The Web site
Welcome to the beginning of yr twenty-one I suppose. That’s the… I suppose draw back… I’m not certain, actually… of anniversaries, that they simply blow by and we’re on to the subsequent arbitrary increment of time.
This persistent development of time begins to put on on you after some time. Life begins to really feel much less like it’s operating in actual time and extra in an accelerated time lapse approximation of itself.
That’s all a trick of reminiscence I’m certain. The tempo of time has not modified. The atomic clock isn’t operating any quicker. The shake of a lamb’s tail stays fixed. It’s simply the notion of the traveler, eternally perched on the razor skinny line between what would possibly occur and what has already occurred. The fixed accumulation of psychological baggage simply wears on you.
Which is why I write all these things down, or so I’ve alleged.
Anyway, this part is meant to be concerning the website and never my anchored angst about growing older. WP.com hasn’t screwed something up month, or not such that I’ve observed. I suppose they broke connections to Tumblr for a day… you’d assume they might be higher about that since they personal each… nevertheless it was fastened shortly sufficient. Additionally, the insane CEO of the dad or mum firm, Automattic, fired the entire administrators on the board who stood towards and tried to fireplace him. I’m certain that may work out effectively. Additionally, are there any tech corporations not headed by malignant narcissists who really feel they’re all the time the neatest individual within the room? And can any of them really pay any penalties for his or her idiocy? It seems like a bit “no” on each of these.
Which nonetheless isn’t immediately concerning the website both I suppose. However I bought on this complete tangent as a result of WP.com began doing achievements 135 days in the past. I do know this as a result of there’s an achievement for a day by day exercise streak.
My prime achievements or one thing
That claims a 134 day streak, however it is going to be 135 when this publish goes dwell.
So there I’m.
One Yr In the past
The weblog turned nineteen years outdated.
I mused on the entire thought of Labor Day within the US.
I used to be on about the entire “plus downside,” the concept WoW Traditional Plus, or EverQuest Plus, would ever imply the identical factor to completely different folks.
Talking of which, Dawn received a preliminary injunction towards The Heroes Journey. That was the start of the clearly inevitable finish for the pirate server and its makes an attempt to money in on the EverQuest IP. This led to loads of unhealthy takes and even worse habits, reminiscent of one the EverQuest subreddit mods closing down the entire thing in a match of pique. The THJ followers have been coming off as a pack of entitled brats.
LOTRO put the Kingdoms of Harad enlargement up for pre-order.
In No Man’s Sky I used to be constructing my first corvette from the Voyagers replace. Potshot and I fiddled round with completely different designs.
Then it was onto Expedition 19: Corvette, which additionally confirmed you find out how to construct a corvette. This being my first expedition, I hung out in search of issues like my echo locator. I managed to end the entire thing up regardless of my errors. I cashed out with fairly a little bit of stuff.
The complete corvette side of Voyagers was fairly wonderful and introduced loads of gamers again to the sport.
The group was again to taking part in with Palworld. We got down to go to the oil rig as group mission.
Over in EVE On-line I used to be lastly fixing my EDECOM standings. I used to be uninterested in getting shot by gunstars in random excessive sec techniques. That required a second journey to Pochven to complete it off.
I did a Friday bullet factors publish about EVE On-line that includes ships on hearth, Alliance Match XXI updates, a video from The Scope, ESI updates, and the approaching Legion enlargement replace.
Then I did a observe up concerning the Legion replace dropped, we bought extra information about ATXXI, and the CSM XX elections have been additionally on their approach. I additionally took a have a look at the August 2025 MER.
I did one other Friday bullet factors publish concerning the failure of Remaining Stand: Ragnarok, the closure of Tarisland, one more delay for Squadron 42, Blizz providing a “free” WoW pet with a $75 buy, Nintendo being jerks with patents, and Elon and Hilmar chatting.
Then there was the disastrous Ship of Heroes launch. It was a troublesome operation and I attempted to give you some concepts to rescue the mission, nevertheless it was doomed. It closed down on the one yr anniversary of the launch.
We have been binge watching Wednesday season 2 on Netflix and Alien Earth on Hulu.
Lastly, I used to be pissed about iTunes wrecking my music listening. (I have to do a observe up about how Apple Music made issues even worse. I imply, critically, fuck Apple.)
5 Years In the past
It was time to sum up the labors of Blaugust as soon as extra.
It was additionally anniversary time as the weblog turned fifteen. Additionally, WordPress was speaking about placing “sponsored content material” into blogs.
I additionally wrote one thing about 35 years of related computing, it marking the anniversary of buying my first modem again in 1986.
I used to be questioning if the extent squish had been a good suggestion a yr after Blizz did it. I nonetheless marvel if it was at this time.
In Burning Campaign Traditional the occasion group managed to get by means of the Blood Furnace as a foursome.
However we have been sort of slowing down on that, and on our radar was Diablo II Resurrected, which launched ultimately.
Dawn introduced the Visions of Vertovia enlargement for EverQuest II. Then it was time for the Pandas and the pre-expansion catch up. In the meantime, over in EverQuest there was one thing about perks… on the market after all. And Lord of the Rings On-line introduced the Destiny of Gundabad enlargement.
In the meantime, Amazon lastly launched New World. Having performed in a few of the beta cycle, I used to be moaning about how the imaginative and prescient for the sport had modified.
In EVE On-line it was as soon as once more time for Caldari Union Day. We additionally bought the Gateway quadrant replace, which included one more new participant expertise, in addition to a UI replace for abilities that after once more proved that the one factor CCP UI designers worth over all else is wasted empty area in the course of informational components.
CCP was additionally telling us that 24 million pilots had performed EVE On-line, although they weren’t clear about what that actually meant.
The New Eden month-to-month financial report was exhibiting us the influence of the top of World Battle Bee. In the meantime, CCP stay on its path to make gamers poor, their resolution to MUDflation, whereas I used to be seeking to my very own funds in recreation.
Issues have been nonetheless occurring although. We blew up a Keepstar in Catch and CCP helped up blow up botters in Yulai as soon as once more.
I used to be getting setup with Zwift and our new train bike. A yr later I’m nonetheless utilizing it often, even when the levels of each journey stay the identical.
We have been additionally binge watching Ray Donovan and all of the Helen Mirren variations of Prime Suspect.
My spouse and I went to Maui the place we have been concerned in some minor driving journey.
Lastly, it had been 20 years since terrorists introduced down the World Commerce Heart and I used to be reflecting on the way it was very a lot a dividing line in historical past.
Ten Years In the past
It was the tenth anniversary of the weblog.
I used to be trying again at day/night time cycles and full zone respawns of yore.
My spouse’s Pokemon Go account was hacked, however I recovered it fairly shortly. That publish brings in loads of search engine visitors in search of methods to hack Pokemon Go accounts. So many unhealthy folks.
Dawn introduced that each EverQuest and EverQuest II could be launching Kunark centered expansions, with Empires of Kunark slated for the previous and Kunark Ascending for the latter.
Smed was taking his Hero’s Track mission again to the crowdfunding area once more, this time through Indiegogo which, not like Kickstarter, permits you to maintain the cash even in case you don’t meet your purpose.
I used to be occurring about issues EVE On-line has getting new gamers to stay with the sport… once more. We additionally had the YC118.8 Replace which revamped a the look of mining barges and a few frigates, amongst different factor. It additionally launched the Purity of the Throne occasion that had me chasing white skins for Amarr ships.
There was additionally the ascension of Caitiz of Home Tash-Murkon to the Amarr throne. All these ships are nonetheless lined up in Amarr for some purpose. Did they’ve to attend a yr for the primary Jubilee?
And Alpha Clones would quickly be a factor, so I used to be questioning what you may do with one.
In post-On line casino Battle occasions the Imperium completed conquering Delve and a state of normalcy was beginning to come to cross. I additionally bought my final ship out of Deklein.
After which there was World of Warcraft the place the Legion enlargement was off and operating. There was even an app for it. I began off slowly as I figured issues out and moved clockwise across the Damaged Isles. That didn’t cease me from checking up on my Draenor garrison although.
After which in a kind of bullet level posts that I all the time hate a yr later when it comes time to do the abstract I lined Star Trek On-line going to consoles, Legends of Norrath card packs, rewards for Omega gamers in EVE On-line, and the then upcoming EVE Vegas.
Lastly, No Man’s Sky launched, capping off one more dismal episode of fan habits. After getting loss of life threats for delaying the launch, Hiya Video games lastly shipped the sport solely to have the fan base explode much more so when it was found that options that have been straight up stated to be within the product… multiplayer being the prime suspect… weren’t. Nonetheless, it made some huge cash and options have since been added and it bought its personal Sincere Sport Trailers video. There are, little question, classes to be discovered right here.
Fifteen Years In the past
I did the nice survey of blogs that had, at one time or one other, included this website of their weblog roll over the past 5 years. Solely 28% of them have been nonetheless up and energetic. There was additionally the 5 yr anniversary publish and all that it entailed.
I implied that Tobold’s mom a llama. This had NOTHING to do with him not having a weblog roll.
I used to be completely going to withstand Steam promoting me Rift for affordable. That didn’t work, and I ended up taking part in for a couple of yr or so.
Star Trek On-line introduced it was going free to play, although I couldn’t think about the way it wasn’t already.
In LOTRO, the Rise of Isengard enlargement got here out and I virtually didn’t discover. Which was odd, as a result of we have been sort of taking part in LOTRO nonetheless.
The Goons have been going to wreck the EVE financial system by blowing up excessive sec ice miners. One other huge Goon conspiracy. I used to be being nostalgic for my earlier days in EVE.
GameSpy had a publish about re-imagining Diablo as a primary individual perspective recreation, which was met with a lot derision. Me, I preferred the concept and even had ideas for additional matters in that vein to discover. In the meantime, Diablo III was pushed out to the center of 2012.
In different Blizzard information, the Official World of Warcraft Journal went stomach up after simply 5 points. After which there was a drop in WoW subscribers. They misplaced 600,000 gamers, although I wasn’t certainly one of them… but. Good factor they by no means misplaced greater than that…
I used to be nonetheless taking part in Want for Pace: World fairly often. I used to be filming police chases, avoiding police chases, and shopping for the squarest journey within the recreation.
In EverQuest, on the Fippy Darkpaw server, the retro expertise was made full by “guilds behaving badly” when it got here to contested content material. Some GMs got here up with unorthodox methods to resolve conflicts. Someplace alongside the way in which I bought my SOE Authenticator, which I by no means use.
ArenaNet stated one thing about non-public GuildWars 2 PvP servers. I ponder how that may play at this time?
EA/BioWare gave us a launch date for SWTOR ultimately, so I may begin fretting about pre-orders and style durations. Whereas I wasn’t in beta but, BioWare was asking how I used to be having fun with it.
There was no phrase about life on Planet Michael.
And, lastly, I used to be questioning how 9/11, which befell only a couple months earlier than the start of my daughter, would affect her view of the world relative to my very own. This was triggered by her journey to New York, the place she visited the Nintendo Retailer.
Twenty Years In the past
It has come time, I can now confer with weblog posts from 20 years in the past in these critiques.
There was the first publish. I nonetheless haven’t lined the entire matters I promised 20 years again. However neither have I ended running a blog but, so there’s nonetheless time!
After that I used to be straight into the EverQuest nostalgia, an oft recurring subject right here. The Serpent’s Backbone enlargement got here out for the sport. I’d get to that in a bit.
LEGO Star Wars II – The Authentic Trilogy launched, setting the informal path for future Traveller’s Tales LEGO primarily based video games. My daughter and I’d later play this on the Wii, however that was nonetheless out sooner or later.
Pokemon Diamond & Pearl, the primary core Pokemon RPG titles for the Nintendo DS platform shipped in Japan. They wouldn’t attain US shores for an additional six months. Once more, one other collection that may present up right here as time moved on.
Inexperienced Monster Video games, later 38 Studios, was unveiled to the general public by founder Curt Schilling with R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane as a part of the inventive staff. What a fiasco that was. Schilling had no extra enterprise taking place that path than I’d have managing an MLB staff. Seems being good on the mound doesn’t endow you with any widespread sense in enterprise, finance, or politics. However that’s ever the issue. Someone is sweet (or will get fortunate) at one factor after which thinks they’ve mastered all of the issues.
Roblox launched. I didn’t find out about it on the time, however the title has grown to be many issues, together with controversial.
I used to be into EVE On-line, which I started taking part in nearly two weeks earlier than I began the weblog. My first publish about it involved the tutorial, then I went on to my impressions. I already had EVEMon up and operating, since you can not play EVE On-line with out it. And, whereas I used to be hardly conscious of it, the first titan had been constructed in New Eden.
I used to be musing about video games slated for the longer term, together with Star Trek On-line and Lord of the Rings On-line. I had reservations about each.
I kicked off my old skool gaming reminiscences with a publish about Stellar Emperor because it was again in 1986. That was 40 years in the past. Rattling steady movement of time.
The occasion group fashioned up for adventures in Azeroth.
I wrote the primary “Month in Evaluate” publish. I’m not certain WHY I made a decision to try this, nevertheless it turned a factor as right here I’m doing the that very same form of publish a decade and a half later. (About 9 years in the past I made a decision month in evaluate ought to have its personal class, so I went again and edited every final one to place all of them in that class. Thankfully, being a as soon as a month factor, it was simple to determine if I missed any or not. Then I made a decision that I wanted the yr within the title, so I went again and redid all these posts once more!)
I additionally wrote one thing about Saga of Ryzom in that month in evaluate publish, which is likely to be the one of many few instances I ever wrote something about it. It had launched two years earlier than and folks have been speaking about it, however my play time with it was very quick and unfulfilling.
However the smartest factor I most likely did in that first month was hyperlink out to Brent at VirginWorlds in a publish, which bought him to note my model new weblog, which sort of bought me into the membership fairly shortly in addition to getting me my first remark.
Thirty Years In the past
Meridian 59 by 3DO launched, a couple of yr forward of Ultima On-line. M59 stays a part of the perennial dialogue as to what was the primary “actual” MMORPG.
Forty-5 Years In the past
Wizardry for the Apple II launched again in 1981, one of many early influential titles for me. I nonetheless have graph paper maps of the degrees in a drawer in my workplace. Robert Woodhead, one of many creators of the sport, would later serve 4 phrases on the EVE On-line Council of Stellar Administration. The sport itself was ported to a dozen completely different working techniques and was considerably just lately remastered and is out there on Steam.
Apple ][+ The Upgrades Begin
Castle Wolfenstein, another influential Apple II title, launched as well. I needed that two button joystick to play that for sure!
Most Viewed Posts in September
- Building My First Corvette in No Man’s Sky
- No Man’s Sky – Playing with Friends
- Planet Crafter – Terraformed Skeo
- BlizzCon Bingo – Predictions for BlizzCon 2026
- Planning My Path to 50 Platinum Medals for Level 80 in Pokemon Go
- Planning my Platinum Medal Strategy for Pokemon Go Level 49
- Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!
- This One Simple Trick will Up Your Pokemon Go Steps Dramatically!
- Stardew Valley – Farm Upgrades and Stardrops as the Second Winter Approaches
- Getting to The Elder in Valheim
- First Weekend with the WoW Forever Beta
- The Purloined Letter – WoW Subscriber Numbers Leak from a GDC Presentation
- No Man’s Sky – Expedition 23 – Starting Off with Our Journey Continues
- 20 Games that Defined the Apple II
- Cat Catching in Enshrouded
- Wrath of the Lich King Zones Ranked
- No Man’s Sky Remnant, the Furnace, and the Final Colossus Upgrades
- Making Level 73 in Pokemon Go and onward to Level 74
- The Journey to Orgrimmar and Ragefire Chasm
- The Test of Righteousness
For no good reason I expanded the list from 12 to 20. I don’t know why. I do it all in an Excel spreadsheet that concatenates things to make the HTML formatted list and it is as easy to do 12 as 20 I guess. Or maybe I was just carrying on with the number 20 for 20 years. Who can tell?
Game Time by ManicTime and Nintendo
Something of a split pack for September. While Planet Crafter is out in front, we also finished that up more than a week back, allowing other titles to creep in.
- Planet Crafter – 27.21%
- No Man’s Sky – 17.92%
- EVE Online – 17.13%
- Valheim – 14.86%
- Stardew Valley – 13.32%
- WoW Forever – 6.31%
- EverQuest Legends – 2.25%
- World of Warcraft – 0.93%
- WoW Classic – 0.06%
Nine titles is a lot for me in a single month, though WoW Classic I am pretty sure I just check in on to compare it to WoW Forever. I expect that to be the top game come November… but what will be up top in October remains to be seen.
EVE Online
I was in a bit of a cycle of neglect in New Eden this month. I had celebrated twenty years with the game in August and wasn’t sure what else could be experienced in a game that itself faces a bunch of old age problems. That and the fact that CCP/Fenris is more interested in its new games and has left the stewardship of New Eden in the hands of a few people who view the aging player base as a problem to be solved. So I was in a bit of a funk.
And then we had an evening brawl in Amamake and I was feeling pretty good again. That is the cycle of EVE Online; days, weeks, and even months of fuck all happening, then you get some special high and you’re back at it again. Sort of. I mean, I restarted some of my PI.
EverQuest Legends
This kind of got squeezed out with all of the other titles in play for me. It was in fifth place in a world where I really only have time to really play three titles. I like it. I like what I have seen. I mostly like what they have done. I even kind of like their plans, which show ambition. This is headed into EverQuest Plus territory. But Norrath doesn’t grab me currently. We’ll see. There is another post about this in the drafts folder.
Planet Crafter
Potshot and I completed our dual run through all of the content that comes with the base game. It is a pretty cool game. It ticks some boxes for me, including a “numbers go up” obsession. But it also feels like a game that has a specific tool set to make the numbers go up and once you learn them the path forward becomes pretty well defined. However, it is a buy to play game and I got 70 hours out of it. I cannot complain. Pretty cool, had fun, good job.
No Man’s Sky
The 10th anniversary landed last month, but we didn’t get the big update until this month.
I will admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by the Cosmos update, but it didn’t really speak to me. Not everything have to be for me.
And then the expedition came along and that has been fun. I have been working through that slowly. I am sure I will report back when I am done.
Pokemon Go
My wife and I continue on the path to max level, working on the tasks for level 77. I managed to get my platinum medals out of the way, so it is just getting one more Pokemon to max CP and another 59 max battles.
- Level: 76
- XP Progress: 95.1% of the 203,353,000 xp needed for level 80
- Tasks for Level 77
- XP: DONE
- Platinum Medals: 41 of 41- DONE
- Power up 7 Pokemon to their max CP: 6 of 7
- Win 100 Max Battles: 41 of 100
- Make 10 trades with Pokemon caught at least 300km apart: 10 of 10 – DONE
- Pokedex status: 940 (+2) caught
- Pokemon I want: Phione, Manaphy, and Arceus, none of which have been released yet
- Current buddy: Swapping between Pikachu buddies to get candies for another max CP
Stardew Valley
My daughter and I have carried on here, though I have let my other saves linger. We made it through year two and are headed to summer of year three, when we plan to finish up the community center. However, this might be delayed because classes just started for the fall quarter for her master’s program, so data science may need to come ahead of Stardew Valley for a while.
Valheim
It hit 1.0, it added the final biome, it introduced achievements, and so I have spent a bit of time there. Again, with only so many hours in the day it is a question as to when I can find to play this… but it is ahead of EverQuest Legends on the list.
World of Warcraft
I didn’t play a lot of retail WoW, as the game time above indicates. But I set out to play. Brewfest had arrived and there was a promise of all the usual goodies, plus maybe some housing decor items. That got me to patch up. Then I logged in, got myself to Ironforge, and went down to the Brewfest area, did a couple of things… and wasn’t really into it. Some days you just don’t feel the vibe.
WoW Forever
This was announced at BlizzCon and went into paid beta mid-month. So that changed a lot of things and brought out a lot of emotions, not all of them positive. As I mentioned, the triangle of doom, the retail, classic, and forever subreddits, have decided to go to war with each other over what REAL World of Warcraft is… plus, cash elves… and people who chose poorly with names.
Overall though, I am good with the concept. I have played some in beta, but not too much so as to not spoil it. I am watching changes come in with an eye towards kicking off for real in November. Now I just have to decide if I give it its own category or if I keep it as a tag under the World of Warcraft category.
Coming Up
We are now into the final three months of the year and the start of the real holiday season here, which opens up with Halloween. That means in-game events all over.
We’re also getting to the point where Daybreak will get out the official announcements and pre-orders for the upcoming expansions for EverQuest, EverQuest II, and LOTRO.
A couple of things are going live shortly. We get Monster’s & Memories into early access at the end of the week, Enshrouded gets its 1.0 release mid-month, and… I am sure there is something else I am forgetting.
But it is November when some big stuff hits. WoW Forever lands on the 4th, while Grand Theft Auto VI, the biggest video game release of… what… the last decade maybe… will arrive on the 19th… on consoles only though, there being no PC version at launch. That feels like anybody marketing elusively to PC gamers might be less worried about it, but we shall see.
