Ancient Gaming Noob
September 2, 2010
16:41
After the previous weekend’s failure at Weathertop, we decided it was time to work on getting a few levels before attempting to move on with the epic quest line again. With four of us looking at a 6 person event, we need to get well ahead of it in levels before we go back. The [...]
Categories: Bloggers
September 1, 2010
16:50
September 10th. That is the day that Lord of the Rings Online follows Dungeons & Dragons Online into the land of Free to Play. Or endless beginner trial. Or no-money down access. Or however you want to frame the business model that Turbine is adopting. But the change is coming. The floodgates will be open. [...]
Categories: Bloggers
15:19
Facebook ads are to this coming decade what 3am TV ads used to be 20 years ago; low budget and often humorous. I keep seeing ads on Facebook that make me chuckle or scratch my head, like this one. How is this different than regular paper? The Facebook ad system allows you to pick your [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 31, 2010
16:09
The Site This month saw another big spike in traffic due to something pretty much unrelated to the site. Cracked.com linked to a rant I wrote quite a while back about the mis-use of the term “microtransactions.” They did a humor piece about FarmVille, and somehow my post seemed relevant. Also driving traffic this month [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 27, 2010
17:34
There are always multiple ways of looking at a problem. The entertainment software industry sees the used game market, embodied by GameStop, as a bad thing. As THQ’s Cory Ledesma put it in an interview over at CVG: We hope people understand that when the game’s bought used we get cheated And Penny Arcade got [...]
Categories: Bloggers
00:59
We had what is essentially the whole available team online and together in Middle-earth on Saturday night. Our group for the night was: Earlthecat – level 17 dwarf Guardian Roderigo – levl 20 human Burglar Garfinkel – level 22 elf Minstrel Enaldie – level 23 elf Rune Keeper Due to absences and alts, we have [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 24, 2010
17:55
Massive Blips is gone. I woke up this morning and found their feed down. Their site now redirects to this message (click to enlarge): Massive Blips was, until yesterday, a site that tracked and helped promote MMO related blogs. It was one of a set of similar sites under the DailyRadar brand which also included [...]
Categories: Bloggers
06:07
If you didn’t like the IP idea in my last post, why not just go with Forgotten Realms? Is Forgotten Realms good for everybody? (Quiet you Dragonlance weenies!) As noted over at Massively, Cryptic announced their next project, Neverwinter. This is what Cryptic has to say about the game so far: 100 years have passed [...]
Categories: Bloggers
03:10
Why not Stunt Rock? What base doesn’t that cover? Filed under: entertainment, Humor, MMO Design Tagged: MMO IPs, Stunt Rock
Categories: Bloggers
August 21, 2010
16:39
Our Cataclysm Beta correspondent headed through Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills only to find that the Alliance had been pushed out and that the town lay in ruins. Filed under: Blizzard, entertainment, World of Warcraft Tagged: Cataclysm, Cataclysm Beta, Correspondent Report, Southshore
Categories: Bloggers
01:47
There were only three of us available on Saturday night. Earl had an opportunity to drive in an autocross event, one of his many hobbies, on Sunday morning. But that meant getting up early, something not exactly compatible with staying up until 3am gaming. So he bowed out for the night. Gaff as well was [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 20, 2010
18:03
Reader Kirjath sent me a link to a Yahoo article about boar problems in Germany. Climate change has been good to the boars of Central Europe and they are flourishing. According to the article: Central Europe is turning into a land of plenty for the animals, as warmer weather causes beech and oak trees to [...]
Categories: Bloggers
01:05
I have pretty modest expectations for the coming transition of Lord of the Rings Online to a Free to Play financial model, which is scheduled to happen on September 10th. Subscriptions will be out… sort of… there will be that whole VIP Level of commitment… and the LOTRO Store will be in. And since my [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 19, 2010
18:36
The Barrens. Home to Ratchet, the Crossroads, and every Chuck Norris joke known to man. Our Cataclysm Beta correspondent spent some time (under duress) taking some screen shots of the giant crack that has torn the Barrens asunder. I am waiting for the best Chuck Norris joke that explains how it happened. As always, clicking [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 18, 2010
23:22
It is true. I have disliked the flavor of raspberries my entire life. I do not like them fresh, I do not like them as jam, I do not like them as a filling between layers of a cake, I do not like them as a sherbet, I do not like them as a flavor [...]
Categories: Bloggers
20:08
One of the potential downsides of going back to Lord of the Rings Online is that I have been through the level 1 through 30 content nearly a dozen times now. As you grow older it has been my observation that your tolerance for repetition goes down. When I was 20 or so and sharing [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 17, 2010
18:18
I have had several posts up of late about accounts being compromised and phishing attempts I have received, all revolving around World of Warcraft. It seems like a huge issue. But I have four accounts that belonged to friends compromised in the last few months (one of which was a double, two accounts with different [...]
Categories: Bloggers
01:38
As reported over at WoW.com, Blizzard won its lawsuit against Alyson Reeves the principle Scape Gaming, who was making money by running her own, for profit, pirate World of Warcraft server. The judgment, as it was laid down on August 10th, requires Alyson Reeves to pay: $63,600 in attorney’s fees $3,052,339 in disgorged profits $85,478,600 [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 16, 2010
17:56
Every time I bring up World of Warcraft accounts getting hacked, as I did yet again this past weekend, the comments that follow seem to fall into three distinct categories. This pattern seems pretty consistent. Unfairly, but in the name of simplicity, I have given these three categories names, They are: It is Your Fault [...]
Categories: Bloggers
16:23
Cracked.com has an piece up titled 6 Devious Ways Farmville Gets People Hooked. Cracked.com is a humor site, an off-shoot of Cracked Magazine, a one-time competitor to MAD Magazine. The article would probably be funnier if, as with their 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying To Get You Addicted piece, it wasn’t so close [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 15, 2010
22:15
When moving over one of my daughter’s characters to the Cataclysm Beta, we noticed that there was a list of pre-made level 80 characters that you could also use. So my daughter grabbed a couple of those and has barely been heard from since. Still, I did get her to take on the assignment of [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 14, 2010
02:09
I know maybe 20 people who both play World of Warcraft and who would bother to let me know if their account had been hacked. And 20 might be stretching it. A dozen might be closer to the mark. But let’s call it 20, because I know it is more than 10 and 20 is [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 13, 2010
22:28
It was Saturday night and Earl was back with us in Middle-earth, so we must have straightened out a few things in the previous week’s sales session. Earl was still behind the group in levels however, so we had a catch up night ahead of us. Gaff passed for the night, preferring sleep while Enaldie [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 12, 2010
21:22
Not me. We have two World of Warcraft accounts at our house, and mine was not the one chosen for the World of Warcraft Cataclysm beta. My daughter’s was. I’m not sure how they pick who gets into the beta at this point in the cycle. It might be just completely random. It might have [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 11, 2010
22:35
So let’s visit Yahoo. Or Yahoo!, as it is correctly written I suppose. I always leave out the exclamation point. Yahoo seems to have some sort of list in its top stories on the main page. Things like Signs You’re a Green Hypocrite and such. But once in a while something related to video games [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 10, 2010
19:25
The SOE Fan Faire went off this past weekend in Las Vegas. One of the things that came out of the coverage of Fan Faire was EverQuest Next, the future MMORPG that will be based in the EverQuest universe. Massively and Complete Heal have decent coverage of the event. Norrath will live again! Exciting News! [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 9, 2010
07:29
PLEX, the in-game item you can buy from other players in EVE Online that lets you extend your subscription to the game by 30 day. CCP recently unlocked the restrictions on PLEX in game. Previously, you could not move PLEX. It had to stay in a station where it was safe. Or at least safer. [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 6, 2010
22:52
For some of us in the instance group, Lord of the Rings Online is not a tough sell when we’re not playing it. Certainly it seems that for myself, Potshot, and Gaff, Middle-earth is a serious feature of the game. And it isn’t all about occasionally seeing Gandalf in action: Or getting to hang out [...]
Categories: Bloggers
August 5, 2010
23:48
Doesn’t look all that fearsome, does he, standing around in the crafting hall at Esteldin? Still, what could he be thinking? Is he planning to infiltrate us even now? Not the most role play compatible name I’ve seen certainly. He’ll probably disappear only to be replaced a short time later by a character name Goonwaffe [...]
Categories: Bloggers
17:30
Another friend and member of our guild who had been out of WoW for a while just went back to re-up to play with a friend, and was greeted by this: Somebody got his account information, somehow, and then used the account in such a way as to get it banned. Unlike the last guild [...]
Categories: Bloggers
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