Friday, January 7, 2011

Signings at the Dragon's Den

We have a lovely lady coming in to do a signing here at the Dragon's Den, Christy Hemme. She is a model, singer, and former professional WWE wrestler.  She currently conducts backstage interviews for TNA’s television program, iMPACT!  Her professional wrestling career began after winning the 2004 Diva Search competition held by WWE. She subsequently wrestled for TNA Wrestling, retiring at the end of 2009. As a model, she has been the cover girl for Maxim, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. She has appeared in commercials for AT&T, TrimSpa, and was a spokesmodel for Hawaiian Tropic.

Christy Hemme is in Pougkeepsie for an event at the Hudson Valley Civic Center. Hemme will be at the Dragon’s Den to give autographs, pose with fans for pictures, and answer questions about her career.  Photos of Hemme and other merchandise will be available for purchase in-store. We welcome fans and customers alike to come on in during the appearance of Christy Hemme at our store!

Over the past few years we have gotten several people in to do some signings, as well as drawing some on the spot art. Here is a list of the past artists, writings, and actors we have had in the store for visits.  Some of these visits have been for specific events such as Free Comic Book Day (the first Saturday in May each year) while others have been set up because of events in the area.

Herb Trimpe - Artist for the Hulk, and many more Marvel Comics
Mark Texeria - Artist for Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, and more
JM Dematteis - comic book and TV writer (Kraven's Last Hunt!) 
R.A. Salvatore - Author... do we need to list all his books???
Kris Williams - Ghost Hunters
Ami Bruni - Ghost Hunters
Brandon DiCamillo  - Jack Ass, Cattle Bag
Nick Tapalansky - Writer Awakening
Alex Eckman-Lawn - Artist Awakening

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

FREE RPGs and More

There are many free Role Playing Games (RPG) around the internet.  Many of these games are online MMORPGs, but there are some that are traditional paper and pencil RPGs that have been created by players that have an interest in gaming and making games. Some of these games do involve other peoples copyrighted material, so remember that as you look around at all the interesting free games.  Below I'll list some of the sites that have FREE RPGs, online and print.

Online:

http://www.bestonlinerpggames.com/ - This site is loaded with free games. These range from MMORPGs, Fantasy RPGs, Adventure RPGs, Horror RPGs, Action RPGs, and Sci-Fi RPGs. Great for finding a whole bunch of different games to give a try.  Many of the games are not traditional RPGs, but they do offer some fun.

http://www.kabam.com/ - These are Facebook games, but maybe worth a mention. Facebook offers many different games to distract and entertain. Kabam offers several RPG type games with Atlantis, Ancient Rome, and Camelot as themes.

http://www.rpggames4free.com/ - This is another online RPG site.  They break down their list of RPGs into different catagories, including fantasy, adventure, browser, flash, and text.

Print: 

http://www.1km1kt.net/ - This is a massive site filled with FREE RPGs games.  They have some that MMORPGs listed as well, but many are paper and pencil downloads.  They have over 500 FREE RPGs listed in the free catagory.

http://www.thefreerpgblog.com/ - This blog offers posts and discussions about FREE RPG games.  They link to Delicious (a social bookmarking site) so to have all the links to all the games in one place.

http://www.homebrew.net/games/ - This site is dedicated to only paper/pencil download RPGs. They have a nice sized list and the author has been searching for these RPGs for over 10 years.

Other:

Brikwars: http://www.brikwars.com/downloads/BW2005.pdf Ever wonder what to do with all those extra lego and mega-blok? Well Mike Rayhawk created a game that uses those little minifigs to play some fun miniature games with! This is a link to the PDF rule book.  Here is a link to the suppliments which include other minifigs, and blank minifig cards: http://www.brikwars.com/supplements.htm. If you want to see the website that has all the information... here you go: http://www.brikwars.com/.

There are so many more RPG games out there, and as we have time we will continue to add more.  For now, enjoy the list and find a new game to try out... oh and by the way, we will be giving Brickwars a try at the Dragon's Den.

Gaming Store Logic: Magic

So we have had many different individuals come and go from the Dragon's Den as Magic players. I can honestly say that I have heard some of the craziest comments in regards to the collectible card game Magic. To give everyone a laugh, I thought I would jot some of them down for people to read and enjoy.

1. "Wow, you have a lot of players playing here. So none of them can be that good."
     Me: "What???"
     "Well I know that when a store has a lot of players, none of them are good."

So we may not have pro players... No wait we have a player who just won a PTQ and now has a pro-point, and we have at least one other player who was on the tour years ago.

Well maybe we don't have any big event Top 8 players... Just a few weeks ago we had several players Top 8 in different events.

Well maybe we don't have any state champions... But our judge is a former NY State Champ and we had several Top 8 players this year in multiple states. 

So I guess we might have a good player or two even though we have 40-60 players on a Friday night!

 2. "So I'm from the city, you guys have Magic Events?"
     Me: "Yes, every Monday, Friday, and some times on the weekend too."
     "Well I figure I can beat everyone here because I'm from the City, so I didn't bring my "A" game."
     Me: "Well... (see above comments)."
     "Oh really."
     Several hours later... 
     Me: "So how did it go?"
     "I should have brought my "A" game."

So I'm curious, why do you go to a tournament and not bring your "A" game? I mean if you are playing around the kitchen table, then sure play a fun deck, but when you go to an event wouldn't you want to play to win? Casual is a great format for playing for fun and we run that Tuesday nights, but for the other events bring your "A"game!

3.  "It is not fair that players go to big events and don't play net-decks."
     Me: "What???"
    "Well, it's not fair that we don't have a chance to prepare for a deck when it is not a net-deck."

Well I kind of thought that playing Magic was about building a deck and playing the game.  When did it just become using the internet and playing with someone elses idea and concepts. Have we sunk so low that we have no originality left or creativity???

4. "All the cards have to be spoiled."
     Me: "Why??"
    "Well all the Pro Players have to have all the cards spoiled. They are the reason all the cards are spoiled.  They need to know if they will buy any."

Really????? So what we are saying is that the small number of pro Magic players is more important then all the other players in the Magic community? So we need to show them all the cards to see if they want to purchase the cards? So we don't want players to have a little unknown in the game?  So we don't want to have any surprises?  Merry Christmas?!?!?

5. My all time favorite comment was not by a player or customer, but by a company...
     "We are going to start a GRASSROOTs program to make Magic work better for all stores and players. We will start with the large Professional TOs, who will then feed down to the smaller stores."

Ok, now I know I might be a little crazy, but really??? When did Grassroots programs work top down?? Can you even hear what your saying? Grassroots is a program to start small and have those small groups feed into bigger groups, that then feed into the largest groups. This would also be a great idea if the groups would talk to each other, but it appears that most TOs do not want to work with each other, especially the PTOs in this area who have never wanted to chat with us in the reverse grassroots program.

Agree or disagree...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Dystopian Wars by Spartan Games

So we have started carrying and playing Dystopian Wars from Spartan Games here at the Dragon's Den. with that in mind, we have started noticing several things about the game and how certain factions behave. We'd be very interested in hearing what others have seen with the factions and adding that in the comments about this post.

Kingdom of Britannia:

So torpedoes are a plus, but they really do not have a great rating crew rating for boarding actions.  You might want to keep out of range band 1, with range band 2 and 3 being great!

Federated States of America:

Well what can you say... 1 extra point of DR is AMAZING! I know the CR is the same, but that extra DR means a huge difference and has kept fleets rolling and not sinking! Rocket Batteries is a nice plus

Prussian Empire:

The Prussian's have some neat weapons including the Tesla Coils, which can be lethal and kill crew on hits. They also have lots of options for replacing turrets with different equipment. They also have great movement rates.  They are solid in range band 1 for combat.

Empire of the Blazing Sun:

Well torpedoes and Rocket Batteries in one ship is always a nice touch.  The Battleship also has an upgrade included that you get to chose from 2 different generators.  Blazing Sun also has torpedoes on the cruisers as well... and can fire in range band 1.

We are playing in the store almost every Wednesday and Thursday, and every one of the current 4 factions is represented.  If you are interested in playing, come in and check it out.  We are so looking forward to seeing the Land Battle Groups that are coming out next for all four factions!  Once they hit stores, we will have them together and we will be playing!

Soon we will have pictures of the painted forces, so check back soon and often!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks