August 2010 in Review

The Site

This month saw another big spike in traffic due to something pretty much unrelated to the site.

Cracked.com linked to a rant I wrote quite a while back about the mis-use of the term “microtransactions.” They did a humor piece about FarmVille, and somehow my post seemed relevant.

Obligatory Traffic Graph

Also driving traffic this month were the search terms “Blood Elf Porn,” “Elf Porn,” and “Ancient Porn.” All this for a post titled Fighting Blood Elf Porn. Do you suppose it was nerd rage that brought them here?

Along with the big PLEX loss story, those were the big three traffic driving posts of the month.

Aside from that, I took yet another baby step into the 21st century. I now have a Twitter account. All it does is tweet when I put up a post… WordPress.com does that for me automatically… and it works most of the time. It will list posts for both this site and EVE Online Pictures, my other site.

Otherwise, I have little to say in SMS sized bits.

So far I have two followers. You know who you are.

One Year Ago

The Matrix Online (MxO for those in the know) was shut down by SOE last August. Planetside is still around though! For now.

Bruce Everiss was getting sued for libel by the makers of Envoy. That was eventually worked though this past March. Enovy, LLC dropped their suit, but not before causing Mr. Everiss much pain and hamstringing his desire to be as forthright in the future.

Somebody was granted a patent for something that sounded a lot like podcasting. How did that ever turn out?

That Wii Bowling Ball made another appearance. Still no know deaths attributed to it.

I was wondering what genre our post apocalyptic future really was. People assume it is Science Fiction. Is it?

On the Blizzard front, we learned that we were not going to get StarCraft II for Christmas. I still don’t own a copy yet.

There was a lot of speculation before BlizzCon about the next WoW expansion. I tried to draw parallels between 2004 and 2009.

I subscribed to the BlizzCon Pay-per-view event via DirecTV. That was a lot of gaming coverage to watch.

Meanwhile in the instance group, we were finally almost all level 80. It was time to screw around in some old raid instances.

I actually posted the results of that cheating poll I had set up. I generally mean to post the results of these sorts of things, but somehow I usually don’t get around to it.

And, finally, I was on a re-reading binge last August while making Code Red floats.

New Linking Sites

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Most Viewed Posts in August

Search Terms of the Month

blood elf porn, elf porn, ancient porn
[These seem to spike late on Friday night.]

bloggoleechification
[Thanks Tobold]

blizzard account hacked and i dont play
[I have no account, and I must be hacked]

hack beter wow very good
[Very good indeed]

Spam Comments of the Month

Now let’s create, continuous innovation with Fashion game network:
[Because that is the innovation that will revive the economy!]

May i sex dating with you?
[Me sex date you long time]

EVE Online

I am in total slumber mode in EVE Online. I have converted some of my ISK into PLEX and am just sitting in the station training long skills. Still, I will have over 60 million skill points soon.

EverQuest II Extended

I said I was going to play this when it launched, but I forgot that in the post-Google world, the word “Beta” means you’ve shipped. So I was waiting for it to go live, but SOE has been letting all and sundry in to play. I hear the load on the Freeport server is pretty heavy, apparently with EQ2 vets.

Lord of the Rings Online

Turbine is a company that knows what Beta means.

The instance group… well, four of the group… have been seen regularly in Middle-earth. The game has become my only MMO for the moment. While the instance group is in the 20s, I have been pressing on ahead in hopes of catching a glimpse of Moria.

World of Warcraft

My daughter is in the Cataclysm beta and has been taking screen shots now and again… when I ask repeatedly. My own WoW account… lapsed. While I may leave it like that until Cataclysm ships, that will mean missing out on the last bottle, and the achievement, for Brew of the Month club. Decisions, decisions.

Coming Up

LOTRO will be going Free to Play soon, and no doubt that will change the feel of the game some. We’ll see if it is for the better or not.

Aside from LOTRO, I expect this coming month to be pretty light when it comes to posts. Summer is over. My daughter went back to school last week and, this week, I went back to work. My wife now has the house to herself again during the day, much to her relief.