Nov 2009: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

Previous months: Oct 2009, Sept 2009

Check out the "What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying" Google Spreadsheet.


Commentary:

November was a fairly simple month for me. Left 4 Dead 2 launched and then December was here before I knew it. As my only gaming purchase, L4D2 set me back $45 (and would have been only $34 had I not waited so long and went in on a 4-pack with friends).

Before I get to L4D2, I want to mention that I did play some other games this month. I finished my first playthrough of Borderlands and am working on a review of the game as I play through it a second time. Its a good game, not great and misses on just about every category. Fortunately, there is a shitload of guns to make up for it.

Also, I took advantage of the six free months for Pirates of the Burning Seas. I like the game, but it was just a bad month to get started...

... because Left 4 Dead 2 took up the majority of my time! I posted my initial impressions and I'm still amazed by this game. Its tons of fun and improves on the game in almost every category. My only complaint is that the new survivors are not as "awesome" as the first four. I miss Bill.

Conclusion:

Free MMOs, that aren't normally free, are awesome, even if I don't have a lot of time to play them. Steam continues to prove its value with another pre-order special and on-time release with a preload of the game.

Upcoming changes:

I started using Xfire again this month and that is going to change these monthly What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying posts for the better as I get more granular data on how long I'm playing each game. Expect a new, more detailed spreadsheet next month. This is part of a move towards changes in how I want to run this blog (or is this a website now?).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dragon*Con FTW!

Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here! Dragon*Con is here!

And everyone I work with seems to be there, because its way too busy for a Friday around here.

Heartless_ Father

9 months has already come and gone. I'm a father to a happy baby boy.

Faith in Humanity: Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale

I just got back from the "Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale". Seeing tens of thousands of people show up to shop through hundreds of thousands of books warms my heart. Reading, in a society so bent on instant gratification, sometimes feels like a lost art. However, today I was reminded that people still read: from little old ladies sorting through the Nora Roberts table, to the throng of geeks grabbing everything off the Sci Fi and Fantasy table.

Enough with the pontificating and on to the books I was able to snag:

Michael Crichton - Sphere, Jurassic Park, & Eaters of the Dead

Isaac Asimov - The Currents of Space (1962 paperback edition), Foundation, Foundation and Empire, & Foundation's Edge

Tad Williams - Shadowmarch, The War of the Flowers, River of Blue Fire (Otherland, Book 2), Mountain of Black Glass (Otherland, Book 3)

Terry Brooks - Sword of Shannara, The Black Unicorn

All for a total of $12, mixed paperback and hardcovers. Most were gently used and in the case of Sword of Shannara and Isaac Asimovs, 1st printing mass market paperback editions from the 70's and 60's respectively.

Two Weeks of Gaming in a Hotel

I will be out of town for a couple weeks starting tomorrow, which means I move onto the great adventure of online gaming via crappy hotel wireless. Or lack there of. Most likely, I will end up installing a few single-player offline games on my trusty laptop.

I was thinking Never Winter Nights 2 (I still haven't finished the single player campaign!). Or maybe Warcraft III. Oh, and The Path to see what hidden secrets I can find. Plants vs. Zombies too, because it simply rocks. Peggle for that matter as well!

Now, lets hope the wife doesn't read this.

Bob's Red Ball

From Broken Toys we meet Rights, Profit, and Drama:

Rights: Well, of course. He’s stating the obvious. Does your landlord in the real world, even though he owns your house and the land it’s on, have any right whatsoever to read your mail and pop in unexpectedly when you have a date? Why should virtual landlords have more rights than realspace landlords?

Profit: I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. If I’m going to be threatened with lawsuits because of constitutional rights you have to my server, I’d have to be retarded to ever open my company up to such liability by making a server. These are entertainment products, and we are being paid to create a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone. There is no such thing as virtual civil rights, only EULAs. And if you somehow get the courts to disagree, we’ll take our balls and go make console games.

Drama: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I WAS RIGHT I KNEW IT the company needs to give me my account back now.

Read on through that link for the full article. Read below for my thoughts.

I have always had a simple idea of ownership. If Bob paid for the red ball, is holding the red ball, and decides to give it to you to play a game of kick ball (for free or for a rental charge), Bob still owns the ball.

Virtual space is still real. It exists on a hard drive somewhere. Thou who controls the physical media, owns the virtual goodies within. End of story.

MMO gamers don’t own the physical media and should not have rights to it. MMO gamers pay to access a service. BOB OWNS THE FUCKING BALL!

He Loved Cheez Its

Our pet rabbit has passed away.

Let it be known that he loved his Cheez Its.

Full-time

Some 500,000+ people may have lost a job recently, but there are a lucky few out there that have gotten a job lately. I just happen to be one of those lucky few. I am moving from my contract position into a full-time position with my company. It is a great feeling. I beat out 35 other candidates, for a position that normally only sees a handful of applicants, and it eventually came down to a written skills test to determine the winner.

And as a nice reward, I may just finally get two monitors for my work PC!

Hmmmm...

All,

We are pleased to announce the following promotions within the Heartless Reproductive Team (HRT).

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless have both been promoted to parents.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless spearheaded the PUP-E team in May of 2007, and shortly thereafter were promoted to pet owners. This team is responsible for raising and educating one dog, including all care and support that is involved. Currently the team is involved with such endeavors as teaching sit, stay, come, fetch, and NO! Mrs. Heartless and Mr. Heartless focus on providing for the team, project management and coordination, and working to provide an environment in which to succeed.

During this past year, December in fact, they had briefly decided to not upgrade the team’s peripherals to version 2.0 having been quite satisfied with the 1.0 version received through PUP-E. Maintaining PUP-E was easy and they were looking forward to simply seeing that through until it was phased out.

However in early December fate stepped in on the project planning, as it often does, and provided an expected addendum to the previously gathered requirements. Both Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless, choosing not to use any Change Management software at all, encountered a situation in which the bios was flashed on the motherboard and the firmware thusly affected upgrading the team to version 2.0.

And so, after years of project planning, at times going over budget, rewriting requirements and attending endless “meetings”; it is time to announce that the family is officially expecting a new addition later this year.

Mr. Heartless and Mrs. Heartless are to be commended on their efforts thus far and we look forward to this new and exciting version 2.0 of the Heartless family.

Get OFF the Damn Internet!

Stop streaming the damn inauguration, you are literally killing the Internet. Seriously, I know, I am working the issue as we speak (well actually, I'm at lunch, but rest assured I will be fixing your Internets soon).

The Blame Game

Brett Favre’s honeymoon is over in New York. His team mates are now lining up to lay the blame for their late season collapse at his feet. First up, Thomas Jones, responsible for a whopping 23 rushing yards in the Jets game against Miami, believes Favre single-handedly lost the game and the Jets season.

Now, I agree with Thomas Jones that Favre deserved to be benched at one point during this late season slide. However, it was not in the last game against Miami and not because Favre was a bad player. Favre should have been benched against Seattle, when he definitely looked to have lost something on his throws due to a shoulder injury.

Brett Favre is the easy target during the Jets collapse. 2 touchdown tosses vs. 9 interceptions. That is enough to get any quarterback fired in this league, but somehow Favre was given the starting job every week. Some will say it was because the Jets spent too much money to bench him. Some will say that Favre was elitist. Some will say anything to lay the blame on Favre.

Obviously, the bomb-throwers haven’t paid attention to Favre’s career. When his team’s running game falls apart due to a subpar offensive line, Favre takes it on himself to get something going. That leads to interceptions, but it has also lead to the plethora of miracle-moments in Favre’s career.

Unfortunately, no one, especially Thomas Jones is willing to admit maybe, just maybe the rest of the team is at fault as well. Maybe that is why Favre wasn’t benched, because the rest of the team was playing just as shitty.

The irony of course, is that Thomas Jones was directly responsible for Favre feeling pressured to throw more than needed. Jones lackluster performances towards the end of the year lead directly to more pass plays, which lead to the interceptions. Sure, Favre gets the blame for the bad throws, but that doesn’t absolve anyone of the problems that lead to Favre’s bad play.

Earlier in the season, when the Jets were dominating, Favre’s interceptions didn’t matter. The Jets defense was holding up and the running game was running out the clock. As soon as one of those two, the running game, collapsed, Favre’s interceptions started losing games. At the same time, Favre’s arm lead to plenty of wins (remember week 1, fourth and goal, a miracle thrown to the heavens comes down in Jets hands for a winning TD).

What’s even funnier, an overtime catch by a certain Jets receiver on a perfect Brett Favre pass and the Jets are in the playoffs, beating both the comeback kids (Miami) and the best team in football (Patriots). It just goes to show how competitive the NFL has become, something that makes every game worth watching.

Good luck to Brett, he’ll need it to survive this disaster. Shame on Jones, this is the best team sport out there and throwing your teammate under the bus isn’t going to win anyone friends. If anyone is an elitist, it’s Jones, believing any single player loses or wins football games.

First!

Its 2009, do you know where your favorite bloggers are?

Predictions for 2009

1. The economy will not "collapse", but it isn't going to get better until the governments of the world leave it to the free market to correct itself.

2. The weak economy will encourage smaller, fiscally responsible game development projects. This will lead to a bunch of interesting stuff coming out in the MMO space, whether technically massively multiplayer or not is yet to be seen.

3. Even with number 2, subscription based MMOs will still be king of the revenue stream at the end of 2009. Thank World of Warcraft for giving MMO developers false hope everywhere.

4. World of Warcraft will not get a new expansion, but something will be announced. It will focus more on new hero classes, the Alliance vs Horde conflict, and high end raiding.

5. WAR will still be around by the end of 2009, but who remains around to develop it may be drastically different.

6. More MMOs will close their doors. The true sign of doom will be when SOE starts closing down some of its B-team living painfully on Station Pass.

7. Speaking of SOE. The doom and gloom continues as SOE continues to push RMT practices on its non-RMT games.

8. An MMO project will come out of left field this year and surprise us all. Scott Jennings may or may not be involved, but he’ll blog about it regardless.

9. The world will end if Diablo III and Starcraft II are both launched in 2009.

Wrong!

Its that time of year where we all pull up our predictions for the past year and see how WRONG we were.

1. 2008 will be a year of announcements for MMOs. 38 studios, Bioware, Zenimax, Red 5, and many other studios will all announce their MMO projects. Some will come out of left field, while others will just confirm current rumors.

Alright, we know about Star Wars: The Old Republic from Bioware. That's about it.

2. 2008 will be a year of launches for delayed games. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Age of Conan, and Pirates of the Burning Sea will all finally launch. WAR will be the only big success in the group.

I got one correct at least. All three games launched, but the jury is out on whether WAR will be a success post-launch.

3. 2008 will NOT be a year for micro-transaction or RMT based games. RMT and micro-transactions will take another hit as WAR launches and proves the monthly subscription model is still king of the hill for revenue. RMT and micro-transactions will turn a profit, but only in accounting terms. The model will barely break-even in economic terms.

Not really sure where to place this one. I was right that RMT/micro-transactions still don't bring in a ton of revenue, but on the other hand, the games are fairly successful numbers wise. Wizards 101 launched this year with the micro-transaction model and is doing quite well. SOE is still forcing Everquest 1 & 2 players to be guinea pigs for the RMT model. Maple Story still has more players than World of Warcraft. So, financially great? No. Successful? Yes.

4. 2008 will be a year of web-games. Already popular web-games will continue to grow. New web-games will launch. None of them will challenge the revenue generation of monthly subscription or box sale titles. All will be susceptible to any sort of web 2.0 wrinkles.

Some big web games are out there from years prior, but nothing blockbuster this year. Maybe this will change in 2009 with Quake Live or whenever Metaplace roles out.

5. 2008 will not be a good year for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). SOE is closing out 2007 in grand fashion: developer scandals, buyout rumors, and reportedly falling subscriptions. Two of which, the buyout and falling subscriptions, have been denied repeatedly. Tack this onto SOE's shift in revenue models and 2008 doesn't look pretty. Grimwell, I await your response :)

SOE didn't fold, but it isn't apparent how well they did. Personally, any company that sanctions RMT in their previously not-RMT games is showing signs of desperation. I'll give myself a pass on this one.

6. 2008 will be a Dark year. Dark Age of Camelot will feel increasing pressure this year as WAR launches and replaces the Realm vs. Realm gameplay model with a newer and fresher version.

DAoC took a huge hit when WAR launched, but it looks like many players are back in DAoC, happily bashing each other's heads in. DAoC Origins is still in the works, showing that DAoC still has life left. However, Mythic is awfully quiet about Origins lately.

7. 2008 will be a Cold year. Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's second expansion, will launch late in the year. It will be successful, but will fall short of the success of The Burning Crusade. China will not see the expansion until 2009.

I was wrong. It appears the Internets still loves World of Warcraft; Wrath of the Lich King breaking all sorts of sales records. The reviews so far are favorable and WotLK has lead to an increase to 11.5 million players. WoW will never cease to amaze me.

8. 2008 will be a year of MMO podcasting. MMO podcasting has picked up over the last couple of years, but 2008 will bring it into the limelight as more commercially driven entities enter the market. Unfortunately, popularity will remain in the hands of the "weekend warriors", not the commercially driven podcasts.

MMO Podcasting has taken off. Good MMO Podcasts are a dime-a-dozen and that's a good thing.

9. 2008 will be a year of lawyering. From the RIAA chasing grandmas with MP3s to IGE's potential criminal investigation, 2008 will be an unprecedented year for lawyers entering the online-circus. Expect to see some major court cases develop over the year, but don't expect them to finish before the year is out.

Actually, the big news of 2008 is that the RIAA has decided to stop suing their customers out of existence, instead favoring working with ISPs to block the sources of pirated materials.

10. 2008 will not be a good year for Gax-Online. This is a personal pick. The dog and pony show holding up Gax-Online will finally realize they have become what they've always chastised, sending them into a cataclysmic tailspin. Or, they'll sell out the second someone offers them half a donut and a cup'o'joe.

I don't care enough to bother looking to see if this disaster of a website is still running. The only people I know that were using the website, are no longer doing so and that is a WIN in my book.

LOLcat Christmas

History

Congrats to Obama. He won a fair fight.

Obama won because he wasn't the standard politician. All I ask is that governs fairly and honestly towards his campaign promises, or he will become just another politician. That is the last thing America needs.

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New Job Going Well

My new job has been going well. I understand the WAN side of computer networking a lot more and that is just after a few days on the job.

Unfortunately, I have no time to do anything else and with the WAR launch coming up soon, I'm a bit bummed out about that. However, you gotta do what you gotta do.

New Job Incoming

I begin my new job tomorrow. Its a pay increase, but a downgrade in fun. No more forums, IRC, instant messaging, or web surfing during work hours. Just work. Oh well, thus is part of the quest for more foozles.