Did I not tell you? Did I not suggest that when natural justice fails, another burning energy may deliver that result which is good and proper? Despair, mine enemies! Unless you like swamps, in which case you might find my wrath pleasant.

I wonder if it isn't better to watch this "E3" from a distance than it is to wade around in it, hip-deep. Having been to its forebear every year since (The Year of Our Lord) 1999, I'm in a position to know if this is the case, and I believe it is so. When it comes to determining the quality of the materials set before us, I think it may be more dispassionate and more useful to download these things from GameTrailers than it is to watch it in a rigidly controlled environment, hooting with the rest of the journalistic tribe while you swing around a steaming shank of corporate meat.

You should know that I'm referring to myself here, although if you would like to apply this to my embedded contemporaries you may do so. Speaking in their defense, over the long span of my demagoguery I have met many professional games journalists, almost all of them bastards and unlikely to be swayed by the basic tricks. As for Gabriel and myself, we have been called motherfuckers and I believe the term holds. I can lie with grace and precision, a crucial talent for any writer, and then return to my "online blog" to sow the barbed seeds of your ruin. But, much like the publishers and developers themselves, I am trying to find the real value in such a concentrated event.

Briefly: no, doubt, some measure of this must be connected with my heir, who I can't bear to leave for long periods. I can't imagine why, as he routinely declares that I am a "whale" and a "beast." But if I should leave, and he is carried off by the Coyote King, the lack of a direct successor will almost certainly mean war between the low princes.

The true cause is that I am suspicious of marketing materials almost completely, and trust only the grip of a familiar pad and the whirl of the retail disc dancing in the drive. I am not immune to pomp, and I take in the trailer and the screenshot for entertainment, but one may rarely call this education. Even demos may lie, as did Motorstorm's, spooling great troves of data off the hard drive while the actual product seems to pore through filing cabinets in the dark.  These things cost too much to leave things up to chance, by which I mean "the truth."  And the insane horserace mentality that the entire spectacle engenders might be the opposite of worthwhile.

(CW)TB out.

don't lean on me, man

Thanks to everyone who mailed me their Pokemon tips. Every single person who mailed me stressed the importance of EV's and proper EV training over just about everything else. I was given some great links and spent a good chuck of the day yesterday reading everything I could about them.

I'm thirty years old now, and I've been playing games for more than twenty of those. I've seen some real bullshit in all that time and EV's are right up their towards the top of the list. As far as I can tell this is how they work. If your Pokemon fights another Pokemon that's really fast for example, it earns a point towards it's speed Effort Value (EV).  For every four of these points that you get  your Pokemon will gain one more point to it's speed stat when it levels up. Now each Pokemon awards EV's for different stats and some give points for multiple stats. The problem is that these EV's are invisible and limited. So there's only a certain number of them that a single Pokemon can take advantage of and there's no way to track them in game. I got tips like "create a spreadsheet for each of your Pokemoin with rows for all their stats and manualy enter any EV's they get..."

Create a spreadsheet?

Then I started reading about IV's and I saw this shit:

Now that I've showed how much they can affect stats, let's grab the equation for determining a Pokemon's Individual Value. Keep in mind that this is NOT for Hit Points. That has its own equation.

IV = ((Math.Ceiling(Stat / Personality Value) - 5) * 100 / Level Value ) - 2 * Base Stat – Effort Points / 4

Are you fucking serious? I never got past algebra. All I want to do is show people my Pokemons, not build a Goddamn time machine!

So I started digging into serebii.net yesterday and I got my first glimpse at just how far this rabbit hole goes. I told myself I wasn't going to fall into it but I ended up spending the morning trying to acquire a new Chimchar with the preferred "jolly" nature. Once I'd done that I spent the afternoon EV training him on Ponytas and Machamps. I'm telling you this not because I am proud but because I need help. Someone needs to stop me before I start doing long division to figure out what kind of fucking berry I should feed my shittlesaur.

Hey are you going to San Diego Comic con? We are!

We'll be back in booth 1237 for those of you interested in stopping by and saying hello. Along with our new shirts, all our books and a bunch of posters and stickers we'll have something special that you can only get at the show.

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This totally bitchin' Armadeaddon poster will only be available at Comic Con. So if you need one of these things come on down or send a friend. If you do come to the convention be sure and check out some of the panels we're involved in:

11:30 -12:30, Room 1AB

"Episodic Games,Comics"

Hothead Games and Telltale

3:30-4:30, Room 8

"Biz of Webcomics"

Khoo and Kurtz

3:30-4:30, Room 1AB

Gabe and Tycho Q&A

Us

If you swing by bring your DS. Our booths tend to become DS hang outs so be ready.

Also I just updated gabeart with some new Twisp and Catsby stuff. You should check it out if you like those guys.

-Gabe out