I am getting the feeling my other report (Wildstar’s Slow and Undramatic Decline) was a bit too optimistic. Perhaps the sky is falling after all (at least on Nexus). Be prepared for some hard hitting journalism today on the final day of Blaugust. Exhibit A First – the President of Carbine, Jeremy Gaffney, announced this…
Month: August 2014
I Has Blog Title
A fun and side product of Blaugust has been bloggers finding various topic-filling days and sharing them with one another. These community style posts are great – it’s part “getting to know you” and it is always fantastic to see the varied, differing and interesting viewpoints in and around BlogNation. With a couple days left…
I Win X-Com
Lovely game. I think there were some great opportunities to flesh out the plot and story much deeper but perhaps that wasn’t core to the tactical “sim” from the outset. The production quality, gameplay, and spirit to the original was kept well in tact and exceeded my expectations. I wasn’t sure if it would live…
Happy Birthday to I Has PC! 6 Years Old!
Belated. It was yesterday. This is a nice reminder that I am terrible at birthdays! August 27, 2008 was my first blog post ever. I can’t fully recall why I started blogging – I was spending a lot of time on various blogging sites and my comments kept getting longer and longer. I think I finally decided that…
Ice Bucket Challenge
A phenomenon is sweeping the world right now. Kids, adults, politicians, celebrities, baristas, judges, landscapers – hell, just about everyone – is dumping a bucket of ice water over their heads. After doing so, they nominate some friends to also dump ice water buckets over their heads (typically within 24 hours). All of this bucket…
Death, Taxes, Gaming.
“The only guarantees in life are Death and Taxes” is one of those old quotes that stand the test of time. Having been playing a lot of X-Com lately I caught myself doing something that I regretted afterwards which made me think about death in gaming a lot closer – and I realized I didn’t…
Bloggers are Old
One of the interesting observations about reading through the various “Influential 15s” that was circling around not too long ago and the more recent “21 Questions” in the past couple of weeks is that it really shows the age of most people blogging. We are an old bunch! The Starting computer/first game for the TOP…
X-Com vs X-Com
Kenny vs. Spenny was a pretty funny and really silly (ie: dumb?) tv show. The basic premise was two best friends that would do entire shows against each other, in competition, for anything you could really think of. Some non-Emmy nominated content: Who can stay in a haunted house the longest? Who would make the best soldier?…
Steampowered Hoarding
 I am staging an intervention. Yes, for you. I know, odd that you just randomly came to this site and realized that there was in intervention just waiting for you? Don’t leave – stay. Here, I wrote a letter about my feelings and I am going to read it to you. One moment, Dr. Drew…
C=64
Funny how we are sometimes reminded of how things were. The 21 questions post from yesterday really had me looking at my gaming roots with question #(whatever the question was) and I thought long and hard about my Vic-20 and C-64. I googled M.U.L.E (one of the best games I recalled from those days) and…
21 Gaming Questions
Questions are fun! Especially about gaming. I found this through the tech-support friendly Welsh Troll who links the original author and other bloggers there as well. Off to the races! When did you start playing video games? I started playing video games right when the Commodore 64 came out. I had a family member who…
YAR!
YAR! is a nostalgic MMO word for me. YAR! Was the rallying cry of my EQ test server guild, The Grove. Anytime anyone logged in there was a /gu of YAR! And usually the same number of responses per number of guildies on. I carried YAR! to DAOC and again to WoW in the guilds I…
Start With Why
I try to read a book a month. These books are mostly non-fiction and are business or personal growth related. I love thinking in general (its a gift, I tell you) and as such picking up books and reading and learning feels like I am developing both personally and professionally. Someone once told me that…
Ask and Ye Shall Receive (the 1%)
Below is an excerpt from a  post by Carbine Studios’ Jeremy Gaffney on why the 1% is important. Here’s some quick philosophy on the subject (still in the office at 6pm Sunday so I’ll have to be brief): We do believe in catering to the 1% (actually a few different 1%’s). We spend more than 1%…
Diffusions in MMO Gaming
I just read an amazing book and while I am saving that for another entire post one part stuck out to me. That part was in regards to the explanation behind how, and what rate, new technologies spread throughout societies. That explanation is called the “Diffusion of Innovations” and was written back in 1962. It was…
Half Time Housecleaning
At the midpoint of Blaugust I am taking a breather. It’s been a flurry for 16 days but a LOT of fun – I find the daily posting isn’t too tough even though I had a couple travel days for work AND a couple travel days with family last week. It has been fun because…
Confusing Sales
I understand the mindset behind the Steam sales – a lot of times they are games that have been out for months – if not years, so getting $1.99 for a $19.99 game past it’s prime has some sense behind it – because normally, you would just get zero. Regardless of what customers you piss…
Rally Caps
Murf and I chatted about baseball not too long ago, and I was recently treated to a 19 inning, walk off win marathon from my home team Toronto Blue Jays, against our dreaded rivals, the Detroit Tigers. It had a lot. A lot of intentional walks (the Jays lineup is down 3 starters so once you…
Au Revoir WildStar!
Zero surprise to anyone that reads hear semi-regularly that I was headed down this path. WildStar has some potential and the business model is pushing me away further than the game itself. IF it was buy to play +expansions or free-to-play I’d be exploring Nexus. It’s neither and I don’t feel right paying for a…
5avourite 5ives
On the heals of 10 questions on WoW, I admit that my favourite pastime in WoW is 5 – man dungeons. It used to be raiding, but I don’t have the luxury of that kind of time anymore. That post got me thinking about which 5 mans in particular stuck out for me – so…
Be Verwy Qwiet – We Hunting Zombiesh-Type-Creatures!
I picked up Dead Space a while ago (for free, thank you EA) and have been picking away at it. Throughout the first hour of Dead Space I realized something. I haven’t said a single word. Actually, my character hasn’t even made a sound. I don’t even think he grunts or groans. That’s odd. I can assure you, that…
10 Answers About WoW
Like many bitter exes (that keep going back) I have done my fair share of beating up WoW on this blog although it always came from a place of “tough love”. I learned of 10 Years – 10 Questions through Tales of the Argonaut (hat tip!) but the direct questions are asked over here at Alternative….
Gender Stereotyping My Dogs
Blaugust has been fun and I am surprised I made it this long. I already have made more posts in August than all of July. I find myself writing a bit quicker, and leaving it all on the page. My old style was write most of it, leave it, revisit, edit edit edit… now It’s…
Tech Support
Brief programming note: this doesn’t count as my Blaugust post (obviously) but I am having a tech problem. Pingbacks stopped working. My last pingback was May 21, 2o13 (when sorting through comments on the menu). I don’t recall what (if anything) I changed then. I did notice that a few people HAVE tried to ping…
WildStar’s Slow and Undramatic Decline
This is not a “the sky is falling” Chicken Little recount of what I see going on in WildStar- this is a general feeling and mood about the game. Read a lot  blogs, forums, and even fan sites and there is an underlying thought that subs are bleeding and the bugs and hardcore nature of the…