August 2011 in Review

The Site

I knew this day would come.

I just did not think it would take so long to get here.

Back in February this site was declared influential and listed on the Say100 list. (Which now appears to be the Say110 list, but whatever.)

This month however, somebody finally figured out that I was probably not so influential… or knowledgeable… or interesting… and I was bumped off the list.

Surprisingly, since I appeared to be the obvious answer to the “one of these things doesn’t belong” question, I was not alone.

Keen & Graev, who actually kind of write about games and have opinions and stuff, as opposed to my own “here is what I did Saturday afternoon online” style, got the axe as well, along with a Veteran of Female Geekdom… whatever that means, the Say100 people made up those titles, not the bloggers… who also seems to at least be much more professional than I.

Those Delisted

At least we’re on something of an “emeritus picks” or “past mistakes” list.

Among those elevated to the official list were Heartless_, now dubbed a ‘Gaming Analyst.”

Shouldn’t that be “Heartless_” ?

Congratulations Heartless_ Gamer!

As for the influence the site had on me… well… in looking at the traffic to and from the Say100 site, I appear to have sent more people their way than they did mine.  But that was mostly because WordPress.com picked me as one of their Freshly Pressed sites of the day, so a lot of people came to visit and followed my links.

Frankly though, if they hadn’t sent me an email announcing the site, I probably would have never seen it.

Life on the internet.  It is a very big place.

One Year Ago

Let’s see… a year ago people were hating on GameStop for selling used games, which was equated with stealing.  That was before GameStop actually started officially stealing.

Massive Blips went away.  I miss it.

I made my position on raspberries perfectly clear.

Yahoo had a couple game related lists.  I love lists.

Cryptic and Atari announced they were doing the game Neverwinter.  How’s that working out for you?

And Runic started talking about Torchlight II.  They are still talking about it, but at least we know it will be $20 when it ships.

Stunt Rock.  I need say no more.

EverQuest Next was announced at Fan Faire, and I was wondering about the lessons SOE has learned after a few turns of the EverQuest wheel.

In the real world, boars were starting to become more like their MMO counterparts.

WoW account hacking was still a big deal, though getting to be common enough as to not be news on an individual level any more.  People have their views on whose fault it is.  But was any game facing as much account hacking as WoW?

My daughter got into the WoW Cataclysm beta.  She got me some screen shots of Stormwind,  Southshore and the Barrens.  This, by the way, probably killed her interest in Cata when it finally did ship.

Blizzard got a serious judgement against somebody running a for-profit WoW pirate server.

The instance group, done in WoW and on the now usual summer hiatus, was spending some time in Middle-earth, which required a bit of selling.  We made it through Othrongroth, and to the North Downs and the Lone Lands.  I finally found my way to Evendim, which I had never  managed to visit before.  It was in a state of change, pre-quest revamp but after they added in the boat routes.

And, finally, in EVE Online, there was the PLEX story we had all been waiting for.

New Linking Blogs

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

• Astral’s EVE Trial by Fire
• Inventory Full
• Mana Obscura

Please take a moment to visit them in return.

Most Viewed Posts for August

1. How to Catch Zorua and Zoroark
2. Play On: Guild Name Generator
3. Beastlord to be the New Class in the Next EQ2 Expansion
4. The Sims Social Pegs My Dating Life…
5. Rift is Triple-A and Here to Stay!
6. A Very Brief History of MMOs
7. Who Needs APB When EVE Supplies Our Virtual Crime Needs?
8. Blizzard Waits Until I am on Vacation to Stir Up Diablo III Controversy
9. How To Find An Agent in EVE Online
10. Seventy Million Skill Points and Out
11. And Now I REALLY Want That SWTOR Authenticator
12. Musing on Battleships

Search Terms of the Month

http://www.cringley.com

[Why would a URL search for that bring you here… unless you’re Bob and checking on who is linking to you.  If so, Hi Bob! *takes a drink*]

what is a tanker

[This showed up about 48 times in the last week, yet somehow people skipped this and came to my site]

Spam Comments of the Month

Wow, {amazing|wonderful|awesome|incredible|marvelous|superb|fantastic} blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you {make|made} blogging look easy. The overall look of your {site|web site|website} is {great|wonderful|fantastic|magnificent|ex…

[Nice when somebody gives you options]

This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace….

[A couple dozen Zune spams showed up… and here I thought the Zune was pretty much dead.]

Civilization V

Raptr says that I have spent more time playing Civilization V in the last week than any other game by a fair margin.  And Raptr fails to notice I am playing a good chunk of the time (but it never misses an opportunity to announce I am playing Sims Social!), with Steam reporting a total play time about 25% higher than Raptr.  And since Steam actually controls the game (which still makes me itch) I’m going to give them the nod.

Civ V is certainly growing on me of late… though the game has been out for almost a year and I bought it at launch.  Some of that is from the fact that enough bugs have been fixed that the game is actually playable, though some really obvious ones are still hanging around. (Like, don’t tell me to “Please Wait” when what you really mean is “You have a unit that has not used all of its moves yet and I am waiting for you to deal with that.”)  All of this means that somewhere there is a post coming about the game that will no doubt compare it to the previous games in the series.  You have been warned.

Lord of the Rings Online

The only long-haul MMO I am playing at the moment, if you will pardon that description.  You either get what I mean by that or you don’t, I suppose.  Moria was reached, a long held goal finally achieved.  Which meant it was time to go back and play some of my alts.  Revamped Evendim is my current fascination, and I am determined to see it all, though I couldn’t tell you why.  But I have three alts in the mid-30s now, all focused on that zone.

Three members of the instance group, which is still on Summer hiatus, have been grouping up to run through Middle-earth on Saturday nights.  We too are in Evendim.  That seems to have been the theme for August.

Need for Speed World

This has replaced World of Tanks as my “other” game of late.  I generally get on most nights to do the gem hunt.  I have a new car, the tier 2 Ford Escort RS Cosworth, which is fast and innocuous.  I painted it gray to blend in with the NPC hatchbacks that look the same at a distance.  It goes much faster than my 240SX.  I hit 177 MPH on the freeway (though somehow the police still manage to pass me in their Dodges).

On the other hand, when I do multiplayer races, I get stuck going up against people in Porches and Lamborghinis.  The Escort is good, but not that good, and I am nowhere good enough to make up the gap, so I end up losing badly a lot. That in turn has kind of killed the multiplayer aspect of the game for me.

So my main motivation for continuing to play is to gain levels to open up new areas in which to engage in police chases.

Facebook

On Facebook I have been playing Zynga’s Empires & Allies, which is interesting for a couple of reasons.  This game is clearly another evolution of the Zynga model that has moved forward from FarmVille and it actually has some mild, traditional game-like aspects to it with goals to accomplish.  There is still a huge amount of “bug your friends for stuff,” though you can avoid a lot of that.  Except for liberty bonds, which you need to expand your land.  I am always short of those, so friend me and send me some!  Screw the mystery gifts and the energy drinks, I need more space!

The other game I have been trying on Facebook is The Sims Social.  EA clearly has some work to do to keep up with Zynga, because there are annoying aspects to the game that the Zynga crew solved months ago for their own products.  (See Tolbold for some points on that.) And EA needs to, you know, make the game actually work reliably and consistently because they are taking money for it.

Oh, and then I need to figure out why anybody finds this game fun, because I find it quite tedious.  Sure, the first few minutes were fun, but then I had to go to the bathroom.  And shower.  And eat.  And sleep.  Even having fun seems to be work.  I suppose I should be happy I am not forced to make pizzas in a virtual sweatshop ala The Sims Online, but being glad things are not worse is not a big selling point.  Playing an obsessive hand washing simulator just isn’t as fun as it sounds.

I remember Gary Gannon talking on Massively Online Gamer (a long dead podcast) about a friend who used to lure other Sims to the house she built just to lock them in the basement and leave them to starve to death.  How do I do that in The Sims Social?  Or should I be looking for The Sims Sociopath?

Coming Up

The summer hiatus for the instance group should be coming to a close once the weather hits us with one last blast of heat and then starts to cool.  Then we will be back to trying to figure out what to play.  Is Star Wars: The Old Republic out yet?  Diablo III?  Torchlight 2?  Guild Wars 2?  TERA?  Anything?

I have been telling myself I am should be writing more about our current adventures in Middle-earth.  Maybe I will.  I should.  I might.  But motivation is low right now.

Civilization V.  Something about that coming up I am sure.  And one on how EA has taken all the joy out of its game Lord of Ultima.  Not that there was a ton of joy to start with, but it was a solid little game that they managed to royally screw up.

I am also building up to a weekend post about eReaders, along with one about what I am reading and why it annoys me.

And I have some sort of anniversary post to do next month.  I need a title with a pun or obscure media reference that uses the number five.