The Web site
Welcome to the brand new 12 months… already 1/twelfth of the best way performed.
One among my targets this 12 months is to maneuver the positioning to a more moderen and really supported theme. I like the present theme, Twenty Twelve, however it’s from… effectively… 2012… and, like a Mayan calendar, has gone past its time.
The issue, as I’ve acknowledged earlier than, is that a lot of the choices from WP.com which can be current and supported… suck. Or suck for my meant aim, which is to have a weblog with a facet bar filled with hyperlinks and dynamic content material.
WP.com put out a weblog submit concerning the 12 High Themes Folks Truly Use, which is probably going an indication of some kind. Of them, 11 are completely not what I would like. The twelfth, a theme referred to as Nook, may work.
The Nook Theme
The issue is that, out of the field, it is just partially assembled by my requirements. Or, slightly, it comes absolutely assembled for a cooking weblog and it’s a must to apply the theme then work out how you can undo all of that and put it again collectively how you want with a few of the most obtuse design instruments recognized to man.
Possibly they’ll give you a Twenty Twenty-Six theme that isn’t pretentious rubbish. And perhaps pigs will fly.
Additionally, for the month in overview posts I’m going to retire the Search Phrases of the Month part. It was an sometimes amusing gag, however nowadays I’ve to go dig into the Google search console to search out some amusing theme… and I’m not feeling it of late. I’m by no means one to draw back from beating some gag into the bottom, however I feel my job there’s performed.
One 12 months In the past
As is custom, there was a New Years submit concerning the upcoming 12 months. I selected to make needs this time round. At the least in the event that they didn’t come true I couldn’t be blamed.
I additionally did my standard wrap-up of the Steam Winter Sale, masking awards, stats, and what I purchased.
I additionally reviewed what I performed in 2024 and tried to guess what I’d play in 2025.
In EVE On-line we had moved to Tenerifis and began to settle in, so I received my PI farms began once more. I didn’t know we’d be transferring once more.
I additionally completed up the AIR Profession Program.
I summed up 2024 destruction in New Eden, no less than in line with what the MER instructed us.
CCP additionally gave us an totally predictable 2025 roadmap for EVE On-line.
SSG put out a fairly sparse 2025 roadmap for LOTRO. Amongst different issues, it utterly omitted simply the most important occasion of the 12 months for the sport; the voluntary, then necessary, migration to the brand new 64-bit servers.
We additionally received bland, however no less than full, roadmaps for EQ and EQII from Dawn.
In Enshrouded we have been delving into the Nomad Highlands Hole Halls. Then it was time for a swing by means of the Kindlewaste Hole Halls… actually. The it was time to search the ghost glider.
Then got here the Pact of Flame replace and a roadmap out to 2026. Roadmaps all over the place!
My spouse and I hit degree 48 in Pokemon Go, which was again earlier than the massive degree cap improve.
Within the Stars Attain pre-alpha testing, it was a brand new 12 months, a brand new planet, and an upcoming Kickstarter marketing campaign. The workforce was asking what they need to have for pledges, a little bit of a fraught matter. However when you would comply with their Kickstarter web page, they stated they’d allow you to into the pre-alpha assessments.
I checked out Josh Strife Hayes and his Final MMO Tier listing.
From the depth of time, the nonetheless alive TorilMUD added a brand new marketing campaign mechanic to the sport.
And on the subject of previous video games, I received Whole Annihilation out once more. Nonetheless out there and playable in spite of everything these years.
Then there was the beginning of the primary TAGN Fantasy Critic League. I’m not going to hyperlink to each entry, however I had a complete introductory submit earlier than the draft. After which there was the draft itself.
I declared Threads as useless. Others have been declaring it to be like courting Leonardo DiCaprio in that there was no engagement.
And at WP.com, the as soon as once more deleted the traditional editor earlier than having to revive it attributable to buyer complaints. Additionally they put in a fairly low effort Fediverse integration that introduced its personal issues.
Lastly, there was some vacation binge watching to sum up.
5 Years In the past
For my new 12 months’s submit I selected to ask questions slightly than make predictions. I’ve all the time been instructed that there aren’t any unhealthy questions, although that assertion often precedes makes an attempt to show it incorrect.
I additionally reviewed the video games I performed in 2020 and tried to guess what I’d play in 2021.
Twitch instructed me what I watched there in 2020 and I did that Quantic Foundry gamer profile factor once more.
SuperData Analysis additionally did their overview of 2020 which, together with its penultimate month-to-month chart, as their finish was on the horizon.
There was that GameStop inventory craziness. There are nonetheless some on the market that imagine it should rise once more.
I wrote a timeline of SOE/Dawn Video games. I didn’t lengthen it into the EG7 period. That can be one other submit some day.
The Steam Winter Sale ended with awards and stats.
I used to be questioning what LOTRO wanted, because it clearly wanted one thing.
Folks have been questioning once we have been going to get Burning Campaign Basic, with the present rumor being early Could, which appeared too early to me. However we ended up getting it in early June, so I assume it wasn’t that far off.
The occasion group was nonetheless engaged on Blackrock Depths, this time for a love potion. Then we went off to Dire Maul East for a change of surroundings. Dire Maul North proved an excessive amount of for simply the 4 of us. We additionally hunted for recipes out within the Burning Steppes. In the meantime, my paladin was catching as much as the group in ranges.
After which there was World Conflict Bee, which kicked off the brand new 12 months with the one other large titan battle, although this time the outcomes have been rather more one-sided. The warfare bullet factors:
Someplace alongside the best way I hit a 12 months in KarmaFleet and the 230 million talent level mark.
There was additionally extra binge watching and we had HBO max lastly, so I took a take a look at it and its app.
And, lastly, January twentieth was a completely happy day, even when it was simply an intermission earlier than issues received a lot worse.
Ten Years In the past
I had 16 predictions for 2016. (Outcomes for many who must know.)
I used to be additionally included on some type of MMO information web page factor.
It was the finish of one other Steam Winter Sale.
I used to be questioning what Early Entry ought to actually be. I used to be additionally trying out which MMOs made PC Gamer’s newest listing.
Smed was going to Kickstarter for Hero’s Track. It received cancelled earlier than I may end the submit about all the issues it had. Greater than a little bit of foreshadowing in that I assume.
Folks have been troubled by a potential paywall in Rift.
The worth for the Occulus Rift was introduced, which led to fairly a sum if all I needed to do is play EVE Valkyrie.
In EVE On-line I ran my first incursion boss. We additionally received the primary of the “no identify” month-to-month updates. Karma Fleet turned one. CCP instructed us about talent extractors. Weblog Banter 71 was about spaceships. Additionally, there was some type of battle occurring between I Need ISK and SpaceMonkeys Alliance. It began in mid-December 2015. The bankers of I Need ISK have been banned then unbanned and finally the entire thing spiraled out to grow to be the On line casino Conflict.
In house we strengthened a tower and ran about in Typhoons and Jackdaws. On the finish of the month Reavers headed south to Depraved Creek to tangle with TEST.
Outdoors the sport Battle Clinic, lengthy a staple of the EVE On-line third social gathering universe, was set to close down whereas the election course of for CSM XI was kicking off.
Dawn introduced that they have been going to port the 5 12 months previous DC Universe On-line to the XBox.
I went in to Diablo III to check out the Season 5 content material. I ran by means of the story rapidly, however there was extra to do.
I wrote a bit about The Pressure Awakens.
Lastly, I used to be marveling at all the flicks from 1986 that I remembered. Aliens! High Gun! Platoon! Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! It was a hell of a 12 months for films.
Fifteen Years In the past
Eschewing the predicting conference, I issued calls for for 2011. after which tried to determine the dimensions used for the Weblog Well being-o-Meter that WordPress.com despatched out to varied websites.
The weblog was listed at a Vietnamese gaming website in a prime 10 submit that appeared suspiciously like one from Massively.
TERA was making an attempt to win discover by telling individuals how that they had boars of their sport! BOARS! Are you able to think about?
EuroGamer tried to inform us PlanetSide 2 can be out by Q2 2011. (It will definitely shipped in November of 2012.)
Rift, alternatively, gave us a extra plausible launch date.
It was time to begin messing with the then new EVE On-line character creator.
DC Universe On-line launched. I performed within the beta simply lengthy sufficient to remind myself I’m not a superhero form of man. Gross sales of the sport have been fairly evenly break up between Home windows and PlayStation 3, however play time appeared to be impacted by American Idol when it got here to the console facet of the home.
In fact, that was again throughout the subscription period of MMOs, when Smed was telling us what paying a subscription to lead us to anticipate.
In the meantime, competing superhero sport, Champions On-line, went free to play after lower than a 12 months and and a half as a subscription title. This might find yourself being foreshadowing for DC Universe On-line.
I used Google to inform me World of Warcraft’s 5 most urgent points on the time.
In the meantime, the Twilight Cadre was again in Azeroth in power and trying out Cataclysm. We received our first guild achievement. Our group of recent characters, 4 worgen and a gnome, went by means of Westfall and all its phasing magic, wailed in the Wailing Caverns, earlier than settling right down to a sample of doing three cases each Saturday evening. I wasn’t certain if we had expert up loads or if the sport had been dumbed down that a lot, however clearly the 1-60 sport in Cataclysm was proving to be not a lot of a problem.
The official World of Warcraft journal was asking me to renew my subscription, although they weren’t actually as much as mail merge know-how it appears.
There was some cool stuff in Cataclysm. I like the balloons. Redridge, by no means certainly one of my favourite locations, received turned right into a enjoyable solo expertise. And there was the Murloc fight capacity. However in any other case, the sport was beginning to lose us.
I used to be muttering about rebates. My daughter and I have been rounding up LEGO minifigures.
And, lastly, Pokemon was coming to city.
Twenty Years In the past
SOE introduced that they have been going to merge EverQuest II servers somewhat greater than a 12 months after the sport went dwell, trimming the server depend down by folding 10 low inhabitants servers into 10 low to medium inhabitants servers. The rationale given is that the world was sooo huge that the inhabitants was too unfold out. I’m fairly certain most individuals thought that the sport had simply misplaced too many gamers to WoW to make that many servers viable since MMO populations are not often evenly unfold however are inclined to type a bubble within the newest content material.
Nintendo, which was nonetheless promoting the GameBoy Advance (and would proceed to within the US till 2008) introduced the primary main replace to their loopy two display DS handheld platform. The brand new Nintendo DS Lite would find yourself being, in my view, one of many most interesting handheld consoles ever, with sharp screens, a compact type issue, wonderful end, and nice battery life together with persevering with the backward compatibility with the GBA. The one downside I ever had with my cobalt blue unit concerned me getting previous and being unable to learn textual content on the display with out glasses.
Twenty-5 Years In the past
RuneScape launches as a Java based mostly browser sport.
Phantasy Star On-line launches on the Sega Dreamcast, one of many first proto-MMOs on consoles.
Forty-5 Years In the past
The primary DeLorean rolled off the manufacturing line. Not likely sport associated, however very a lot popular culture associated.
Most Seen Posts in January
- The No Man’s Sky Holidays 2025 Expedition Schedule
- Cat Catching in Enshrouded
- Planning my Platinum Medal Technique for Pokemon Go Stage 49
- WoW Basic Anniversary Version Prepares for The Burning Campaign with the Growth Pre-Patch
- Constructing My First Corvette in No Man’s Sky
- No Man’s Sky and the Final 2025 Vacation Run – Expedition 20 Redux: Breach
- No Man’s Sky – Taking part in with Pals
- RuneScape Exhibits How It’s Performed with its 2025-26 Roadmaps
- Blackrock Depths and Shadowforge Metropolis
- Whole Annihilation: A 2025 Return to a Retro RTS Basic
- The Altar of Zul and Jintha’alor
- Enshrouded and our First Night time Sanctum
Sport Time by ManicTime
Again to only recording time with PC titles, since these are in competitors with one another for my time.
- EVE On-line – 27.22%
- Guild Wars – 26.97%
- No Man’s Sky – 24.48%
- Civ 2 – 9.84%
- Blue Prince – 8.45%
- Mission: Gorgon – 2.51%
- World of Warcraft – 0.39%
- WoW Basic – 0.13%
My WoW subscription ran till earlier this week and I checked in briefly to see if the pre-patches for each Anniversary TBC and Midnight had landed.
Civilization II
It got here up someplace that Civ II is popping 30 this 12 months, which received me to spend a while enjoying it once more. It stays a powerful title in my e book, although it does have the mid to finish sport downside of the entire collection. You get your self into an fascinating scenario
EVE On-line
I got here into the month nonetheless engaged on the Winter Nexus occasion and the like, however as soon as I wrapped that up issues slowed down for me in New Eden. I did go on a few ops, received my participation chit and put some kill mails on the board for the month to show I’m nonetheless alive. However I didn’t do a lot apart from thoughts my PI farms. Oh, and I did do the brand new mining epic arc and… I’m not certain you could be “epic” or for something like an “arc” with simply three missions. I used to be performed, Pioneer in hand, saying, “Was that it?”
Guild Wars
The brand new sport for the group, we’re having fun with exploring an previous/new sport. The entire henchmen factor additionally makes it a fairly viable solo title, so I’ve been enjoying just a few alts. The one factor is that it does take a little bit of a time dedication to get one thing like a mission performed, particularly the primary time you run it, so I can run into the top of the night “nope, don’t have time for that” downside.
No Man’s Sky
As with New Eden, I began off the month in an expedition and rode by means of that, popping out the opposite facet and considerably working out of steam. I’m type of ready to see what they’ll introduce subsequent. The evolution of the sport has grow to be the sport… or one thing like that.
Pokemon Go
My spouse and I made it to degree 73, so we’ve got been transferring proper alongside. As with the earlier degree, we had the xp coated and simply wanted the duties performed for the brand new degree. We each have the primary two wrapped up, however nonetheless have to complete the final two.
- Stage: 73
- XP Progress: 75.2% of the 203,353,000 xp wanted for degree 80
- Duties for Stage 75
- XP: Performed
- Platinum Medals: 30 of 30
- Stage up a Max Transfer 20 time: 20 of 20
- Discover 200 km: 62km of 200km
- Full 250 Area Analysis duties: 147 of 250
- Pokedex standing: 920 (+4) caught
- Pokemon I would like: Hawlucha
- Present buddy: Wigglytuff
Mission: Gorgon
Nicely, I didn’t actually play it…. not significantly. However I downloaded it and logged in and ran across the significantly overcrowded beginning space not know what to do. It took a bit to get any type of orientation… I feel I should have missed one thing again after I first ran it. We’ll see if I get any farther than that subsequent month.
Coming Up
EVE On-line will all the time be there. I imply, it has been for greater than 19 years at this level.
Likewise, Guild Wars appears to be the vacation spot for the group.
I’d preserve dipping my toe into Mission: Gorgon. There’s a recent begin server out there as of this morning, although it’s initially reserved for gamers whose accounts have been created on December 1, 2025 or later. The remainder of us swine… can be swine. Older accounts can be pressured to play as a pig for the primary week. Edit: They modified that to accounts with greater than 40 hours of play time this morning, so I qualify. I’m simply undecided it issues that a lot… one over crowded starter zone is like one other.
The Civilization II anniversary little question portends some nostalgic bloviation on my half, which can most likely add as much as the very fact that it’s the one model of the sport I’ve spent probably the most time with. However the anniversary isn’t till March, so you could have no less than a month to brace your self.
In Fantasy Critic League we’re going to see a bunch of titles get scores in February.
And it’ll stay chilly and depressing most locations… although it’s attending to be sunny and near nice right here. However that’s a part of why it prices a lot to dwell in coastal California. Delicate winters, heat summers, low humidity, and effectively paying tech jobs.
