason I'm putting my CoC down for a bit is because I just know that major changes are coming to the faction in a few months and it feels kinda meh to play them in their current state when everyone including the developers knows there are problems with things as they are and the changes are a short time away. So why not take a change of pace with stuff I already own?

Why Not Trolls?

Trolls are interesting to dojo for me, because the faction revolves around so many different buff pieces which I just like the general approach of, it's just that there are two main problems I see.

First and foremost is the Krielstone and SR2019.  With one third of scenarios having very wide spread zones, and those being "new" scenarios more likely to see play in events, Trolls are going to suffer, especially the kind of brick list I typically enjoyed.

I went and mapped out what it would look like with a max (barring spending an additional 9 points on sorcerers) stone aura would look like if it could stand in the center of the table. The results are not very consistent.

The other problem I have is that the infantry units are just...not great. Fenns + UA are 20 points and our mainline gun units that I'd want to run are only RNG 8 (Highwaymen or Raiders). That's not inspiring. The beasts are also just very expensive, 19 point Bombers are rough. Our lights are also pretty expensive for what they do. Compare that to beasts in Grymkin or WM heavies and it's just painful.

Again this seems to be something that is recognized as a bit of a problem by the Devs with the idea that after a while Trolls will get looked at in more depth.

No More Support Taxes!

One thing I learned from playing Clockwork Legions in events (and what I know from Trolls), is that I'm kind of just tired of paying for support that is effectively essential to my army functioning but generally doesn't do much else.  Especially when said support requires a tight spacing.

Clockwork Legions troops are not very great, because they can recur. The medium based troops are very expensive and not great, because they can recur. But then I also have to pay 16 points...in order to recur. That's kind of a double whammy.  I also need to stay moderately tethered to the Foundries for it all to work. It hurts the more you spread out, because canny opponents will overload on one flank to fill the foundries covering that flank and start permanently killing models. So unless you can have a nice bunker in the center, the strength of recursion can be more easily mitigated.

The Krielstone is very similar, and once you're out of the stone, which can happen if you're looking to build high threat range lists, our beasts really suffer compared to what they cost.

I'm just...tired of having to take expensive support and want a change. This brings me to...

Why Legion?

Most support is caster driven, so I always have it until the game is over. When there is support taken, it's generally self sufficient. If I take Anyssa with Raptors, the Raptors aren't completely screwed if she's gone and she can just follow them around. If I take a Grotesque Assassin with Grotesque Raiders, it similarly just is tethered to that unit, not my entire force.

The other sad thing is that if I want to play a brick/aura list, I have options to do that. Primal Terrors with a Blightbringer provides a similar experience, and while it costs 20 points more than a Krielstone, it also is much harder to kill, is a melee anchor for late game, and has a decent gun turn after turn.

Similarly I could play Thags1 with his aura and some Carniveans to put out an ARM22 brick of heavies.

There's also the fact that guns not only abound in this faction, but they're far longer range as well. Strider Rangers got buffed, and with Ravens of War opening to all beasts again, we have good shooting options plus Hellmouth's to give scenario presence and tools to give advantage in heavy trades.

Oh and there's the fact that everything has flight or pathfinder. I loathe not having that, especially on heavies. Eyeless Sight is also nice to avoid any cloud problems and stealth issues, plus the faction brings a lot of boostable sprays to the table as well.

Beasts are expensive except for rare cases, but the character beasts in Legion are particularly compelling.

There are certainly weaknesses, particularly to guns, but there are some answers that can be taken to account for that.

Plus when I was going through to look at models I saw my old stuff and was reminded of how much I liked the look of them.

So for at least the next few months, I'm back on Legion!

So Much Terrain!

   I have been working fairly consistently on terrain the last couple of weeks in my limited hobby painting time. The results are a fair bit of work done on Frostgrave terrain and a few random pieces as well. That would, of course, include finishing up those minefields for Team Yankee that I showed off a few posts back.

   So here are a few photos of what I have managed to accomplish:

These are supposed to be bases but I thought they would look good as ruined scatter terrain.

An experiment in bamboo stands and some additional small trees.

I should do a few trees up as Frostgrave bushes I think.

The largest piece of Frostgrave terrain I have. It gives a bit of a third dimension to

the battlefield, which it desperately needs. I need a tower, too.

A harmless statue, or a devastating golem?

Another statue? And yet another ruined wall... are there no buildings still standing?

More tombstones (I think I will sell some on eBay)

Also, a trio of beer barrels. Because beer.

Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused product of 2020

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

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