Blaugust and Introductions

We are now into the second week of Blaugust and not only haven’t we lost anybody yet… that I know of in any case… the total number of people signing on for the event actually grew. I believe we are up to 67 participants. Not bad for 2022.

Blaugust time is coming to town…

Especially encouraging for the hobby aspect is that we have two dozen blogs that have signed up for the event for the first time. Rather than posting the whole participant list this time around, I’ll post just them… since Belghast has been good enough to call them out on their own tab on the participants list spreadsheet. Please find a moment to visit them.

It is still not too late to join in. You can find all of the Blaugust information at these helpful links:

Each week of Blaugust has a theme that participants can join in on should they wish.

The Blaugust Calendar

This is introducing yourself week, and I suppose I can manage that in any number of ways.

The easy and obvious introduction is me, Wilhelm Arcturus, and the fact that I have been blogging here at this URL for going on 16 years. In that time I have written and hit “publish” on more than six thousand posts which add up to about as many words as Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.

The general theme of the blog is video games, with a focus on online games, especially those that we used to call MMORPGs.

More specifically, while I write about other games now and then, I tend to write about the same half dozen titles pretty consistently. If take a peek at the categories drop down on the side bar, you will see my most written about titles are:

EVE Online
World of Warcraft
EverQuest II
EverQuest
Lord of the Rings Online

They all have the classic MMORPG vibe. I don’t play all of them at the same time… I am generally playing EVE Online and one of the other titles at any given moment… but I do tend to keep an eye on all of them and will write about news and changes about them even if I am not currently subscribed and playing.

There are some other titles that come up fairly often, like Minecraft and Valheim, but it is pretty much those five that tend to dominate.

And while I keep up with the news and expansions and such, this isn’t really a news site. And it certainly isn’t a theory crafting or strategies site.

It is more of a recounting of my adventures in these titles, opinions and reactions to changes, and a long term tracking project. Towards that latter item, I am always that person who comes back with a post they wrote five years ago when the company said they were doing something and now they say they are not doing that at all and reminds readers of the history of things.

I don’t like facts without context, so I try to add context… and opinion. I have opinions.

A co-worker once described my style as “strong opinions, loosely held.”

That is to say that I often grab onto an idea or hypothesis and run with it… but that when evidence disproves it I will change my mind with the evidence. For example, I am of the opinion that CCP’s restructuring of the economy in EVE Online has been bad for the game, that it was based on a flawed philosophy that might best be described as wishful thinking, and that the evidence to support my view is there in the monthly economic report and the online player count numbers that CCP provides as well as the Pearl Abyss quarterly financials.

If CCP came out with some evidence that tended to disprove my opinion, I would certainly listen. However, the company has mostly offered more unsupported philosophical statements and hand waving generalizations about the future of the game. As such, I remain unmoved.

On the other hand, I have conceded points to many I have argued with over the years, including Gevlon, who ended up being right about the whole player run market in EVE Online. CCP “fixed” that as well with their economic revamp.

That doesn’t mean I roll over whenever somebody has a counter argument. People often think their opinion counts as fact. Anybody who has been around the blog neighborhood for a while knows one or two bloggers who have decided their opinions are fact. So when somebody come around in the comments and argues, for example, that WoW Classic was not worth the resources expended by Blizzard or that CCP should turn EVE Online into a completely different game, I am generally unconvinced as the evidence is not on their side. So I will push back on that sort of thing.

Does that tell you enough about me?

If you want to know what sort of gamer I am, there is always the Quantic Foundry gamer profile quiz. I’ve done that a few times before… and I have opinions… and I will probably do it again. Maybe even this week. There has probably been something new added since last I took it, and it is always good for a blog post. But here are past results:

Jan 2021 – Returning Again to My Gamer Profile
May 2020 – A Flawed Profile in Gamer Motivation
Aug 2019 – My Gamer Motivation Profile Once Again
Jun 2015 – Who Says I am Calm, Spontaneous, and Grounded?

If that isn’t helping you, I have also written a series of posts… usually under the “In Person” category… about myself and my experiences outside of video games and the blog.

Or, perhaps you can find some element of me in how I write. I write in something of a casual tone, closer to the way I speak than the way I write formal documents at work or did back in school. This leads to some quirks of its own, like my having to go back and remove the word “and” from six consecutive paragraphs. That is something that isn’t as noticeable in conversation as it is on the page.

I am also not particularly prone to use exclamation points, all capital letters, or obscenity haphazardly. I generally reserve those for special occasions so they will stand out and provide the emphasis I am going for with their usage.

I am also reluctant to say I “love” or “hate” something here, if only because we’re talking about video games most of the time here and from time to time I feel like those words are used a little more frivolously than they should be. I have noticed this leading me into an odd situation where I will sometimes say, “I do not love this idea” or “I do not hate this feature,” which sort of backs myself into something adjacent or a notch removed. Of maybe I just overthink things.

Anyway, a throw away word I use to change topics or indicate I am wrapping something up, those are at least some clues to who I am. You can take from that what you will.

2 thoughts on “Blaugust and Introductions”

Archey August 9, 2022 at 12:29 pm

Years ago I heard a Microsoft guy introduce the “strong opinions, loosely held” concept on a podcast. It has stuck with me. I think it’s a good model for looking at the world.

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