Thursday, September 20, 2007
New Themes!
I will be playing around with themes for the next few days, I am really undecided right now. The old one was too tight feeling and this leaves a bit of excess white space to the right and cramps the left Anyways the point is, these times they are a changing and with it will come a new theme so keep and eye out and maybe recommend one or two. Thanks for your patience. =)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Hook, Line and Sinker..
Well I have to commend SOE for successfully suckering me into a full subscription to EQ2. Earlier this summer SOE offered two free months, including all three expansions, and all three adventure packs.
And at the time being in a post-LOTRO MMO slump I figured I'd take the plunge and re-check out EQ2. I was pleasantly surprised with a lot of things, including a good ol' helping of nostalgia. I need not repeat the advances of EQ2 since its launch(Ten Ton Hammer does a great job here), there were a few "wow!" moments, but quite a few "oooo!"'s. And now I've got a level 30 Wizard with a pretty nice house and a snazzy new 24% mount(thanks to a Legends of Norrath booster dropping in a newbie zone) and I'm having a lot of fun exploring the world. The one thing I find a double edged sword is that there is so much content at every level I feel as if I'm constantly missing out on something. But I don't want to get into a real review just yet.
Well anyways Sunday rolled around and I had completely forgotten that my EQ2 free loading was over, and so at around 10am in the middle of zoning no less I was booted and not allowed to enter the game from the character selection screen. This drove me nuts, until I exited the game entirely and it yelled about not being a subscriber, so after a few thoughts about my meager funds I decided to go with it and am still having as much fun now(if not more) than I did when I fired up the client in July. So kudos to SOE marketing, you've got one more customer(actually two, I was able to convince my very anti EQ roommate to join me after showing off to him the new hotness that is EQ2).
--
Cheston
And at the time being in a post-LOTRO MMO slump I figured I'd take the plunge and re-check out EQ2. I was pleasantly surprised with a lot of things, including a good ol' helping of nostalgia. I need not repeat the advances of EQ2 since its launch(Ten Ton Hammer does a great job here), there were a few "wow!" moments, but quite a few "oooo!"'s. And now I've got a level 30 Wizard with a pretty nice house and a snazzy new 24% mount(thanks to a Legends of Norrath booster dropping in a newbie zone) and I'm having a lot of fun exploring the world. The one thing I find a double edged sword is that there is so much content at every level I feel as if I'm constantly missing out on something. But I don't want to get into a real review just yet.
Well anyways Sunday rolled around and I had completely forgotten that my EQ2 free loading was over, and so at around 10am in the middle of zoning no less I was booted and not allowed to enter the game from the character selection screen. This drove me nuts, until I exited the game entirely and it yelled about not being a subscriber, so after a few thoughts about my meager funds I decided to go with it and am still having as much fun now(if not more) than I did when I fired up the client in July. So kudos to SOE marketing, you've got one more customer(actually two, I was able to convince my very anti EQ roommate to join me after showing off to him the new hotness that is EQ2).
--
Cheston
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
EVE sips the Cider
Well Cuppy already wrote about it(I swear she is first to everything), but EVE Online the golden boy of PvP and Sci-Fi will be playable on the Mac(OSX) and Linux platforms by years end. This is fantastic news for us Mac gamers, no longer will we have to pay the reboot tax to get our mine on. I am really interested to see how things go as far as performance, as CCP is using Transgaming's Cider portability engine to essentially fake a port. While I won't say this is a bad thing I am concerned about the performance hit the user will take as a result, because there will be some, there just has to be given how the technology works.
Press Release
I am also concerned because earlier this year EA at this years WWDC(Apple Developer Conference) announced that they would be bringing a few of their popular titles to the Mac using Transgaming's technology. Then months later nothing, and finally recently EA admitted to dropping the whole thing. Now this could have been due to cost, sales predictions, and any number of things but one of those questions asked must be, was the technology to blame? Can Cider scale to handle these kind of intense games? Looking at Transgaming's list of games already using Cider technology, it is slim at best. So while this provides no conclusive evidence it is something to consider when looking at this news. And while CCP has been good at customer relations and I don't think that they would release a piece of junk, I worry about these things as someone who has had generally poor experiences with translation technologies and Transgaming in general. I don't want to "hate on" Transgaming, they do a lot of great work for a crowd that is consistently under served, but I can't ignore my past experiences.
--
Cheston
Press Release
I am also concerned because earlier this year EA at this years WWDC(Apple Developer Conference) announced that they would be bringing a few of their popular titles to the Mac using Transgaming's technology. Then months later nothing, and finally recently EA admitted to dropping the whole thing. Now this could have been due to cost, sales predictions, and any number of things but one of those questions asked must be, was the technology to blame? Can Cider scale to handle these kind of intense games? Looking at Transgaming's list of games already using Cider technology, it is slim at best. So while this provides no conclusive evidence it is something to consider when looking at this news. And while CCP has been good at customer relations and I don't think that they would release a piece of junk, I worry about these things as someone who has had generally poor experiences with translation technologies and Transgaming in general. I don't want to "hate on" Transgaming, they do a lot of great work for a crowd that is consistently under served, but I can't ignore my past experiences.
--
Cheston
Quizification
Everyone's doing it, so here is my score
I have to say though, the programming section is horribly outdated. None my age has that I know has ever programmed in Fortran, or Ada and rarely Basic. Come on! What about Ruby, Python, and Java!? Hello! I guess I deserve my nerd score. =(
--
Cheston
I have to say though, the programming section is horribly outdated. None my age has that I know has ever programmed in Fortran, or Ada and rarely Basic. Come on! What about Ruby, Python, and Java!? Hello! I guess I deserve my nerd score. =(
--
Cheston
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The 800 lb. Gorilla with a neck beard in the room.(aka are bloggers press?)
Darren over at Commonsense Gamer posed this question to the audience, and I thought I would throw in "my two cents"(where did this expression come from!? evidently here). So the question "Are bloggers press?", to me there isn't a yes or no answer to this, the one word answer is "sometimes". I think a better question might be, "are bloggers acting as press?", this implies that bloggers are not press to begin with but adopt that mentality, and exist as a subset of the whole of bloggers. To me there are tiers in the blogging world:
Tier 1: Professional Blogger!
What a job title! "Professional Blogger" is essentially a synonym for Internet Journalist, these are generally trained(none said well trained) writers who generally work for major outlets such as Engadget, and blog at a generally frequent pace, with a high quality of content and high level of trust by their readers.
Tier 2: The "Underground" Blogger
These bloggers are generally less well known, but are still influential within their given community/industry, they lack the "well formed-ness" if I might put it that way of the average journalist, have a varying post frequency, but still contain valuable content to their target audience, and are considered a trusted source by their readership. These would include bloggers such as Kos at DailyKos, f13 and even the lovable Grimwell. These bloggers are mixed bag of full time enthusiasts and people in industry.
Tier 3: The "Really?" Blogger
These are the bloggers of whom you wonder "how the heck does this person get so many hits?". These bloggers have little to no professional manner but still manage to drive an absurd amount of traffic to their site. They are influential but usually because they are well connected, and can break a story. Their content is not always trust worthy, but because of the blogger's credibility they maintain a level of trust with their readership. This tier includes the well known Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report.
Tier 4: The Refreshers
This should be nicknamed "The Echo Chamber", as 85% of their content stems from or is a direct copy of another's work, including news aggregators like the good people at EQ2-Daily, news/opinion blogs such as this and many other sites. These bloggers for the most part are news junkies and live from the crack pipe that is their RSS reader(my preferred "piece"), which they check throughout the day so they have something to post about later. They are amateur journalists who are passionate about their given niche, and generally blog "for the fun of it!". Their posts are a mix of news/opinion, personal experience, and links to Youtube videos (come on! how could I not link to "Chocolate Rain"?).
Tier 5: The "You wouldn't believe what happened today!" Blogger
These bloggers use their blogs more as personal diaries than the rest, occasionally giving their opinion on personally interested topics, and news, they make up the bulk of the blogging community as a whole and see their blog as a personal outlet to the world, which is a great personal exercise but really lack any serious manner in their posts. In this category there exist such as web-celeb iJustine and half of my graduating class.
Now we have this hierarchy, but still not talked about the "press" and bloggers as journalists. Now in my opinion I believe tier one, and two are most certainly that, Internet Journalists, tier three is more of a case by case basis as many can hardly be considered journalists but do control a lot of eyeballs on the net and therefore command some level of respect in industry. Tier four however are amateur, but this isn't a bad thing, these bloggers make up the base of many communities and provide a human touch to the often detached professionals. They are biased, they are flawed, they are not always fantastic writers, but that is why people read them, because we want to be a part of a community, whatever that subject it may be. Tier four is quite possibly one of the most important tiers, as they create for no other purpose other than it is something they are passionate about.
So in closing, I think that blogging as it has been said before is a new medium, it is like a news letter with live comments(I have to say comments are a huuuge part of why blogs are successful, and I could write an article just about how important comments are, but I digress). These tiers discussed before are not just "press" in the normal sense, they are using their blogs to conform to the norms of "press" as we have known it and many are doing a good job of it, so good that I rarely read magazines much anymore(I am not saying magazines are becoming irrelevant), because I can get my media reviews online, and I can get real opinion online. Anyways it is getting late and I've been going on far too long, until next time "Rock over London, Rock on Chicago..."
--
Cheston
Tier 1: Professional Blogger!
What a job title! "Professional Blogger" is essentially a synonym for Internet Journalist, these are generally trained(none said well trained) writers who generally work for major outlets such as Engadget, and blog at a generally frequent pace, with a high quality of content and high level of trust by their readers.
Tier 2: The "Underground" Blogger
These bloggers are generally less well known, but are still influential within their given community/industry, they lack the "well formed-ness" if I might put it that way of the average journalist, have a varying post frequency, but still contain valuable content to their target audience, and are considered a trusted source by their readership. These would include bloggers such as Kos at DailyKos, f13 and even the lovable Grimwell. These bloggers are mixed bag of full time enthusiasts and people in industry.
Tier 3: The "Really?" Blogger
These are the bloggers of whom you wonder "how the heck does this person get so many hits?". These bloggers have little to no professional manner but still manage to drive an absurd amount of traffic to their site. They are influential but usually because they are well connected, and can break a story. Their content is not always trust worthy, but because of the blogger's credibility they maintain a level of trust with their readership. This tier includes the well known Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report.
Tier 4: The Refreshers
This should be nicknamed "The Echo Chamber", as 85% of their content stems from or is a direct copy of another's work, including news aggregators like the good people at EQ2-Daily, news/opinion blogs such as this and many other sites. These bloggers for the most part are news junkies and live from the crack pipe that is their RSS reader(my preferred "piece"), which they check throughout the day so they have something to post about later. They are amateur journalists who are passionate about their given niche, and generally blog "for the fun of it!". Their posts are a mix of news/opinion, personal experience, and links to Youtube videos (come on! how could I not link to "Chocolate Rain"?).
Tier 5: The "You wouldn't believe what happened today!" Blogger
These bloggers use their blogs more as personal diaries than the rest, occasionally giving their opinion on personally interested topics, and news, they make up the bulk of the blogging community as a whole and see their blog as a personal outlet to the world, which is a great personal exercise but really lack any serious manner in their posts. In this category there exist such as web-celeb iJustine and half of my graduating class.
Now we have this hierarchy, but still not talked about the "press" and bloggers as journalists. Now in my opinion I believe tier one, and two are most certainly that, Internet Journalists, tier three is more of a case by case basis as many can hardly be considered journalists but do control a lot of eyeballs on the net and therefore command some level of respect in industry. Tier four however are amateur, but this isn't a bad thing, these bloggers make up the base of many communities and provide a human touch to the often detached professionals. They are biased, they are flawed, they are not always fantastic writers, but that is why people read them, because we want to be a part of a community, whatever that subject it may be. Tier four is quite possibly one of the most important tiers, as they create for no other purpose other than it is something they are passionate about.
So in closing, I think that blogging as it has been said before is a new medium, it is like a news letter with live comments(I have to say comments are a huuuge part of why blogs are successful, and I could write an article just about how important comments are, but I digress). These tiers discussed before are not just "press" in the normal sense, they are using their blogs to conform to the norms of "press" as we have known it and many are doing a good job of it, so good that I rarely read magazines much anymore(I am not saying magazines are becoming irrelevant), because I can get my media reviews online, and I can get real opinion online. Anyways it is getting late and I've been going on far too long, until next time "Rock over London, Rock on Chicago..."
--
Cheston
Thursday, September 6, 2007
My god... its filled with bobbleheads....
I find it hard to believe that somehow I missed out on this.
It is called "cutemode" in EverQuest2 and it makes every PC and NPC alike have a huuuuge head!(Invader Zim reference! "my head is not big!") It really freaked me out last night after someone mentioned it in general chat and I typed the command "/cutemode" and all of a sudden I was in the land of bobbleheads. This was a really cute addition to the game that made me laugh hysterically. I am probably the last one to the party on this one but I still felt the need to post about it for those that might not be in the know.
In other news, as you can tell I am still playing EQ2, I just created a Dark Elf Inquisitor, named Nasteratu(the name of my original EQ main) on AB and am having a great time so far(only level 10 so take this for what it is worth). I bought my self a little shanty and decorated it to the nines(more like the ones) and am looking forward to joining a guild and healing the day away. I just found it too lonely as a Wizard and really kind of missed the excitement of healing. That is about it for now, off to Norrath yet again.
--
Cheston
It is called "cutemode" in EverQuest2 and it makes every PC and NPC alike have a huuuuge head!(Invader Zim reference! "my head is not big!") It really freaked me out last night after someone mentioned it in general chat and I typed the command "/cutemode" and all of a sudden I was in the land of bobbleheads. This was a really cute addition to the game that made me laugh hysterically. I am probably the last one to the party on this one but I still felt the need to post about it for those that might not be in the know.
In other news, as you can tell I am still playing EQ2, I just created a Dark Elf Inquisitor, named Nasteratu(the name of my original EQ main) on AB and am having a great time so far(only level 10 so take this for what it is worth). I bought my self a little shanty and decorated it to the nines(more like the ones) and am looking forward to joining a guild and healing the day away. I just found it too lonely as a Wizard and really kind of missed the excitement of healing. That is about it for now, off to Norrath yet again.
--
Cheston
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