The Site
As of a post earlier this week I had a post up every single day for an entire year. The last day here on the site without a post was March 27, 2020.
Like a lot of such achievements, I did not set out to do this, but once I noticed it was happening. I rolled into last April with a plan to post every day due to the Blapril event. Making it through that I had enough momentum to bring me through May and into June. Then a war started brewing in EVE Online, which was fresh and exciting in late June of last year, but which has grown routine by now. That gave me a lot to post about and I decided to stretch my posting run into August for the Blaugust celebration. And once I had gotten through that I had almost a half a year streak going, so why not carry on.
As for what it means… well, it doesn’t really mean anything. It is my own little post streak. I think the previous such streak went for four months. I just have to decide how much it really means to me to have an unbroken run of daily posts, because once I let it lapse it will take me at least a year to get back.
I will say that it is a good thing I made it to this milestone, such that it is, this week. Because this week saw WordPress.com finally delete the old classic editor, which I have been using for more than 14 years at this point, in order to force users into their new block editor, which was designed by a sadist and implemented by people who clearly don’t have to use it. It impedes my ability to write.
Seriously, it sucks. Even the classic block, which they claim is the same as the classic editor, sucks. Features are missing, it keeps asking me if I want to convert to other blocks, everything takes a few more clicks to accomplish, and it is rather insistent that 24 time doesn’t exist. And don’t get me started on what happens to a post if you accidentally click that persistent “convert to blocks” button if you’re working in the classic block tab. I had to throw away a post and start over it was so mangled.
And they also did away with the old dashboard and stats, so even managing posts and comments and such is a huge pain in the ass now. And data I used for things like my annual review post… well, that is just no longer accessible.
It is all a punch in the gut that doesn’t make me enthusiastic to post every day.
I sent in a complaint detailing all of this and I expect to hear back from one of their “Happiness Engineers” ignoring everything I wrote and gushing about how wonderful the block editor is with a link to a video. The next helpful response I get from them will be the first.
Addendum: I enabled the new “Advanced Dashboard Pages” option and got back the ability to use the old Classic Editor once more. So yay! Why it was linked to that option I cannot explain, but I’ll take it.
One Year Ago
Oh man, it was the start of the pandemic lockdown, the March that lasted forever as we all learned how to stay home. Fortunately I received a Ninendo Switch Lite for my birthday to keep me busy.
I did another poll about which voice service people were using. Discord swept the poll.
I summed up the Winter Fantasy Movie League run, but FML was soon put on a pause due to theaters being shut.
Gamigo CEO Remco Westerman was unironically going on about synergy.
I was still playing a bit of EverQuest II, though it was mostly the Overseer feature getting me to log in. EverQuest turned 21, which brought with is new servers, server merges, and other special items. We got a free heroic upgrade… to level 85… which I used on one of my characters.
The big news from Daybreak though was Holly Longdale, who had been running the Norrath franchise for the company, leaving for Blizzard.
In WoW Classic the instance group was working through Razorfen Downs before heading off to Uldaman. Archaedas was an issue, but with some suggestions we were able to finish him as a four person group.
I was also trying to farm the Hydrocane from Gnomeregan.
In EVE Online there was an early March update that brought us some changes, which was followed later with an update that included low sec and faction warfare changes as well as giving battleships a frigate escape bay. CCP was also moving along with their economic privation plan, announcing the removal of minerals from moons. The February MER was already showing mineral prices rising and this was expected to make them go higher still.
CCP threw more skill points at us.
There was a question as to whether of not there should be a shooter from CCP like Project Nova.
Out in space we were packing up to head home from Venal. Liberty Squad was done as Terrifying League of Dog Fort corp, which was running the group, left the alliance to find adventure elsewhere.
There was a plan for Blapril, an early run at Blaugust, as we were all home with free time.
And there were some Friday Bullet Points from Gamasutra, including some more about CCP’s Project Nova.
Five Years Ago
Daybreak announced that they were giving up on EverQuest Next. That left me wondering what the future looked like for Landmark. It wasn’t going to have PvP.
I also wrote up a post about all of the SOE/Daybreak MMOs and their then current (and mostly closed) status. Things still looked pretty good for EverQuest at 17, though I wasn’t sure how experience injectors were going to play out in EverQuest II.
Also in EverQuest II the PvP version of their retro nostalgia server, Deathtoll, was getting folded into the PvE version, Stormhold, due to lack of interest, thus ending open world PvP in the game outside of that Russian server. I was looking for nostalgia on the Stormhold side of things again.
Voting kicked off for CSM 11 with Xenuria on the official Imperium ballot. How things change.
The monthly EVE Online update introduced Project Discovery and made it so you had to be mutual friends in order to track somebody’s online status in your contact list. The month’s blog banter wanted people to imagine other games based off of the EVE Online IP, so I went with something akin to Diplomacy.
There were a bunch of little EVE Online things, like server upgrades, downtime compensation, and skill injector fun that I put into one bullet points post. I like those posts when I do them, I hate them a year later when I want to do my summary. It is easier when each topic has its own post!
Fighting was going on as the Casino War widened. Some of the coalition was staged in Saranen, which meant flying quite a ways to defend territory on the far side of Tribute, including an unfortunate event with a Higgs anchor rig on my Guardian. There were things going on in several regions, including a really good brawl in Fade.
Then the weight in numbers began to tell as we had to fight fires on several fronts. I wondered if we were going to have a last stand at VFK-IV. The plan, however, was not to waste ships against the superior numbers arrayed against us. Instead we gave up territory, announcing the abandonment of the Vale of the Silent region, occupied by Lawn and Bastion, with one constellation owned by Circle-of-Two. CO2 decided to leave the Imperium over this in order to save their territory, which would soon be the front line in the war, betraying us even as the fight was still going on in M-OEE8. Once the war was over their new friends turned on them and took their territory anyway. Who says there are no happy endings?
The M-OEE8 fight was still a big one and got CCP some press. That is one thing null sec is good for, bringing attention to the game.
Black Desert Online went live and much bitching about the cash shop ensued, so I couldn’t resist jumping on that bandwagon yet again. The cash shop is a necessary evil at this point.
I was poking fun at VR, which is still struggling for relevance. Meanwhile EVE Valkyrie and Gunjack went live with the official Occulus Rift launch.
Minecraft 1.9, the Combat Upgrade landed, giving us shields. I stopped wearing one of those ages ago, as you can’t read maps, among other things, if you have one on.
In Minecraft Aaron’s zombie pig farm was causing MC Pro Hosting to lag out on us. But we made the switch to the much more reasonably priced Minecraft Realms hosting option, which solved that issue. Premium pricing was not getting us premium service.
In Diablo III I was chasing the Season 5 set dungeon.
And, finally, things looked grim for WildStar, with China cancelled, layoffs, and dwindling revenue.
Ten Years Ago
Rift officially launched. And while I wasn’t playing, the social media options integrated into the game made it feel like I was there. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Pokemon Black and White came out, which became the theme for my birthday.
World of Tanks was talking about going live in April. There was, of course, a pre-order offer. There always is these days.
Potshot and I made it to GDC thanks to Darren, where we were able to hobnob with the likes of Brian Green and Damion Schubert.
March of ten years ago found me spending time in EverQuest. It was on the Fippy Darkpaw progression server, which at that point was still set in the original EverQuest zones. Potshot and I were doing some classic things, like getting stuck in the Ocean of Tears and making alts. And running out of money.
There were the newbie armor quests to work on, which required travel to Freeport at one point, something as hard as we remembered. We also visited Unrest, North Karana, the Desert of Ro, and Najena.
It was also the 12 year anniversary of the EverQuest launch, and nobody was more surprised that I that I was playing the game 12 years later. But no corpse runs please.
The instance group, still in Cataclysm Worgen form, spent a couple of nights in Scarlet Monastery and then went to Razorfen Kraul.
I put up a poll asking people which of several items in my drafts folder (current population: 57) I should buckle down on and finish. I think almost everything on the list except the winner is still in my drafts folder.
And I came home one day to find the TV had died. Emergency CPR (read: banging on the damn thing) brought it back to life temporarily, but clearly a replacement was going to be needed. It was, after all, a few years older than EverQuest.
Fifteen Years Ago
World of Warcraft hit 6 million subscribers. Eventually it would double that number. And later it would sink below that number. WoW Classic seemed to get it back up to that number again, though all such numbers from Blizzard are pretty vague these days.
Twitter launched, but who in the hell wants a platform limited to just 140 characters? Or 280 characters now I guess.
Brent, going by the “Prognosticator” handle back then, launched the VirginWorlds podcast which began what was, for me, the golden age of MMO podcasting and eventually nudged me into blogging. Trust me to pick up the old trend when a new one starts. His site had fallen into disrepair over the years and, recently, disappeared altogether. Time to pull it from the side bar I think. I still have all the podcasts in my iTunes library, and you can peruse the site and descriptions over at the Internet Archive.
Twenty Years Ago
Nintendo released the GameBoy Advance, the handheld model between the GameBoy Color and the Nintendo DS. Games for the GBA were still available when I eventually got a Nintendo DS as it had a GBA cartridge slot to allow backward compatibility.
Thirty Years Ago
Neverwinter Nights, an online multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons themed game launched on AOL. In an age of text and MUDs, it was an online graphical multiplayer RPG and either one of the first, or a direct precursor to, modern MMORPGs, depending on how you want to define the “massive” part of the acronym.
Sierra Online launched The Sierra Network… their name having “online” in it before they had an actual online presence was a mistake in hindsight I suppose… which includes the title The Shadow of Yserbius as part of the package, which was also an online graphical multiplayer RPG (or a graphical MUD as they called it), which also gives it a claim to either being one of the first, or a direct precursor to, modern MMORPGs.
Most Viewed Posts in March
- The Federation Grand Prix Starts in EVE Online with Events and Login Rewards
- Death on the Plains in Valheim
- Tunnels and Trolls and Teens and the Bronze Age in Valheim
- Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!
- Deer Hunting in Valheim
- Robbing Some Space Banks
- SupreData says WoW Jumped in Subscribers and Revenue
- CCP is Just Going to Keep Selling Skill Points for Cash
- SuperData and Wavering WoW Subscriptions
- CCP Now Just Baby Steps from Selling EVE Online Skill Points Directly
- Diablo II Act Five and some Thoughts
- What Does LOTRO Need?
Search Terms of the Month
valheim keep dying in black forest
[Wait until you walk into the plains!]
i came upon fulings and died valheim
[Yeah, though the deathsquitos are worse]
why cant i buy large skill injectors with plex?
[Sell the PLEX, use the ISK, problem solved]
eve online casino
[That was the war five years back]
eve online what is really going on in null
[Damn if I know]
eve minokawa solo fit
[Let me know when you undock]
why it’s all about money just bomb ccp get rid of them
[What were you even searching for?]
making fake favebook profit for oculus
[Favebook is like that]
how to clean pokewalker
[Don’t put it in the washing machine!]
Game Time from ManicTime
Once again this month saw Valheim take up most of my focus. The time split was as follows:
- Valheim – 84.71%
- EVE Online – 10.90%
- WoW Classic – 4.30%
- World of Warcraft – 0.10%
At this point Valheim is where I have spent about half of my gaming time so far this year. In the first half of the month I had more time on it that in my main browser. (Though, to be fair, I have to split between Firefox and Chrome for work related items.)
EVE Online
The war carries on. I’ve said that a few times, haven’t I? This past month was a bit lighter for me that January and February. My participation status shows over 100 ops in the last 90 days, but only about 15 of those were in the last 30 days. Blame Valheim a bit, but more it is the fact that no grand events have been happening really. I did do the Federation Grand Prix for the SKINs on an alt, but that was another story.
Pokemon Go
My wife and I both made it to level 41. It wasn’t that tough of a climb. We were helped along by the fact that we had accumulated some xp after hitting level 40 but before the new levels were announced. Not as much as some… I have people in my friends list who have as much as 60 million xp pre-done… but it boosted us along a bit. Now for level 42.
Level: 41 (15% of the way to 42 in xp, 2 of 4 tasks complete)
Pokedex status: 628 (+9) caught, 656 (+9) seen
Mega Evolutions obtained: 11 of 12
Pokemon I want: Need Eevees for the level 42 tasks
Current buddy: Frogadier
Valheim
As you can see from the ManicTime numbers, this is the title that dominated my gaming time again this month. Right now on our world we’re ready to slay Moder once we can get on together and then we will be moving towards the plains.
World of Warcraft
I did log into retail WoW, though only for Darkmoon Faire and a few pet battles. I did nothing out in the Shadowlands expansion. The events there have skipped far enough ahead of me that I likely won’t ever catch up. My renown remains meager and such.
WoW Classic
While the instance group has been mostly focused on Valheim, I did find a bit of time to run around with my paladin alt. I’d like to get him up to 60… or at least 58… before Burning Crusade Classic shows up.
Coming Up
Well, tomorrow is April Fools, so I am pretty sure some of you can guess what the post of the day will be about. It is the same thing every year.
In Valheim we have two bosses left to take on. We might actually accomplish that and get back to spending a bit of time in WoW Classic, though I suspect we’ll keep the Valheim world up and keep building and such. It has a Minecraft-like appeal in that.
I expect that we’ll start getting some news about a timeline for Burning Crusade Classic.
And in EVE Online CCP is ready to turn industry upside down by changing dramatically how all ships larger than a battlecruiser, plus all T2 and faction ships, are built. When even the devs are predicting chaos and things taking 4-6 months to settle down you know we’re in for a wild ride.
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