The Comic Shack is hosting a Avacyn Restored Pre-Release weekend

We’ll be kicking things off with our Midnight Pre-Release on Friday April 27^th/Saturday April 28^th.  This is a sealed event.  The event will cost $25.50 per person.   Each player will receive six (6) packs with paid entry.  We will be including one of our two Helvaults in this event.

We will be hosting a Constructed Standard Friday Night Magic Event on Friday, April 27^th at the normal time.  The cost for the FNM game is $5.00.  Prize support will be available.

Our second Avacyn Restored event will be on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. (Saturday, April 28^th).  We will be running a 2-Headed Giant sealed event.  The cost for this event is $17.00.  Each player will receive four (4) packs with paid entry.  If you don’t have a partner for this event, don’t worry, we’ll find a teammate for you.

We will run a second Sealed Avacyn Restored Event on Saturday evening at 9 p.m.  This event will cost $25.50 per person.  Each player will receive six (6) packs with paid entry.

Finally, we will be rounding up our Pre-Release weekend with a final Sealed Avacyn Restored Event.  We will be including our second Helvault in this event.  It will take place on Sunday, April 29^th at 3 p.m.  The event will cost $25.50 per person.  Each player will receive six (6) packs with Paid entry.

The contents of the Helvaults remain a mystery.  There could possibly be mini-events spawned by breaking a seal.  We will announce any extra events as they come into play on Facebook –if applicable.

Pre-registration is available for all events.

We are also doing pre-orders for boxes of Avacyn Restored.  Each box will cost $100 plus tax.  With each box pre-ordered you will receive the Buy It Buy The Box promo card – Silverblade Paladin.  As an additional thank you from the Comic Shack, we are also including one of the Magic The Gathering Comic Books.

To Recap:

Friday, April 27^th @ 9 p.m. – Standard Friday Night Magic game.  Entry Cost: $5.00

Friday, April 27^th/ Saturday April 28^th @ Midnight – Avacyn Restored Pre-Release Sealed Event with Helvault*.  Cost $ 25.50 per player. Each player receives six (6) packs.

Saturday, April 28^th @ 2 p.m. – Avacyn Restored 2-Headed Giant. Cost $17.00 per player. Each player receives four (4) packs.

Saturday April 28^th @ 9 p.m. – Avacyn Restored Pre-Release Sealed Event.  Cost: $25.50 per player. Each player receives six (6) packs.

Sunday, April 29^th @ 3 p.m. – Avacyn Restored Pre-Release Sealed Event with Helvault*.  Cost $25.50 per player. Each player receives six (6) packs.

*Additional events may spawn from Helvault. Announcements will follow on Facebook if this happens.

That’s right, we have a brand new location.  Please come on down and check out our new place.

We are now located at 5602 14th Street West Bradenton FL 34207

Next to Bleachers (across the street from Tommyknockers and Staples)

We look forward to see you!

What’s that? It’s Commander!

An Article by: Cory Myers

This week marks the beginning of the large rollout of spoilers for the new Commander pre-con decks. As a game type based on what used to be called EDH, or Elder Dragon Highlander, you build singleton 100 card decks with the 100^th being a general or Commander. Simply put you go through every legendary creature you have , pick one you really like, and that’s your commander. Next you take the mana colors in your commanders casting cost and put together a 99 card deck using only single cards (going as far back as Legacy (with some banned cards)) of those colors only having duplicates of basic lands having absolutely no colors in the deck that your commander did not. That is to say  if I were to choose Sheoldred, the Whispering One as my commander the entire deck would have to be full of  black spells (or colorless since they don’t technically have a color) and swamps or lands that produce black mana. Where as if I chose Sliver Overlord the deck could have any color cards I want in it because he has all five colors in his casting cost.
Although this game can be played one on one, this game gets really exciting when you go multiplayer. With each player playing their best spells, lies, deceit, betrayal galore! So what are these new Pre-con decks going to bring to both the players that have been playing for a while and the new players that haven’t played before? LOTS!  For those that have played before and probably already have most of the cards they want for their Commander deck this set is going to have 51 new cards designed for this type of game as well as some cards that might have been hard to obtain for some players such as the sol ring that comes in every pre-con. As for those that haven’t played Commander before, a hole new Magic is available to them, for both new and experienced players this is a great format  to jump into.  Your already set to go with the pre-constructed decks but from there players only need to swap in other cards they like to make them their own, and instead of trying to look for expensive playsets they only need singleton copies now.

There’s plenty of goodies coming as the spoilers have only started to be let out we can already see what things are shaping up to. Included are some new abilities that are really great for multiplayer like join forces an ability which allows all players to pitch in for a bigger effect whether that be beneficial for everyone like Alliance of Arms giving everyone 1/1 soldiers, or  basic lands from Collective Voyage, but in some cases used to destroy foes with someone else’s Mana-Charged Dragon. Also bringing in some new elements for everyone a cycle of enemy tri-color legendary creatures each with devastating and powerful abilities. With two more weeks of spoilers leading up to the release of these pre-cons June 17^th , myself and my two commanders, Drana and Rakdos, will eagerly be awaiting these new possibilities as well as you as our next opponent.

Hello all.  After much consideration, I decided that the best way to start my column would be to shed some light on the origins of The Shack and also the naming of this blog.

A long time ago in a -wait, scratch that.  One October day in 2008, my phone rang.  James, an old friend that I was brought up with, informed me that the last comic book store in Bradenton was about to close, and he was wondering if I would be willing to help him if he decided to open one.  At the time, I was unemployed.  I had just been laid off and the economy being less than impressive was causing my phone to ring less and less.  I remembered many times as a wee lad, James and I riding our bikes to the local hobby store, the library, the used paperback shop (the lady that ran it always had tons of great sci-fi books and typically a few boxes of old comics and she loved the idea that young people still read which meant that we almost always got deep discounts and freebees). . .

Yes.  Absolutely, yes.  I can job hunt and still have lots of free time thanks to Al Gore and his marvelous invention called the Internet.  James was working on his own tech-related products, but the space he was renting had a room that was unused which had an outside access door.  So, that gave us essentially 140 square feet of floor space to work with in a little, obnoxiously-pink building on 59th Street.  Now, we decided, a name is needed.  James had the word “geek” in his head and was adamant that it needed to be part of the name.  Luckily (my wife and I still believe in the luckily part), Kelly and I convinced him that the word “geek” at least from a mainstream perception, thanks to Best Buy, had become more associated with computers and less in regards to comics and gaming.  I mean, we still lovingly refer to each other as ‘geeks’ but most people on the street, if you introduce yourself as a geek will ask you to come see if they’ve hooked up their disc player correctly.  Now, truth be told, most geeks worth their salt could probably assist in that sort of project, but Kelly and I were very concerned that we would, if the word were used in our moniker, be fielding calls about PC repair for much of our days.  I have a fair amount of experience in sales and advertising, and one of the basic principles is that between your name and your slogan, people should have a pretty good idea what your products or service is about.  Being flashy and gimmicky for the sake of being flashy and gimmicky is passé.  People looking for your product apparently will pay you money if you in fact have what they’re looking for.  I believe it’s called commerce.  Based on that ideal and trying to avoid the ‘geek’ argument, I recommended the word “comic’ be in the name somewhere.  Since we were opening a comic book store, it seemed somewhat sincere.  This idea passed both the Senate and the House and then we moved on to the question of what other word should go with it.  With such luxurious floor space to work with, we definitely did not want to sound pretentious.  Despite the fact that Harry Potter might consider our store to be a rather spacious bedroom, we did not feel that we had the right to get cocky.  In fact, we wanted to be honest and upfront with ourselves and the public.  My wonderful wife came up with the word “Shack” and we were off and running from a concept standpoint.  “The Comic Shack”- up front and direct about our product but not so big you’ll get lost in the aisles.  Actually, there were no aisles.

Our first day of operation was Black Friday.  We pushed very hard so that we could be open for this, one of the pinnacle shopping days of the year.  We were stocked.  The paint was dry.  The sign was up.  We were ready.  Just minutes before we were preparing to close the doors on our first and glorious new endeavor, we sold one book.  A local history teacher was returning home from the laundromat and saw our sign.  A Sgt Rock comic left our store.  But wait, did you say, close the doors?  I did.  We had been open the whole day.  Not a triumphant start in terms of volume, but a beginning nonetheless.  If nothing else, we were assured that it could work.  It may sound silly, but when you sell your first product you begin to believe in it more.  So, a few months went by and we slowly started developing a customer base, not big, but good people who were delighted to receive good service (I’d like to think so anyway) and were happy to have a shop in their home town.  James and the landlord had a, um, disagreement, about the terms of the lease and we needed to move.  We found a little strip mall on 18th (next to Dead Eye Pete’s (great tattoo guy by the way!)) which we decided could work.  The entire unit was a little under 500 square feet BUT we had to fit the technical operations of James’ hardware business and the comic book biz under the same roof.  The great part of the unit was that it had a partition wall that ran down half of it.  So, we put the counter in front of the opening that separated the front half from the back half, which allowed up to optimize the space and magically pop up behind the counter when a customer entered.  Yes sir, we now had almost one hundred and eighty square footsies of selling space.  We were big time.

Months went by and we were growing steadily.  The Comic Shack was getting more and more requests to beginning venturing into the direction of gaming.  Profitable but risky, we decided to go for it, but we needed more space.  Hard to believe that having nearly two hundred square feet would not be enough, but it was true.  Expansion would have to take place if we were going to do it.  Our landlady (ah, Lucy, so many memories I wish I could scour from my mind) was always delighted with the idea of accepting more money.  The strip we were in had more than a couple open units, so we looked into acquiring the one next door.  Around this time, James had done some soul searching and had come to the conclusion that, although he was great at designing technical marvels, his ability to multi-task would be described as ‘not so much’.  Kelly and I were told that either The Comic Shack would close, or we could take it over completely.  My phone was still not ringing, and I was coming up on the one year anniversary of unemployment, not to be celebrated with champagne and cake.  Receiving unemployment checks may seem exciting and glamorous, but when you have a family of four and a mortgage payment, the thrill dies very quickly.  I thought long and hard about it, and after a lot of soul searching myself, decided that we could do it.  It would not be easy (nothing worthwhile truly is), but I knew that we could do it.  So, in September of ’09, Kelly and I took over The Comic Shack completely, as partners.  We were already partners in life.  We knew each other.  We had seen the best and worst in each other and thirteen years later still called each other best friends.  This was doable.  Kelly was unavailable to help in the settling in of our new storefront as she had kid-wrangling to perform, but I did receive help from a couple of customers in the moving around of large fixtures and installation of shelving, one memory which sticks in my mind is that of a young man named Tyler helping me move the seemingly eight-ton counter.

The Comic Shack started holding Magic The Gathering tournaments in our spacious, nearly 500 square foot facility.   Then, at the recommendation of Topher, yet another new ally we had gained over the past few months, we began running Yu-Gi-Oh!.  We somehow crammed seventeen gamers in the room on a few occasions and it was becoming clear that if that side of the business were to have a chance, The Comic Shack was going to need more room.  We began looking at new options, and although it was going to mean an increase in expenses (yikes!), it was either grow or stagnate to death.  Our lease was coming up in the summer and we did not want to renew.

I looked at dozens of possibilities thanks to the resources of the Internet, cut that list to about eight, then three.  I contacted the various leasing agents and explained that we were a small shop looking to grow.  I knew, and I was honest with all, that the first few months and possibly more were going to be difficult since no matter which unit we chose, we would almost certainly be doubling our overhead.  It was a risk we would have to take to build a business, a home in Bradenton.  The realtors and property professionals sent me the info, blueprints and financial data for the prospective new locations for The Comic Shack.   I had narrowed it to two.  Both had a great location, the square footage was adequate, and possibilities.  I was torn.  They both seemed like good options.  I took another long look at the blueprints and nearly choked.  The 14^th Street location shared the street address of the home I had grown up in.  It may seem silly to some but I took that as a sign.

We began moving the last day of May in 2010.  One of the benefits (I guess) in having a small shop is that there isn’t much to move, right?  By this point, The Comic Shack had a couple of helpers and we had even acquired a young, innovative videographer named Antonio, who wanted to film a documentary about the Shack and its’ exploits.  So, I asked a couple of the guys who helped us run things to assist with the move, if they could.  Around fourteen people showed up.  (This was a humbling and gratifying moment for my wife and I.  We had learned through time and experience the wisdom of the Little Golden book, The Little Red Hen.  People, typically, will all say that they want to help and certainly help enjoy the rewards of such labor.  But, actually showing with sleeves rolled up usually does not happen.  On this occasion it did.  I was astounded and delighted.  I am fairly used to not counting on others, because again, most don’t show up.  Thank you one and all!)  It was late in the day and we were trying to be out by June 1^st which was mere hours away.  It was around midnight and the mother of one of our gamers pulled up.  She had just gotten off work and was tired.  I apologized and explained that her son was at the new location helping set up and put away stuff there.  She looked at me blankly and said “I know.  I have a truck”.  I blinked a few times unclear as to where we were going in this conversation.  “Um, yes, I see that.”  She stared at me for a few moments before repeating, “I have a truck”.  After the gracious help we had received I was still unsure what to think and not about to assume anything.  “If you would like to fill this truck that I have a time or two I would like to help you get done”.  Stunned for the umpteenth time that day I simply replied, “Okay.  We can do that”.  (Bless you Robin!)

So we had the new place, sort of.  The unit we were going to moving into had a bit of a snag.  The salt water aquarium that was going to be in the corner unit was actually, temporarily residing in the unit we had been promised, so we were going to have to set up shop in the unit next door.  It was spacious but we couldn’t do anything permanent like drill holes in the holes and hang shelving.  Tables!  We have many, many tables.  The summer of 2010 is the period I now refer to as “Our flea market days”.  Presentation is important for any business and I can honestly say that this was the worst presentation for commerce I have ever been a part of.  We had piles and piles of stuff, everywhere!  I have no doubt that many prospective new customers, despite our charm and wit and explanations as to the current events, were convinced that we were clueless and had no idea what we were doing.  Some of them, sadly, we most likely lost due to a bad first impression.  The Comic Shack was in a holding pattern.  Until the construction was complete so that the “fish people” (nice folks by the way) could move to their finished storefront, we were stuck too.  The summer dragged on slowly with false hopes of moving appearing often.  Business-wise, things were awful.  The gaming side was improving slightly as we had more room but our sales were down over fifty percent.  I wanted to cry.

Finally the big day arrived and the unit, our unit, was empty.  But, there was still preparation to be done.  My Dad was implemental here and we simply could not have done it without him.  After a few days of work next door we were ready to move.  I planned it out as best I could to make the move on a Monday and Tuesday, since we were typically closed those days and it wouldn’t throw off the routine of any of our regular customers.  I had some help here and there for which I am still thankful because that, let me assure you, was a lot of work!  Painting, hanging shelves, (making last minute adjustments to the floorplan as it always looks a little different on paper), organizing, imbibing a LOT of caffeine, these were my marching orders.  We got it done and limped through our first week in the new, new place, while doing last minute touches here and there.  Especially reflecting on “the pink building”, we were looking good.  Since then, business has been unpredictable but slowly rising on average and my wife and I are hoping for even brighter tomorrows.

So, all of this I explained to a young patron who comes in from time to time when he’s in a snarky trolling mood.  He considered the tale and replied, “So, are you considering changing the name at all?  I mean, you are definitely bigger than a shack now.”

“No”, I rebutted calmly.  “Although we have grown, from a business side of things, The Comic Shack has established some brand recognition within Bradenton at least and we are utilizing a decorative style and have from the beginning that has that country store feel.  So, no, I think, changing up our look, our image would be a backwards move.”

“And”, he began his next barrage, “Your wife came up with the name?”

I had no idea where we going but I hopped on anyway, “Yes”, I verified, “The name was her initial concept and after I thought about it, I realized that we could do the country blue and white look which would tie into the name and I knew that that would work.  It would be unique and also aesthetically pleasing.”

“So”, he inquired, “Have you personally ever had an original thought?”

Since, it would seem, I am deficient in the area of creativity, as a means of reminding myself of this, to push myself to grow as a person, the name of my blog/column will be “Unoriginal Thoughts”.  One day, perhaps soon, I will have that moment, that epiphany.  Until then, I guess I’ll just ask my wife.

* True to form, my wife came up with the title of this blog entry.  I await the day when I have an original thought.

On the BRINK of Success

Innovation is something that the current game industry is lacking. Brink attemps to break the current mold with first person shooters. If I where to discribe Brink, it would be as if Killzone and Mirrors Edge had a baby. Borrowing the parkour-like movement from Mirrors Edge and the team objective based gameplay from games like Battlefield, Killzone, and Team Fortress. It ALMOST does a exellent job, almost…

CONTROLS

I have mainly played this game for PC. For the PC the controls are sub par. “F” is your “do all key”. You use ‘F’ as a use key…for everything. From buffing teammates to completeing objectives. I do this at least once every match. A teammate is down and I go to heal the one who is down, someone runs in fromt of me, I heal them and my teammate is left stranded. There is a lot more keys on a keyboard than ‘F’. I would fix this by; buffing is ‘F’ and use is ‘E’. Everything else is fine besides the oversimplification of the controls. I understand for a console, but don’t do it to us PC gamers.

MOVEMENT

Brink developed the S.M.A.R.T system (smooth movement across random terrain) which allows for fairly easy navigation through your enviornments. For the most part it does a good job. However, there is still some glitches. I often found myself getting hung up on terrain. What a great feeling it is to get killed because of a problem wit the S.M.A.R.T system. I hope this will get worked out in later patches.

WEAPONS

As far as weapons go, its alright. I really enjoy the customization. There is a choice between different magazines, sights, etc. They all affect the performance of your weapons, allowing you to customize your weapons to better suit your playstyle.

By far the strongest weapon type is the pistol. They’re deadly accurate and can knock down any enemy far better than an SMG. I was hoping the weapons (overall) would be a bit more accurate..there is a lot of spray-n-pray in this game. Aiming is no more different than other FPS’s out currently.

BODY TYPES

In Brink you have three body types, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Light is by far my favorite type. While fragile, light is the most agile, and can perform the most acrobatic manuvers. It’s comes at a ‘price’ of only being able to carry one SMG and a Pistol. Medium is a great balanced type. A little slower, less acrobatic, but can carry two SMG’s, or a shotgun. Heavy is a odd class. Reason being…it can’t really support itself. Even as a heavy medic. Because you are so large and slow you often require the support of your teammates. When properly supported. Watch out.

The customization is very nice. I would have liked to see more outfits and a little bit more customization. (something like from the THPS games) But it does add a sense of uniqueness to the experience.

I’m not going to go over the classes, instead, here is a video on the classes by the developers. I really have no complaints.

ONLINE

I have played online on both PC and XBOX 360. For XBOX it is TERRIBLE, completely unplayable. Constant lag on 80% of matches. For PC, it’s okay. The server browser is pretty bad. No ability to save a server to favorites, see who is currently playing, how far into the match it is. Really? This is a common thing especially for you, Splash Damage. As far as lag and netcode are concerned. It works really well. If you have ever played Quake online, it is similar netcode (both use the iD Tech engine).

GRAPHICS

For PC the graphics look crisp and clear, unlike the console counterparts. On console the textures are constantly being loaded into the RAM causing really blurry textures all over the place. When you walk into a room, it’s a big blur until the console caches the textures. A big gripe for the PC is the lack of graphical options. There is a homemade config tool that unlocks a few more options. These should have been included to begin with. If I want to turn off the eye candy, I should be able to. The default FOV is 60 (periscope vision), I like to play at 90-100. No option for that. I have to go to the developer console to change that. It’s not in the options at all… A quick sidenote, if you are running an ATI card. Expect problems. ATI and Open GL don’t mix very well.

AUDIO

My favorite part of this game is the audio! It is exellent! The muffled gunfire from across the map is exellent. The sounds fo your gun and footsteps is top notch. There is a sound effect for everything. It really helps add to the experience. A patch for PC was recently released fixing the audio muting at random.

LEVEL DESIGN

Visually the maps are beautiful. They have a sense of conceptual grandness and realism. Beyond that, poorly placed choke points, and bad map balance. I’m trying to keep it short and going into detail would be an article in-itself. The levels are shallow; beautiful to look at, but once you get to know them there really isn’t much there.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Brink was obviously rushed. I don’t know why Splash Damage felt the need to rush this one out so quickly. Had they taken the time to properly implement the movement and work out the levels a bit more, this would have been a hit! Because of the rocky release the game flopped. Quite a shame.