May 2011 in Review

The Site

A lot of focus this month on the big Sony down time, prompted by the fact that, with a new PlayStation 3 and interest in playing EverQuest and EveQuest II, Sony had pretty much yanked the carpet out from under me and my gaming plans.

The counters in the side bar server their purpose, so I’ll take them down, though here they are for posterity.

My count seems to be at variance with some other counts.  And I suppose I should have a counter for the PlayStation Store, which is still down, but which Sony hopes to have up by this coming weekend. (But they had the same hope for last weekend.)

One Year Ago

I was unemployed, which you would think would leave me a lot more time for gaming and blogging.  But the anxiety of looking for a job for the first time in 12 years… and the first time in 20 years where there wasn’t just one out there waiting for me… made for a quiet gaming and blogging month.

Yes, I did start to poke my nose back into LOTRO.  A game where I didn’t have to pay a subscription seemed about right. (I have a lifetime subscription.)  That meant getting back into the swing of the game and figuring out what had changed.

We actually got THE DATE for the release of StarCraft II.  How did that turn out for everybody?  I skipped the whole thing.  Maybe when the StarCraft II warchest version comes out with all the expansions I’ll look into it.

The Agency came to Facebook, in the form of The Agency: Covert Ops.  A Mafia Wars-like game, without the multi-level marketing aspect, it had its good and its bad.  I liked the puzzles.  The dogs with guns… and the submarine fight… not so much.  Who knew that would be all of The Agency we would ever get?

Meanwhile SOE was transcending bad taste with their EQII PWNZ marketing campaign.

There was some Pokemon fun going.  I was twinking the Pokewalker while our cats worked against me.  The cats won in the end.

We also went to see the Pokemon Video Game Championships in our area.

And the instance group was wrapping up Dire Maul and Stratholme.  Then, having hit 60, we let the Dungeon Finder guide our way into the Outland.

New Linking Sites

I would like to thank the following site for linking here.

• Murloc Parliament
• Nils MMO Blog
• Real World Feral
• The Babbling Gamer

Please take a moment to visit them in return.

Most Viewed Posts in May

1. How to Catch Zorua and Zoroark
2. Pokemon Secret Egg Event Coming to Toys R Us
3. How To Find An Agent in EVE Online
4. Play On: Guild Name Generator
5. SOE – Still Not Up, Mentions “Make Good Plan”
6. Blizzard, Trion Worlds, and Obvious Juxtapositions
7. WoW Subscriptions Drop! Who is benefiting?
8. PSN Up By May31? We Didn’t Say That!
9. SOE – Still Down, But “Make Good Plan” Details Released
10. Roll a D6
11. Sony – What Does Taking May Off Portend?
12. No Rapture, Preacher “Flabbergasted”

Most Common Search Terms of the Month

1. world of warcraft
2. how to catch zorua
3. how to catch zoroark
4. tagn
5. dire maul location
6. pokemon secret egg
7. ancient gaming noob
8. blood elf porn
9. guild names
10. soe
11. cremello steed
12. soe still down

Given all of the other possible search results returned, I am not quite sure how people get here searching on “world of warcraft.”

Spam Comments of the Month

I have looked at many sites and have not come across one such as yours, which tells everyone everything they need to know. I have added you to my bookmarks. Can anyone suggest other related topics that I can search for to find out more information?
[If I am telling everyone everything they need to know, what other sites could you want?]

That is a super-peachy-keen post. Thanks for really blathering on like that! Seriously, I don’t think I could have spent more effort wishing for something heavy to fall on me to erase that nonsense from my mind!
[I’m not sure if this was compliment or criticism.  But it had an ad link in it, so it was clearly spam.]

Beaches and mojitos are the excellent combination to have a relaxing travel experience
[I really don’t like mojitos, no matter what Chuck Finley says.]

Where I Spent My Gaming Time

From Raptr, which just did a revamp of their site so now I can only see the top 4 games I played over the last month.  I hate when “improvements” reduce functionality.  Anyway, the percentage breakdown of the top 4.

1. EverQuest II Extended – 70%
2. Lord of the Rings Online – 16%
3. World of Tanks – 9%
4. Mind Jolt Warzone Tower Defense (Facebook) – 5%

And, as always, Raptr does not capture data for about half the things I play.

EverQuest

The Sony down time and our launch into EQ2 Extended conspired to keep us out of EverQuest in May.  Most of my amusement from the game in May came from the forum dedicated to the progression servers, when the forums were up at all.  The forums are pretty lightly used and seem to attract those with an axe to grind.

EverQuest II Extended

Despite being down for almost two weeks, EQ2X stayed at the top of my game time chart, though I suspect the fact that EQ2 doesn’t log you out might be inflating those numbers.  If I go have dinner and do the dishes, WoW or LOTRO will flag me inactive and log me out.  But EQ2 will still be there waiting for me.

The group is… sort of getting into the game.  When we are enthusiastic about a new game, we tend to play it outside of the Saturday night group play time frame.  With EQ2X, some of us are, and some of us are not.  When one of the group still spends most of his game time in World of Warcraft, that probably isn’t a vote of confidence for EQ2.

Lord of the Rings Online

During the down time I managed to pick up some momentum in LOTRO, allowing my hunter to escape the Trollshaws at last and head into Forochel.  That also put him a couple of levels closer to Moria, which I vow to see… some day.

World of Tanks

This is still fun.  After some diversions, I ended up climbing the German tech tree.  I currently drive a fully upgraded Luchs, which is a nicely placed tank in the line up.  I tend to either be the biggest tank in a match, in which case I can hunt aggressively, or the smallest tank, which means running around scouting for our artillery, hunting for the enemy artillery, and generally getting killed with one shot.

Other PC Games

Combat Mission – Battle for Normandy showed up last week.  It looks very good.  It still takes me a bit to adjust to the controls every time I launch it, and I need to take more care with line of sight, but it is very impressive.  The Combat Mission engine has come a long way in a decade.

PlayStation 3

We got LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean.  It looks very good at 1080p and fits right into TT’s LEGO game mold.  Keen has a look at the game here.

But my daughter has been more enamored with Little Big Planet.  While I have never been one for platform jumping games, I can see the why it attracts.  It looks very good, and is quite whimsical.  And the player generated levels, which we can see now that the PlayStation Network is back up, are of surprisingly good quality.  But when my daughter asks for help with a level, I have to shake my head.  She is better at “jump grab swing let go jump grab” than I have ever been.

And, eventually, the PlayStation Store will be back online and PS3 owners will be able to download 2 free games as part of the great Sony apology plan.   The list of choices is rather small though.

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS
• LittleBigPlanet
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury

Since we already have Little Big Planet, I am leaning towards Wipeout HD and Super Stardust HD.

Coming Up

Mostly questions.  Will the instance group stick with EverQuest II Extended?  Will Potshot and I get back to the EverQuest progression server?  And, of course, when will the PlayStation Store come back online?