2013-08-31

The Site

I have been experimenting with Tumblr.  This has been for no reason other than the fact that WordPress.com now supports direct updates to Tumblr.  So there are now Tumblr versions of both my blog.

Tumblr The Ancient Gaming Noob

Tumblr EVE Online Pictures

I would have to say that the Tumblr version of this blog is… not worthwhile.  The auto-update basically takes the first picture from any given post, adds in a link back to it, and calls it a day.  Add in the fact that I could not get tagn.tumblr.com as the URL and I am vaguely dissatisfied with the result.  Only the fact that it is zero effort keeps it going.

The EVE Online Pictures Tumblr however seems to be working out quite nicely.  Since every post is just a picture anyway, with maybe a sentence of text, nothing is lost in the updates.  WordPress.com even successfully moved my tags over for each post, though not the categories.  So it seems to fit into the Tumblr mold just fine.

Nobody appears to actually have looked at either of those sites, but there they are, experiment in progress.

One Year Ago

Star Trek Online was totally not dying and Star Wars: The Old Republic was totally not a failure as it shed more customers and announced it was going free to play.

The Vanguard suddenly went free to play ahead of schedule, no doubt trying to get in early and avoid the crowd.

It was announced that NCsoft would be closing down City of Heroes.

Torchlight II gave us a launch date.  But not before giving us a date for a date.  And I am still waiting for the Mac OS version for my daughter.

Turbine delayed Riders of Rohan, but continued pushing the crazy stuff you would see.

SOE decided that you can afford integrity only after you pay the bills, and threw in with lockboxes.  What happened to the implied social contract?

GuildWars 2 went live at last, thwarting Blizzard’s nefarious scheme.

I was paid up on my 1 year subscription for WoW, but Blizzard wouldn’t let me cancel further payment.  They must have been concerned about subscribers, having dropped more subs than SWTOR had left.

Speaking of year long commitments, Trion liked that Blizzard idea so much, they did it themselves and gave us an ugly mount for it right away.  Oh, and they got rid of faction group restrictions.  What population problems?  The instance group started on its attendance slide, with just four of us trying Runic Descent.  At least we had instant adventures.  Or was that instant levels?

In EVE Online, there was a revamp of mining ships.  I listed them out and wondered which would become the most popular.  In the end, the Mackinaw won I think.  All the while CSM7 seemed intent on proving that the thing they loved most in EVE was themselves.

Meanwhile, having been asked by TEST to leave the war down south, the CFC got into a scrap with Northern Coalition over moons.  We fought in Venal and some monkeys  lost a titan.  We were staging in QPO for a thrust into Tribute with the goal of taking a forward base at UMI-KK.

AWESOMESAUCE.LIVE was announced.  Only the fact that it was later cancelled preserved my faith in humanity.

Finally, I took the crazy train out of Barstow and threw out a few movie reviews.

Five Years Ago

After what seemed like endless delays, Darkfall went looking for beta testers for real.  Many asked if this product would shed its “vaporware” reputation and see the light of day, and if the feature set would be anything close to what was promised.

Meanwhile Warhammer Online was rolling on towards release with a preview weekend.  The CoWs were gathering.  I looked at races and classes as well as my general opinion of the game as I saw it.  I thought I was generally positive, though I wanted to be able to open up the quest log with a single keystroke.  Rabid fans sensed faint praise and whined a lot in the comments.  Still, Google liked me as I got the top spot for the search on “WAR Preview Weekend.”

Suicide Ganking was the plague in EVE Online.  I suggested that the Secure Insurance Commission be given the power to extract the cost of insurance payouts from high sec gankers as a way to make this “throw away character” exploit a bit less lucrative.  In the end, CCP just made CONCORD a bit more responsive to attacks right under their noses.

In WoW the instance group we were hitting level 70 and starting on the Caverns of Time dungeon Escape from Durnhold Keep. Instances were starting to get tough for us and it would take a revamp of our talents and some work on gear before we would be able to take on an at-level instance on the first try.

Also in WoW, Zhevra fever.

We went down to LEGOLand for vacation, but I left a vacation cliffhanger post to keep people amused.

LEGO Indiana Jones came out, and while it was a lot of fun, I wasn’t sure if it was worth list price.

And finally, people were fretting about Diablo III.  It was too colorful!  Internet petitions were deployed and accomplished what they generally do… nothing.

New Linking Sites

The following blogs have linked this site in their blogroll, for which they have my thanks.

Greedy Goblin – A surprise, since I am clearly a slacker and arguably a moron

MMO Gypsy

Please take a moment to visit them in return.

Most Viewed Posts in August

6VDT-H – The Biggest Battle in EVE History Ends the War in Fountain

Who Holds the Oldest Null Sec Sovereignty?

Running Civilization II on Windows 7 64-bit

Comparing EverQuest and EverQuest Next in Two Pictures

Conspiracies, Immersion, and the Secret Life of PLEX

More Propaganda from the War in Fountain

Monday Morning Talking Points for EverQuest Next

The Elder Scrolls Online: Throwing Itself Under the Subscription Bus?

Projecting on to EverQuest Next

The Greater Western Co-Prosperity Sphere and You!

Has the WildStar Team Looked Into How is Krono Working for SOE?

Can SOE Keep the EverQuest Next Excitement Going?

Search Terms of the Month

is tobold trolling us

[clearly]

how to steal turbine points

[Way to support free to play!]

eve small or big ship in nullsec

[Bigger ship, bigger target]

Spam Comment of the Month

This blog was… how do I say it? Relevant!!

[Nobody has ever said that, until the payday loans spambot happened by at least]

EVE Online

It was a quiet for most of the month for me in New Eden, a time for training and plans.  I spent a lot of time in my high sec clone with implants to speed training along.  My focus changed to capital ships and, once I make up my mind, I could be in either a dreadnought or a carrier withing a day, skill-wise.  I still have to obtain one.

And then the call went out to deploy down to Delve.  I seemed to have missed the mass of convoys, if there was a mass of them, and only have two ships down there, a Megathron and a Harpy.  So if they aren’t in the fleet composition being called for, I stay docked.

EverQuest Next

I didn’t play any EQN, as there is nothing there to play yet.  But we all certainly spent a lot of time writing about what was shown at SOE Live at the beginning of the month.  A very exciting moment.  However, the moment has passed and I expect we won’t get any real news for a while now.

Lord of the Rings Online

I made it through Moria, one of my big goals.  And then, last weekend, Turbine had a “welcome back” double XP event.  Rather than using that to push my main guy into the Mirkwood expansion, I spent the whole time… and I was in-game for many hours… playing alts.  For example, I rolled up a guardian and ran him all the way to level 30.  His role in life is to finish off the epic quest line, which I always end up straying from somewhere in the Lone Lands.  And I pushed my champion into Evendim and started up a rune keeper as well, because hey, lightning!

NeverWinter

I need to invest some time in this just to get far enough in to tell if I like it or not.

Coming Up

Autumn is coming, though it is often more a state of mind and an arbitrary date on a calendar here in California.   Still, in anticipation of the regular bout of autumnal nostalgia, I started looking into how to play EverQuest Mac on a Windows PC.  I haven’t actually got it running yet, but I have all the parts in place, including a copy of EverQuest Titanium I unearthed.  Old school, Planes of Power level EverQuest could be a possibility.  We’ll see how much I enjoy that cup.

Of course, there are other choices for the nostalgia season if I cannot get EverQuest Mac going, including other flavors of Norrath, Azeroth, or even NeverWinter Nights 2, where we stopped playing mid-campaign.  Plus there are a few new delights out there, like World of Warplanes and War Thunder, both of which I have totally meant to try, and neither of which I have actually played yet.  I have even considered Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn due to reports of its old school nature and it not being cash shop driven.  Unfortunately, part of its old school nature included a rough launch.  Some things never change.

And then there is the cast iron rule of MMOs for me is that I can really only play two at any given time while maybe dabbling in a third.  That would likely mean LOTRO going dormant again, since EVE is different enough from anything else that I want to stick with that for now.

So I expect my play time pursuits will change up soon.

Filed under: entertainment, EVE Online, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, Month in Review Tagged: Tumblr

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