High Hopes from the studio, that is. Collider is reporting that Paramount is already lining up writers for a sequel to the Star Trek movie, which isn’t even out yet. I mean, I can understand that they must expect the movie will do bucketloads of money, but will it get into shitloads territory? Bets are yes, but one never knows. And as the article points out, it’s up against some serious contenders.

I hope it all turns out well. After driving the Star Trek franchise into the ground, let’s hope Paramount doesn’t bury it.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not big into video games. However, I am big into action movies and martial arts movies. Seeing this “feature” at Movieset on the production for the movie, King of Fighters, piques my interest. There’s not much to see, but the cast is good. I actually hope they don’t try to get to in-depth with the story. I mean, Ong Bak is so awesome because the story is only there to stitch together awesome fight scenes. Go with that, and I’ll be happy.

And can someone please cast Ray Park as a good guy? Well, how about another good guy?

I had four players in my Viking True20 campaign. Things were chugging along well. We had one player who had a lot of scheduling issues, but we tried to work around them. Then one player moved to BC for a job. Hated to lose him, but understandable. Then the scheduling issue player had one major issue that left us twisting in the wind, and this led to him leaving the group.

Now I have two players. I don’t feel comfortable continuing to game with only two players. Three players is my minimum. Maybe if these guys were my university friends or something I’d be cool with continuing. While both the remaining players are good guys, I haven’t known them that long and only through the game. So I’ve had to call the campaign until we get at least one more player.

Suckage.

The worst part is the Viking campaign has morphed into something much more intricate than I at first expected. This was through using player input, or concepts the players themselves had provided. It’s been a lot of fun. Then there is the next campaign, a kind of riff on Planetary played in Mundus Novit. I was trying to decide whether to go d20 Modern, True20, Mutants & Masterminds, orSavage Worlds. I guess I won’t have to worry about that choice.

In Our Time is a podcast of a radio program from BBC Radio 4. It covers history in all its permutations, from the history of Neuroscience to the Siege of Constantinople. Melvyn Bragg is a tough but fair moderator, keeping the guests–who can stray off course and get caught up in minutia–moving forward and asking the right kind of questions to get the information I want to hear. The back catalogue of episodes has some absolutely stellar topics, like Robin Hood, the Jacobite Rebellion, Merlin, and Christopher Marlowe. It’s unfortunate that the archives are only available for streaming, but I’ve had some success using Audacity to capture them in relatively good quality for listening on my mp3 player.

Pros: Excellent moderator, highly informed guests, professional, some of the best podcast episodes I’ve ever heard, I can listen to it with my toddler in ear shot.

Cons: Too many of the recent topics covered don’t interest me; back catalogue only available as streaming rather than downloadable mp3s.

When the new episode of In Our Time is something in which I am interested, it goes first, ahead of anything. If you are interested in history, I can’t recommend this podcast enough.

Fraser’s Rating: 4.75 out of 5 (I can’t blame them for providing topics in which I’m not interested, but it detracts from their score anyway.)

Award-winning developer of EVE Online attending GDC to showcase “EVE Online: Apocrypha” and actively recruit for further growth Reykjavik.

ICELAND – March 23, 2009 – CCP, one of the world’s leading independent game developers and creator of EVE Online, has announced a strong corporate outlook ahead of this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), (San Francisco, CA, March 23-27, 2009). The company was recently honored for its innovative approach to development; is announcing aggressive recruitment plans; and earlier this month released the latest EVE Online expansion: Apocrypha, available online as well as in retail stores via a distribution partnership with Atari.

CCP has received two key business awards over the last month, The Icelandic Innovation and Knowledge Award from the Association of Businessmen and Economists in Iceland and the 2009 Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies Award from the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). Both awards highlight CCP’s strength and innovation in technical development.

CCP was founded around innovation and the pursuit of excellence,” said CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson, “and those core values have continued to be at the heart of everything we do, even as we’ve expanded our global reach in the last few years. We feel great pride and humility to have been recognized with these prestigious awards and feel more determined than ever to keep attracting brilliant people and building the best battletested technology to create the most compelling virtual worlds imaginable.”

On the heels of these two awards, and with March 10th’s retail box release of EVE Online: Apocrypha, CCP has announced a heavy presence at this year’s GDC. Several CCP representatives will give presentations, and CCP is also hosting booth #210 in the GDC Career Pavilion as part of its recruitment drive.

GDC speaking slots include:
- Eyjo Gudmundsson, Lead Economist, and Petur Oskarsson, Researcher: “The Council of Stellar Management: EVE Online Bridges Worlds for a Society”
- Halldor Fannar, CTO: “From Evolution to Revolution: Upgrading the Graphics Engine of EVE Online”
- Ryan Scott Dancey, CMO: “Network Marketing: Leveraging Social Networks to Grow an MMO”

During the expo, CCP will be accepting resumes from aspiring and talented developers as it commences a series of recruitment waves in which the company aims to fill about 60 positions over the course of 2009. The company will also show highlights of the new features and capabilities associated with their latest expansion, EVE Online: Apocrypha, including an eased learning curve for newcomers, unstable wormholes for exploration and modular ships that pilots may tailor-build to suit their own specifications and needs.

“We are excited to be growing our developer team, and it’s nice to see the team winning awards from our industry peers,” said Mike Tinney, president of CCP North America. “By hiring top talent, and tackling hard problems 2008 became a strong year for CCP. Now coming into 2009 we’re looking for more insanely talented and like-minded people to join our team. We will continue to enrich the EVE player experience and continuously develop and improve our upcoming projects as well.”

Here’s the third story of mine that I’m going to share. Hopefully this will make up for the silence on this blog since my second daughter was born.

This is one of my published works. It was published in the anthology Parasitorium: the Terrors Within, which is unfortunately no longer in print and now only available at Lulu.

I’ve shopped this story around the reprint market, but its on the long side (over 8,000 words). It was written on spec for the anthology, so I haven’t really lost anything in not being able to sell the reprint.

I think it’s a pretty fun story, but I don’t think its close to my best work. Right now, that is a story I sold to Black Gate, and which will hopefully see publication soon.

I hope you all enjoy “Gifts of the Elder Gods” by Fraser Ronald.

—

“Nothing comes without a price.”

I could have told him that. He looked quite proud of this pronouncement. Of course, he considered himself the fount of all knowledge, all wisdom. I just nodded, trying to put my disinterest into my face. Apparently it didn’t work.

“His invitation intimates he has found a more powerful source of magic.” Havper Dodhia, technically my master, shook his head. “I fear he has been misled.”

Rather then smack him out of his saddle, I just nodded again. Would he never tire of his own voice? Of course Terem Hawl was misled. He was easily misled. The man had chosen to become a wizard, but seemed to have all the energy and motivation of a sub-par slug. Now he thought he had found a way to become great without exerting himself to any great degree. He had bought snake oil from a charlatan.

“When we studied together in Tsian-Tao, I noted a certain laxity in his manner,” Havper said. He clucked his tongue. “I knew then he would never become a great wizard.”

I heard the unspoken like me. Havper still had knowledge he had not shared, secrets he had not revealed, so I let him continue, let him puff out his chest and play the great man. Three times my age, he had studied under the greatest arcane masters alive, yet in a few months, if all went as planned, I would surpass him in power. For those months, I would need to listen to his yammerings.

As he had pointed out, nothing comes without a price.

To read the full story, go here.