30 | September | 2010 | The Ancient Gaming Noob

The Site

Items of note for the month of September related to the site…

Not much I suppose.

I mean, there was the whole four year anniversary thing. But there was a post dedicated to that.

And the Wikio.com Top Video Game Blogs item… I’m still not sure what that list really means. And I’m sure I won’t make the top 30 again this month.

Twitter followers increased 9x… I went from 2 to 18 followers. At that rate of growth I will have the equivalent of the population of San Jose, California following me in just 6 months. There is an optimistic outlook!

I did actually tweet a few things that were not posts on the blog, so there is some variety. Plus the even posts from my other blog show up on the feed. It has everything, even the TAGN logo.

Go me.

There were some changes in traffic patterns to the site, which are pretty obvious when you go down to the Most Viewed Posts section.

First, of course, lots of people came here in search of Lord of the Rings Online information. That is certainly a sign that the switch to the free to play model has upped interest in the game… or maybe it just upped confusion about the game.

I also seem to be getting a chunk of Google traffic from people searching on “Zombrex.” That brings them to the goodies I got at GDC earlier this year.

And then, finally, I was linked in the third comment of a post over at Boing Boing about the Etch-a-Sketch iPad case. Thank you Wrybread.

But blood elf porn… that remained not only the most viewed post but the most common Google search.

One Year Ago

I described some really old-school gaming… pre-computer… which involved hunting each other in cars.

There was a brief moment of nostalgia for Infocom games… or at least for the ads. Honestly, I think the ads were better than some of the games.

I was still talking about my days of playing MUDs, with a description of getting to Kobold Village and the great bronze armplate smuggling get rich quick scheme.

And Turbine announced the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for Lord of the Rings Online, which brought out a little guilt in me, since I hadn’t even gotten to Moria. I still haven’t, for that matter.

Then there was WoW. We were really on a WoW binge last September. I put up a poll about what instance we didn’t want to see made into an heroic, and the results were… unsurprising.

There were pirates and Brewfest and I managed to get my chef’s hat and all the sundry cooking achievements. And we ran through Ulduar and the Oculus.

And, finally, there was the three year anniversary of the blog, with the usual round of stats and trivia.

New Linking Sites

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

Please take a moment to visit them in return.

Most Viewed Posts in September

Search Terms of the Month

They just get more bizarre every month

i am infected with security of blizzard
fallen porn screen shots
words that have isk
noob instance with my fishing pole

Spam Comment of the Month

i am addicted to farmville

This one came up over and over again… somebody is more addicted to spam I think.

EVE Online

Another month in the station skilling up. I did go out on a run in my Crane to collect data cores, while I sold to buy PLEX for the screen shot contest. I didn’t have that many data cores, but they off-set the price a bit.

EverQuest II Extended

I grabbed the client finally. They did an admirable job of making a quick download to get people into the game fast… only the server has been so over burdened at the times I have tried to play that I have been unable to get into the game at all. Maybe next month.

Lord of the Rings Online

This has been my main game for the last couple of months. The instance group has been in and trying out skirmishes and fishing and such.

The conversion to the free to play model has certainly increased the number of people we see in game. Firefoot was a pretty quiet server and now it is popping on a Saturday night and Bree is lagging like it was back at launch.

World of Warcraft

I have been out of WoW for a stretch, until this past weekend fact. And with school in full session, my daughter hasn’t been in Azeroth much either. I still have a pile of Cataclysm screen shots to post. And I should probably download the beta client on my computer, since I also now in the beta.

Coming Up

Oooh, more of the instance group, as always.

I will have to announce the winners of the EVE Online screen shot contest. But first I will have to pick the winners, and that won’t be easy. There is no obvious “that one” choice so far, the pictures are all good.

I have a couple of posts lined up about games that are not MMORPGs.

And, finally, it is time to start talking about hardware again. More on that later.

Emboldened by the news that, if only I could rejoin the Brew of the Month club before the end of September, that I could complete that one last Brewfest achievement, the one I thought was going to elude me for another year, I started grubbing for Brewfest tokens as hard as I could.

Granted, there are only so many things you can do for Brewfest tokens.

I managed to get myself to 161 tokens when I realized that I had not killed Coren Direbrew yet this year. He had to be worth some tokens.

Fortunately… from my perspective anyway… killing Coren is easier than ever. Seasonal events like this are now included in the dungeon finder.

So in I went with four complete strangers, none of whom said a word. The tank just charged in, we all followed, and soon Coren was dead.

This time around Coren is also dropping a goody bag… or barrel. I received two emblems of frost in mine, which earned Vikund an unexpected achievement.

One more achievement checked off I guess. One I was unlikely to get otherwise.

After that, it was back to Brewfest central where I found that there was indeed a reward for killing Coren Direbrew.

I needed 39 tokens and this got me 40.

So I ran to the token vendor, bought the Brew of the Month Club application for 200 tokens, ran up to Ironforge, turned in the application, and then, as a fully paid up member, I was able to purchase the Binary Brew, consume it, and finish off that last achievement.

Brewfest achievements complete!