The Site
I remain mildly stunned that WordPress.com decided to forego their briefly traditional yearly summary report for people’s blogs. So I’ll just take last year’s main chart and update it for the year.
Top Traffic Sources in 2016
Oddly, that list is almost all EVE Online driven, save for Reddit. The majority of the Reddit traffic came from repeated links to my homage to/preservation of Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!
That aside, I do have more tangible WordPress.com issues to complain about. The new stats page is still broken as I indicated last month. Furthermore, comments have been acting oddly for a while now. I will get a notification that somebody has left a comment on the blog, I will be able to see the comment on the admin page, but the comment won’t actually be visible on the post in question for quite some time. The comment count on the post will take even longer to update. And the comment in question won’t show up in the Recent Comments list on the side bar for ages, often only showing up when somebody else leaves a comment, which then follows the same routine. Ah well.
And then, as the month went along, WP.com did another revamp of the UI, which made things tangibly worse for me. But I can at least still find the old (and reliably functional) editor and most of the functionality I am used to hidden away under a menu at the bottom of the list.
Sanity is under WP Admin
They also changed up their subscription packages in a way that is going to complicate things for me, but I will get into that in another post at some point. No need to spend all my anger here!
My blog did hit a record high number of page views this month… not this blog, my other blog. CCP Phantom used a picture from the blog and linked back to its source in an EVE Online news post, which led to a spike in traffic yesterday.
350 views in one hour, when 3 views is the norm
As it so happened, traffic here was down… skill point posts are dull, I understand… leading to the first time ever when daily page views for EVE Online Pictures exceeded the page views here by 81. Usually the ratio is something like 8 -20 to 1 in favor of TAGN. Strange times.
On the bright side, at some point Google finally mumbled something about how they changed the G+ API and WP.com dragged themselves over to update that bit of code.
That connection broke just about a year ago for me, causing posts to be shared, but only with myself. Not all that useful. All you have to do to make it work again is disconnect G+ from your blog then connect again and it seems to start working again. So now the five people who both follow me on G+ AND still actually use G+ will get spammed by my posts yet again. Blame
One Year Ago
I had 16 predictions for 2016. (Results for those who need to know.)
I was also included on some sort of MMO info page thing.
It was the end of another Steam Winter Sale.
I was wondering what Early Access should really be. I was also checking out which MMOs made PC Gamer’s latest list.
Smed was going to Kickstarter for Hero’s Song. It got cancelled before I could finish the post about all the problems it had. More than a bit of foreshadowing in that I guess.
People were troubled by a potential paywall in Rift.
The price for the Occulus Rift was announced, which led to quite a sum if all I wanted to do is play EVE Valkyrie.
In EVE Online I ran my first incursion boss. We also got the first of the “no name” monthly updates. Karma Fleet turned one. CCP told us about skill extractors. Blog Banter 71 was about spaceships. Also, there was some sort of conflict going on between I Want ISK and SpaceMonkeys Alliance.
In space we reinforced a tower and ran about in Typhoons and Jackdaws. At the end of the month Reavers headed south to Wicked Creek to tangle with TEST.
Outside the game Battle Clinic, long a staple of the EVE Online third party universe, was set to shut down while the election process for CSM XI was kicking off.
Daybreak announced that they were going to port the five year old DC Universe Online to the XBox.
I went in to Diablo III to try out the Season 5 content. I ran through the story quickly, but there was more to do.
I wrote a bit about The Force Awakens.
Finally, I was marveling at all the movies from 1986 that I remembered. Aliens! Top Gun! Platoon! Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! It was a hell of a year for movies.
Five Years Ago
I asked 12 questions for 2012. Some of those questions are still pretty legit. I also did what was for a while the annual LEGO minifigure round up.
I updated the About Page to its “Infrequently Asked Questions” format. Has it really been like that for five years already? It is probably due for an update.
There was that whole SOPA thing. We still live in peril of its return.
I struck a couple of games from my watch list, as it seemed I would never go back to play them again.
I bought an iPad for our cats… judging by the pictures.
LEGO Universe joined the ever increasing list of departed MMOs when its free to play conversion failed to save it from extinction.
SOE gave us the subscription matrix for the EverQuest free to play transition. As part of that conversion, EverQuest Mac was targeted for extinction as well. (Spoiler: It survived… for a while) Meanwhile, somebody had an EverQuest cocktail shaker on eBay.
Prompted by comments from others, I asked why those who sought an old school MMO experience were not out playing Vanguard.
Blizzard said they were going to be too busy in 2012 for a BlizzCon. Speaking of Blizzard, I hit level 85 at last in WoW. And then there was a panic about Diablo III maybe launching in February. (It didn’t)
Turbine announced that their fall LOTRO expansion would be Rider of Rohan.
There was an odd divergent current about Star Wars: The Old Republic, with some declaring it dead already (one month in) while others were still in “best game ever” mode. My favorite (now deleted, but still on the Internet Archive) angry post called it a hate crime.
I was starting to moan… more loudly… about how free to play makes an MMO focus heavily on cash shop content… to the detriment of the game in my opinion. This was prompted, no doubt, by those wings. Smed, on the other hand, was very happy about free to play.
In EVE Online the war against White Noise came to a close, leading to a quiet time in the north. But a conflict with Raiden was looming. during the lull, I recalled my first PvP death in EVE and celebrated that Garde drones now actually went *pew* *pew*. Boring no more!
In Rift, the instance group was kicked off its server. We regrouped on a new server. We were also warming up and starting to work as a group again in the Iron Tombs and the Darkening Deeps. That last was a struggle.
The Type 59 tank was pulled from the cash shop in World of Tanks.
And, finally, there was Pop Muzik.
Ten Years Ago
I wrote 59 blog posts, which remains a monthly record here at TAGN. Of course, that was before Twitter, so I was more likely to do shorter posts. If I had the patience I would track the average word count per post per month over the life of the blog to see how I changed from short posts to more of a long form/long winded approach.
I gave a brief recount of 2006 in what I find is my first high/low post on the blog. I had forgotten that I had done that post. I also uninstalled some games I was no longer playing. I was also looking forward towards Lord of the Rings Online.
The MMO blogesphere starting talking about generations of MMOs, and I asked if we had even gotten past the first generation, then quoted Wikipedia’s take on the generation debate.
The instance group in World of Warcraft finished up the Scarlet Monestary and rolled through Razorfen Downs.
Blintz, my fae swashbuckler in EverQuest II was just digging into Zek, The Orcish Wastes, one of my favorite zones in post-cataclysm Norrath, as well as hunting for Blood Talon in order to get my dwarven work boots.
Scott Hartsman described some of the goals for the EverQuest II expansion that would eventually become The Rise of Kunark. I also discovered that Sony slipped a promo for the Transformers movie in with the Echoes of Faydwer installation. That was back when SOE was under Sony Pictures.
I played in some of the Vanguard open beta, once I got it downloaded. The team was still working on a lot of polishing and features. The launch date was announced somewhat late, but when the game actually launched (on the same day as the much maligned Microsoft Vista), I declined to buy the box even though it was on Station Access. I thought one of the game’s potential flaws might be the inability to make a “hot” character. A female half-elf was the best I could manage. The character models were not pretty despite a profusion of sliders and options in the creation process.
Blizzard launched The Burning Crusade without the usual first day disasters that generally accompanied an expansions back in the day, though I couldn’t figure out why I bothered to buy a copy. I was wondering how long it would hold its $40 price tag. It stayed at that price for quite a long time. These days we get a discount before a game even goes live.
Given that expansions were on my mind, I was wondering what the best timing for expansions really was. EverQuest was still doing two a year back then, while Blizzard took more than two years to get to its first one.
I gave a brief review of Massive Magazine issue #2.
And I found that SOE had provided the industry standard definition for the word “soon.”
Most Viewed Posts in January
- I Will Play Candy Crush No More Forever
- Daybreak Doomsaying
- Where the Hell is that EverQuest Successor Already?
- The End of Landmark Foretold
- Would You Rather Fight Than Switch?
- Pokemon Go Account Hacked and Recovered
- 2017 – Predictions for Another New Year
- Opening the New War at F4R2-Q
- Falling Back in Catch
- Too Fast Through Tristram!
- Steam Winter Sale 2016 Results
- Seagulls Stop it Now!
Search Terms of the Month
what does dellmon mean
[Been asking what he means for years]
pretty alien sto
[The one in Kirk’s quarters]
everquest imperfect diamond
[Summed up correctly]
what is vanilla wow
[A unicorn we all want to find or slay]
Broadband Advertising Church
[Our Latency of Perpetual Round Trip?]
“pantheon: rise of the fallen” pipe dream
Diablo III
The 20 year anniversary event, The Darkening of Tristram, got me to patch up and log into Diablo III again. It was an interesting little distraction, some additional content, but beyond superficial graphical tweaks, it had about as much to do with 1996 as Twitter and the iPhone. It did get me to go find the soundtrack from the 15 year anniversary, which is available on iTunes. But I got the bulk of the achievements and the pet all the same. I am just not sure that the event is something that will necessarily be a draw for people every year. Anyway, if you want to see it this year, you had best patch up and try it, as it is supposed to go away soon.
EVE Online
I started off with a bang in New Eden around New Years, with the battle over the two Fortizars. But then it was back to work where I caught the flu that was going around and I found I didn’t really have the stamina for ops at that point. I joined in the return from Catch, but that was about it. Once I was better I started getting my carrier together to see if I could join in on the promised training ops.
EverQuest II
Somewhere along the line I fell off the wagon when it came to Norrath. The single quest chain I was able to find wasn’t thrilling me so I was just logging in daily to do a couple of crafting writs and maybe just enough harvesting to get the daily loyalty token reward. I have about 500 of those and have yet to spend a one. I haven’t unsubscribed yet, but it seems likely to happen before the next billing cycle.
Minecraft
While I was slacking off elsewhere, I was putting a bunch of my free time into Minecraft. Not only do I have a big project under way, but I was ill for a week or so and Minecraft is conducive to playing when you’re not feeling well. The long road hasn’t reached the half way point yet, but I moved the end of the road forward several kilometers over the course of the month.
Pokemon Go
Bad weather and illness kept me from playing very much… though there was at least one evening where you could have seen me leaving the house past 10pm to get in the car in order to drive the half mile to the nearest Pokestop because dammit, it was Day 7 of my streak and I wasn’t going to give up on that big payoff just because I wasn’t feeling well.
- Level: 25 (+0) Almost to 26, but not quite.
- Pokedex status: 111 (+5) caught, 137 (+3) seen
- Pokemon I want: Anything second generation
- Current buddy: Nidorino
Pokemon Sun
As with a couple of other titles, I fell off the Pokemon Sun bandwagon for a good stretch of the month. You would think that Pokemon would be a good game to play when you’re sick, but for some reason whenever I picked it up, I fell asleep. Late in the month I did finally get back on track and finished up the final trial on Poni island, finished the main story line, and made Nebby get in the goddam bag for the last time. On to the Pokeleague and then endgame activities.
Steam
For once the Steam Winter Sale actually distracted me from other games. I bought a few budget titles and actually played through them. Train Valley probably got the most attention. I did start off in Stardew Valley, but wasn’t really in the mood to get through the inevitable initial hurdles any building/farming sim puts you through. I will get back to that later.
Coming Up
The Activision-Blizzard 2016 financial report ought to be rolling in next month. While the first rule of subscription club remains “don’t talk about subscription club,” I do look forward to seeing what I can divine from whatever clever number arrangements and MAUs charts the company puts out.
There is the inevitable monthly patch headed for EVE Online. Also the CSM 12 candidate period will be in full swing and we should know by the end of the month who will be on the final ballot. Then there is the Winter War in the south and a plan for another Burn Jita, though no final date has been set for the latter yet.
There are some things afoot with Lord of the Rings Online… something about a horse… while their partners at Daybreak will be putting and end to Landmark. And, as I mentioned in the post earlier today (I am writing this before I have written that post, so I hope I didn’t forget to write it!) there is some distant rumor that we might hear something later this week from Turbine about the final fate of Asheron’s Call... something besides “bye!”
Also, wasn’t the EverQuest II Race to Trakanon server supposed to close in January? I haven’t seen an announcement yet. Was the team was too busy with server issued this month? Maybe that will be something for February.
Also, after writing a ranty opinion piece about an EverQuest successor, I suddenly feel like I should got back and revisit a few other opinions. Maybe. My writing has strayed from opinions towards reporting on what I am doing over the years. It might be time to update some views that may have been altered with the passage of time.
And, in a final question, when did my month in review posts start passing 2,500 words on a regular basis?
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