The Year That Was 2014

I normally don’t do these posts, but it was a very good year and I feel like sharing. I am going away to Europe for Christmas for two weeks and as I tie up my professional and family life here in Canada before next week there probably won’t be a lot of blogging or gaming for me for two weeks. Looking back is always fun before moving forward. I have really enjoyed the posts from other blogs I visit who revisit their guesses on things that would happen throughout the year – since I didn’t do that in 2013 I can only look back on the year I had at I has PC.

Non essential but fun things (stats) is that I had my second busiest year blogging in terms of visitors, and best since 2009. “Best” is a bad word there, because it doesn’t count for quality by any means, so a better word is probably “most” for terms of numbers. “Best” counts for the quality of visitors, as I have made a lot of new blogging friends this year and  a lot of links added, and regular new reads.

My 5 most viewed posts:

WildStar Pre-Order Sales Slump?
How to Lose a MMO Gamer in 10 Ways
WildStar’s Fast and Dramatic Decline
WildStar’s Slow and Undramatic Decline
EQN Landmark – 4 Extra Closed Beta Keys

Which I found a bit odd because I didn’t play or blog a lot about WildStar – although I had high hopes for it. So I must have hit a google SEO word sweet spot or something. All that being said, there are another 20 posts within 10% of those top posts in terms of views so I have a good “general” viewership for most topics.

I published 135 posts this year (including this one) which is a post every 2.70 days, also a high for me. A lot of those were through Blaugust but that also helped me find my blogging sweet spot and stride that I have been able to maintain since. I have been doing this a long time and with all the ups and downs, I really enjoyed being a part of the community extra this year.

My country viewership (in order) is:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Australia
• France

Always fun to see the sprinkling of other countries in there as well, but good to see the motherland high on the list with a bunch of ex-colonies.

Going back over the posts by month, here is a quick synopsis:

January – I finally gave Turbine more of my money (I hadn’t since it was a subscription game!) and bought the Warden class. The one class I always wanted to play (something about fighters that use shields..) and many posts that month were about LOTRO and the fresh start. Favourite Post: A Dark Room. It was my favourite only because it was a really fun little game to play and captured my imagination.

February – LOTRO was short lived and February was all about Landmark. This game captured my Minecraft (I was an early adopter there) love with fancier graphics. I haven’t been back in a while, but I think I will dabble there again soon. Favourite post: I Still Can’t Build. I loved landmark for the exploration, but am a bad builder. I made a decent (by my standards) dragon head house and was proud to show it off. It is very amateur compared to what the community is pumping out though.

March – Nostalgia month as I tinkered back in Everquest since they had a birthday. I also mixed in Diablo III and more Landmark. I also started noticing Wildstar. Favourite March Post: My Influential 15. This was a fun trip looking back at the games that shaped what and how I play(ed) games. It was a great exercise and a lot of people ended up doing it. TAGN inspired!

April – April was all about revisiting and enjoying Everquest, while looking ahead to WildStar. The MMO itch was happening again! Highlight Post: WildStar Pre-Order Sales Slump. I knew something was up and my fears were founded at the launch and rapid playerbase decline of the game. I am still waiting to play it again once they drop they sub (or find a better payment method).

May – I was in beta for WildStar, dabbling a bit in Landmark. Highlight Post: Star Citizen – Seriously. I liked the post because I semi called out this project as a fundraising first project, not an actual game making project. In hindsight, as they continue to push to new fundraising heights without actually coding much, this could end up being the most expensive vaporware project in crowd-funded history. It could also cripple the system.

June – Chris “River” Cavelle, a fellow blogger, died in June. I still pop by his site sparingly out of habit. River – High Latency Life gets my post of the month for obvious reasons. Rest in peace my friend. Someone else has already bought his domain (that expired) but his page lives on at highlatencylife.wordpress.com – but of course it is just a reminder of the words he shared with the world. It’s the only piece left his internet friends have of him.

July – Wow, I do not post much in the summer. I need to work on that! I was still playing WildStar but just about unsubbed at this point. Summer is for outside! And non-sub fee games. Anyway, post of the month is Dragon Age : The Birdcage as DA announced a fully gay (male) companion character. Good for Bioware for leading the charge on diversity in AAA gaming.

August was Blaugust month and the most posts I have done in this blog’s history. 32 posts in 31 days! I also won games and prizes (luck of the draw) but I found my blogging style and habits rejuvenated from the exercise. I know it burned out some bloggers as well, but everyone reacts differently. It was really hard to pick a highlight post for August but I ended deciding on selecting I HAS PC’s birthday post. I shared a lot of personal things there about my health and marriage, but also it was to celebrate still blogging after six years. I also quit playing WildStar this month, to no one’s surprise who read the blog.

September had me posting every other day and I was still in groove of things from Blaugust and Destiny had launched with much fanfare and an absolutely stupid and waste of a story, storyline. I coined the term Dinkelaged (to mean something bad) but really I was too hard on the fellow. He was just chasing the cash, and not even Ian McKellan could have done a good voiceover in such a bad story environment. It’s too bad as well, because Destiny was close to being something really, really special – a merge of MMO and FPS. Instead, they took the worst parts of the MMO (needless grinds) and put it into an otherwise solid FPS game. My favourite post of the month was making fun of that story by explaining exactly how it unfolds while you play in The Destiny Story.

October had me experiencing (and thoroughly enjoying) The Wolf Among Us. I am really looking forward to part two. My thirst for story is mostly quenched through TellTale Games, and I wish SWTOR had a story only option (I would pay for that.) My favourite October post was AAA Blog in which I question the self anointed AAA title – it shouldn’t exist unless there are parameters and an independent body. It’s an oft overused meaningless label. Unfortunately it is now part of our everyday vocabulary when it comes to gaming. It shouldn’t be.

November had me talking a bit about Warlords of Draenor but I was actually playing The Secret World. B2P is a great model for dipping toes in and such. I know I will be sucked back into Wow, but holding out for the new year. A lot of future posts to talk about there. My favourite post in November was A Sign the Apocalypse is Upon Us in which I lament that technology has even ruined the team sports photo. I know that is a pretty foreboding title for a team photo, but it’s perfectly true.

December is still going of course so not much to report here. I am going to Europe for the Christmas Holidays (not National Lampooning it) so I am not expecting a busy posting schedule. My favourite post of December is Not Threatening to Kill You About in which I threaten give Murf some love. A Merry Holiday post about death and internet dumbery, what could be better?

All in all I feel like I had a good blogging year. I made a point of frequently visiting other sites (and finding new ones!) and building my blogroll and making comments on other’s blogs. I like the interaction, its a nice break from work. I didn’t play nearly enough games or hours into games that I wanted to, but I plan on making some life changes in the New Year and making that happen. I currently work too much evenings and/or have mindless TV on. That time is much better spent on less-mindless vidya games.

Thanks for being a part of my 2014 journey, and looking forward to a healthy and fun 2015!