Features on new cars have taught us to be really terrible drivers. I haven’t looked over my shoulder to go backwards in three years (reverse cam) and I drive a truck. I was driving in a colleague’s Mercedes Benz and he doesn’t have to do shoulder checks because his car tells him if someone is…
Fascinated and Influenced by Census
FFXIV is the darling of BlogNation. A lot of the blogs I read are regularly talking about the game and their experiences there and even some bloggers who are anti-themepark MMO have been supportive of the experience that FFXIV provides. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I tried it, but…
TSW – New Player Experience
Funcom recently (and seemingly quietly around BlogNation) dropped their Enhanced Player Experience in The Secret World. As a recent purchaser (November 2014) who struggled with some of the well documented issues of the early game (mob density and time to kill) and I even spoke about it in my first blog post about the experience. The…
Happy (Belated) Birthday, EQ!
I am bad at remembering dates. I have only managed to wish Happy Birthday to my first MMO girlfriend twice in the past 7 years – in 2009 and 2014. Thankfully I have people on my blogroll who are much better at this than me (and better at many other things as well, but let’s…
I Win at RNG
I think most gamers have a love AND hate relationship when it comes to Random Number Generators. Â The entire MMO genre is built upon RNG and I remember the old camping structures in EQ where you could spend hours, days, or weeks waiting for a specific mob and/or specific drop. We are largely playing large…
Darkest Dungeon EP11- Revisiting the Crew
It’s been a while so figured I’d update you on all the excitement from team BlogNation in Darkest Dungeon. What have the kooky blog kids been up to? 60 weeks, that’s what! That is a lot of fun I have had in this game. Around 40 hours and counting, which is still longer than I…
Liebster McLiebsterton Awards
Awards are awesome! Â Especially ones that share more things about the blogging community. I had never heard of the Liebster award (so I had to google it) and here is how it typically goes: Post the award (check) Post 11 facts Answer the 11 questions Tag others – ask my own 11 questions! I have…
The Grove at World’s End
Leonard Nimoy died on the weekend. I have fond memories of his art through TV, Movies, and games and many others have and will memorialize him much better than I ever could. I read his last tweet as I was following his passing and I found it absolutely beautiful – words to remember, and that is…
WoW Doesn’t Need More Revenue Streams
Blizzard loves giving more value to people who have more time. I hate everything about this, from the perspective where I am at as a gamer right now. Yes, this is a bit of a selfish rant (to be up front out of the gate) Coming soon to an Azeroth near you: the WoW Token,…
Peeking into The Secret World
I spent more time in TSW on the weekend and I am getting better at programming my mind to play this game like a point and click adventure. I mean that in a very positive way. If you find a keypad, chances are there is something nearby that will tell you clues to the code.…
A Guild’s Life
I often enjoy how perspectives change. This is just a self evaluation, even on this blog. Back in 2008 when I started blogging I closely followed and often agreed with Wolfshead and Tesh when it came to virtual worlds and the opportunities that existed in our space to make games that had meaning. We were all very…
Crowfall Kickstarter
Just as Ravious had suspected the countdown at Crowfall’s website lead to their Kickstarter event. Stop me if this sounds familiar – a group of MMO designer veterans, tired of the same products that they have produced over the years have banded together to create the next great, non-current MMO thing. The same thing current…
The Last Of Us : Left Behind
My gaming laptop died. I stopped having a gaming computer many years ago and instead bought a few high powered ASUS gaming rigs. This worked well for my gaming while I traveled for work a lot and lonely nights in the hotel was filled with suspect internet connections and MMOs. My current rig just won’t…
Darkest Dungeon EP10: One More Adventure
[edit: made the pictures clickable to expand into a new window – forgot on the first draft, sorry!] First off, this game is a lot of fun. It completely has that “just one more adventure” feel to it since play sessions can be done in 15-30 minutes. It can be addicting. I too have one…
Darkest Dungeon EP9 – We Push our Limits
What is more inspiring than a ‘Powerful’ positive boon Hellion? Not much! I Hot on the heels of our victory against the Wizened Hag the troops build on being pure awesome. With new levels come new responsibilities and new challenges. Also -Â new mob types. (Finally). Sadly Zubon dies early here – at least, knowing Zubon’s…
Too Big to NOT Fail?
My favourite weekly news source is The Economist – a UK based magazine that basically covers most of the world’s significant events in a weekly format. What is amazing about it is that it is free from most of the obvious bias that major US news sources are mired in (Fox, CNN). That also makes…
Darkest Dungeon EP8 – We Get Revenge
With the disaster of a run last episode I decide to refocus my efforts on improving the team. Originally this was bringing in ‘fresh blood meat talent’ Â but i am quickly learning the path to success is investing in your people. Turns out experience is important. For a real world analogy here I was running…
Darkest Dungeon EP7: Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Team Blognation (aka Team Invincible – yes, I am trying to jinx us here!) is on quite the roll and I begin to start focusing on the main Quest Goals. Kill the bosses of which, I have already killed the Apprentice Necromancer.  I am doing less of the funny crazy montage speeches (as by now I am…
WildStar is Sinking
With NCSoft quarterly and full year earnings reports out the news is really, really glum for fans of WildStar. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I posted a lot about WildStar. It has decent chops. There just isn’t value in it for me as a subscription platform (or many, so it seems). What…
Darkest Dungeon EP6 – We Kill a Boss
Onward and upward! Riding high, I figure it is time for our team to take on some real challenges. Boss missions! Except they are gated to keep it a challenge. I can’t use my level three adventurers for an easy kill (see above, even I am denying myself!). Looks as though I have to use…
Darkest Dungeon EP5 – We Hit a Stride
Something crazy happened after Murf’s death. We hit a huge string of good luck and prosperity. Now, I am not saying that he was sacrificed, or anything absurd like that, but the crew did use it as a rallying cry. Episode 5 largely has our group prospering, collecting treasures, and looking and acting like a…
Darkest Dungeon EP4 : Murf Tells the Future
You shouldn’t have said anything Murf! Very obvious foreshadowing there. I knew this was going to be a tough run for the team with so many out of commission – but we need to push forward. There are glorious treasures awaiting! I just realized I never did show the main screen entrance to the game…
Pay Beta/Alpha
I often review old posts – it is a fun way to see what I was jabbering about back over half a decade (sounds so much longer when put that way). I was reviewing some old posts when I randomly came across this one: Introduce a New Phase in the Development Cycle The premise of the…
Darkest Dungeon EP3 : The Group Fights (With Each Other)
[Reminder: clicking on the picture opens a new tab with an expanded view. The pictures are set to scale with the browser and I noticed on mine the text is a little small to read] Columbo style: we had a very successful third run through the Ruins. Syncaine, GrumpyElf, Myself, and Leo. I chose another…
Darkest Dungeon : Blogroll Edition, Part Deux
Here is to hoping a lot more bloodshed joy and craziness treasures for our merry band of adventurers. Let’s see how BlogNation’s second foray into the Ruins turned out! [note: clicking on the graphics will open them larger in a new browser tab, they scale automatically in the body by webpage and I’ve noticed they can be…