The Site
I guess the site news this month was participation in the annual Blaugust event. This year is was a more chill Blaugust.
For the Relaxed Edition of Blaugust, you got to choose what sort of posting goal you were going to pursue. You didn’t HAVE to do a post a day. So, feeling a bit worn, I chose the “weekday posts” plan, which is what I usually do anyway.
And the, of course, I posted every day of the month anyway, this being post number 36 for August. Go OCD Wilhelm. I actually have leftover posts I didn’t finish.
I did manage to post them all to the Blaugust forum on Anook as some sort of proof that I was in the event. Anook seems kind of dead this year however. Gamer social network sites, still not a viable business plan yet.
Anyway, I should go nudge Belghast, the founder and administrator the Blaugust event, and see if I can bump up my commitment on the list to “every day,” since that was what I ended up doing.
I will likely do a further post-event summary next month, but Psychochild already has his up if you need something like that right now. Be sure to leave a comment!
One Year Ago
It was Blaugust and a lot of people played along.
I told the strange tale of my first automotive test drive.
Project: Gorgon had Kickstarter success at last, then there were stretch goals, the grand total, and mapping out a plan going forward.
Blizzard, on the other hand, was facing bad news as WoW subscriptions dropped to 5.6 million, the lowest since December 2005. In order to drown that our, Blizz had a big WoW announcement planned later in the week. There was much anticipation. I speculated on what it might be, but it turned out to be the WoW Legion expansion announcement, sans cinematic. Of course, once they announced it, everybody wanted to know when we would get it.
In EVE Online, it was all about Fozzie Sov. People were complaining. We had to take sov from allies in order to transfer it, at which point MOA temporarily scooped up a couple systems. Crazy days! The Galatea expansion addressed some of our issues.
Then the Imperium went to Providence to test out the new sovereignty mechanics… and to purge the Jamylites with the blessings of Maximilian Singularity VI. The resulting conflict is all under the Provi War tag here.
Meanwhile, CCP was doubling down on VR, adding EVE Gunjack to their lineup.
Turbine was warming up for the great LOTRO server upgrade and merge effort.
Daybreak was also planning server consolidations, these for EverQuest II. They were also working on a server for misfit players, which seemed like a dubious idea. And on the Stormhold server, the first expansion unlock vote came up. The players said “no” to the unlock. And in EverQuest, on the Ragefire and Lockjaw servers, the inevitable enforced raid rotation schedule was implemented, with an eye to keeping out casuals it seemed.
In Minecraft, I was discovering fire and putting our world up on a hosting service to share it with friends. Xydd joined up and began working a lot on the nether, while Skronk began his own building project, as I tinkered with dungeons. We had a setback with our hosting service. It was a good thing I was keeping backups.
And I wrote a little something about the passing of Robert Conquest.
Five Years Ago
Blizzard announced some crazy idea that you would have to be logged on to Battle.net at all times to play Diablo III. Glad that never came up again. Oh, wait…
SOE finally got a comprehensive server status page, and Scars of Velious opened up on Fippy Darkpaw. I was wondering if they had “made good” with customers after the great hacking in April/May of the year.
I hit 70 million skill points in EVE Online and prepared to check out after the summer or rage.
I was back playing LOTRO for a bit. I made it into Moria, then went looking for hoes. I also wrote a post summing up my relationship with LOTRO up to that point. It’s complicated.
Wargaming.net announced World of Battleships. They have since changed the name to World of Warships, because we cannot have enough games we can shorted to WoW yet. This got me musing on battleships and related games.
Meanwhile, World or Warplanes (another WoW) got a web site with cool pictures and stuff.
David Reid was telling people that Rift had ONE MILLION CUSTOMERS. How one actually defines a customer was left as an exercise to the student.
I was still playing some Need for Speed World. I was enjoying destructible terrain, though the weekend the police broke lead to some different destruction.
I mentioned some of the little things I liked in MMOs.
I was wondering about World of Warcraft Magazine issue 5. It seemed to be very late.
And Namaste put out a Very Short History of MMOs video. Wasn’t there a follow up video?
Ten Years Ago
This is the last time I have to do this before I can simply re-run five year old “Five Years Ago” segments, which is good, because bugger all seems to have happened a decade back this August, judging from what I was able to scrape up from Wikipedia year and month entries.
AOL, which apparently is still a thing even today (I strongly suspect my mother-in-law still gives them money every month), bought the GameDaily site which, in a case of foreshadowing, was eventually disappeared into the Joystiq brand.
The original Saints Row launched… on the frickin’ XBox 360. Eventually its popularity brought sequels to the PC Master Race.
I started playing EVE Online on August 29, 2006. That must have been my last “pre-blog” MMO start. It was certainly another stepping stone on the way to the blog, as I felt I have to tell somebody about the horrible new player experience. Some things never change.
I was also mucking about somewhat aimlessly in World of Warcraft, stuck in the bag-stuffing morass that was Stranglethorn Vale of old, trying to get past the level 40 slump on a few characters, and wondering if it might be time to run back to EverQuest II. If only I had a regular group to do something like run dungeon content in Azeroth!
Features Sites of the Month
For this month’s featured MMO Blog I want to bring your attention to:
Ah SynCaine, the raider who burned out on WoW and who has been damning it ever since. Somebody who can flame bait like no other, the only person on who regularly comments on my blog whom my mother thought was “mean.” In many ways the anti-me in posting, always blazing in the purity of his point where I tend to hedge. He’s been a pain in the ass for almost the lifetime of this blog, but without him, what would our little corner of the internet be? Also, he is in GSF now, so Imperium solidarity.
Then of the “other” site of the month, I want to point you at is:
The site isn’t what it once was, and I’ve long since been stricken from the list of blogs covered. But it is still a place of great MMO blogging significance to me, the cornerstone of a group of bloggers who crossed paths in posts and comments and cross-links over the last decade. And, as I mentioned earlier in the week, the VirginWorlds podcast archives, which was at its peak from 2006 into 2008, is a treasure. I still go back and listen to some of the old shows now and again, as Brent often captured what people were thinking and saying about various games so well.
Most Viewed Posts in August
- Executive Outcomes Leaves The Imperium
- Breaking into Delve
- Pre-Ordering WoW Legion at a Discount
- Cross Country to Frostfire Ridge and the Bloodmaul Slag Mines
- WoW and the Case for Subscription Numbers
- The Pokemon 20th Anniversary Continues with an Arceus Event and More
- I Bet Blizzard Really Wants to Mention Subscription Numbers About Now…
- Pondering That Legion Level 100 Boost
- Can Better PvE Save New Eden?
- Who Has Successfully Changed Horses Midstream?
- Fresh from the Legion Invasion Event
- Demon Invasion? What, Me Worry?
Search Terms of the Month
middle earth gamea for 2017
[Maybe LOTRO will still be around…]
85 beastlord where to molo
[Get your mojo on when you molo!]
eve online drop outs
[EVE University issue?]
i free won warlods of draenor
[I bet you did]
will clone wars adventures come back
[No, it will never come back]
Spam Comments of the Month
Don’t make your site look like a Christmas tree. It’s a complete turn off.
[Unless, of course, it is Christmas]
Don’t forget to keep records of your cost for your ISP (Internet Service Provider) , email campaigns, online marketing cost, PPC (pay per click cost) and BC Ecommerce.
[um, right-o!]
diy clock kit
[Yeah, we know how home made clocks work out]
EVE Online
We completed the move to Delve and began taking over the region, one constellation at a time, raising the ADMs as we went. We are about two thirds done with that. At some point the casino barons paid Progodlegend one trillion ISK to bring TEST down to Delve to fight us. Comedy has since ensued, including trapping a TEST/NCDot Machariel fleet in a dead end constellation and camping them there, forcing them to either die running the gauntlet or self destruct. (31 kills so far.) One guy even ejected from his Machariel to avoid giving us the kill mail, allowing Jay Amazingness to jump into the ship and fly it off. Good times.
Minecraft
It has been a slow month for me in Minecraft. I’ve been on a bit to tinker, but I do not have a big project currently to which to devote myself. I was working on a bit of a rail line upgrade and beautification task. But that is a long, long project with all the rail I have laid. Of course, I’ve also had other games to play this month as well, so I haven’t really sat down and thought about Minecraft much either.
Pokemon GO
Since I actually own an iPhone now, I started playing Pokemon GO. Current end of month stats:
- Level: 11
- Pokedex status: 39 caught, 40 seen
- Pokemon I want more of: Eevee naturally
- Surprisingly rare catch: Geodude – Those are usually pretty common in the the Pokemon RPGs
World of Warcraft
Lots of WoW play time this month. After wandering about a bit aimlessly after the 7.0 class apocalypse and garrison nerfs, the Legion pre-launch events hit and I was down with that and leveling characters up and trying to formulate some plan. And then the expansion hit yesterday. We’re finally there.
Coming Up
There is a whole new WoW expansion, what do you think I will be spending my time with?
EVE Online will probably be pretty quiet next month, with just the Delve conquest to finish up and maybe a Reavers deployment to recover the Jacket Dispersement Station in ED-L9T.
Just kidding, the lid is coming off in the EVE Online community with the announcement of a complete change up to boosting and a free to play plan coming in with the needs-a-name-now November expansion. Crazy Viking game devs in action again. I will likely have something to say on that front, though I am waiting for the dust to settle a bit.
Also, as noted at the top, there will be some sort of summary and linking out to everybody post about Blaugust. And, given that this is my 120th month in review post, those capable of simple math might expect some sort of anniversary post to well up at some point in September.
I am not sure I will have time for much beyond that. What else will need to be covered in September?
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